Coaching World Issue 7: August 2013 | Page 6

As coaches, some of us seem to have an\r\ninstinctive ability to draw people toward greater\r\ninsight; some of us have to work at it. But we all\r\nneed to understand what we do when we coach\r\nand recognize that coaching is not a profession\r\nthat arrived fully formed. Rather, it has grown\r\nfrom a history of wisdom and study and been\r\nrefined by individual practitioners and the\r\nprotocols of our coaching schools.\r\nThe theories and traditions that gave rise to\r\ncoaching might be thought of as the profession’s\r\nprehistory—ideas developed in entirely\r\nindependent fields before coaching in its modern\r\nsense was conceived of. But far from dry or\r\nacademic, these explorations have the power to\r\ncontinually reignite our sense of coaching as a\r\nliving practice.