Coaching: a game or a new method of management in a company? The “game” of coaching: the problem with companies and coaching. More than once I have heard that “coaching doesn’t sell well” and “the reputation of the method is pretty tarnished.” It's sad, because reputation does not negate the merits of the method. The question is, why does this happen? The first answer is known to everyone and is often voiced: unprofessional, unscrupulous specialists. But this is a problem for many professions... Another reason is that the customer companies’ attitude towards coaching is not always adequate. Unfortunately, few people still really understand what coaching is and, most importantly, why the company needs it. There is a new, progressive method. There is a practice of using this method by large companies that are willing to pay coaching specialists a lot of money. Then the classic imitation scheme comes into play: we will do it too, because all progressive people do it. And for what? For what purpose? These questions often remain unclear. As a result, coaching acts as a kind of magical tool that will certainly help - because magic is expensive, but in what way is not clear. And then a coaching situation appears without a specific request, without reference to the context of the company’s development, without a clearly formulated contract, without the involvement of the manager. This type of coaching is doomed to fail! No, there will be benefits, but only for the specialist who got to the coach, and even then it’s relative. And for the company - at best, an indirect result. Accordingly, disappointment cannot be avoided. And it is much easier to declare a method ineffective than to look for your mistakes in applying this method. Coaching should appear in a company when there is a need and interest in it from top officials, when there is an understanding of how coaching works and what problems can and should be solved with its help. Only when coaching is included in the overall development strategy of the company does it give the expected result. If the work is carried out on a formal basis, it is a waste of money and time. Playing for real: the benefits of gaming motivation. Is the idea of ​​a game such a bad idea? Let's think about it. If we look at the history of development, it is easy to understand the most important function of the game: it is a spontaneous and most effective way of learning. While playing, the child masters the world: first, objectively, by manipulating balls and cubes, then socially, in more complex role-playing games. And this method of teaching does not raise doubts about its effectiveness, just as it does not cause any difficulties in its application. Children love to play, and the skills mastered in the game remain for life. When we grow up, the game leaves our lives, but, fortunately, not irrevocably. Business games, team building, various trainings are already an obvious way to teach adults using a game approach. The prevalence of these methods proves that they work! Let's move on. If we have already learned how to use games productively in teaching adults, why not extend this method further to other aspects of activity? The first, fundamental book on coaching is called “The Inner Game.” Its main idea is that if we include emotional, playful, competitive motivation, we get fundamentally new opportunities for solving familiar problems. The state of play is the state of a child in the best sense of the word: creativity, interest, freedom from stereotypes, lack of restrictions. The child’s condition is a blank slate, when everything is possible, the most unexpected solutions come. This is a state of pure interest, complete inclusion in the world, when finding a solution is internally important. Finally, this is a state of lightness and joy from what you are doing. So, the main achievement of coaching is that it uses all the advantages of the state of a child, the state of the Game, to solve quite serious problems for an adult. The methods may be different: more or less technological, more or less directive, but this is the essence.