Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Back to Basics
65 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of PRIME SPACE, host Elias Scultori, MCC, welcomes back his friend and colleague Amy Donovan, MCC, for a powerful return to the fundamentals of coaching.
Together, they revisit the timeless question: What is coaching? While it may sound simple, the conversation reveals the depth, nuance, and evolving understanding behind the practice. Elias and Amy explore why coaching is about discovery rather than solutions, the importance of true partnership, and how professional coaching stands apart from mentoring, consulting, or therapy.
Whether you are brand new to coaching or a seasoned practitioner, this episode offers clarity, reminders, and fresh insight into what makes coaching a unique and transformative process.
#Coaching #WhatIsCoaching? #ICFCoaches #ProfessionalCoaching #PrimeSpacePodcast
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction with Amy Donovan
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Prime Space, a Prime Coaching Academy podcast with your host, Elias Scultori. My dear coaches, we are here again and you're going to be very happy because I'm not alone. My good friend Amy Donovan is here. Hello, Amy. Hello, Elias.
00:00:27
Speaker
I'm back. It's always wonderful to have these conversations with you.
What is Coaching?
00:00:33
Speaker
Today, coaches, we thought that it would be nice for us to go back to basics.
00:00:40
Speaker
I've been talking so much about these concepts of coaching for such a long time here and all of these wonderful philosophical aspects of coaching. And perhaps I thought it would be a good idea for us to get the beginner's mind and go back to basics. And the question that I would love for us to entertain here, Amy,
00:01:02
Speaker
is What is coaching? And this is, you know, it's simple. It's a simple question. But I think that this is going to be a a wonderful conversation, not only for new coaches or someone that don't know anything about coaching, have never done any coach training at all.
00:01:22
Speaker
But I think this is going to be interesting, even for the very experienced coach. So, Amy, what is coaching? Well, let me first say, I think also this is a timely conversation um because we really, and and I just want to say in the first few years of coaching, for those of us who were around then, this i dreaded this question because you could never capture the power of what really transpires in a well-crafted,
00:01:58
Speaker
and well done coaching session. And so yeah we were always struggling to find the words to to to speak to that. But then moving into becoming a coach educator,
00:02:10
Speaker
We have to talk about this. And so over the years as a coach educator, and I think you've probably learned this too, is we keep getting deeper and deeper into the definition of what this really is. And as more research is done on it and we start to see the impact of coaching around the world and multiple cultures and all those things.
00:02:32
Speaker
We're beginning to articulate it in a way that does capture the depth, but I'm glad we're doing this podcast because it really does need to be talked about more now because I think there's a lot of misunderstandings about what
Discovery vs. Solutions in Coaching
00:02:46
Speaker
coaching is as well. So we hope to clear some of those up in this podcast today as in our time together.
00:02:53
Speaker
What coaching is, what is coaching was your question. um Coaching is a process of discovery, first and foremost.
00:03:05
Speaker
We are a discovery partner with the people that we coach.
00:03:13
Speaker
And I think that that gets confused sometimes, that we aren't so much of a discovery partner as a solution partner.
00:03:24
Speaker
this yeah so This is so amazing. And I think that you you are we are hitting here like one of the core from foundational aspects of this process.
00:03:36
Speaker
We are so prone and we say this in coach training all the time. We are so well domesticated. i love to use that word into problem solution, problem solution, problem solution. This is the situation here. What are we going to do about it?
00:03:52
Speaker
um And we have been rewarded and ah award ah rewarded throughout our professional and personal lives to have the answer to solve the problem to fix things.
00:04:03
Speaker
And in here comes coaching and we are widening the gap. between what is the situation, what is the the issue that we are experiencing now, what is the moment, and what is what is the solution.
00:04:19
Speaker
we are in coaching, we are widening the gap so that we stay in that space of exploration,
Coaching as a Partnership
00:04:26
Speaker
in that space of discovery. And we do this not to delay the process because that's not the idea. we Actually, we are doing this to like to make the process faster because by staying in that space of discovery, then our clients are going to have the opportunity to come up with what is next for them in a much more solid and in in clear way instead of jumping immediately into solutions.
00:04:57
Speaker
oh it But it feels so good when you can solve something for somebody. It feels like as the coach, you would feel like, oh, yeah, we really did something today.
00:05:10
Speaker
Discovery is just kind of this void you go into um with your client. And and it's it's really hard to train your mind to give up that great feeling of solution for discovery.
00:05:25
Speaker
But the thing i I want to point out here, Elias, is when i when I first said this, it was about being a discovery partner. And I think the word partner is just as important as discovery.
00:05:37
Speaker
Well, I think that you you just mentioned this right now. you know this There is this feeling good that, oh, look, i I must be good because I have an answer for you. or I have a solution for you. I have an experience.
00:05:49
Speaker
I am experienced in this, and therefore I am sharing this with you. Oh, I must i must be good. it There is a an ego trip that can happen in that moment.
00:06:00
Speaker
But the what we need to realize is that by doing that, we are losing the partnership. Because partnership is truly this ah partnership of equals, understanding that in the moment of this ah conversation that we are having with a client, it's not about what I know or my experience, because my experience in what I know is just one perspective.
00:06:24
Speaker
And if I am so attached to my own knowing, ah In my own experience, in my own brilliance, I am actually narrowing the possibilities for my client because then we are focused only on one possibility, the possibility but that I perceive, my own perspective, and I'm not giving my client the option, the opportunity to create their own perspective, their own way of of seeing the situation.
00:06:57
Speaker
from a different from a different point of view that may be something that i i never considered yeah Yeah. And i I said it was timely earlier um that we're having this conversation because I think there's, you know, there's a lot of people out there calling themselves a coach these days.
00:07:17
Speaker
And i think when we talk about this, we need to make the distinction that we're, we are talking about what is coaching in the frame of professionally trained coaches And going back to this solution thing of coaching to solution, there's a lot of coaching results versus people going on for people who haven't had proper training um as ah as a professional coach, thinking that is you know what coaching is, leaving a lot of clients, stakeholders, et cetera, in the coaching chain, thinking that is what coaching is. We we coach results. We get results through coaching.
00:07:59
Speaker
Results in coaching are a byproduct
00:08:06
Speaker
of the discovery process.
00:08:10
Speaker
i it This is an important point here. It's a byproduct. We are not focused on the solution. We are not focused on the result. But we trust that by staying in this space ah of discovery, the client is going to arrive at ah add an answer, at ah what is next for them.
00:08:30
Speaker
ah In our job, in our expertise, because people may ask this question, if I'm not there to give an answer, If I'm not there to to solve the problem for my client, ah so what ah what is the client paying me for? Well, the client is paying me for for my expertise in facilitating that discovery moment.
00:08:51
Speaker
And this is what coach training is all about. And this is what is the importance of going through a professional training ah process ah ah around coaching because it's the need, regardless of how much um experience and how much knowledge this particular professional has, it we are getting trained into the into the fu into how to facilitate the conversation for the client to go through this process of discovery, regardless of how much I know.
00:09:25
Speaker
Yeah.
Mentoring vs. Coaching Explained
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah. I, there's a, there's a, I think another distinction we need to discuss here too. um there's a lot of folks out there who are doing mentoring versus coaching and calling it coaching.
00:09:42
Speaker
And I think that we need to kind of suss that out as well, um that there is a distinction between mentoring and coaching in that, first of all, it it's not a partnering.
00:09:54
Speaker
It's a hierarchical relationship to start with. But secondly, it's also the mentor is imparting their experience, their knowledge, their bias, and everything that comes with it.
00:10:12
Speaker
That's such an important point, this idea that the in the mentoring process, the focus and the reliance is in the mentor's experience.
00:10:24
Speaker
So there is a lot, the spotlight is on the experience of the coach. And in coaching, the spotlight is in the process of the client and relying on the client's experience and in the client's development and in the client's moment of thinking thinking.
00:10:46
Speaker
and Processing whatever is happening in this situation. So in this is a good distinction for us to have here as far between mentoring and coaching.
00:10:57
Speaker
Mentoring, the focus is on the mentor's experience. Coaching, the focus and the spotlight is in the on the client's, in the client's process, in the client's thinking moment.
Facilitating Client Thinking
00:11:10
Speaker
yeah And you just said the T word, thinking. It's another aspect of what is coaching. it's It's really a container of time and space we give our clients to think for themselves.
00:11:29
Speaker
What do I think about this? What is coming up for me? This is what's happening with the client versus always trying to deal with all these outside sources. It's what's coming up from you within you that but the professional coach facilitates that.
00:11:47
Speaker
and is able to take that process with the client, the the new things they discover about themselves, the new way they look at things, the new perspectives they have, and to be able to transfer that new thinking, that growth thinking, into action, into the results.
00:12:07
Speaker
Again, this is why we call it the byproduct of what we do in coaching is the results. Another ah title that we can give to the professional ah in the coaching conversation, instead of simply calling this person a coach, this professional is also the thought partner.
00:12:28
Speaker
we are We are skilled in supporting this this client into this thinking process. So we are a thought partner in their thinking.
00:12:38
Speaker
thinking in their processing of that particular situation. So the thought partner is to me a beautiful way to describe what we are doing with the client.
00:12:50
Speaker
And our expertise is not, I say this again, not on the subject matter. Our expertise is not on how much experience we have on that particular topic.
00:13:02
Speaker
ah This can be very valuable and wonderful in many different processes as a consultant, as a mentor, as a teacher. There are many ways that ah my experience can be valuable.
00:13:15
Speaker
When we are talking about coaching focused on the standards designed by the International Coaching Federation and all that the coaching programs community has studied and developed throughout the the past so three decades is this ah idea that my expertise in so in is in how I facilitate that moment of thinking and that moment of processing that the client is going through. That is what we learn in coach training and how important it is for us if we are going to call ourselves a coach, that we have that that expertise in facilitating the conversation.
00:13:57
Speaker
So glad you punctuated that again because you just kind of went over it fast and I i i can't stress that enough. I completely echo go what you just said. I hope that ah everybody that you are noticing and you're listening to this to this podcast, and you and I hope that if you are new to coaching, that you're beginning to get a sense ah of what is coaching and what is the distinction of coaching and what is unique about coaching from mentoring, unique about coaching from from ah consulting, unique about coaching from therapy or teaching or facilitating or whatever it is.
00:14:33
Speaker
ah There is something unique about this practice of coaching that oftentimes is misunderstood. But for you, who is also the experienced coach, How these concepts are alive in your mindset every time that you interact with your client.
00:14:52
Speaker
How much of the the the ego is showing up that all of a sudden we we start perhaps relying too much on our experience, on our knowledge, and we are we are crowding the space, cluttering the space of our client's thinking, right?
00:15:10
Speaker
moment of with our own stuff. And perhaps we can put ourselves or take a step back to give even more space and facilitate that space for the client to think.
Conclusion and Invitation to Engage
00:15:21
Speaker
Amy, any final words? No, i'm I'm just, we could go on for hours, but I think that we've done a pretty good job here giving this kind of overview of what is coaching? The age-old question.
00:15:36
Speaker
Thank you, Amy, for showing up here today. And of course, we are going to have Amy ah back many, many, many times. And coaches, if you have any questions or if this conversation here ah somehow sparked some ideas in you and that you would like to share, please email us, ah am amy at primecoachingacademy.com, elias at primecoachingacademy.com.
00:16:03
Speaker
And we will be glad to have more conversations with you as well. Don't forget to subscribe and don't forget to share these episodes with your fellow coaches and perhaps with some of your colleagues as well.
00:16:17
Speaker
Otherwise, everybody, i will see you. i will talk to you next time.