What is coaching?

Coaching is best defined as a continuum from casual conversations to formal coaching meetings with a professional certified coach. There are some common elements of the basic skill sets in coaching conversation, but some of the variable factors surrounding a coaching relationship vary. It is important to understand this continuing series to choose the approach that is best suited to the situation and to the culture of a particular organization or to individuals with different goals.

There are many definitions of coaching put forward by various experts in this field. The most prominent of which are:

1- "Urging the coachee to highlight their potential energies and talents, and support their intellectual, emotional, and behavioral growth in order to achieve their goals and embrace success in record time." ANDGROW 2018.

2- “An interactive process to help individuals and organizations develop faster, achieve more satisfactory results, improve the ability of others to set goals, take action, make better decisions, and make full use of their natural strengths.” International Coaching Federation (ICF).

3- “Any conversation in which another person is assisted in making progress toward a better future.” Matthews, 2010.

4- “A process that allows learning and development to occur, and then improving performance. To be a successful coach, knowledge and understanding of the process is required, in addition to a diversity of approaches, skills, and techniques appropriate to the context in which coaching takes place.” Barcelo, 1999.

5- "Coaching is releasing the potential energies of people to reach the maximum level of performance." Whitmore, 2011.

6- “Coaching is challenging people and supporting them to achieve higher levels of performance, while allowing them to bring out the best in themselves and in the people around them.” Hargrove, 1995.

7- "A conversation focusing on the future - based on the teachings of "Socrates" in educational approaches - between the facilitator "the coach" and the participant "the client", where the facilitator uses open questions, active listening, summaries, and ideas that aim to stimulate self-awareness and personal responsibility of the participant. "Passmore & Fillery Travers", 2011.

Also read: Why does coaching work? and How did it become so popular?

Coaching Dimensions:

The first dimension (the types of coaching that are done):

Coaches tend to specialize in a specific type of coaching or approach.

• Managerial or Leadership Coaching: It is a form of coaching, which is dedicated to meeting the needs, competencies, and interests of executives.
• Performance Coaching: It emphasizes what is required in terms of skills and behaviors to bridge the gap between the current level and the level required to perform the work.
• Occupation-related Coaching: It focuses on the world of work and explores areas that allow achieving success through taking a specific career path. It also focuses on providing full support during the individual's transition from one job, level, organization, or environment to another.
• Life Coaching: It takes into account all aspects of a person's life. It usually revolves around a personal vision and focuses on how well the aspects of life are balanced and integrated. It is especially useful during periods of transition, change, turmoil, and others.

The second dimension (types of clients):

The types of clients who receive coaching depend to a certain extent on the type of coaching provided. Based on this, some categories of clients are as follows:

• Board of directors and/or executive teams.
• Leaders and/or managers.
• Teams, groups, or workforces.
• Employees below the leadership level.
• Colleagues.
• Direct reports.
• An entire organization: (It is clear when coaching is presented to an organization, where a specific leader or leadership group is dealt with. The goal in this case requires that coaching does not only lead to a change of the individual or the team, but also leads to changes that affect the entire organization and the entire systems).
• Individuals who desire success and excellence.

The third dimension (the internal coach compared to the external coach):

• There are independent “external” coaches hired by organizations to coach with managers and staff within the organization.
• An external coach is often used for high-level jobs or for companies that do not have the resources to support their own internal coaching program.
• There is also an experienced internal coach, who works within organizations.

Benefits of coaching:

According to the “Global Coaching Client” Study, which was conducted by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) in 2009, the results were the following: They found that 80% of clients who underwent coaching improved their self-confidence. They also found that 73% of clients have improved their relationships, 72% of clients have improved their communication skills, and 70% of those clients have improved performance.

Working individually and directly with professional coaches in ANDGROW leads to a positive environment that is always based on amazing results. This environment allows everyone who is a part of it to engage in safe intellectual, emotional, and behavioral dialogues, in which work and relationship challenges emerge, and the practice of new skills, different behaviors, and qualitative habits emerge from it. It also enables the development of strategies and action plans to achieve big and great goals in a very short time. The benefits of coaching are usually very wide, including:

- At the level of individuals:

ANDGROW coaching solutions are amazing results. All of these solutions aim to know your current position at the level of thinking, feeling and behavior. Therefore, you go in making the supreme change that begins today and extends forever, gain the other dimension in the supreme contact with the self, and possess the skills of the supreme influence that transcends the limits of time and place.

- At the level of managers:

ANDGROW coaching solutions are one-of-a-kind, integrated solutions, all aimed at building managers in the form of inspiring leaders; that is bulletproof managers are not crushed by challenges, not overwhelmed by crises, and not crushed by expectations, and work side by side with others on a permanent basis.

- At the level of leaders:

ANDGROW coaching solutions are innovative solutions of a very distinctive style, all of which awaken the desire for leaders to become exceptional leaders whose work is to unite ranks, inspire followers, increase productivity, and achieve tremendous success when they make their followers leaders whose achievements come together. This in turn generates a great return on the investment in followers and in the organization.

- At the level of work teams:

All ANDGROW coaching solutions focus on results. They put every individual in the team in mind, work to unify thought, blend souls, unite hearts, and cooperate with hands to achieve the greatest victories, and truly builds high-performance work teams.

- At the level of organizations:

ANDGROW coaching solutions address the challenges of the organization, no matter how complex, and enhance its growth potential in an extraordinary way. All solutions work together to create influential and inspiring leaders and managers, build high-performing teams, and retain talent to realize great visions. Whatever the organization’s specialization, whether it has an administrative, professional, commercial, or industrial competence, or any other specialization, the solutions are more like magic solutions in terms of their outcomes.

- Worldwide:

ANDGROW coaching solutions are designed with the utmost care, and they are the result of over a decade's experience and thousands of hours. When we give them enough time, the goal was to translate them into practical solutions in interesting ways to keep the coaching culture vigil in the whole world. All of these solutions aim to make individuals follow in the footsteps of influential and inspiring leaders and heroes whose names are written by history with inexhaustible ink. We believe that everyone in this world is one version of themselves and should not be a second version of anyone else.