I don’t believe in coaching.

Really. I don’t. That is, I do not believe in coaching per se, and I certainly do not believe in over mystifying and over complicating the process. I hear warning bells for this essential practice and see the danger of what should be applied coaching becoming too close to pure coaching

It is understandable that a still fledgling industry (another clue to its being taken over) should want to give itself some academic status and, invariably, some degree of mystique. It is also certain that it will find itself taking part in some navel gazing and assuming something of a pseudo scientific veneer both to ally itself to the longer established, and so more acceptable, world of psychiatry and to give itself a separate identity.

Individuals often find refuge in groups, the human condition tending towards the social rather than the separate, and the appearance of so many associations and foundations, dealing in coaching is not a surprise. In many ways it is a good thing: to have professional bodies maintaining standards and regulating practice can only offer prospective clients confidence in a service which for the majority is untried and perhaps as yet un-trusted.

All of us, including coaches, want to be thought of as professionals, yet just how many of us are real experts? By that I mean fully qualified and experienced in what we do, to the exclusion of others. If you are a true professional, such as a doctor or an accountant, then all well and good, but by professional I do not mean someone who does his or her job professionally, as used so inaccurately but so frequently these days.

How many of us are, in reality, in jobs that most people could do given a reasonable intelligence developed via a good education, a modicum of common sense, the opportunity, a little experience and perhaps some confidence? Somewhere in there you could add “aptitude” of course but then many people do their jobs perfectly well even though they are not thereto naturally disposed.

And so coaching. The benefits of it are clear and abundant yet they are in danger of being muddied by the over academic. I believe that a good coach brings all they need for any session from their life and work experience together with their personal characteristics, which may have drawn them into the coaching world in any case. Having a qualification is not necessarily a guarantee that they are good at their craft, maybe proficient but not naturally able.

Which is why the emphasis for me must not be on pure coaching ie the academic, the minutiae, the delving deeper and deeper into the psyche of the client, the different scenarios and models, rather then it should be on applied coaching ie the reality of the client’s situation and their goals keeping it simple and real. To do otherwise would risk deviating into the virtual and the hypothetical.



I don’t believe in strict neutrality either. Of course the coach is going to have an opinion, but that is not automatically a bad thing. A good coach will be able to use their experience and expertise to help their client. It is not the being neutral that counts but the ability to understand the client’s goals from a neutral stance and then to be able to dig into their resources to be able to best help them to achieve those objectives, for themselves.

In other words, I believe in agreeing an informed reality, one that is the client’s. We all have our own version of reality based on many aspects of our experience, yet it must be possible to be able to tune into that reality, even if it may need to be reviewed to make it a real possibility or at least so that the process of getting somewhere close to the goal becomes the reality owned by the person being coached

I am not fond of the term “coachee” either! The person being coached is the client in a coaching process. The coach is an enabler, a conduit or mirror that has the ability to reflect or give back information and/or challenges differently, in a way that is more accessible and “do-able” for the client.

The essential point I am attempting to make in this opening article for my coaching blog is that we should not lose sight of the client’s goals nor of the value we can offer the client in attaining those goals. Let’s avoid the pitfalls of overcomplicated coaching processes.

Let’s get on with it!