The EVE blog advises you. With the help of experts who generously agree to share the " secrets " of their discipline, we regularly offer you practical " toolboxes " to approach the multiple dimensions of professional life with greater confidence.

 

After a "Public speaking " toolbox (with Béatrice Toulon, media-training expert) and a "Articulation of life times" toolbox (with Barbara Meyer, sports coach and author of personal development books), today we are opening the "For successful coaching " toolbox for you.

 

To talk about coaching without wooden language and to answer all the questions that arise when considering an individual accompaniment, we called on Catherine Thibaux. Former director of diversity at Danone, she was herself coached before becoming a coach. Certified since 2012, she runs the coaching firm InterVenir, which she founded.

 

Catherine Thibaux

 

 

What is coaching?

Definition by Catherine Thibaux: " Coaching is a personalized support that allows you to take a step back from your practice and your development prospects in a privileged space-time through a dialogue relationship with an external professional whose job it is".

 

Remember, because every word counts:

 

• Accompaniment : this means that you are the one who is doing, you who are working, by receiving a form of support in your approach, by the presence of someone by your side.
• Personalized : you are the center of the motive, it is your particular case that we are interested in : each coaching is unique.
• Privileged space-time: it is a suspended moment, where you get your head out of the handlebars, where you give your being-yourself the attention it deserves, where you can safely experiment with new ways of doing things and interacting.
• Dialogue relationship: it is a human exchange in trust, a process of co-construction in which the coach adapts his interventions with respect for the person and his identity.
• External professional: the coach " acts as a third party " in relation to the situations encountered by the person.

 

 

When should you consider coaching?

Do we always start coaching when there is a problem? " A question, yes, but a problem not necessarily ," replies Catherine Thibaux.

 

The question can be of various kinds:

 

• We feel that we need to " strengthen our confidence".  When you take up a position, when you change your professional environment (for example, if you move from a " field " position to a " headquarters" position), after a reorganization that has reshuffled the cards and redefined the roles and positions of each other, when you have difficulty convincing yourself of your legitimacy (see our " concept under the magnifying glass " on the Imposture's Complex, hum, hum).

• We want to " see more clearly " about our practice and its impacts: we " need to take a step back to better understand the effects of our actions, to interact finely with our environment". 

• We feel that we are " purring " and we want to stimulate " our spirit of innovation", " open up new avenues " to carry out our duties by enriching our ways of doing things, explore our " margins for progress", exploit our potential, " experiment with new things", get back into the habit of surpassing ourselves, projecting ourselves into the future.

• Or, indeed, we are " in crisis"  : nothing is going well, we have the feeling of losing our footing, our bearings are blurred, relationships are a succession of misunderstandings... But " it's better not to wait for the rag to burn before starting a coaching session," explains Catherine Thibaux. " When things are really bad, we can offer other forms of support to stabilize the field a little" in parallel or before embarking on coaching.

 

 

What is the difference between coaching and psychotherapy?

Other forms of support, let's talk about them! What is the difference between the coach's office and the shrink's couch?

 

Of course, there are common appearances and similarities of approach: like the shrink, the coach offers a " privileged and confidential space-time where speech is freed".  Like the shrink, the coach is interested in the person as a whole and considers that " everything has its place", that the individual is not a compartmentalized or always perfectly rational being. So he " welcomes " concerns and emotions of various kinds with a benevolent listening.

 

But there are also real differences.

 

• First of all, " the coach is more of a coach than a trainer", if we want to use the sports metaphor. It takes into account any injuries and scars, of course, but its purpose is what happens on the field of play, where the person is in action. " The coachee's past, what is brought from his personal history is a material, but it is not worked on as such, the coach always comes back to the " here and now".   " says Catherine Thibaux.

• Then, the most common is that the coach's end client is the company that assigns him to coach its employees, which means that it is the N+1 or HR who will offer coaching. It doesn't change anything about the personalized and confidential relationship of trust between the coachee and the coach, but it repositions the approach in a tripartite and professional perspective. In this case, " coaching objectives are set between all parties " (i.e. the coachee, the coach and the company) and are the subject of a signed contract in the image of what is done for any development project in a company.

• So, and finally, coaching is a priori " fixed-term".  Classically, " 8 to 12 sessions of 2 hours spread over 9 months". 

 

 

How to choose your coach?

Even if it's a temporary relationship, it might as well be of quality! " It's even fundamental for the success of coaching ," insists Catherine Thibaux. So, the choice of coach is not to be taken lightly.

 

To begin with, we recommend " a certified professional". In the context of a profession whose practice is not regulated, it is a significant guarantee to choose at least " someone who has been trained and whose practice has been certified".  If the coach is a member of a professional association, this is an additional criterion of trust: " it implies that he has an ethical concern and that he questions his profession alongside his peers ".  Be careful, this does not mean that " every certified coach who is a member of an association is good and that, conversely, the others are bad ".

 

So, to decide, you have to test the relationship.

And start by eliminating in order " the coach who talks too much " (hey! You are the one who came to speak and " everything he says for you, even rightly, is what he didn't give you the opportunity to realize for yourself "), " the coach who knows everyone " (no, her husband's coach, her best friend's coach, the one who has already received all the service in his office is not the right one!) and... " The coach you don't feel" !

 

It's a bit of a matter of feeling, during the first meeting: " A few questions to ask yourself, which can help you choose a coach: did I feel welcomed? respected? Understood? questioned? Listened? Is it someone I respect but to whom I would feel able to say no? Is he benevolent without being complacent? Did this first interview make me progress and show me how it can help me?"  In short, " Do I want to work with this person? Which is different from: Is this person sympathetic to me? ".

 

 

In concrete terms, how does coaching work?

• The most common practice of coaching is the face-to-face interview and in a " neutral "  place (the coach's office, or possibly other places, but " not the coachee's office" !).

 

• The person undertakes to be regular. Respecting, of course, the constraints and the coach's agenda, we can consider the postponement of a session or even, Catherine Thibaux does not see any obstacles, the organization of a session by Skype or by phone (not the first, you know, but as long as the coaching is well advanced, if, for example, the person is traveling abroad or vice versa if he or she is immobilized at home). Once again, provided that the " privileged space-time" is a rule of the game perfectly respected by the parties, flexible modalities can be envisaged, the rules of the game being in themselves a coaching material (and any coaching interview cancelled less than 48 hours before the date is generally due).

• The person comes to an interview " with his subjects, his state of mind, his feelings of the moment or his broader questions in progress ". The coach listens, possibly he raises the question, he questions... But he neither judges nor advises. He must also " know how to leave silences ", which are essential to the rhythm of the coachee's development process and to the integration of his or her awareness.

 

And in what state do you come out of a coaching session? " Generally in a different state than we arrived! You can feel lighter, you have the feeling of having taken a real break, of having put back in order what you were experiencing, of seeing more clearly. You can also be tired, like after two hours of sport, it's the good decompression fatigue. You can still come out a little disturbed, " moved " as the English say, when the coach has introduced a useful dose of disturbance. Or even literally galvanized, stimulated by a new way of looking at things and that gives a real desire to dare!"  Often, coaching allows you to " allow yourself to ".

 

 

How is the effectiveness of coaching evaluated?

Remember: before starting the coaching, we agreed on objectives. Once the ten or so sessions have passed, it is time to take stock of the situation with all the parties involved (the company, the employee and the coach).

 

And here, the coach has a fundamental role to play, guarantor of both the interests of the coachee and the company: " It is the coachee who will testify to what he or she has learned in relation to what was expected of the coaching: for example, his or her confidence, his or her managerial abilities, his or her sense of interaction with the people he or she supervises... ".

 

Prepared by the coach, the coachee says where he stands, and the N+1 expresses what he has observed. This moment when all the people involved in a system are together (as during the start-up partite) is important because the presence of the coach will allow the word to flow differently and often to understand each other better.

 

Of course, there is " no question of debriefing the content of the sessions " with anyone other than the person concerned. Nor is there any question of " serving the demonstration of a programmed failure" (in the case, for example, where an employer in bad faith wants to rely on the results deemed insufficient of the coaching to trap the employee in the mode " we have tried everything to help you progress, including coaching, but obviously, there is nothing to be done ").

 

This is the moment when the coach will have to show an essential quality: his independence! This will allow her to highlight the sharing of responsibilities and the role of the environment in an approach aimed at helping the person progress: "for example," explains Catherine Thibaux, " if you offer coaching to a person who has just been promoted and has to supervise his or her former colleagues, and therefore needs to gain confidence to establish his or her leadership, Coaching will only help if, on the other hand, the hierarchy also sends the teams strong signs of the trust it places in this person ."

 

In other words, coaching does not work miracles, but can, under intelligently put in place, produce real positive effects!

 

 

Can we decide to continue our coaching beyond the deadline initially set?

 

Your coaching is over... And do you think it tastes too little? Can you go for a ride again?

 

" In absolute terms, it's not forbidden... But on the one hand, it will generally be at your expense (the company rarely takes care of 2 successive coachings) ," replies Catherine Thibaux, immediately putting things in their place! " On the other hand, there are questions to be asked : Why ? New objectives ? New situation ? And of course a new coach ? »

 

More fundamentally, Catherine Thibaux invites us to question the possible excesses of permanent coaching: " A coaching that does not end is perhaps a sign that another mode of support is necessary. So, it is the coach's responsibility to say so and possibly to direct them to a trusted professional."

 

We must also be wary, she adds, of " a tendency towards a form of snobbery that consists of making coaching a mark of elitism, when we offer our managers a coach who is in a way " official ", as a " benefit in kind ". Here, it is less a coach than a personalized advisor. It's another form of support ."

 

So, when a coaching is over, it's over? Yes and no, answers Catherine Thibaux, " Because the coaching approach aims at the autonomy of the coachee, it embarks him in a process of reflection on himself that he must then be able to pursue. The coach/coachee relationship stops, but not the coachee's evolution process, which is continuous and will integrate this work. If we want to use the metaphor with gardening, we could compare coaching to a technique of aerating the soil where the seeds are sown, allowing them to start growing, knowing that for them to bloom, it must also be the season (you don't make a flower grow faster by pulling on it) of water, light (i.e., a favorable environment) and a certain strength of the seed at the start (oneself)."