Coaching is defined as “instructing, directing, or prompting as a coach”. A coach is thus a person “who instructs or trains”. Coaching refers to a couple of guidance practices like counseling, leading, mentoring, piloting, shepherding, showing, tutoring. It seems that the essence of these practices is about moving forward and to the future, and the relationship in coaching seems to be inspired by the relationship between the material world and cognition since a coach in the material world is actually a closed four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage.
Coaching in today’s sense is dated to the 1970s, emphasizing The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallway. As the name displays, the book was about sports coaching. Still, the approach was unique to draw the attention of the business world where leading teams needed crucial techniques. Although the concept of coaching is embedded with the notion of directing, instructing, and training and the first book that discusses coaching considers it as a leadership tool, the International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential”.
This definition is significant since it clarifies that a coaching relationship is a partnership rather than an apprenticeship or mentorship. With its potential to harvest the intentions of the individuals, coaching is a practice of the present that supports the construction of the future. This positions coaching apart from the practice of therapies that deal with the past with the goal of healing.
With its experienced and certified coaches, PUHU not only provides coaching for individuals but integrates the practice and the training of coaching to the solutions for social problems.