Do You Need a Coach?

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• Do you have habits that you feel are unproductive or unhealthy?
  
• Are self-defeating beliefs and limiting statements wearing you down?
  
• Are you continually receiving  the same “opportunities for growth” in your feedback at work?
  
• Are you stuck at a plateau in your career?
  
• Have you attained a reasonable level of success, but satisfaction and fulfillment somehow still eludes you?
  
• Do you believe your team could function far more effectively than it currently does?
  

If any of these situations apply to you, a coaching partnership with Steve Ramshur may help you to work though these obstacles to your success. 

What is Coaching?

From the International Coach Federation (ICF):

Coaching: Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.

For me, the three key words here are partnering, creative, and potential.

• The coach is not an expert - a coach and his or her client are equals in the coaching relationship. 
  
• The process is creative, as every coaching relationship is different, The questions asked of one client may have absolutely no relevance to another. Good coaches utilize powerful questions and their intuition to come to a deep understanding of what makes a particular client tick.
  
• Coaching is all about uncovering a client's potential in whatever area they wish to be coached on, and what are the obstacles to that potential.
  

• An ICF Professional Coach: An ICF Professional Coach also agrees to practice the ICF Professional Core Competencies and pledges accountability to the ICF Code of Ethics.

As the field of professional coaching is unregulated, anybody can call themselves a Coach. But the International Coach Federation has developed a set of Standards, Ethics and Core Competencies that ICF Professional Coaches agree to abide by, thereby ensuring that you are partnering with a coach who aspires to maintain an established level of professionalism and integrity.

• A professional coaching relationship: A professional coaching relationship exists when coaching includes a business agreement or contract that defines the responsibilities of each party.

The design of a relationship agreement between a Coach and Client anchors the relationship and establishes its boundaries. It protects the client from being fiscally taken advantage of, and demonstrates your level of commitment to the coaching relationship.

Coaching strives to change habits, to effect powerful change in the client's life. The coaching agreement that is established at the top of an individual session ensures that the Client is focusing upon those matters that are most useful to them at that time, and that the session has an objective.  If you and your coach are not ending the session with an agreement to take some form of action before you next meet, then it's not coaching - it's simply a deeply stimulating conversation. 

More Information

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What is Coaching?
10 Definitions of Coaching
Prepare to Be Coached
International Coach Federation
CTI Coaches Toolkit
Library of Professional Coaching

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