Part 2: What is Coaching, anyway?

Now that you have a sense of the relevant history, this second piece in our series explores (1) what coaching is all about and (2) who is a Coach and what role training plays in their effectiveness.

What is Coaching all about? Is it more than cheering people on?

Coaching is a person-centered, collaborative partnership between coach and client. This means that it’s focused on the person receiving coaching: who they are, what their hopes, goals, and challenges are, and how that relates to who they want to be. Evidence-Based Coaching uses the knowledge of motivation and the theories & models of behavior change to promote insight, growth, and meaningful change for each client. How? By focusing on developing rapport, using evidence-based theories, and collaborative problem-solving techniques.

Coaching focuses on accepting and improving the present and navigating towards a preferred future state. The coaching process sets people up for long-term success by facilitating the establishment and/or optimization of healthy behaviors through increasing a person’s sense of empowerment, self-confidence, self-efficacy, and resilience. According to The National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching (NBHWC):

Health & wellness coaches partner with clients seeking to enhance their well-being through self-directed, lasting changes, aligned with their values. In the course of their work, health & wellness coaches display an unconditional positive regard for their clients and a belief in their capacity for change, honoring the fact that each client is an expert on their own life, while ensuring that all interactions are respectful and non-judgmental.

Coaching can be performed in many contexts and is regularly used with people who hope to prevent or manage chronic physical and mental health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, stress, anxiety, and depression. These health concerns are all influenced by genetic, environmental, and behavioral factors. Health and well-being Coaches understand the physiological, behavioral, and psychological elements that influence these experiences. The Coach partners with their client to explore how creating new thinking patterns and habits in areas such as nutrition, physical activity, sleep, emotional awareness, mindset, and resilience can help the client live a more meaningful and healthy life.

Coaching’s effectiveness is due, in large part, to clients becoming engaged in the process of evaluating and adopting new perspectives and behaviors. This is an individualized and subjective process that happens over time and is rarely linear. Sometimes clients come to Coaching with a focus area in mind and, other times, they come at the recommendation of a healthcare provider, friend, or family member with a predetermined area of focus. Sometimes they are hungry for a desired outcome and sometimes they have symptoms they want to better manage.

Regardless of what brings a client in, Coaches use the Coaching Process, a framework that resembles the design thinking cycle: the coach and client ideate, test, and iterate on their strategy to make headway towards a related goal.

Education alone is not enough to change behavior. Think about it: you know what ‘eating healthy’ and exercising looks like, but that doesn’t mean you do it. People, for the most part, know that minimizing sugar intake, practicing safe sex, wearing sunscreen, and getting a good night’s sleep are the right health-promoting behaviors, yet they still don’t do them!

The scientific evidence is clear: simply telling people to eat better and exercise more is not enough. People are much more successful when they understand how these behaviors aid them in their life, have the motivation and accountability necessary to succeed, and they know how to be successful. Coaches help with the how. And they do so in a way that doesn’t inflict guilt or shame on people. Coaches are all about helping people think through and identify what they could be doing versus telling them what they should be doing. People who change their behaviors for their own reasons, with some intrinsic motivation, and on their own terms, are much more likely to be successful.

As physician and Coach Amitha Kalaichandran, M.D. says, “Coaching gets to the heart of what providing good health care is about: acceptance, partnership, compassion, and helping patients feel respected and understood.”

So who are Coaches and what are their superpowers?

Not all Coaches receive the same training or develop the same philosophy. As the field’s popularity grew in the last decade, various training programs developed ranging in quality of instruction, accreditation, duration, supervision, and cost. So, naturally, coach quality varies. Here’s what makes a great Coach:

1. Respect for the client within the coach:client relationship. Coaches know that meaningful discovery and sustainable change come through a strong coach:client relationship; one that creates a safe space to explore, learn, experiment, and try again when things do not go as planned.
2. They use the Coaching process to organize the coaching experience. The coaching process provides both structure and flexibility. It leverages evidence-based theories and tools while also creating space for the richness of personal discovery and goal-setting to ultimately achieve sustainable change.
3. The Coaching experience remains open, non-judgemental, generative, and flexible. Discovering and strategizing how to make progress towards the client’s vision is the Coach’s agenda.

So what does coaching look like today in the healthcare and health-tech worlds? Read the next piece in our series to see a market map of the space and understand the driving factors for organizations to lean on coaching in their care models.