What is the biggest challenge of the Coaching Industry? The answer is the limited understanding of coaching from the soft skill aspect.
The logic is if you do not understand fully, how to make the best fully? As it is now, most people know coaching as “job coaching” or “skill coaching”.
Coaching began with the sport. Think about what happens in sports coaching:
1. Someone needs to be made an elite or wants to become an elite in something.
2. A sports coach is hired with the bestowed responsibility and authority.
3. This person will have to submit to the coach during the coaching.
What do you see from the description above? Here are what I see:
1. A sports coach has the authority.
2. The one being coached has been made ready to submit to the sports coach before coaching. And, his or her mind has been set and the goal is clear.
3. The coaching is more physical and skill-driven.
4. Whether the sports coach has good soft skill, is secondary.
This is the type of coaching most people are familiar with………they look for coaching when they know what they want to be trained in….“a type of focused training”. This is not wrong but only half of the understanding. This is sports coaching, the other half is “non-sport coaching”.
Today, the non-sport coaching industry is capable of much more than the “focused training”, more so the “self-discovery” – discover what you don’t know about yourself. This is not only training you to become what you want to be, more so the transforming or shaping begins intrinsically; and, not only picking you up from the pit of the valley, more so recovering you to where you were and elevating you to a better self, moving forward.
A lot of people told me: I will look for you when I need coaching. The truth is, you need coaching:
1. when you don’t know if you need coaching;
2. when you don’t know what you want;
3. when you are not progressing;
4. When you are losing the drive,
5. when you are not getting things done;
6. when you can’t focus;
7. when you are not in peace; etc.
Think about these: Can you see yourself without a mirror? Can you see your back even if you have a mirror? Yes, you need one more mirror in order to see your back, but what about your inner world? People who study behaviours, characters and personalities are like the mirrors, they can tell you what they see in your behaviours, characters, and personalities, but these are the expressions, the extrinsic selves of what could be seen; what about the drivers of these expressions? These drivers are intrinsic, and could not be seen. Sure, psychologists can get into the intrinsic world, but then, to what degree? There is an area no one can touch when rapport, trust, and comfort are not established, these cannot be established through merely questioning. Furthermore, how to get to the deepest part of the intrinsic world if you do not ask the right questions. The logic is: that you will not get the right answers if you do not ask the right questions.
Ultimately, to be able to help someone discover themselves fully, you need to get into the deepest part of the intrinsic world…..it takes, not only the skills and experience, more so patience, sharpness, and intelligibility………..all these mean “the insightfulness of human nature”.
This is the biggest challenge of the non-sport coaching industry: Most people think they understand coaching but in fact, they only understand half of it. Most people understand coaching as sport coaching, i.e. the physical and skills driven coaching, they will look for coaching when they know what they want; however, today, the biggest part of the non-sport coaching is about what they don’t know, it begins with the journey of discovery. In other words, you will need coaching when you know what you want, but more so, you definitely need coaching when you don’t know what you want, when you don’t think you need coaching, when you don’t see why you need coaching, etc.
The non-sport coaching industry today is leaning more on the soft skill instead of the authority, helping you to discover more than you think you know, and discovering the relevant goals for you instead of what you think is right for you.
By Elysia Teh, Certified Professional Coast and HRDF Certified Trainer
