What Is A Coach?

The coach's role in the process of assisting people or organizations to achieve top performance should be to increase knowledge and provide supportive coaching. Coaching is a relatively new intervention, which can be used to facilitate change and development. Coaching first appeared as a viable career area and intervention process in the late 1980's during the organizational upheaval that was marked by corporate downsizing, rightsizing, mergers, acquisitions and outplacement. Some organizations that are using coaching as an organizational process intervention are: EDS, Chrysler, Herman Miller, Xerox, IBM, Microsoft, U S Postal Service, American Express, American Management Association, AT&T, Citibank, Colgate, Levi Strauss, Northern Telecom, NYNEX Corporation, and Proctor and Gamble.

The terms coaching and mentoring are sometiomes used interchangeablely. The concept of mentoring originated with the story of Homer's Odyssey. As the story is told, Odysseus's son Telemachus was left with Mentor, a wise and proven teacher. Therefore, wise and proven teachers are often called mentors. Although mentoring may be the model for coaching, mentoring is used more to add to knowledge and skills while coaching contributes more to change or fixing something - a change in skills, abilities, attitudes.

A coach is a person who is a trusted role model, adviser, wise person, friend, mensch, steward, or guide - a person who works with emerging human and organizational forces to tap new energy and purpose, to shape new visions and plans, and to generate desired results.

"A coach is someone trained and devoted to guiding others into increased competence, commitment and confidence." F.M. Hudson

 

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