Coaching as a support for everyone’s growth

“Coaching? It can be applied anytime, to any situation, and to any goal, personal or professional“. Paola Patetta has no doubts. “Coaching can also come in handy when choosing which degree program to enroll in“. Paola is one of PHYD’s coaches. After more than 20 years spent in multinational companies as a manager in the Human Resources function, she became certified as a coach, in Italy and abroad, through various training courses recognized by the International Coaching Federation. “Supporting people’s growth has always been a key factor in my professional motivation. Coaching was therefore a natural continuation of my career path“. With this interview, we make his acquaintance.

When should one turn to a coach?

Whenever there is a desire to achieve something, you feel the need to change the direction you have taken in your work or personal life, you feel stuck because of a lack of clarity when faced with choices to be made. Coaching accelerates and enhances an individual’s growth, enabling each person to focus more effectively and consciously on the goals to be achieved and the resulting choices to be made. The International Coaching Federation defines coaching as a partnership with clients that, through a creative process, stimulates reflection, inspiring them to maximize their personal and professional potential.

Yet, coaching is often identified in business contexts as a tool to be used in critical moments.

Rather than critical issues, I would speak of opportunities. Coaching can be useful in situations where it is appropriate to support a path of development and growth or the need to intervene in performance improvement is detected. In companies, for example, it is typical to use coaching to improve and coach skills and behaviors that do not fully match the expectations of the role. Again, coaching helps to identify improvement goals and define steps to achieve them.

In the future of work, what future do you see for coaching?

I believe we will move toward a gradual democratization of this methodology. In companies, for example, coaching, which was initially used as a development tool for top positions, is now being extended to middle management levels and prospectively to professional figures at all levels. More broadly, in the future ahead we will have a constant need for tools that enable us to deal with change, manage transitions nimbly and quickly, and relate to ambiguity and complexity. It will be important to train and increase awareness of oneself, one’s abilities, and one’s behaviors in order to be able to adapt quickly to an ever-changing environment. And coaching ultimately acts from this very dimension of awareness.