Personal Coach and Organisation Coach

This article relates to the author's experience and insights gained acting as personal coach. It is hoped that this sharing can benefit the regular readers of this homepage.

The concept of Personal Coach

In ancient China, it was common for people to look for a personal coach, called "shi-fu", or "the wise man". The pursuit for knowledge, skills and techniques was great. There could be a variety of reasons for such quest: for example, to acquire some basic skills for survival reasons, to seek knowledge in order to enrich the life or making it more meaningful, or to learn some techniques so as to conquer another province or over-throw a dynasty, etc. There were many stories of eager students taking great pain and difficulties and years in search for such a personal coach or "shi-fu".

In modern time, due to its more sophisticated and complex life, the concept of personal coach is much more diluted, or takes different form and shape. There is less personal coaching but more mass "coaching" by educational system, institutions, specialists, consultants, ... also for the pursuit of knowledge, skills and techniques for whatever may be the reasons. (Note: It is later found that, from Internet search, there is a growing number of coach communities in other parts of the world, not that of this writer's )

Understanding of Personal Coach and the need of it

Personal Coaching is unique and should be differentiated from other form of learning. Being "personal" in coaching process, it involves a relationship between the coach and the recipients / students. Such relationship invariably touches the outlook of life or philosophy of being for both parties. Consciously or unconsciously there is mutual influence to each other in the process of coaching. A good example is the personal coaching in the field of sports, arts or music. In the case of mass coaching, there is less of such opportunity.

Some have realised that in this world of specialisation, the need for personal coaching has become more important. As our life gets more fragmentalised, the quest for knowledge other than what was acquired before hand is expressed in hobbies, games, or related knowledge that can greatly enhance our present specialised knowledge. A new thinking starts to emerge in organisations : "manager or supervisor should also be coach to their sub-ordinates". (But the lack of skills and competencies for most managers as coaches, make the ideals difficult to attend except for management rhetoric that coaching is taking place. Some organisation members do see the need of personal coaching more pressing and critical.)

Who needs coaching and from who?

Theoretically we need coaching from each other in order to have a more rounded and meaningful life. This is because each of us has certain knowledge, skills and techniques which others do not have. In another word, no single person has complete knowledge in his or her possession. Hence a coach, or "shi-fu", does not imply greatness or superiority of the person.

However, some people have more inclination towards coaching others with necessary skills than just recipients of knowledge. And coaching indeed needs some special skills. Hence some people have greater tendency to become coach to other, whereas others need coaching to help themselves to get on with their life more meaningfully and effectively.

Is Coach an Expert?

Coaching on What?

There is an infinite domains of knowledge, skills and techniques for which coaching can be applied. This author shares some of the knowledge domains and types of coaching recipients experienced. As learning is a never ending process, this author is also continuously acquiring more knowledge, skills and techniques from other coach or other sources.

The type of knowledge for which coaching is applied by this author are:

For Business, Organisation and Management application:

• Business System Design, Business Plan, System Audit, Strategies, Structure, Business Operation & Management using IT tools, Visioning process,.... Teamwork, Creativity, Problem solving, System Thinking Framework design, use of various management tools like ISO 9000, ISO 14000, TQM, Reengineering, Benchmarking, Learning Organisation, etc.

For individual application:

• Aspiration, Leadership, Motivation, Self actualisation process, the Goal of Life, Discipline and Creative thinking, Thinking framework design, Value and Belief System, Life Planning....

For investment application: