Have you wondered what exactly is coaching? If this is your first experience with the Erickson Coaching International, let’s start off this conversation

As a Master Coach, Marilyn Atkinson (the Founder of Erickson Coaching International) helped us to capture what coaching is all about. Marilyn has been coaching, writing on the subject, and training executive and life coaches for over 30 years in North American and around the world. Marilyn’s definition of what coaches do is very different from the initial perception some people might have. To quote Marilyn:

“Coaches help people discover and live their true purpose.”

“Great coaches recognize that everyone already has the answers and the capabilities to be successful, provided the coach continues to ask the right questions, in the right way and at the right time.“

4 Pillars of Erickson Coaching Methodology

Solution-Focused

Moves your client towards their desired future outcomes, instead of concentrating on past experiences or reasons for present dissatisfaction.

Systemic

Emphasizes the holistic nature of your client, seeing how positive change can fit into their bigger picture.

Client-Centered

Allows you to trust your client’s inner resources and skills, respecting their agenda and future outcomes. Coaching is an advice-free zone.

Action-Oriented

Pursues transformational change in specific, inspired steps that lead to fundamental shifts in attitude, behavior and habit formation.

 

What Coaching is not?

 

It’s not…

Counselling

 

Unlike therapists and counselors, coaches don’t focus on the childhood or past experiences that might be the root of the way a person lives or feels. Instead they help their clients get clear on what they want in the future, why they want it, and how they are going to achieve it.

 

It’s not…

Consulting

Consultants diagnose the needs of an organization or individual and offer their own solutions based on their specialized expertise to ‘fix’ the problem; solutions which they often implement for the client as well. Coaches use tools and processes to help clients to generate their own solutions and then hold them accountable for following through.

 

It’s not…

Sports Coach 

Someone new to coaching might hear the word “coach” and think football, but sports coaches generally are in charge, setting the goals and the path to victory. Teaching, correcting, and managing are all skills a sports coach would use. Professional life, business or executive coaching is the opposite; it’s the client who sets the goals.