siliconindia | | April 20209commonly associated with sports. This is a positive association. Thanks to intensive coverage of sports on electronic media, even a layperson understands that ­ coaching helps improve performance; sports bodies go to great lengths to find & hire a coach who helps teams perform; and even the best and the brightest of performers use coaches. It is not only the weak performers who use coaching. A coach helps in maintaining and improving performance for the entire team. Coaches need not always be better performers than their wards. However, they should have had the experience of performing reasonably well in the kind of role their ward is playing. Outstanding performers do not necessarily have the ability to coach others. They can be inspirations and role models, but may not be able to help others in specific ways to become better performers. Coaches are usually specialists. To take an example from Indian cricket, the team has separate coaches for bowling, fielding and batting. Coaches work with one person or a limited number of people working towards a common goal. Coaches work for an extended period with their wards to deliver results. This is not a quick process, but a long-time relationship. Champions hang-on to their coaches.All the above requirements hold for coaches in the business workplace as well. However, several misconceptions prevail amongst managers at the workplace. Many believe that weak performers need coaching more than good performers. This is not true. Weak performers may often need more of counselling, training, supervision and role change. Coaching is in fact an investment in someone who has the potential to do much more than he/she is currently doing. Coaching for higher performance is ideally for people in the C-suite or those being groomed for the C-suite. The coaching process can be expensive and it may make better sense to invest that money in someone who will have a large impact over all or most of the organization. Coaching is also useful for all those employees who have potential to do more and are being held back because of some specific behavioural issues.While most leaders agree that coaching can help people realize their potential, it is not a widespread practice. There are several reasons for this. Coaching ability is an expensive Mita Brahma
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