Coaching is the process of helping people and teams to perform at the peak of their abilities. It involves drawing out people's strengths, helping them to bypass personal barriers and limits in order to achieve their personal bests, and facilitating them to function more effectively as members of a team.
Historically, coaching has been focused toward achieving improvement with respect to a specific behavioral performance. This involves promoting the development of that person's behavioral competence through careful observation and feedback.
In recent years, the notion of coaching has taken on a more generalized and expanded meaning. Personal coaching, executive coaching and life coaching provide support on a number of different levels: behaviors, capabilities, beliefs, values, identity and even spiritual. These new and more comprehensive forms--executive coaching and life coaching-- can be referred to as capital "C" Coaching. Large "C" Coaching involves helping people effectively achieve outcomes on a range of levels. We guide people to learn about new environments, for instance; coach them to improve specific behavioral competencies; teach them new cognitive capabilities; mentor empowering beliefs and values; sponsor growth at the identity level; and awaken people's awareness of the larger system or "field."
This book defines the types of contexts and situations which require the capital "C" Coach to focus on one of these roles--caretaker, guide, coach, teacher, mentor, sponsor, awakener--and provides a specific toolbox for each role. In other words, it provides a comprehensive tool set to be used by an effective coach to manage the entire scope of large "C" Coaching activities--from caretaking to awakening.
Dilts, Robert Brian: - Robert Dilts has had a global reputation as a leading behavioral skills trainer and business consultant since the late 1970s. A major developer and expert in the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Robert has provided coaching, consulting and training throughout the world to a wide variety of individuals and organizations. Robert has pioneered the principles and techniques of Success Factor ModelingTM, and has authored numerous books and articles about how they may be applied to enhance leadership, creativity, communication and team development. Past corporate clients and sponsors have included Apple Inc., Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, The Old Mutual, Société Générale, Bank of America, The World Bank, Alitalia, Telecom Italia, RAI Italia, Lucasfilms Ltd., Ernst & Young, AT Kearney, Salomon, The American Society for Training and Development, EDHEC Business School and the State Railway of Italy. He has lectured extensively on coaching, leadership, organizational learning and change management, making presentations and keynote addresses for The International Coaching Federation (ICF), HEC Paris, The United Nations, The European Forum for Quality Management, The World Health Organization, The Milton H. Erickson Foundation, Harvard University and the International University of Monaco. In 1997 and 1998, Robert supervised the design of Tools for Living, the behavior management portion of the program currently used by Weight Watcher's International. Robert was an associate professor at the ISVOR Fiat School of Management for more than fifteen years, helping to develop programs on leadership, innovation, values and systemic thinking. From 2001-2004 he served as chief scientist and Chairman of the Board for ISVOR DILTS Leadership Systems, a joint venture with ISVOR Fiat (the corporate university of the Fiat Group) that delivered a wide range of innovative leadership development programs to large corporations on a global scale. A co-founder of Dilts Strategy Group, Robert was also founder and CEO of Behavioral Engineering, a company that developed computer software and hardware applications emphasizing learning strategies and behavioral change. He is also co-founder, with Dr. Stephen Gilligan, of the IAGC (International Association for Generative Change). Robert has a degree in Behavioral Technology from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
