Business coaching provides guidance, support, and expertise to entrepreneurs and business leaders, helping them achieve their goals, maximize their potential, and navigate challenges effectively. Often helping to deal with issues and challenges before the become major problems.

Business Coaching includes different types of coaching. It has elements of Life Coaching, Executive Coaching and pure Business Coaching. A Business Coach can be a Life Coach but not many Life Coaches can be Business Coaches.

LIFE COACHING

What does a life coach do?

A life coach helps you confront and understand conditions in your personal life that obstruct your growth towards your full potential. The coach gives you tools to change negatives into positives and act on opportunities you may not have identified.

Life coaching is not therapy,  a life coach does not probe into your past to try to explain your feelings and beliefs. A life coach is future-orientated and geared towards identifying actions that will take you where you want to be.

Who needs coaching?

Quite frankly, everybody can benefit from coaching. It provides a safe, non-threatening opportunity to access within yourself the necessary resources and solutions to create a successful future.

Clients may vary from regular people to very successful, from general workers to top executives.

All people desire to develop themselves and lead a quality life but do not always have the insight and objectivity to arrive at the solutions.

A life coach typically deals with issues such as life and career planning, motivation, self-esteem, relationships, productivity, delegation, conflict handling, leadership skills, time management, communication skills, assertiveness, problem-solving, procrastination, lack of fulfilment, fears, and many others.

The coaching process

Coaching sessions are private one-on-one meetings. Professional integrity and complete confidentiality are maintained throughout.

A first introductory “scoping” interview takes place, followed by ten to twelve sessions of 60 – 90 minutes each.

During the initial sessions, the coach asks questions that help you gain insight into your values, beliefs and life and career goals. The coach will listen with empathy and does not judge what you say or don’t say.

The coach will then help you to formulate clear and inspiring goals and guide you towards defining strategies and actions for accomplishing your goals.

In subsequent sessions, your coach will expect you to be an active partner in the process. You will have to do work in between sessions and give feedback to the coach. Most of the growth and results happen between sessions. Your coach regularly evaluates the progress that is being made and there will be a reporting or measurement process set up between the two of you.

After completion of the coaching process, maintenance meetings once a month are optional.

EXECUTIVE COACHING

What is executive coaching?

Executive coaching is leadership and performance coaching. Through empowering interactions with your coach and the mastering of strategic tools you work towards:

  • practical, transformational leadership
  • establishing a team culture of excellent performance
  • effective micro and macro management
  • self-reliance and independent decision making
  • finding, producing and implementing solutions applicable to your role in the company
  • experiencing a sense of fulfilment.

Perhaps

  • you are a master in your field, have just been promoted to the executive level and are unsure about the leadership challenges involved, or
  • you are a seasoned executive finding it lonely at the top; you need a competent, objective sounding board to help clarify vital problems and challenges and reach prudent solutions.
  • Perhaps you don’t know how to defuse a conflict situation at work, or
  • you feel the pressure of balancing your work and personal life and feel overwhelmed by your lack of time.

Executive Coaching will help you surmount your vulnerabilities and utilize your strengths in devising a plan of action.

The executive coaching process

After the first scoping interview, the coaching process typically involves weekly one-on-one sessions of 60 – 90 minutes over 3 – 6 months. Flexible, depending on each client’s situation.

The coaching programme is designed around individual needs, challenges and desires. It enables experiential learning and shifts in insight into problems and solutions.

Coaching takes place in a private and supportive environment where you can share your concerns. During coaching sessions you can expect to:

  • answer guiding questions by the coach
  • explore embedded past assumptions
  • redefine values and goals
  • do a gap analysis – comparing actual and potential performance
  • produce solutions at both personal and company levels
  • obtain strategic tools for managing the necessary change towards growth.

Tools and strategies will be developed during coaching to forge new pathways to bring about sustainable and lasting results.

BUSINESS COACHING

What is business coaching?

The first goal of business coaching is to enable the client to analyse its present situation and unlock future possibilities.

Business coaching can consider systems, processes, individual performance, strategies, company vision, competition, and any issues that may affect the company’s operations or performance.

Business coaching can be focused on an individual, a department, an employee and the whole company.

It is an effective process that enhances entrepreneurial, managerial and business skills, develops business performance and brings about exceptional success results.

When being coached the client does not surrender their responsibility and role in the business to the coach but is guided through a proven process to determine what steps and actions are indispensable to take the business to the next level.

The business coaching process

The first contact with the client entails a two-hour assessment interview during which the coach looks at key performance indicators and establishes the particular needs of the business or organisation.

This may be followed by interviews with superiors, colleagues and subordinates.

The coach and client then meet for feedback and planning sessions to ascertain the critical components that will be addressed during coaching.

After these initial meetings, the coaching process typically takes place over 6 – 8 weekly sessions of 90 minutes each, followed by 3 – 5 sessions every two weeks of 60 minutes each.

The duration and frequency of sessions may vary according to the progress that is being made.

Expected outcomes

Coaching is all about results!

At the end of the process, a client can expect to be able to set and achieve realistic yet inspiring goals, have improved motivation levels, manage time effectively, reduce stress, be more focused and self-sufficient, have new leadership skills, practise high-performance behaviour, build an efficient and motivated team, increase productivity, manage change, prepare for advancement and achieve a good work-life balance.

Since GBCCS’s coaching has a  practical focus, at the end of the coaching intervention the client will have a clear business model and a written business strategy that they can refer to as often as necessary, thus maintaining the positive results of the coaching process.