Cathy Liska One of the concepts that comes up in talking about coaching is what is coaching and how coaching works. Telling someone what to do and giving advice is not coaching – that may be consulting, mentoring, teaching, or other professional services. Many people have the idea that being the expert, knowing the answer, and knowing the information is how to provide value. Oftentimes, people come to coach training thinking, this is for me because I’m good at giving advice, as well as good at telling people how they can do it. 
That’s not coaching! This is a very common misunderstanding. How do you explain coaching? How does one explain it to somebody who’s unsure? A term I’ve coined is, “coaching is advanced development for advanced results.”
When working with a client, think about multiple services that help them support them. Oftentimes, training makes sense. Alternatively, you may have somebody who’s done the training, and moved to a place where consulting or mentoring makes sense. A consultant or mentor will give advice; they’ll assess what is going on and make suggestions in terms of what to do and how to do it. As an advanced development tool, coaching comes after that.
Through coach training, a coach experiences clients as their own best experts. A coach learns that when telling somebody something, the chances of them doing it decreases. When a coach partners with somebody so that they figure out what they are going to do, the chances of them following through go up because it is their idea, and they own it. The process for partnering is what is gained through coaching certification.
