Business Coaching

Not necessarily. But if you do you should look for an accreditation like ILM or CIPD. ILM stands for The Institute of Leadership & Management. This is who our courses are accredited by.

But it won't inhibit or disallow you to coach if you don't have an accreditation and have only gone through the training – as long as this training was through a reputable training organisation that has an accreditation value.

If preferred, we can offer advanced or masters training programs that cover all the accredited course content but that excludes the ILM work-based assignment section.

Two essential ingredients for becoming a good business coach are theory and practice.

Without practical coaching experience, no amount of theory will enable you to go straight into the world of coaching and mentoring. There is only so much you learn from textbooks and course tutors.

Similarly, trying to conduct a business coaching session without a thorough grounding and teaching of how to conduct a high-quality coaching meeting will likely end up in wasted time and frustration for all parties concerned.

Coaching theory is essential. But it is experience and practice that transforms a business coach and turns them into one who can help bring about a significant increase in performance and overall contribution to the business from both managers and employees alike.

Absolutely. Business coaching sessions help people overcome barriers and problems that are holding them back, help them fulfil their potential, and provide significant benefits in terms of career development and advancement.

Life coaching is a separate area. But there will be elements of business coaching which can also have a positive impact outside the workplace.

Improving communications skills, for example, can change the way you communicate in your personal life as well as in the workplace.

And, if people become better equipped at overcoming problems and dealing with change at work, they will be able to do these things more easily outside of work too.

Coaching can bring up a range of issues and it can be tough and even distressing.

But whereas counselling aims to deal with and reconcile problems from the past, business coaching usually tries to leave the past in the past and focus on future targets and ambitions.

So, coaching is not counselling, even though it's therapeutic knowing that you're tackling your business challenges head-on by taking action.

Training and coaching are similar in some ways, but vastly different in others. Both are concerned with the development and improvement of individuals in the workplace. Whilst mentoring and business coaching typically involves a manager and an employee taking part in a fairly informal meeting in order to resolve issues, training normally refers to an employee being taught a new skill or information which they do not currently possess.

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Providing mentoring will allow an employee to begin working and solving problems by themselves in a much shorter timeframe. This is usually highly desired by managers as they do not want to be bogged down and have time taken out of their busy daily schedule to answer questions about every minor detail of the task which the employee is currently engaged in.

Remember, managers do not have to provide all of the coaching, mentoring and training to their employees themselves. In fact, hiring an external business coach who has no preconceived ideas or familiarity with anyone at the organisation can often be a tremendous benefit.

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Instead of a manager simply deciding upon training needs at random, or signing off the same training programme because that is what they have always done at the firm over the years, it will nearly always be far more beneficial both for the company and the individual employees themselves if the manager uses business coaching to identify specific training needs.

By talking to employees directly and discovering which areas they are proficient in and, more importantly as far as training needs are concerned, which areas they are lacking skills and/or knowledge in and so require training to improve, will result in a much greater return on investment (ROI).

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The boundaries between team building and business coaching can sometimes be blurred and overlap. Both are concerned with the development of employees, in order for them to be more effective and contribute more to the success of the company.

The biggest difference is that whilst team building and team development is done in a group, so that the team can improve communication and teamworking between each other, business coaching is typically performed on a one-to-one basis.

This is because, rather than problems which exist between the team and the issues that stop them working together effectively, the matters discussed between an individual and a coach are specific to them. They are the personal and unique problems and metaphorical barriers which exist that are preventing that person from reaching their full potential in the workplace.

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Yes! We have a number of blog entries related to coaching and mentoring. Please click on a title below to read:

• How can your business create a coaching culture?
• What's the difference between coaching and mentoring?
• Why should your leaders become coaches?