Leadership coaching is the way to go, says expert

 

Coaching is a process and communication skill that helps stimulate employees at all levels to unleash their potential. If employees can utilise only half of their potential, organisations can get only half of the full potential results.

“It’s time that owners and management at every level have a correct understanding of coaching as being not just a tool for developing people’s competencies. This is because the essence of coaching is to help people grow from within…their minds, emotionS, competencies, skills… And the growth is deeply rooted and sustainable,” she said.

Sirirat, an International Coach Federation-certified coach who has published five books on coaching, professional presentation techniques and self-development, was a branch manager at ECC Thailand, an English and computer teaching school. 

After that she moved to AchieveGlobal Thailand, a world-class training company, as a business development executive, and later took the role of human resource development manager at Liberty Inter Group, a sports apparel manufacturer.

Sirirat opened her own training firm B-Winning about seven years ago but she did not take the consultant role herself until one day when one of her trainers failed to show up.

“I had to be the trainer myself. The feedback turned out to be good. The participants liked my consultancy.”

“It’s like finding my true love,” she told The Nation in an exclusive interview last week.

Sirirat said her “turning point” came when she was certified by a neurolinguistic leadership programme in 2013, which taught her about brain-based coaching.

“It changed my life,” she said.

She discovered that neurolinguistic coaching techniques are very much like some of the tenets of Buddhism, such as the “emotional labelling” technique that helps one to gain control over feelings through acknowledging of the current feeling-state.

The coaching market has become a “red ocean” battle since many new coaches are now joining the market, partly due to the recent establishment of a local coaching school that offers the course in Thai, she said.

Some coaches are focusing on small and medium-sized enterprises whom they charge just a few thousands of baht per a typical 90-120-minute session, while Sirirat usually charges about Bt15,000 for a 90-minute session. 

Since it takes at least six sessions to complete a successful coaching programme, the total fee is about Bt90,000 per client.

But the good news is that some people are now spending their own money to hire a personal coach to train themselves or their children. The coaching market is not limited to corporate customers anymore since people have become more aware of the benefits of coaching.

“I had one client who hired me to coach his children, who were working as an employee for a company. The family, which used to work for a large organisation [and thus appreciates the benefits of coaching] didn’t want to see the children unhappy at work,” she said.

Sirirat focuses on providing leadership training, as well as coaching and presentation skills. Among the popular coaching objectives requested by her clients are emotional management, people skills, communication skills, team-building and coaching management to become an internal coach for their organisation.

“The most successful coaching students are the ones with a desire to change themselves. I found one case in my life that coaching could not help. [That person] didn’t have a desire to change.” 

Many clients heard about her from LinkedIn, a professional networking platform, where she regularly composes articles on coaching and leadership.

Sirirat is now writing her seventh book while waiting for her sixth book on coaching techniques to be printed by the HR Centre.