As hot debate continues to rage over the thorny issue of what actually comes under the umbrella of "coaching" and what falls outside its remit, it's time to start being honest with ourselves...

But before we do, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that it's only coaches who actually care about the semantics! Our clients, in the main, couldn't give a damn - they just know that they want someone to help them move from where they are to where they want to be!

Business development guru Peter Thomson neatly summed up the difference between what people think they want, and what they actually want when he once pointed out that "When someone buys a drill, it's not a drill they really want. What they really want is a hole!"

And I guess it's the same with coaching. Clients aren't actually that bothered over whether the right coaching questions are asked - or even whether they're asked in the right order - all they really want is a mechanism that helps them achieve their goals.

Some - but not all - coaches pride themselves on the fact that they allow their clients to come up with all the answers. The idea is that the coach simply asks good questions and the client searches within himself for those responses that will help him best.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for using intuition and inner creativity, but for my money, this approach is simply abdicating the coach from any responsibility! It would, however, explain why there are so many people on the scene who - having completed a single weekend's coaching course - now sport business cards boasting that they too are bona fide members of the coaching fraternity...

Your client needs more than a list of questions...

If coaching were only about asking "the right questions and letting the client come up with all the answers", then a robot could do the job!

Within the industry, we encourage clients to feel comfortable with the coach they choose. While part of the comfort factor comes from a sense of rapport and knowing that the coach is there to act as a "personal conscience" (reminding the coachee of their personal objectives and commitments), knowing that the coach has at least a smattering of understanding about the challenges facing them is also of high importance to the client.

Surely, the point is to bring to your clients the wealth of expertise you have - and by applying previous experience (and of course encouraging your client to do the same) to the current situation, the learning & development process for your client is streamlined. It's this level of expertise that corporate clients expect - and pay for!

To those coaches who would argue that this approach is actually better described as "consultancy", I would simply say "nonsense"! When you're brought into an organisation as a consultant, you're there to do the work itself, or to bring specific advice to a particular project. When you're brought into an organisation as a coach, you're there to work with the people who are there to do the work. It's an important distinction.

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