Coaches to the rescue

In the film "Remember the Titans", Denzel Washington plays a coach that takes over a newly racially integrated football team. Against the odds, he leads his team to victory and proves the point that while colour does not make a difference when we are facing obstacles of a similar nature, a good coach can focus our attitude and determination towards winning.

A coach is a guide and adviser who can help people through the chaos that confronts us all from time to time.

Jill Hamlyn, MD, The People Business

As numerous articles and commentaries currently note, "coaching" is already becoming an integral part of today`s business world. The IT industry in particular is poised on the knife-edge at the moment. A high percentage of companies have listed or merged, and technology continues to move at an exceptionally fast pace leaving little room for contemplation.

Now, more than ever, people are challenged to match the pace of events. Business owners and, more particularly, shareholders and analysts are focused on profitability. The bottom line is becoming more important than ever as the strain of maintaining and growing what is often becoming a more illusive return on investment continues.

I firmly believe that leaders in the industry have to exceed in a multitude of areas in order to ensure growth and survival. Making the right decision under this increasing level of pressure has become an important skill that can be facilitated by a good coach.

The resulting social impact that technology has on the way in which we live our lives is regularly documented. We employ a number of technological timesaving devices, but more work is squeezed into the time that is saved.

Information is there for the taking and many of the decisions we are faced with have to be made taking this information into account. However, there is a danger of being overwhelmed and overloaded in the face of everything that needs to be coped with.

A coach is a guide and adviser who can help people through the chaos that confronts us all from time to time. A professional coach should have a proven ability to see and understand the bigger picture. A coaching intervention often helps people to look outwards at the circumstances that they are being presented with and to act as a catalyst and guide helping others to work smarter rather than harder.

Coaching is different from mentoring in that coaches are visionaries who tutor in the art of moving minutiae aside so that bigger issues may be identified and concentrated on. A mentor, on the other hand, is more of a sounding board who assists in more personal and emotional issues and less of a business perspective.

Coaches often possess the characteristics of leaders, but internal business leaders usually have the option of being an individual coach or alternatively someone who inspires his or her team through the understanding and appreciation of vision and strategy. There is usually not enough time for a true leader to be both.

At the moment, coaches often operate from a broad business base. I think this is probably set to change in the future. In order for professional coaches to offer a true value-added service, they really should have an intimate understanding of the industry in which their clients operate.

A knowledge-based background is particularly useful when analysing both the local and worldwide context. Exploration and the in-depth contextual discovery is then minimised in order that the corrective actions may be determined.

It is interesting to note that in the IT industry, which often pioneers change within the business sector, more and more women are employing coaches. I believe that this trend can be attributed to their willingness to learn and the fact that they are not afraid to ask for help. The rise of coaching indicates that we are becoming more collaborative in our efforts to understand and deal with the world we live in.

Tapping into the coaching trend allows us to share ideas and rapidly disseminate the right kind of information that can have a positive impact on the way we conduct business.

Coaching should also teach us to become more unemotional in our communication, so that we may define our purpose. This will then take us past any problems we feel we may have and into our potential.

Just as we engaged the efforts of a coach in order to help us become more proficient when we felt ourselves floundering at school, so a coach can assist us in our business lives. Support, practice, strategy and a focus on the greater scheme of things are all the advantages that stand to be gained. These are invaluable in the business world today.