Its been more than two decades that I am under the influence of Human resource professionals who have been talking and practicing a whole gamut of activities right from talent acquisition, training and development, consulting and coaching for a while now. Even though I was hearing words like coaching, counselling, & mentoring very often, I always wondered how they are different from each other as it all sounded the same to me. Most often people from different works of life who are not attuned to the word “Coaching” would instead think coaching is what is taught in a coaching centre in India where a child is given lessons on a particular subject. And some link with the Sports coach which is most commonly being used.
I began my journey here to understand what coaching was all about. So first I went to social media sites and looked around where I found few articles in simple English language that did not give me technicalities of processes or used jargons to scare me further. This also encouraged me to find out more about people who are currently coaching and what qualities do they possess to be a great coach.
Few observations that I got from this exercise was: –
- Most coaches have very impacting communication skills – It was important that I as a reader/ receiver of information, am able to read or get some value from the content made an impact in my personal space or at least it leaves me to think further.
- Motivating – They are the ones who are able to convert my energies into positive vibes that encourages me to take some action.
- Empathise – They have the ability to make you feel that they are at the same plane as you.
- Leaderlike – They are able to drive you with your values, your goals, your thoughts, bring you to a meaningful conclusion.
- Like a guiding star making a difference in peoples’ life.
- Wisdom – Possess years of experience, immense knowledge, well-read and have the power of thought-provoking questioning skills.
All this was fascinating and took me to search for a coach/guide or an organisation who can introduce me to the world of coaching. Thanks to Google this time, it gave me some list of organisations who are helping people to take up Coaching as a profession after undergoing training and practice. Since I knew I was a slow learner, I needed a teacher who can be patient with me and whose methods remain like old school style yet with modern thought processes. I was blessed to have found my ideal school then – Erickson Coaching International. An organisation that have been in the Coaching business over past three decades and have their core values as Integrity, Happiness, Empowerment, Service, Learning and Abundance. Just as much as these values have been mine.
That’s how coaching happened to me and thank God, Erickson coaching happened to me at right time, right place and for the right purpose. So here I began to walk on the path of learning “THE ART & SCIENCE OF COACHING”.