It’s a key investment into the business: the knowledge market is no longer optional. Businesses that cannot learn quickly will be out of business, therefore people who do not continue to learn will become un-resourceful and "stuck" in their ways of behaving. The heart of coaching is about the individual or team regaining the art of being a learner.
It has a direct cost-benefit to the business: Coaching is entirely focused on business and performance issues. Yes, it often involves a commitment to 3 hours of time every 3-4 weeks, but it doesn’t involve off-site training days based around concepts which we often don’t have time to embed into the business when the training course has ended.
Sport has long recognised that maximum performance is seldom achieved on our own. Work performance is like a game of golf: a long and sometimes tiring walk, with many frustrations, interspersed with a few moments of brilliance. These are the occasions at work when we sense we are "in the flow", performing at our peak. Coaching recognises that we often perform under our potential because of factors that interfere. The interference sometimes comes from bad habits, getting caught in ruts, our personalities, the lack of someone to sound great ideas off. The aim of coaching is always focused on achieving best results by reducing the factors that interfere with you reaching your maximum potential.
Coaching is a way of maximising performance and producing excellent results through a relationship which is both supportive and challenging.
The focus of coaching is on a person or a teams performance at work. While it may at times overlap and benefit other aspects of someone’s life, the primary focus is always on setting and realising agreed performance goals in the work place.
The retention of staff is a key issue which directly and indirectly affects the bottom line of the business. Retaining staff involves retaining their ‘hearts and minds’, as well as maintaining a sense for the individual that they are continuing to develop towards their maximum potential.
Maintaining personal productivity in the work place relies on maintaining a long-term view of managing all of a person’s resource including health and relationships. Some of the long term results of the short term "carpet-bagging" approach to a persons career are - uncreative and un-resourceful leaders; being stuck in behaviours that negatively impact others; no longer enjoying and learning from their work; loosing key relationships outside of work; burn-out; health issues. Coaching focuses on the productivity of "right now" while building in the key balance derived from continuous development and enjoyment of all key aspects of life.