Coaching

The assignment for this paper was to describe a coaching experience. By definition, coaching is a training or developmental process by which an individual is supported while achieving a specific personal or professional competence result or goal.

I honestly can’t think of an instance where someone has set specific performance improvement goals for me. My experience with coaching has been more of a developmental process defined accurately by Sir John Whitmore as unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance, helping them to learn rather than teaching them.

I have been fortunate enough to work for someone with experience and expertise who has been willing to guide me through the learning process by providing positive support, feedback and advice on how to improve.

My current position within the organization has continued to evolve and I believe it is due to working for someone who knows how to effectively coach and grow people to reach their full potential.

Beginning in the Human Resources Department with no background or experience, I lacked competence and required specific direction. I needed to be told what to do and how to do it. Initially, I had a lot of questions and my manager was always available. If he would have been unapproachable, my productivity would have suffered along with my morale. Not only was his accessibility essential to starting me on the right path for success, it also developed the ground work for effective communication.

Each morning began by discussing outstanding projects and what I would be working on that day. He would ask for updates and the status on projects and then let me know what needed to be completed first, second and so on. Learning more about leaders...

... middle of paper ...

...te and he provided a great lead in and sounded very good – when he said it.

A large part of the difficulty for me is this person does not report to me and I think they were somewhat confused as to what spurred the conversation. It wasn’t they doubted my position to approach them but they were suspicious as to if they were doing something specifically wrong.

I was so nervous, I’m pretty sure I made a huge mess of the whole discussion. I entered the conversation with some notes but I’m certain I could and should have been more prepared.

What do you do when you address an issue and ask if there are any problems and they respond by telling you “No, everything is good”?

If this was a test, I completely failed. If coaching can be obtained through osmosis or by illustration, I am certain I will improve as coaching is as natural as breathing for my manager.