COACHING SKILLS
As Katherine Adams (Employee Development Bulletin, No 72,
December, 1995) writes:
Coaching can only work with the willing participation of both
learners and managers. It also requires an open and trusting relation-
ship between the coach and the learner, and senior management
support. Coaches may need special training in the skills required,
they should be given specific responsibility for coaching, and their
role needs to be suitably rewarded. Learning should be an explicit
target of coaching along with others more directly related to the tasks
being carried out. Finally, any system of coaching should be regularly
monitored and evaluated.EFFECTIVE COACHING
Coaching will be most effective when:
■ The coach understands that his or her role is to help people
to learn.
■ Individuals are motivated to learn – they should be aware
that their present level of knowledge or skill, or their behav-
iour needs to be improved if they are going to perform their
work to their own and to others’ satisfaction.
■ Individuals are given guidance on what they should be
learning and feedback on how they are doing.
■ Learning is an active, not a passive, process – individuals
need to be actively involved with their coach.
■ The coach listens to individuals to understand what they
want and need.
■ The coach adopts a constructive approach, building on
strengths and experience.
PLANNED COACHING
Coaching may be informal but it has to be planned. It is not
simply checking from time to time on what people are doing and
then advising them on how to do it better. Nor is it occasionally
telling people where they have gone wrong and throwing in a
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