Taking stock – a coaching best practice

Whatever we are attending to, we, as coaches, are always helping our clients clarify intention and develop SMART goals; identify challenges and opportunities, identify and align motivation with vision and action; design action steps nurturing commitment and follow-through, and celebrating success.

Each one of these actions and many related sub-actions begin by “taking stock.”

Our goal, as coaches, is to help our clients arrive at clarity, gain insight and perspective that moves them into inspired action – fundamental to good coaching.

Eight years ago, when I earned the right to call myself a Professional Certified Coach, there were 49 coaching programs recognised by the International Coach Federation (ICF).

The field was burgeoning and wide open and I was excited to enter and contribute to what seemed like a fairly new and promising professional career path.

Since then, the coaching profession has grown, developed and matured. Hundreds of coaching schools and programs, both independent and affiliated with colleges and universities, have sprung up. Training program offerings range from one week to 10 days to hundreds of hours in class time and assignments.

While coaching today is widely recognised as beneficial and welcomed by individuals privately and in organisations, coaching, as a profession, seems muddied and cluttered.

Find out how to succeed in this noisy, cluttered and muddied profession in this edition.