It’s increasingly true that companies are no longer successful because they have the best equipment or technology – they are successful because they have the best people.  On top of their high technical competence, companies need people with high emotional intelligence, flexibility, intuition and who can develop quality relationships.  So, the question arises, “how do you develop your people, so they are the best?”

This is where high performance coaching comes in!

Tony Grant PhD who established and for many years was the Director of the Coaching Psychology Unit at the Department of Psychology at Sydney Uni has this definition of coaching:

“Coaching is a solution-focused, results-orientated systematic process in which the coach facilitates the enhancement of performance, self-directed learning and personal growth of the individual”.

A skilled coach (and Wayne has been coaching for 30 years) keeps you true to yourself, keeps you focused, stands alongside you, checks your progress and helps you improve your performance.  In the ongoing relationship as your coach, Wayne will help you create fulfilling results in your professional and personal life.

• Coaching moves you from awareness to responsibility to action and results!
• Coaching focuses on future possibilities, not past mistakes
• Having said the above, problems must be resolved at the level beneath the one at which they occur.  Sometimes past mistakes need to be assessed to learn whatever lessons the mistake can teach
• A skilful and experienced Coach:

• Helps the client develop their own solutions and possible changes 
• Acts as a mirror to reflect to the client what they see to help facilitate greater insight
• Helps build awareness, responsibility and self-belief 
• Helps the client recognise that ideas and behaviour have consequences
• Helps build better interpersonal and leadership skills

• There are two types of obstacles people face – internal and external.  A skilful Coach helps the “coachee” recognise which is which.  Internal obstacles are often more daunting than external ones.

Every elite athlete has a coach.  Someone to give feedback, inspire, encourage and challenge the athlete to go beyond their limitations and perform at their best.  

Instead of running faster, jumping higher or scoring more goals, a high performance coach will help you:

• Set achievable goals
• Achieve a better work/life balance
• Improve leadership skills
• Develop your communication skills
• Deal with conflict more effectively
• Build better relationships
• Cope with pressure and stress
• Be more effective

What high performance coaching is not!

Coaching is not therapy.  Coaching is less about unravelling problems and issues from your past.  It is more forward focused and is more about building solutions and improving performance.

Coaching is not mentoring.  A mentor usually an experienced expert in a specific field who helps less experienced practitioners in that field.  Coaching is about facilitating self-directed learning and development.  The coach does not necessarily have experience in the same field as the “coachee”.

Coaching is not consulting.  Consultants tend to be experts in the field.  Coaches are experts in facilitating learning and goal achievement.  Consultants are usually paid to come up with a solution.  A coach helps you find your own solution.   Consultants tell – coaches ask the right questions.

Coaching is solution focused.  A few underlying tenets of coaching include:

• There is always a better way
• People are resourceful
• There are no failures – just feedback
• Start with small changes