How to choose your Business Coach

When hiring a Business Coach, whether through your organisation or of your own accord, it is important to choose the right person, or it could be a costly mistake, not just financially but timely and emotionally too.

There are many people who call themselves Coaches and yet they have no psychological training or therapeutic experience, which is somewhat alarming. To many, those with a business background but no psychological training are Mentors, not Coaches.

'Over the past 15 years, it has become more and more popular to hire coaches for promising executives. Although some of these coaches hail from the world of psychology, a greater share are former athletes, lawyers, business academics, and consultants. No doubt these people help executives improve their performance in many areas. But I want to tell a different story. I believe that in an alarming number of situations, executive coaches who lack rigorous psychological training do more harm than good.' (Berglas, 2002, p.89)

Why do Business Coaches need psychological or therapeutic training?

It's commonly said that we shouldn't bring our personal lives into work, and to an extent that's true. But it's almost impossible for us not to bring our backgrounds and previous experiences into the workplace, because those experiences shape our attitudes, beliefs and behaviour today.

A 2009 Harvard study found that 75% of coaches have helped clients with personal issues. From my own experience, I'd say around 98% of my clients have discussed personal issues with me in a coaching context, which doesn't surprise me. Our previous and current experiences affect our behaviour, whether we like it or not.

So you need to ask yourself: would you rather discuss areas of your life with a Business Coach trained to understand and work with people on a psychological or therapeutic level, or one without that training?

I spent almost a decade at university studying human behaviour, from both a human-centred therapeutic perspective and a scientific, psychological one. That training is what lets me offer a well-rounded, professional and confident service as a Business Psychologist and Business Coach.

So when choosing your Business Coach, make sure you check for credentials in psychological or therapeutic training.