by Tricia Steege

Below is a review of the Management series Coach with Confidence. Based on our partnership with Training Media Review, we thought it would be helpful for you to see another review of a program available from our e-learning catalog. To see more reviews, go to www.tmreview.com or call 877.532.1838. Make sure to give your account code, BTL02, to ensure your Business Training Library special 10% discount.
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Series: Coach with Confidence
Media: Web-Based
Production Year: 2003

"I know, I'll be a coach!"

Many aspiring change agents believe they have found the silver bullet by positioning themselves as executive coaches. In part that's because more and more organizations have been realizing that coaching is necessary to building long-term competitive advantage.

At the speed and growth rates organizations must achieve in the contemporary economy, leadership must let go of control and focus on developing organizations that allow individuals to make decisions at the level at which they are implemented and keep on track by coaching each other.

To assume, though, that anyone can coach is akin to assuming that a primary care physician is qualified to practice surgery. It would be ludicrous for the doctor and dangerous for the patient. Coaching requires real skills. To do it right requires significant education and practice coupled with both self-awareness and an awareness of one's impact on others. This series from SkillSoft, the content provider for our Business & Professional skills courses, provides learners with a solid foundation to build their coaching skills and techniques.

Extensive content
The SkillSoft coaching series deserves serious consideration. It includes a total of six course modules, each taking between four to six hours to complete. The series consists of the following topics

• Coaching for Business: the business case for coaching
• Successful Coaching Relationships: the elements that foster productive coaching relationships and what gets in the way; also discusses adult learning styles and reviews the role of coach
• Key Stages in Coaching: teaches the key activities including discover, goal setting, action planning, and follow up
• Coaching Skills: teaches the essential skills of communication, controlling conversations, questioning, and building rapport
• Mindsets, Emotions and Coaching: use of self, reading signals, recognizing mindsets and moods
• Coaching Trends: strategic uses of coaching and dealing with positive and negative changes
  Mentor program

Each module has a consistent format:

• Course Menu: titles and a descriptive overview of the module content and sections
• Accelerated Path: a study roadmap determined by the results of a preassessment that guides participants to study only unfamiliar material
• Assessments: pretest and mastery test
• References: online resource tool providing specific information related to the corresponding module (e.g., roleplay specifics)
• Job Aids: online resources providing general knowledge for all the modules (e.g., models, theories)
• Help: online navigation tutorial for the SkillSoft platform

Upon clicking on a course title, a module description, lesson objectives, target audience, expected time duration, and module highlights are displayed. Students who have previously worked through part of the module are returned by a bookmarking system to the point where they stopped.

The screen layout is simple and easy to read. Most content screens contain pictures with text; the text can be read by the optional audio. Navigation menus are intuitive and appear on each page. Mini-quizzes, matching items, and other interactive elements are generously sprinkled among the content pages to actively engage the learner.

A downside of the learning is the amount of information conveyed in each module, particularly the specifics in the roleplay. While this makes it a bit difficult to retain the information in order to engage in the activity, the program does provide references that the user can use to have all the roleplay specifics displayed on one page. At times, the interactive features take extra effort; for example, a drag-and-drop graphic that refused to remain in the matching box where it was dropped caused me unnecessary frustration.

A robust series
This is a robust learning series that contains solid content for individuals exploring coaching as a profession and for organizations desiring to build coaching cultures. It teaches theory and encourages practice and application, providing learners new to coaching with solid knowledge.

To further actual skills, however, students will need some kind of face-to-face work such as the classroom or mentoring by an experienced coach.

At times, the richness of the material works against assimilation of the basic learning. Some of the material qualifies as nice to know rather critical to know. Because the material is dense, it is not likely that the average learner will get through an entire module in one session; if a significant amount of time passes between sittings, the learner will pay a price in time by having to backtrack and review content already studied.

Recommendation
Should you buy this? I was not able to determine whether professional coaching associations (e.g., the International Coaching Association) have approved the content or whether certified coaches were used as subject matter experts in the development of the series. But if your organization is serious about building a coaching culture or you are an individual new to coaching, I highly recommend this product. It provides rich and relevant content. SkillSoft is well known worldwide as a major player in e-learning, adding credibility to the series.

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Coach with Confidence

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Tricia Steege is CEO of Transformation Strategies, an organization development and training organization based near Philadelphia, PA. She partners with organizations to implement solutions that facilitate the exceeding of desired business results. Copyright © 1997-2004 TMR Publications. All rights reserved.