In business we can all do with a little help at times. This may be as simple as having someone you can talk over your ideas with. Or maybe you need someone to facilitate your team to brainstorm a new marketing idea. Or perhaps you have lost your initial passion for your business venture and need someone to give it a new perspective. All of these usually need outside assistance, because when we are in the middle of something it is hard to see what we cannot see.

Asking for help does not mean you are incapable of helping yourself. In fact it shows that you are taking control of the situation and being proactive in dealing with it. The best sportsmen and women all employ the services of a skills coach. The coach does not compete on their behalf. The coach critically examines their performance and provides insight and advice on how to improve it. What is less well known is that they often use a mind coach as well - a sports psychologist. Getting your mind right generates the internal motivation and belief that allows them to succeed.

The role of a skills coach in business is filled by the trainers and presenters that deliver the various training courses and seminars that Managers attend. These are normally chosen to provide the skills and knowledge that have been identified as missing from the Manager's repertoire. It may surprise you to learn that businesses also use mind coaches. The niche is referred to as Corporate Coaching, Executive Coaching or Business Coaching. A corporate coach uses their skills to bring out whatever is inside, to develop motivation or to remove blockages to success.

When choosing your coach, make sure you will be getting coaching, and not consultancy. Coaching is not about giving advice. This surprises some people. The coach is not there to solve your problems for you. Using some very simple tools and techniques a coach will allow you to tap into and listen to your subconscious mind, where the answers to your problems already lie. And no, they are not going to hypnotise you. They help you find the control and motivation to take action and succeed. 

If we continue the analogy with sports, the mind coach does not compete on behalf of the athlete. When the athlete wins the event, the glory is all theirs. After all they are ones that have done all the work and prepared themselves for that moment. The coach helps to bring out what is already within. And so it is in business. It is your business. You know where you want to take the business, but sometimes it can be hard to get it there. All businesses go through cycles. All businesses hit hard times and find it hard to change course.

Coaching is non-judgemental and confidential. What this means is that individuals are able to open up and examine their situations without fear of anything that they might say getting out to colleagues, their boss or the HR department. There is usually nowhere else in the organisation that you can go for this deep assisted reflection. What the organisation gets out of the deal is a higher performing employee, delivering results that matter.

If you want your business to perform at its peak, shouldn't you use a coach? If you think you should, then you are not alone. Recent research by the Institute of Employment Studies showed that:

• 92 % of large companies and 65% of public sector bodies currently use coaches with their executives.
• 100% of large companies and 86% of public sector bodies predicted that they would be using coaches within 3 to 5 years.

Answer these questions to see if a coach could help your business to succeed.

• Do you believe that you have the skill set needed to do the job?
• Do you have one or more issues that seem to keep coming up again and again?
• Does your position give you the authority and responsibility to solve these issues?
• Is your mind full of ideas of how to solve them, but they never get implemented?
• Do you lie awake at night thinking about the job?

If you answered "Yes" to one or more of the above questions, then a coach could certainly help you. They say an ounce of help is worth more than two pounds of theory! It is therefore time to move beyond traditional training and role play to concentrate on real issues - your issues. As a Coach, I work with individual managers and with teams. Some of the reasons organisation use a coach are:

• Providing support to a senior person following promotion or a new appointment.
• Accelerating the personal development of ‘fast stream’ individuals. 
• Support for implementation of organisational change.
• As an independent sounding board for executives (critical friend). 
• Supporting Continuous Professional Development programmes.
• Acceptance and implementation of 360-degree reviews or development centres.
• Increasing the performance of a specific team.
• To facilitate the solution and implementation for specific problems.

The coach you select should be able to demonstrate an empathy with the level of responsibility that you hold. They should be trained to deliver coaching - it is completely different to delivering skills and knowledge training. They need to be able to listen, understand and probe you for the answers; not be tempted to tell you what they would do - they are not you. You need someone with a wide experience so that they can understand what you are talking about and help you to relate to it from a different perspective.

Sometimes you just need someone professional to listen to your ideas and help you to get them into some sort of structure. Sometimes it is a personal situation that is blocking your ability to perform in the workplace. Sometimes the stress of multiple responsibilities can begin to press down on us, making us feel like we are reacting to events, rather than controlling our destinies. Sometimes we all need help to generate that internal belief and motivation to see the job through. It is when faced with these "sometimes" that you need Corporate Coaching. That is when you need Eric Sutherland, "The Business Coach".

"You always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself."

W. Clement Stone

"It’s not what you are that holds you back, it’s what you think you are not."

Denis Watley