FAQs
What is coaching?
Do you guarantee coaching will work?
Why should I bring coaching into my
organization rather than other methods of
developing people?
How do I know coaching is what I
need?
There are a lot of coaching groups
out there? Why use you?
How
much does it cost?
You have a number of coaches. Who
will be my coach?
How
do I know whether I should take Edgework
Initiation, Experience or Excellence?
How do the peer learning groups work
in Edgework Excellence?
What is coaching?
To adapt a
definition from the International Coach Federation,
Professional Coaching is a partnership that helps
clients achieve clear results for themselves and
their organizations. As a result of coaching,
clients set better goals, take more action, make
better decisions, and more fully use their natural
strengths.
Coaching is not therapy or counselling. A
coach will focus on the present and the future as opposed to the
past. A coaching client is not broken or in crisis or in need of
being fixed. Our clients want to achieve at higher levels for
themselves and their organizations.
Do
you guarantee coaching
will work? or How Do I Know Coaching Will Work?
At the heart of coaching is
the honest partnership between coach and client. A
key variable in the partnership is the client’s
engagement with the coaching process and their
willingness to turn insight into action. The other
requirement is the collaborative development of clear
outcomes that the client is seeking to achieve from
the partnership. With those in place, coaching is set
up for success. Without these, nothing is guaranteed.
Why should I bring
coaching into my organization rather than other
methods of developing people?
The success of an
organization depends on the capabilities of its
people. Coaching addresses an individual’s
unique capabilities and vulnerabilities in a way that
solutions targeted at larger audiences cannot do.
This does not mean other methods don’t have a
place in increasing organizational and team
effectiveness, only that coaching is the most
effective way of transforming individual performance.
How do I know coaching
is right for me or for my organization?
For individuals there is no
issue, challenge, or goal that a coaching partnership
couldn’t help you address. This is not, by the
way, over-promising; it is simply that coaching helps
people move into action, in new ways, with clarity.
If that’s what you want, coaching is
appropriate.
Because there are various ways organizations can use
coaching—from fostering executive development to
impacting culture to addressing performance
issues—the key requirement is for organizations
to understand what they want from coaching and why.
Once the organization commits to the impact it wants
coaching to have, coaching can be put in place to
support the organization’s outcomes.
There are a lot
of coaching groups out there? Why use you?
There are lots of things we
think differentiate us. We take seriously our
commitment to insuring a match between coach and
client. Our backgrounds in organization development
means we trust our ability not only to understand the
dynamics of your organization but to be able to
engage relevant parts of it when appropriate. We also
work at whatever level is right for the
client’s--and organization’s--goals,
whether its supporting transformative insight about
their motivations and behaviors, or increasing their
ability to quickly find files on their hard drive.
Our years in learning design also allow us to create
compelling programs to make coaching an in-house
capacity. It is not any one of these things, but each
of them working together that defines our unique
capabilities.
How much does it
cost?
We do not design our coaching
on a “one size fits all” framework. In each
partnership different components of coaching are
utilized. When you begin to enter into coaching with
us and we understand your unique situation, we will
be able to work together to price our coaching
services for you. We do make an effort to be aware of
whether an organization we are working with is from
the profit or non-profit sector.
You have a number
of coaches. Who will be my coach?
We pride ourselves
on assuring a match between coach and client. When we
talk with you initially in our entry process, we will
learn your situation, make a collective judgment as
to whom is the most appropriate coach, at which point
the coach will then contact you to design your
coaching partnership with you.
How do I know
whether I should take Edgework
Initiation, Experience or Excellence?
It is about depth
and duration. Initiation is only for working on a
single focused issue or challenge. Experience and
Excellence develop one’s overall capability,
rather than a single focus. If you’re unsure,
talk to us; it generally sorts itself out quickly.
How
do the peer learning
groups work in Edgework Excellence?
We create a conference call,
typically once a quarter, for executives working with
similar challenges. There’s a specific protocol
we follow within the hour time frame that supports
learning from one another.
