Coaching

Coaching is clearly person centered: First and foremost it focuses on supporting a lead person or a group to unfold personal and professional resources and potentials in an optimal manner.

Or, taking the words of the DBVC (Deutscher Bundesverband Coaching e.V.): “Coaching is professional counselling, attendance and support of persons with leadership and governance functions and of experts in enterprises and organizations. It is the aim of coaching to enhance individual or collective learning and performance in job related concerns.” (Translated by pmsp)

Thus, the main theme within coaching is “performance”. Central topics within coaching are perception, behavior, communication, as well as solution patterns of the coachee. Coaching aims for increasing the personal performance, or at least to preserve it (which becomes relevant sometimes in crisis situations).

It is exactly the performance aspect, which makes coaching relevant for enterprises. Therefore more and more coaching is embedded in human delvelopment strategies of companies: As a sponsor, the company allows selected personnel to get support from a professional coach, in order to prepare them for their tasks in an optimal manner.

For the executive as well as for the manager, who mostly stands quite alone in a prominent position, coaching is valuable in various situations:

•	as feedback on the personal positioning (SWOT Analysis: finding out about personal strenghts and weaknesses in the job environment)
•	to increase efficiency and work satisfaction
•	to optimize the own behavior towards supervisors, colleagues, staff, clients and others
•	as a decision making support for carreer planing (carreer choice, job change, self-employment)
•	as a preparation for application situations
•	handling issues with a private or personal background that impact the job situation, as well as vice versa, job situations, that impact the privat spheres
•	to cope with stress and burn-outs
•	to cope with conflicts at the job.

For groups coaching may be valuable with regards to the following issues:

•	Cooperative vs. competitive work styles in groups
•	conflict management in groups or between groups
•	to increase efficiency and work satisfaction in groups
•	to cope with psychological problems of group work processes in times of organizational change.