Coaching has an average return on investment of 600% The number is astounding and the reason for that value is because coaching develops individuals, clients, at an advanced level. Coaching clients are fully empowered to discover their own answers and use their own insights in the way they choose. One reason is simple – few want to be told what to do, how to do it, and then micro-managed. When people discover their own answers, they own them and follow-through.
As much as the power of coaching is simple, the skill of a coach requires intensive training and practice to develop. While many start the coaching journey with transferable skills, coaching competencies are a uniquely applied skillset. During coaching certification, coaches discover that giving the answer is easy and eliciting an answer from someone else takes skill.
It is almost funny that some say coach training is unnecessary. Really? Do they say that about therapy, law, financial planning, or accounting? A claim that coach training is unnecessary is based on ignorance. Likewise, if an organization develops coach training internally, because the people creating coach training are themselves untrained in coaching it really isn’t coach training. Unfortunately, the outcome in these scenarios is people calling themselves a coach when, really, they are mentoring or consulting. Calling it coaching when it isn’t is how they fail to achieve the results of coaching. What it is called does not determine the efficacy; what it is determines the efficacy.
For coaching, as with any profession, the efficacy of the professional coach is based on their training and experience. Standards for the training and the credentialing of a coach are essential. These standards include the core competencies of a coach and the Code of Ethics as well as standards for the approval of coach training and earning a credential.
