When managers take the 5/5/5 Coaching Skills Training Program from Coaching Out of the Box® there is often a lively discussion about where the line is between managing and coaching. So I’d like to take a minute here to give you my take on this.

Professional coaches are trained to step away from their own agendas and assumptions in order to coach most effectively. They hold an open space for the people they are coaching to discover their own resourcefulness by supporting and encouraging them to reach deep into their own wisdom and creativity to discover answers and solutions for themselves. Managers usually don’t have this luxury. They have deliverables that must be met and must manage performance to meet them. This almost always means there is an agenda for the manager when they enter into performance conversations. So if this is the case, why should managers even go to the trouble to learn coaching skills?

If you are like most of us as we enter a new year, you are creating a plan that may include new behaviors, ideas, strategies and actions to achieve a desired outcome (dream or goal). Yes? I know that it is absolutely true for me and true for those in my household. My husband and my three daughters have all made reference to ‘changes’ they want, with statements like: “In the new year I will….” or “This year I will be better at….” or “My goal for 2013 is to pay attention to……”. Sound at all familiar? Of course!

As I listened to them, and to my own thoughts about what I would like to accomplish in the upcoming year, I went into thinking as a coach (no surprise) and asked myself the following questions:

Silence is a beautiful thing. Silence provides us with a break from all the buzz. It affords us some breathing space. It can be a sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of the day-to-day. As coaches, it can be one of the most powerful coaching tools in our coaching toolbox.

You may have already noticed or experienced this, but when there’s silence there’s a natural urge to fill it. In the coaching conversation, when you use silence you give the other person the time and the space to reflect before responding. Think about it, you have asked that jewel of a question, a real eye-opener, what better way to highlight that question then to go silent?

One of the first things I did after completing my Certificate in Executive Coaching (CEC) from Royal Roads University was hire one of the best coaches that I could find. In my case, this wasn’t a particularly difficult task as I had been exposed to so many amazing coaches.

I realize that I was very lucky, finding a great coach can be difficult for those people that do not have the same level of exposure to the coaching world that I had. I did a quick Google search to see what information would be available to people interested in hiring a coach – there is an incredibly overwhelming amount of information out there! No wonder people are intimidated by the prospect of searching for a coach.

We at Coaching Out of the Box® are absolutely passionate about everyone developing coaching skills. Whether you are going to use them in your work, life or as a full-time coach the critical component is that you must use them. Reading all the materials on coaching, listening to others coach, attending workshops and conferences are great and wonderful but it just does not cut it unless you are actually coaching in real time, with real people and with real challenges.

Over the years as a coaching educator I have listened to some of the most intelligent and well-educated people eloquently describe what coaching is but when it came to successfully coaching someone there was a huge gap. They had the concepts, etc. in their head but had not integrated them into successful coaching. That is why the smartest strategy for dramatically growing your coaching skills is to coach whenever and as often as you can, here are 3 key strategies to do just that: