COACHING

Dear Readers,

Welcome to this month’s BEM portable business language guide. Modern corporate culture thrives on many fairly simple ideas and concepts that are neatly packaged into some catchy buzzwords or phrases; there’s lean management, rightsizing, insourcing, reshoring... The list goes on. One term stands out from the crowd like a stubborn, unruly little hellraiser amongst the better behaved teacher’s pets; it’s coaching – an innocent-looking word that became an umbrella term for a whole group of different ways of personal training, all applicable to business situations rather than a classroom. That’s why even though there exists a very glib definition, put forth by serious researchers (e.g. Cummings and Worley), it’s best to dispense with it altogether and adopt a more descriptive approach. 

Class ready? Let’s begin.

to thrive on sth tə θraɪv ɒn ˈsʌmθɪŋ | kwitnąć dzięki czemuś

fairly ˈfeəli | dość

neatly niːtli | ładnie

catchy ˈkætʃi | chwytliwy

buzzword ˈbʌzwɜːd | modne słówko

lean liːn | smukły

rightsizing ˈraɪtsaɪzɪŋ | dostosowywanie ilości etatów w firmie do potrzeb rynkowych

insourcing ɪnˈsɔːsɪŋ | zlecanie pracy wewnątrz firmy

reshoring rɪˈʃɔːrɪŋ | sprowadzanie środków finansowych z powrotem do kraju podatnika

to stand out tə stænd aʊt | wyróżniać się

stubborn ˈstʌbən | uparty

unruly ʌnˈruːli | niesforny

hellraiser ˈhelraɪzə(r) | łobuz

teacher’s pet ˈtiːtʃəz pet | pupilek nauczyciela

umbrella term ʌmˈbrelə tɜːm | termin, pod którym rozumianych jest wiele różnych pojęć

applicable to sth əˈplɪkəbl tə ˈsʌmθɪŋ | mający zastosowanie do czegoś

to exist tu ɪɡˈzɪst | istnieć

glib ɡlɪb | gładki

to put sth forth tə pʊt ˈsʌmθɪŋ fɔːθ | wyjść z czymś

researcher rɪˈsɜːtʃə(r) | badacz

to dispense with sth tə dɪˈspens wɪð ˈsʌmθɪŋ | odrzucić coś

descriptive dɪˈskrɪptɪv | opisowy

approach əˈprəʊtʃ | podejście

 At its most simple, coaching is an extremely old and very well-practiced way of operating under someone’s guidance to grow, change or develop in some way, perhaps to be better at your job, or maybe to get more satisfaction out of your career. Coaching is often understood as anything that happens in and is related to a relationship between someone more experienced and someone less experienced, a relationship that exists specifically in order to transfer skill, knowledge, improve performance, define goals and remove any obstacles on the way to achieving these goals... In this respect, it differs only superficially from the age-old bonds between a master and an apprentice, a tutorand a pupil and many others. It may even appear, that, like the Eskimos and snow, we have a lot of words relating to the many varieties of the concept, rather than a single word that describes the phenomenon itself. That’s why ...