Business coaching has been one of the most popular trends in the talent development and skills training sector within the business world. However, as there is (practically) nothing that a coach can do that any properly trained psychologist can’t do, in this article we want to explain to you in a general way what this methodology called business coaching is and, most importantly, encourage you, if you need it, to carry it out by a true well-being professional: a psychologist.
What is business coaching?
Business coaching is a training strategy oriented towards the main objective: to enable a person, a team, or an organization to reach its maximum level of performance through the implementation of its full potential.
When a person decides to put themselves in the hands of a psychologist to start therapy and, especially, when they want to start a business coaching process, it is very common for them to start their petition with this phrase: “I need tools”.
It is normal for this to happen since people need to follow a fairly predictable course of action when they want to improve in some aspect. Moreover, it is easier to carry out our personal process if we follow a script that leads us towards concrete and measurable objectives.
We can call this way of working – practical, logical, and tool-seeking – an instrumental approach.
Business coaching: ask a psychologist
As we said, the instrumental approach brings order and offers the person, team or organization a sense of security by allowing them to follow a series of steps that will lead to a goal.
It is a very useful approach as long as the person’s needs are not too complex or as long as the business coaching process does not expose aspects of the person that are beyond the coach’s knowledge and should be addressed by a real psychologist if real results are to be achieved.
So, the more complex the needs of the person being coached, the more difficult it will be to follow a very structured (and simple) “Step 1, Step 2, etc.” program, and the more it will be advisable to have other professional knowledge and skills.
On the other hand, the clearer and more targeted the professional difficulties of the person, team or organization are, the easier it will be to narrow them down and work on them at a relatively superficial level.
This level can be very effective and responsive to the professional needs of the so-called coachee, which is why -as long as things do not get complicated- it works very well in a business coaching process. Or, in short, in a process of quality psychological work with an individual, a team, or an organization.
How to do business coaching?
When we carry out a business coaching process, personal development, or skills training, the general objective is usually quite clear. It is to help the person, team, or organization make the most of their potential. In other words, to help them put their true abilities and talents into practice at a given moment in their life cycle as an employee, team, or company.
This means that business coaching, in the best of cases carried out by a properly trained professional psychologist, works with a perspective of improvement and advancement. The idea is that the person who receives it obtains better performance, adjusted to their true capabilities, competencies, hard skills, and soft skills.
This way, business coaching works on the premise that it is a shame to fall short, whereas what is desirable is that a person (if it is a particular individual who undergoes such a “training program”) delivers the best possible result for their team, their company and of course for themselves. This activates what we could consider a self-motivating and constructive loop: in a company committed to the psychological well-being of its employees, what is good for the company is good for the employees, and vice versa.
In short, business coaching applied, for example, to a specific member of staff, aims to make that person connect with their best possible “worker-self”.
6 characteristics of the business coaching process
1. In business coaching processes, closely linked to the so-called mentoring, it is very important to listen carefully and speak honestly from one’s own experience. This way, the potential of reciprocity is activated in order to guide the person receiving the coaching.
2. It is important that all parties involved in the business coaching process have a good capacity for introspection and analysis of the current situation. This is the most effective way to set realistic and meaningful goals.
3. A business coaching process is, primarily, a skills training methodology. Therefore, it involves identifying a gap and the reason for it, establishing a baseline and a target, and giving value to the practice of a set of skills until it is reached.
4. Business coaching processes are also often aimed at unblocking decision-making or corporate dilemma resolution that has become entrenched and prevents progress. This requires learning to calibrate needs of varying importance.
5. One of the key techniques of business coaching is the use of “powerful questions”, i.e., inquiries capable of targeting the real problem and not the sidelines.
6. Ultimately, the different techniques of business coaching are aimed at removing “blocks” or “limiting ideas”. When these techniques are carried out by a professional psychologist, capable of handling different levels of depth in terms of personal growth, it is possible to understand the blockage as a defense against a threat and not just as a barrier to be removed as soon as possible, which provides a much more complete vision for the employee or the company.
From this point of view, blockages are a protection that is helping us adapt to an environment that, for whatever reason, awakens our insecurity. That is why it is important to dedicate some time to get to know this blockage properly, instead of interpreting it from the outset as something only negative or only limiting. Therefore, a psychologist who facilitates a business coaching process encourages a critical and complete vision of the relationship between the achievements we want and the reasons that, according to us, explain why we have not achieved them.
Training conducted by psychologists
Ifeel has developed an emotional well-being program for companies, designed by its team of leading psychologists to help companies maximize their employees’ potential in a way that is beneficial and satisfying for everyone.
Thanks to this collaboration, HR managers can receive personalized, data-driven advice on how to best coach the skills of the people in their charge and get teams to coordinate more efficiently. You can try our program today and start benefiting from its resources.
In addition, ifeel’s emotional well-being program for companies offers employees a mental health care service structured at different levels depending on their needs at any given time.
This way, they can access various mental health care tools with ifeel’s app. On a second level, they can receive emotional support through a chat with one of our platform’s registered psychologists. If continuous support is needed over time, they only have to access the third level of the program: online psychological therapy with a psychologist specialized in cases like theirs.
We hope you found this post about business coaching interesting. If you would like more information about our emotional well-being program, get in touch and we will contact your team as soon as possible.
You may also be interested in this post about the advantages of using ifeel’s workplace mental health platform.
