September 2009
A New Alliance
Business coaching professionals form new alliance to deliver coaching excellence
September 20, 2009-- PCA Head Office
The Professional Coaching Alliance (PCA) has been established to offer businesses a benchmark of excellence in the field of coaching. It offers access to highly qualified, passionate and ethical professionals in a rapidly growing and as yet unregulated market.
You may have noticed the number of business coaches offering to improve the performance of your company and its key employees.
Coaching has been proven to deliver startling results and is recommended by august bodies like the CIPD and the IOD.
Many consultants, business advisors and senior managers have, as a result, decided that coaching is the brand through which they should offer their own services.
Some of the founder members of the PCA explained why this was not a good omen for an important and developing business support service.
Leigh Dorling started by giving an anology "Coaching without training is like asking a pilot to fly a jet plane on their first day in the job."
"You could also say that coaching without experience is like driving an articulated lorry through a city centre with a blindfold on." added John Collins
John Brayford agreed but also wanted to highlight that not everyone has the emotional characteristics needed for coaching. "Coaching without empathy and a calling to work with people with no sense of self is like asking a thief to mind a jewelry shop."
Process is also important suggested Andy Willmore. "Coaching without the tools, methodologies and understanding of how to apply these effectively is like handing a child a fully loaded, cocked automatic rifle with the safety catch off."
It does not even stop there. Myles Mayne pointed out that a coach who relies on his or her past achievements, paper qualifications, a library full of business books and a cabinet full of coaching tools will soon lose touch and become stale. "When looking for a coach you want to look for someone who continually strives for excellence through a programme of self development."
PCA coaches each have over twenty years of senior commercial or public service experience, they have all trained at the Adler Institute based in Toronto Canada, a centre of excellence in psychology and the training of professional coaches.
As a group they have developed new and innovative intellectual capital covering such topics as coaching for leadership and sales excellence. Based on extensive personal practical experience of leadership in industry, commerce, professional services and the military. Sales programmes used by the group include Miller Heimann and Spin.
Coaching is all about people and behaviours and to underpin the work they do all PCA coaches are certified trainers in behavioural profiling.