As you know, we ran an ‘ask campaign’ inviting leading coaches to post their one BIG question about business coaching. We were blown away with the results…nearly 60 questions came pouring in, and we have analyzed and categorized them in order to be able to present them to you here, as well as on today’s Big Question Seminar. Rather than simply load all 50+ questions into one blog post, we have divided them up by category, and each category of similarly-typed questions will be posted together on one blog post. For simplicity’s sake, we have only posted the questions without the authors’ commentary. Your thoughts and reactions are invited! Let’s get some dialogue going on these in the comment box below!
Part 1: Positioning
1. Is the term “business coaching” too broad? How can we break down and define meaningful fields of coaching that have to do with social and organizational aspects beyond life coaching?
2. In the natural contraction of business, should coaching be considered a luxury, or is coaching crucial aide to helping companies out of a slump? Do we, as sellers of the service, need to know when a company should appropriately cut coaching and when they should add it?
3. When during a recession does an organization really need coaching?
4. Does executive coaching have much of a future as more and more folks get into it and it becomes more and more of a commodity?
5. Do I really want to coach clients if I am not working inside their culture and connected with strategic issues?
6. How do you tell a coach from a charlatan, teacher, guru, priest, shrink, partner, friend when you really need one?
7. How do we keep the term “executive coaching” from being expanded to the point of meaningless in the marketplace?
8. How to educate buyers on the difference of executive coaching from therapy, managing and consulting?
9. How do we turn around the market perception that coaches fix people?
10. If nearly everyone in any advisory capacity calls themselves a coach today, what value is there to calling yourself a coach?
11. What is the difference between coaching and mentoring?
12. Business is going through a transformation and will not be as it was after this recession is over. How do we reposition ourselves to meet hte needs of a “different” marketplace? What adjustments do we need to make for future success?
(If this is your first time visiting the Leading Coaches’ Center, Welcome! We’d love to have you join us!)