Coaching Skills Training with Self Factor Coaching

Who uses our trainings?

• People interested in working professionally as a coach.
- our trainings are aligned with the requirements of international accreditation
• Leaders, managers, counsellors, social workers, teachers and others wanting to use a 'coaching approach' in their current role.
• Organisations wanting a 'strength based' follow up to Appreciative Inquiry or similar organisational development
- we also have executive coaches who are trained in Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space and World Cafe

At this page we give our overview of coach training at the present time, the benefits of working with ourselves
and some reflections on what you may want to consider in choosing a training provider.

You can find out more about the structure and content of our modules here.

Benefits of our Trainings-

You get to:

• Enhance your skills in your current role so as to be:
      - More effective and fulfilled
      - Ahead in the market
• Or start a new meaningful and rewarding profession as a coach
• Enhance your communication skills in all areas – both professional and personal
• Support your clients, team or organisation in being more empowered and more effective by:
     - Drawing out the best in them
     - Focusing on their strengths and vision
     - Finding and following through with their own best way forward
     - Working with
             WHAT they will do
             HOW they will do it and
             WHO they will need to be to succeed
• Acquire some of the best coaching models in the field
• Be part of a strong, vibrant and supportive peer group

An important additional bonus is that you will be with a like minded group in a safe environment and immersed in a culture of empowered possibility. In the many practice sessions, you will be able to focus on your own issues, challenges and opportunities and gain awareness and insight – as well as taking significant leaps forward. Read feedback from previous participants here.

You get training that is:

• Proficiency and practice based
• Aligned with the portfolio accreditation requirements of
      - The International Coach Federation and
      - The Association for Coaching
• Very affordable AND highest quality
• Modular format with later modules consolidating and building on earlier ones:
      - Core Coaching Skills*
      - Coaching for Results*
      - Coaching the Self Factor*
• Has follow through and support in between modules
• Supports you in identifying coaching niches and developing a practice
• Lead by trainers who are highly experienced, trained and accredited coaches
• Complementary to an ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ approach to organisational development

*The modules may be taken singly or as part of a series that together provide more than 60 hours of coach specific training, as defined by the International Coach Federation.

Find out more about the structure and content of the individual modules here.

To understand why we believe the benefits of our coach training to be outstanding, for both value and quality, you may want to consider some of the following points.

Why do coach training?

It is in demand
There is a huge demand for coaching from both organisations and individuals.

And it is growing
This comes from the increasing realisation and acceptance that when people are coached and empowered, rather than told and policed, then there is much greater ownership and effectiveness.

In organisations
That demand is continuing to grow and shows no signs of slacking off. Nearly all large companies and organisations employ or contract in professional coaches. In addition, many are introducing a ‘coaching culture’ where managers are trained and expected to coach and empower their people rather than simply telling them what to do. If you have coach training as part of your C.V. then it puts you ahead in the job market. Many smaller companies and organisations are learning from this trend and bringing in coaches or developing coaching skills amongst their own staff.

And for individuals
Individuals, who are already doing okay, are turning to coaching for the support to take their careers and life to the next level. They realise that having the support and expertise of a professional coach empowers them to do more and to be more effective than they can be on their own. In addition, a growing number of people are realising that they have achieved traditional success at too great a cost to their personal lives and well-being. Many are now using the support of a coach to create lives where they can be authentic and happy as well as successful – to go beyond success to fulfilment.

Who takes coach training?

Anyone who wants to be more effective in working with, supporting and influencing others will benefit hugely from training in coaching skills. This includes leaders, managers, social workers, teachers, counselors etc. In addition, coaching can be a highly rewarding profession for those who choose to specialise in it.

How important is proper training?

The current situation
Currently anyone can call themselves ‘a coach’. There are a lot of ‘coaches’ cashing in on the current trend without any training or real coaching skills. They simply do whatever they have already been doing and call it coaching.

Includes
This includes consultants and mentors who simply tell you what they have done or would do – without being able to support you in drawing on your own skills and experience and developing your own approach and style. It even includes ‘coach trainers’ who have had no training themselves and who put together some kind of mishmash of whatever skills and interventions they have picked up or read about. This is not to say that some of these ‘coaches’ and ‘coach trainers’ do not give some value or have nothing to offer from their own experience. But, for most, their offering could be much greater if they were trained and grounded in real coaching skills and could support you in finding a way that really fits and works for you.

And the market is changing
The market place is becoming more discerning and looking for evidence of proper training and/or accreditation. This trend will almost certainly increase. There is also a possibility that, as with many commercial and helping professions, legislation will be brought in at some future point requiring coaches to belong to a recognised professional body and to have training recognised by the profession.

Clients are becoming more discerning
As more coaches appear on the scene clients are becoming more discerning in who they approach and work with. The same is true for internal coaches. Their client’s expect them to have been properly trained and to have the right skill set.

Market yourself confidently
Knowing that you are well trained and practiced in a reliable and tested skill set makes it much easier to market yourself confidently – whether as a professional coach or in using coaching to support your existing professional or organisational role.

So what is coaching and what are the skills?

The essence of coaching
Coaching is about consistently empowering someone in their life and work. The root meaning of being empowered has two components:
• Being your own authority choosing what is right for you, and
• Being enabled to achieve whatever you choose to do.

Many traditional prescriptive approaches are hierarchical and rely on somebody else telling you what to do – which undermines your personal authority, limits your development and effectiveness and is of limited long term use.

Coaching according to the International Coach Federation (ICF)
In contrast, one of the leading independent coaching bodies, the International Coach Federation (ICF), promotes a form of coaching that honors the client as the expert in his/her life and work and believes that every client is creative, resourceful, and whole.

Standing on this foundation, the coach's responsibility is to:

      • Discover, clarify, and align with what the client wants to achieve
      • Encourage client self-discovery
      • Elicit client-generated solutions and strategies
      • Hold the client responsible and accountable

The skill set
Coaching in this collaborative way requires a distinct skill set including:
      • Co-creating agreements and partnering with the client
      • Being fully present and establishing trust with the client
      • Eliciting, clarifying and working with the client’s agenda
      • Exceptional listening and questioning skills
      • Direct communication
      • Facilitating learning and results.

The Association for Coaching, another independent coaching body, has a similar perspective on coaching and the necessary skill set as the ICF.

You can get an overview of some of the areas that coaches work with clients here.

Accreditation

If you are looking to become accredited as a coach then there are a few things to bear in mind.

Who is offering the accreditation and are they independent?
Many trainings, including our own, offer their own certificates. For many situations and clients this will be sufficient. If you want to go further though, and to join a professional coaching body and to get appropriate professional insurance, then you may want to be accredited by an independent body.

There are a number of quasi-independent organisations associated with particular trainings. It is better to look for accrediting bodies that are both truly independent and widely recognised.

Is the accreditation practice/proficiency based or is it study/academic based?
Amongst the accreditations offered by recognised professional bodies are two distinct types.

The first created by the coaching profession themselves, and based on a lot of shared practical experience, are primarily focused on practice and proficiency in an agreed skill set. The most widely recognised internationally, and possibly the most rigorous of these, is offered by the International Coach Federation with whom I hold their highest credential, Master Certified Coach (MCC). In the UK and Europe, The Association for Coaching (AC)and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) have each also created their own accreditation systems.

The second kind of accreditation is more study based and may be endorsed by a university or college of some kind. The draw back with some of these schemes is that they are academic based and, while they measure your theoretical understanding of coaching, require much less actual practice and evidence of proficiency in the field. There is a lot of variation, though, and they need to be looked at on an individual basis.

Different types of training

If you explore the different types of training being offered then you will find some that are just a mishmash of whatever the trainer calls coaching and that the trainers themselves may have no recognised professional coach training.

Other more reputable trainings, particularly those that can lead to some form of independent accreditation, will be primarily practice/proficiency based or academic/study based.

Practice/Proficiency based trainings
As with our own trainings, the theory presented is relevant, sufficient and necessary for the practice of coaching – and it is the practice and demonstration of effective and empowering coaching skills that is mainly emphasised and developed. Coaching is an art more than a science and our belief is that you do need to acquire relevant, tested and effective coaching models and paradigms – but the greater emphasis is on practising them in a controlled setting that will prepare you for the real thing.

Study/Academic based trainings
As with the accreditations described above, the academic influence can often lead to what in our view is an over emphasis on theory and study and this often goes with limited ‘live’ training. Not all university linked trainings fall in this camp – but if you are seriously considering a particular training then you may want to check how much of it is study or theory based and how much is concerned with proficiency and actual practice.

Why our training?

Having read the above, you may now see why we regard the benefits we offer so highly. Namely:

You get training that is:

• Proficiency and practice based
• Aligned with the portfolio accreditation requirements of
      - The International Coach Federation and
      - The Association for Coaching
• Very affordable AND highest quality
• Modular format with later modules consolidating and building on earlier ones:
      - Core Coaching Skills*
      - Coaching for Results*
      - Coaching the Self Factor*
• Has follow through and support in between modules
• Supports you in identifying coaching niches and developing a practice
• Lead by trainers who are highly experienced, trained and accredited coaches
• Complementary to an ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ approach to organisational development

*The modules may be taken singly or as part of a series that together provide more than 60 hours of coach specific training, as defined by the International Coach Federation.

Find out more about the structure and content of the individual modules here.

You get to:

• Enhance your skills in your current role so as to be:
      - More effective and fulfilled
      - Ahead in the market
• Or start a new meaningful and financially rewarding profession as a coach
• Enhance your communication skills in all areas – both professional and personal
• Support your ‘clients’ in being more empowered and more effective by:
     - Drawing out the best in them
     - Focusing on their strengths and vision
     - Finding and following through with their own best way forward
     - Working with
             WHAT they will do
             HOW they will do it and
             WHO they will need to be to succeed
• Acquire some of the best coaching models in the field
• Be part of a strong, vibrant and supportive peer group