This blog is intended for coaches and trainee coaches looking to deepen their capability and confidence in coaching.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
Coaching is a quickly evolving field with a bewildering array of approaches. Coach training schools are the ‘driving schools’ of coaching, preparing coaches for credentials but often with little depth in the philosophy of coaching overall. Academic institutions teach theories and survey the field- but often with little practice.
It can be difficult to reconcile what we learn from different types of training - not to mention all the books, podcasts and videos offering emerging or specialist coaching.
For coaches, it’s hard to know what to learn and more importantly, as we add to our toolkits, how to keep our clients’ needs in focus.
WHAT ARE SOME USEFUL DISTINCTIONS?
Supporting a client to effect something in the outside world eg delivering a project on time and on budget could be termed the Outer Track of coaching. This is often the province of managers tasked with goal-based performance coaching.
There is also an Inner Track of coaching, in which the client is transforming something about themselves eg becoming a more confident communicator.
This is often the province of professional coaches and is called developmental coaching
Rather than seeing this as an “either/or”, how do we reconcile tools and approaches that allow us to address both Inner AND Outer Tracks effectively?