Are You Being Coached?

Close your eyes and envision a perfect future. Are you rich? Are you fulfilled? What you won't imagine, no matter how hard you try, is that the path to perfection might involve a Dr. Phil wannabe delving into the most personal aspects of your life -- and you don't even get to be on TV. As people seek better lives for themselves, either personally, professionally, or both, they're more likely to find outside help to get them there: a professional coach. The practice is more popular than ever; the International Coach Federation, the most widely recognized organization that offers bona fide certifications, boasts about 8,000 members, up from approximately 1,500 in 1998.

Coaching has even entered the realm of pop culture. This year's breakout hit on daytime television is a reality series called Starting Over, in which a pair of life coaches counsel six down-on-their-luck women living together in a house. Even the aging rock group Metallica has discovered deeper meaning beyond sex, drugs, and rock and roll, thanks to multiple sessions with a "performance enhancement coach" named Phil Towle, as chronicled in the 2004 documentary Some Kind of Monster.

With coaching all around, we wouldn't blame you for wondering, Is it time for me to get a coach? Consult our FAQ of the good, the bad, and the ugly of coaching before you jump in.

People seek out coaches for two common reasons: navigating some transition in their lives or careers, or having some inkling that they're jerks, and that antisocial behavior is holding them back.

Who are these people?

There are an estimated 20,000 coaches around the globe, and perhaps the only thing they have in common is that they use the word "coach" to describe what they do. Most coaches have a sociology or psychology degree, but there are no rigid requirements. "Coaching is a vocation that's just now evolving into a profession," says coach Steve Mitten, B.ApSc, P.Eng, CPCC, MCC, whose string of letters after his name meld together in a kind of alphabet soup of obscure credentials. (For the record, Mitten holds a Canadian bachelor's in applied science, a Canadian engineering license, and two coaching certificates.)

Although coaching certificates are good things to look for, the most important credential a coach needs is your trust. "For coaching to work, you have to get to know a coach and they have to get to know you," says M. Rose Jonas, a coach and the author of Can I Lie on My Resume? No wonder then that many coachees go through multiple coaches in their career.

What kind of coach is right for me?

There are executive coaches and life/career coaches. Executive coaches, who typically work with big CEOs through executive-placement firms such as Korn/Ferry International, are brought in as (mostly) agenda-free surrogate mentors. That's become especially important in this mobile age when it's rare to find a lifelong veteran available to offer support and guidance.

Elisabeth Svanberg, a vice president at the biomedical company Serono International in Geneva, says she had never even heard of coaching until she began discussing her own path into the executive ranks with members of an internal HR team.

The idea was that coaching would help Svanberg shift her mind-set from that of a medical director, in which she acted in the narrow interests of her own team, to that of an executive more concerned with the company's overall health. For example, Svanberg's coach taught her that when budget time rolled around, she'd have to pull a mental 180: Instead of fighting to keep every dollar in her department, now she'd have to be the one championing larger cuts. "Coaching helped me eliminate all these mistakes I would have made on my own," Svanberg says. "It really helped speed up the transition into this new role."

Life coaches, on the other hand, represent the "I want to be happy" side of the business, populated by touchy-feely types with a weak spot for comfy sweater shirts. In this realm, people usually find life coaches on their own. Stan Schultz, who owns a successful civil-engineering company in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, brought on a coach to help him reorder his life after his wife unexpectedly gave birth to triplets a year ago. "My whole life once revolved around financial success," he says, having fast-tracked his firm to the Inc. 500 list in 2003. "Now my happiness comes from seeing my wife smile and from laying down on the floor to let all those kids crawl over me like a bunch of puppies."

What the coach made abundantly clear to Schultz was that in order to balance his life, he would have to delegate more control of the company to others -- something he was always loath to do -- and he'd have to turn down new projects to keep operations manageable. Happiness comes at a price.