First entry for coaching

Chi Phuong NGUYEN

Coaching is a process that involves one coachee (or many coachees) and one coach (or several coaches). The goal of this process is to improve effectiveness, productivity of members of a group, an organization and also strengthen the relationship and culture of that organization.

Last semester, I took the Developing Management Skills course and coaching was an important activity in that course. We carried out several coaching sessions in different subjects throughout the whole course. Coaching was really a chance for me to discover myself, improve my self-esteem, knowing better my strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, through coaching, I had the opportunity to express myself, confess and to share ideas with the coach. We exchanged our roles of coach, coachee several times. Therefore, I could both listen to the coachee and to be listened. Coaching is also putting yourself in the step of someone else, to think and imagine the reactions and their consequences on behalf of himself. That experience is unforgettable for me. I’m happy to have the coaching activities again in this course of Communication in groups and organizations. Several factors affect the effectiveness of coaching: environment, relationship between coach and coachee, key processes. In the beginning, a quiet coaching environment can help the participants to concentrate on the coaching, being less disturbed by the others. When the participants are familiar with each other after several coaching sessions, they are less affected by the surroundings. The participation of coach and coachee is also very important in the contribution of an effective coaching session. Both the coach and coachee should be willing to participate in the coaching, sharing their own thoughts or ideas; trusting others. Self-disclosure helps to break the limits and strengthen the relationship in the coaching. The process of coaching contains five key processes: listening, mirrowing, summarizing, questionning and catalyzing.  Those key process are vital and involve the participation from both the coachee and the coach. These process also help to build the relationship between the coach and the coachee. The coach needs to listen to the coachee, and listen actively to make the coaching session effective. The coachee also needs to listen to the coach in order to see what he can improve or change in his way of approaching an issue or a problem. The coach should be able to mirror and summarize the events, actions of the coachee. The questions from the coach are really helpful for the coachee as he can describe the situation better or arrange his ideas. For the coach, it can help to clarify the situation and the coach can understand better the coachee. Summerazing the ideas from the situations of the coachee can enable the coach to make sure if he understands the situations or need to correct anything. During the coaching session, the coach should avoid make judgments about the coachee, about his personnality. Making judgments about coachee can trigger the self-defensiveness of the coachee, ruining or having bad consequences on the relationship between coach and coachee.