I have definitely benefited from being coached by colleagues, as well as from coaching others in training workshops. In many ways, I get to practise being coached by participants every time I deliver workshops on coaching as a tool for managers.

Last year I was out practising golf for our annual family golf tournament and ran into a workshop participant from a company I had trained earlier that year. Vinnie told me he had decided to start playing golf again after hearing me discuss my attempts to improve my game. He had set a goal for himself, and was now playing 3–4 nights a week after work and loving being back on the golf course. What this reinforced to me is that the benefits of coaching can only be realised when the coachee owns the goal. After the actual coaching session, the coach may follow up with the coachee – but ultimately it’s the coachee’s goal to achieve. 

Successful coaching takes both a skilled coach and a willing coachee, both with the ability and willingness to listen and to ask the right questions. Good coaches understand that the coachee is the only person who has the ‘right answers’ and that the role of the coach is simply to help uncover them. This is the aim of developing skills in coaching – to help your coachee find their own solutions, rather than telling them what to do. 

What strategies do you use to achieve your goals?