Evaluating the action. What has changed? Does the problem still exist? Has it been
replaced by a new one?
How does someone actually become a coach? Coaching is consulting in a dialog. A
coach essentially knows no more than his or her client, but does know methods to
allow the client to find the solution themselves. That sounds very simple – and that is
why we find the term “coach” far too often on the business cards of freelancers. But be
warned: offers from reputable advisors and those from charlatans cannot be distin-
guished at first glance. The term coaching is not a registered trademark, and there is no
university degree in coaching, as topics such as “human nature” and “conversational
skills” are hard to find in higher education. Instead, a private market for coaching
courses has been established – and has become obscure, since it is difficult to separate
the wheat from the chaff. Coaching covers many aspects: human resources issues,
management issues, job and career issues, work-life balance, etc. As such, it is no
surprise that among coaches, organizational consultants, communication experts,
psychologists, educators and others are represented.
The only advice we can give to future coaches is to search for practical rele-
vance. Only courses that offer the opportunity to watch experienced coaches at
work or to gain your initial experience under the guidance of experienced coaches
are worth the money. One of the greatest assets a coach can have is his or her
own life experience. Don’t worry: a coach must not have experienced or achieved
more than anyone else; he or she must instead know how to deal with successful
people and what pitfalls there are in coaching talks. And the coach must learn to
hold himself/herself back over and over again, a challenge that reading books on
leadership or attending conferences can’t help with. Being able to truly help others
is what makes this job so appealing. Entire organizations can be revitalized simply
by skillfully interviewing people. And for managers it makes sense to integrate
coaching elements into their work.
First of all, coaching means asking constructive questions. Constructive
questions are those that encourage the employees to form their own concepts –
solution-oriented and future-oriented. Here are a few practical suggestions for
asking managers different questions in different phases of a coaching talk:
At the beginning of the interview. Providing this conversation proves useful in the
end, how would you notice it? What would have changed? What would you take
with you? What makes you feel that this is your problem? Who suffers most
because of it? Who benefits most?
During the problem analysis. Who else sees the problem? In what kind of situation
does it and when doesn’t it occur? How has the problem been managed so far? What
should stay the way it is? Did you do everything possible to solve the problem on
your own? What has helped the most so far? When did this problem occur last?
How do you explain the problem, how did it come about? Provided a miracle
happened overnight and the problem disappeared, how would you notice the
difference first? What else would change? What would be the best and what the
worst consequence? What would you need to do in order to make sure the problem
didn’t become worse?
4.2 Tools as Means to an End 221