Business Coaching delivers results. When examining the relevance of business coaching or a specific business coach to your organisation, it is important to know what characteristics to look for. Great business coaching - the sort that helps you, your business, and your team achieve great business results, will excel in four areas.

Business

Business coaches need to understand and love business. Experience in running or managing successful businesses will ensure a coach appreciates the day-to-day factors that impact decisions, while addressing the bigger picture. Loving business means they will continue to focus on the business, its vision and its strategy.

This focus on business means that through all the different coaching forms – from whole of business strategy to specific projects, sales coaching or executive coaching – the business’ agenda is paramount.

A great coach will support the specific needs of key individuals within an organisation, and respect any confidentiality. However, they won’t push the individual’s agenda into situations that conflict with the business’ needs.

Coaching

Coaching separates itself from other forms of business support through its focus on transferring sustainable business capability. While other forms – like consulting, training and facilitation – serve specific purposes, only coaching supports individuals and businesses to understand an issue from awareness through to practical and lasting change.

Successful coaching achieves these sustainable outcomes by providing practical support and experience-based coaching sessions, tailored to a personal client agenda. Above all, coaching delivers the context and perspective that allows business owners and company executives to make better decisions, and take responsibility themselves for greater results.

Frameworks

Coaching is about more than just the coach, and their experience. Sustainable coaching, and the successful transfer of capability, can only be achieved by using business frameworks that define an area of concern and reliably work to address it.

A framework is a business tool, usually a diagram with supporting documentation, which rapidly explains options and promotes discussion within a company. It will demonstrate different choices and outcomes, while also helping align a business or a partnership to a common purpose. A consistent coaching organisation will use multiple frameworks which can be replicated, educating individuals within a business on how to apply that framework independently for results over time.

Importantly, frameworks are best tailored to the various areas of a business. Much like many different tools are required when constructing a house, so too different frameworks are required when building a business – the same tools won’t necessarily achieve similar successes when applied to areas as varied as Marketing, Sales, Succession or Productivity.

Team

The final key to great coaching is leveraging the skills of multiple coaches to support the client. Many ‘business coaches’ operate as sole operators or franchisees, restricting their ongoing guidance to their own experience.

Team coaching has multiple client benefits. A business can choose a coach with specific project experience. They can match personalities, with the owner, key executives or staff members. The team connection also provides trust and confidence, knowing your coach continues to learn from and discuss strategy with their local team, and through their personal, ongoing connection with their own business nationally and globally.

"I have found the Shirlaws method and approach invaluable. While you address the personal blockages, I found the business focus from both of my coaches kept me on track enabling me to continue to build our operation."

- Jill Keyte, Managing Director, High as a Keyte Event Management

Contact Shirlaws today to meet the right coach for your business.