Business coaching is the practice of providing positive support and positive feedback while offering occasional advice to an individual or group in order to help them recognize ways in which they can improve the effectiveness of their business. Coaching is an excelent way to attain a certain work behavior that will improve leadership, employee accountability, teamwork, sales, communication, goal setting, strategic planning and more. It can be provided in a number of ways, including one-on-one, group coaching sessions and large scale [seminars]. Many corporations are instilling the practice of 360 degree coaching, which permits employees to utilize their own life or professional experiences in a positive way to create team participation attitudes even with superiors. Professional Business Coaches are often called in when a business is perceived to be performing badly, however many businesses recognize the benefits of business coaching even when the organization is successful. Business coaches often specialize in different practice areas such as executive coaching, corporate coaching and leadership coaching.
At least two organizations, the International Coaching Council (ICC) and the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches (WABC) provide a membership-based association for professionals involved in business coaching. The ICC and WABC also provide an accrediting system for business coach training programs. The ICC currently has over 1,500 members from over 50 countries.
Business coaching is not the same as mentoring. Mentoring involves a developmental relationship between a more experienced "mentor" and a less experienced partner, and typically involves sharing of advice. A business coach can act as a mentor given that he or she has adequate expertise and experience. However, mentoring is not a form of business coaching. A good business coach need not have specific business expertise and experience in the same field as the person receiving the coaching in order to provide quality business coaching services. Business coaching needs to be more structured and formal than mentoring.
Business coaches often help businesses grow by creating and following a structured, strategic plan to achieve agreed upon goals. Multiple organizations train professionals to offer business coaching to business owners who may not be able to afford large coaching firm prices.
Coaching is not a practice restricted to external experts. Many organizations expect their senior leaders and middle managers to coach their team members toward higher levels of performance, increased job satisfaction, personal growth, and career development. Those that do back up their expectations with training in coaching skills, access to feedback tools, and/or specific coaching behaviors described in their leadership competency models. Few link coaching activities to compensation, however, resulting in less coaching by managers.
