Title: Coaching Fundamentals — LearnCoachAssist

Q: What is coaching?
A: A collaborative, conversation-based process that helps individuals identify goals, overcome obstacles, and unlock their potential through guided questioning and reflection.

Q: What is the GROW model?
A: A structured coaching framework: Goal (what you want to achieve), Reality (current situation), Options (possible approaches), Will/Way Forward (specific actions to take).

Q: What does the G in GROW stand for?
A: Goal — the specific outcome or target the coachee wants to achieve. Goals should be clear, meaningful, and ideally measurable.

Q: What does the R in GROW stand for?
A: Reality — an honest assessment of the current situation, including challenges, resources, and what has already been tried.

Q: What does the O in GROW stand for?
A: Options — brainstorming possible strategies, solutions, or approaches without filtering or judging them initially.

Q: What does the W in GROW stand for?
A: Will or Way Forward — the specific actions the coachee commits to taking, with timelines and accountability mechanisms.

Q: What is the difference between coaching and mentoring?
A: Coaching focuses on helping someone find their own answers through questioning; mentoring involves sharing experience and advice. Coaches don't need to be subject-matter experts.

Q: What is the difference between coaching and consulting?
A: Consultants diagnose problems and prescribe solutions from their expertise. Coaches ask questions and facilitate the client's own discovery and problem-solving.

Q: What is the ICF definition of coaching?
A: The International Coaching Federation defines coaching as "partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential."

Q: What are the three ICF core coaching competencies clusters?
A: (1) Setting the Foundation (ethics, agreements), (2) Co-creating the Relationship (presence, trust, communication), (3) Communicating Effectively and Facilitating Learning.

Q: What is a coaching agreement?
A: A shared understanding between coach and coachee about what they are working on, what success looks like, and how they will work together during a session or engagement.

Q: What does "coaching presence" mean?
A: Being fully conscious and present with the client — bringing open, flexible, confident attention to the interaction without judgment or a pre-set agenda.

Q: What is the "inner critic" in coaching?
A: The internal voice that generates self-doubt, harsh self-judgment, or resistance to change. Coaches help clients recognize and work constructively with this voice.

Q: What is a "powerful question" in coaching?
A: An open-ended question that provokes thought, uncovers assumptions, or creates new awareness — e.g., "What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?"

Q: What is appreciative inquiry in coaching?
A: A strengths-based approach that focuses on what is working well and uses those strengths as a foundation for growth and positive change.

Q: What is accountability in a coaching context?
A: Supporting the client in following through on their stated intentions — checking in on commitments and helping them reflect on what they learned when they didn't follow through.

Q: What is a "blind spot" in coaching?
A: An area where the coachee lacks self-awareness — a pattern, belief, or behavior they cannot see without external reflection from a coach.

Q: What is the role of silence in coaching?
A: Silence gives the coachee space to think, reflect, and reach their own insights. Comfortable silence is a sign of skillful coaching, not awkwardness.

Q: What is "direct communication" in coaching?
A: Sharing observations, insights, and feedback in a clear, direct way that is helpful to the client — without softening to the point of losing impact.

Q: What is the difference between a problem-focused and a solution-focused coaching approach?
A: Problem-focused coaching explores causes and history; solution-focused coaching directs energy toward what the desired future looks like and how to get there.

Q: What is the "ladder of inference"?
A: A model of how we jump from raw data to conclusions: data → filtered perceptions → interpreted meaning → assumptions → conclusions → beliefs → actions.

Q: What is the reticular activating system (RAS) and how does it relate to coaching?
A: The RAS filters sensory input and primes us to notice what we focus on. Goal-setting in coaching works partly by directing the RAS to notice relevant opportunities.

Q: What is a "fixed mindset" vs a "growth mindset" (Dweck)?
A: Fixed mindset: abilities are static and innate. Growth mindset: abilities can be developed through effort, feedback, and good strategies.

Q: How do coaches build trust with clients?
A: Through consistent reliability, honesty, active listening, respecting confidentiality, avoiding judgment, and genuinely caring about the client's success.

Q: What is "clean language" in coaching?
A: A questioning technique that uses the client's own exact words and metaphors to explore their experience without introducing the coach's own language or assumptions.

Q: What is a coaching arc?
A: The overall structure of a coaching engagement: establishing goals and baseline, working sessions, progress reviews, and closing/consolidation.

Q: What is the difference between "what" questions and "why" questions in coaching?
A: "What" questions (What happened? What matters most?) promote forward-focused thinking. "Why" questions can trigger defensiveness or rumination.

Q: What is positive psychology and how does it inform coaching?
A: Positive psychology studies well-being, strengths, and flourishing. It informs coaching by focusing on developing strengths and building engagement rather than only fixing deficits.

Q: What is the VIA Character Strengths model?
A: A classification of 24 universal human character strengths (e.g., curiosity, bravery, kindness). Used in coaching to identify and leverage a person's core strengths.

Q: What is transactional analysis (TA) and how is it used in coaching?
A: TA is a psychological framework that describes ego states (Parent, Adult, Child) and patterns of interaction. Coaches use it to help clients recognize unhelpful communication patterns.

Q: Why is goal specificity important in coaching?
A: Specific goals make progress easier to measure and reduce vague conversations that feel insightful but do not lead to action.

Q: What is a limiting belief in coaching?
A: A limiting belief is an assumption about oneself or the world that restricts action or possibility.

Q: Why do coaches ask reflective questions instead of offering quick answers?
A: Reflection builds the client's own judgment and ownership, which lasts longer than borrowed advice.

Q: What is self-awareness in coaching?
A: Self-awareness is the client's clearer understanding of their patterns, emotions, assumptions, and choices.

Q: What is the role of silence in coaching?
A: Silence gives clients space to think, feel, and notice insights they might otherwise rush past.

Q: What is a coaching session outcome?
A: A coaching session outcome is the practical clarity, insight, or commitment the client leaves with after the conversation.

Q: Why should coaches avoid rescuing clients from discomfort too quickly?
A: Discomfort often signals meaningful learning, and premature rescue can interrupt the client's growth process.

Q: What is reframing in coaching?
A: Reframing is helping the client see a situation through a different, often more useful perspective.

Q: What is an action commitment in coaching?
A: An action commitment is the specific next step the client chooses to take after the session.

Q: Why is accountability follow-up helpful?
A: Follow-up turns intentions into observable behavior and creates learning even when the client did not follow through.

Q: What is a coaching mindset?
A: A coaching mindset combines curiosity, non-judgment, belief in the client's resourcefulness, and patience with the process.

Q: What is a strong coaching principle?
A: Trust the client's capacity while helping them think more clearly than they could alone.

Q: What does the OSKAR model stand for in coaching?
A: Outcome (desired end state), Scaling (numerical self-rating of progress), Know-how (resources and skills available), Affirm & Action (commit to the next action), Review (look back on what changed).

Q: What is the CLEAR coaching model?
A: Contract (terms of engagement), Listen (to the client), Explore (issues and options), Action (commit to next steps), Review (progress and learning). Often used in performance coaching.

Q: What does T-GROW add to the standard GROW model?
A: A Topic/Theme stage at the start: the coach and client agree the broad area of focus before narrowing into a specific Goal, giving the session a clear anchor.

Q: What is the "stepladder" technique in coaching?
A: The coachee imagines themselves one step closer to their goal and describes what is different — perspective, environment, behaviours, feelings — to surface new actions.

Q: What is the "miracle question" from solution-focused therapy?
A: "Suppose tonight, while you slept, a miracle happened and the problem was solved. How would you know? What would be the first small sign?" It draws out concrete indicators of success.

Q: What is scaling in solution-focused coaching?
A: The client rates their current state on a 0–10 scale toward the goal, then is asked what would make the number go up by one — surfacing the smallest useful next step.

Q: What is the difference between coaching and therapy?
A: Therapy often addresses clinical issues, diagnoses, and healing the past. Coaching is typically forward-focused on goals, performance, and development for non-clinical populations.

Q: What is the difference between coaching and counselling?
A: Counselling often explores emotional wounds and personal history to support healing. Coaching assumes psychological fitness and focuses on present and future action.

Q: What is the difference between coaching and teaching?
A: Teaching delivers content and evaluates the learner against a known standard. Coaching facilitates the coachee's own thinking; the answers belong to the client.

Q: What is the difference between coaching and managing?
A: Managing uses positional authority to direct work and accountability. Coaching uses inquiry and partnership; the coachee — not the manager-as-coach — owns the outcomes.

Q: What is the difference between coaching and facilitation?
A: Facilitation guides a group process to achieve a shared output. Coaching focuses on the individual's thinking, awareness, and action.

Q: What is the "coaching for development" vs "coaching for performance" distinction?
A: Development coaching grows long-term capability and self-awareness; performance coaching targets specific near-term results in a current role.

Q: What is the ICF Code of Ethics built around?
A: Professional conduct, conflicts of interest, professional development, and — most centrally — confidentiality and respect for client autonomy and dignity.

Q: What are the EMCC competence groups?
A: Understanding the client and the coaching contract, co-creating the relationship, communicating effectively, cultivating learning and growth, achieving outcomes, evaluating practice, and reflective practice.

Q: What is the difference between ICF, EMCC, and AC?
A: ICF (International Coaching Federation), EMCC (European Mentoring & Coaching Council), and AC (Association for Coaching) are the three largest global professional coaching bodies, each with its own accreditation framework.

Q: What credential levels does ICF offer?
A: ACC (Associate Certified Coach), PCC (Professional Certified Coach), MCC (Master Certified Coach), with progressively deeper competency and mentoring-hour requirements.

Q: What is the "contracting" stage of a coaching engagement?
A: The first session(s) where coach and client agree the focus, ground rules, logistics, confidentiality, and what success will look like at the end of the engagement.

Q: What is a three-way contracting meeting in workplace coaching?
A: A meeting between the coach, the coachee, and the sponsoring organisation to align on confidentiality, scope, what feedback (if any) goes back to the sponsor, and evaluation criteria.

Q: What is the "triple contract" in coaching supervision?
A: An agreement covering the coachee's work, the coach's development, and the wider system's interests — typically negotiated in supervision.

Q: What is coaching supervision?
A: A reflective practice where a qualified supervisor helps a coach review their cases, ethics, presence, and learning — comparable to supervision in counselling.

Q: What is the difference between coaching supervision and mentoring?
A: Supervision focuses on the coach's practice, ethics, and client work. Mentoring focuses on the coach's career or business development.

Q: What is "parallel process" in supervision?
A: A pattern in which the coach reproduces with the supervisor the same dynamic that the coachee reproduced with the coach — useful to spot when a client relationship is stuck.

Q: What is deep listening?
A: Listening not only to words but to tone, pace, body, emotion, and what is unsaid — and reflecting back what is heard without adding the coach's own material.

Q: What is "level 3 listening" in Otto Scharmer's framework?
A: Listening from the emerging future — listening to what wants to happen, not only what is already there. Requires the coach to suspend old habits and judgments.

Q: What is "presence" in coaching at its simplest?
A: The coach's full, undistracted, non-judgmental attention to the client in the current moment.

Q: What is "co-creating the relationship" in ICF terms?
A: Establishing trust and intimacy, coaching presence, and being open, flexible, and confident with the client.

Q: What is "establishing the foundation" in ICF terms?
A: Demonstrating ethical practice, defining the coaching agreement, and partnering with the client and stakeholders on expectations.

Q: What is "facilitating learning and results" in ICF terms?
A: Creating awareness, designing actions, planning and goal-setting, and managing progress and accountability.

Q: What is a "meta-question" in coaching?
A: A question about the client's thinking process itself — e.g., "How do you know that's the real issue?" or "What is your thinking telling you right now?"

Q: What is a "circular question" in coaching?
A: A question that explores relationships and patterns between people or parts of a system, e.g., "When your manager behaves that way, what does your team then do?"

Q: What is a "scaling question"?
A: A question that asks the client to rate something on a numeric scale and then explore what would shift the number — useful for clarity and small-step action.

Q: What is the "magic wand" question?
A: A variant of the miracle question: "If you had a magic wand, what is the first thing you would change?" It lowers realism defenses and opens possibility thinking.

Q: What is the "exception question" in solution-focused coaching?
A: "When has the problem not been present, or has been less severe? What was different then?" It reveals existing resources and successful patterns.

Q: What is the "coping question" in solution-focused coaching?
A: "Given that the problem exists, how have you managed to cope?" It surfaces resilience and competence the client has overlooked.

Q: What is "best self" visualisation in coaching?
A: Inviting the client to imagine themselves performing at their best, then asking what specific behaviours, choices, and supports are visible in that picture.

Q: What is "appreciative inquiry" in the 4-D cycle?
A: Discover (what gives life), Dream (what might be), Design (what should be), Destiny (what will be) — a strengths-based change process applied to coaching.

Q: What is the difference between "open" and "closed" coaching questions?
A: Open questions cannot be answered yes/no and invite exploration ("What's alive for you right now?"). Closed questions narrow and confirm ("Is this your top priority?").

Q: What is a "leading question" and why do coaches avoid them?
A: A question that embeds the answer the questioner wants. Coaches avoid it because it shifts ownership from the client to the coach.

Q: What is a "double-barrelled question"?
A: A question that asks two things at once (e.g., "What do you want and why?"). Coaches split it so the client can answer one part at a time.

Q: What is a "thinking environment" (Nancy Kline)?
A: A set of conditions — attention, ease, equality, appreciation, encouragement, feelings, information, diversity, incisive questions — that produce independent thinking.

Q: What is the "incisive question" in a Thinking Environment?
A: A question that removes the main assumption limiting the client's thinking. Kline's rule: a question that, if asked, would change the client's life.

Q: What is the role of "equality" in the Thinking Environment?
A: Treating the client as a peer whose thinking is at least as good as the coach's — no hierarchy of expertise, which keeps the coach's ego out of the conversation.

Q: What is "clean feedback" in clean language?
A: Feedback given by repeating the client's words exactly (often with a flag such as "and is there anything else about …?") to add a small, low-contamination reflection.

Q: What is a "metaphor" in clean language coaching?
A: A symbol or image the client uses to describe inner experience (e.g., "a dark cloud"). The coach explores the metaphor with clean questions rather than interpreting it.

Q: What is David Grove's contribution to clean language?
A: He developed the "clean language" questioning system in the 1980s while working with trauma clients, designed to avoid contaminating a client's model of the world.

Q: What is the "SFBT" 10-session typical structure?
A: Solution-Focused Brief Therapy is often brief by design — even one or two sessions can produce a useful shift because it focuses on goals and exceptions, not on analysing the problem in depth.

Q: What is "coaching for change" by John Whitmore?
A: Whitmore's framing of coaching as unlocking potential and responsibility, with the GROW model as the central tool and awareness + responsibility as the twin outcomes.

Q: What is the "awareness–responsibility" axis in coaching?
A: Whitmore's view that the value of coaching is the product of how aware the client becomes and how much responsibility they take. Insight without action is incomplete.

Q: What is the "iceberg model" in coaching?
A: A model in which behaviour sits above the surface and patterns, structures, mental models, and beliefs sit below — coaching often works at the deeper levels.

Q: What is "systemic coaching"?
A: Coaching that considers the client within their wider system (team, family, organisation) and explores patterns of relationship and role rather than only the individual.

Q: What is "team coaching" vs "team development"?
A: Team development trains a group in skills. Team coaching works with the team as a living system — its relationships, purpose, and collective capacity — to shift how it functions.

Q: What is the difference between "executive coaching" and "leadership coaching"?
A: Executive coaching is tied to a specific role and business outcomes. Leadership coaching focuses on the person's overall leadership capacity, identity, and presence, often beyond a single role.

Q: What is "shadow coaching"?
A: A coach (often external) observes live client meetings or conversations and gives the client targeted feedback afterwards on what they actually did versus what they intended.

Q: What is "skills coaching" vs "performance coaching"?
A: Skills coaching builds specific technical or behavioural skills with deliberate practice. Performance coaching addresses the wider context, mindset, and system in which the skill is applied.

Q: What is a "stretch goal" in coaching?
A: A goal that sits deliberately beyond current ability to provoke new learning, while still being meaningful and (in the client's view) just possibly achievable.

Q: What is the "achievable" criterion in a coaching goal?
A: SMART goals must be realistic enough to motivate rather than paralyse — too distant a goal triggers self-handicapping rather than effort.

Q: What is the difference between "outcome" and "process" goals?
A: Outcome goals describe a result ("get promoted"). Process goals describe a practice ("have a career conversation with my manager each month"). Coaching often converts outcomes into process goals.

Q: What is the "Seven-Eyed Supervision" model?
A: A framework (Peter Hawkins) that moves through seven "eyes" of attention: the client, the coach's interventions, the coach–client relationship, the coach's process, the wider system, the supervisor–coach relationship, and the supervisor's process.

Q: What is the "Johari Window" and how does it apply to coaching?
A: Open, blind, hidden, and unknown quadrants describe what is known to self/others. Coaching expands the open area by reducing blind and hidden spots, often using 360° feedback.

Q: What is "360-degree feedback" in coaching?
A: Structured input from a client's manager, peers, reports, and others, often anonymised, that surfaces blind spots and becomes raw material for coaching conversations.

Q: What is "self-determination theory" (Deci & Ryan) and how does it inform coaching?
A: SDT identifies three innate needs — autonomy, competence, relatedness. Coaches design work that supports all three to sustain intrinsic motivation and engagement.

Q: What is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in coaching?
A: Intrinsic motivation comes from the activity itself (interest, purpose, mastery). Extrinsic motivation comes from outside rewards or pressures. Coaching tends to strengthen the intrinsic drivers.

Q: What is the "stages of change" (Prochaska) model?
A: Precontemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, Maintenance — used in coaching to match the client's stage rather than pushing for action too early.

Q: What is the role of "non-violent communication" (NVC) in coaching?
A: NVC separates observations from evaluations, and feelings from needs, helping clients express themselves clearly and make requests that are more likely to be met.

Q: What is the "OARS" model in motivational interviewing?
A: Open questions, Affirmations, Reflections, Summaries — a conversational toolkit used both in MI and in coaching to deepen and direct the conversation.

Q: What is motivational interviewing (MI)?
A: A collaborative, goal-oriented communication style that strengthens a person's own motivation for change by resolving ambivalence — compatible with coaching.

Q: What is the difference between "rolling with resistance" and "pushing for action" in MI?
A: Rolling with resistance acknowledges and reflects the client's ambivalence; pushing creates confrontation. Coaches usually prefer the former because it preserves autonomy and trust.

Q: What is the "elicit–provide–elicit" pattern in coaching?
A: Elicit what the client already knows, provide (with permission) small pieces of information, then elicit the client's interpretation. Keeps the coach out of expert mode.

Q: What is "active ignoring" in coaching?
A: A deliberate choice not to pursue a thread the client raised because the energy in the room is going somewhere more useful. Used sparingly and with awareness.

Q: What is "backtracking" in coaching?
A: A technique in which the coach briefly reviews what the client has said, often verbatim, to make sure they have been heard accurately and to anchor the next question.

Q: What is "paraphrasing" vs "summarising" in coaching?
A: Paraphrasing mirrors back a small piece of what was just said. Summarising gathers several points from a longer stretch to show the client the shape of their own thinking.

Q: What is "empathic reflection" in coaching?
A: Reflecting the felt sense of what the client said — naming the emotion, energy, or value beneath the words — to deepen the client's contact with their own experience.

Q: What is a "developmental" vs "remedial" coaching stance?
A: Developmental coaching assumes the client is whole and focuses on growth. Remedial coaching focuses on fixing a specific gap or performance issue. The stance shapes the questions asked.

Q: What is "positive deviance" in coaching?
A: Identifying people in a system who achieve better outcomes using the same resources — then coaching the client to apply the same unconventional but successful practices.

Q: What is "psychological safety" (Edmondson) and why does it matter in coaching?
A: A shared belief that it is safe to take interpersonal risks. Coaching only works when the client can speak candidly, so the coach's first job is to build that safety.

Q: What is "fixed action pattern" recognition in coaching?
A: Noticing a recurring sequence of thought, feeling, and behaviour in a client's stories, naming it gently, and exploring its origin and cost.

Q: What is the "but–because" trap in coaching?
A: A client (or coach) explaining failure with a cause ("but I was tired, because I had no time") that closes the conversation prematurely. Coaches reopen it by asking what the explanation leaves out.

Q: What is "alliance rupture" in coaching?
A: A moment when the coaching relationship strains — the client withdraws, resists, or challenges. Ruptures, when repaired, often deepen the work.

Q: What is "rupture repair"?
A: A coach's process of noticing strain, naming it non-defensively, exploring it with the client, and restoring the working relationship.

Q: What is "personalisation" in a coaching context?
A: Helping the client see how they are constructing a situation through their own lens (e.g., "You hear 'you're not ready' — whose voice is that for you?") rather than treating the story as neutral fact.

Q: What is "dereflection" in coaching?
A: Directing the client's attention away from a preoccupation, often toward service of others or a larger purpose, as a way of breaking obsessive or self-focused loops.

Q: What is "reframing" the somatic experience in coaching?
A: Helping the client see a felt body sensation (e.g., tightness in the chest) as information, not as the problem — and exploring what the body is "saying" about the situation.

Q: What is the "emotional granularity" concept from Lisa Feldman Barrett?
A: The ability to label emotions with specificity ("I feel excluded and afraid, not just 'bad'"). Coaches develop this in clients to widen emotional intelligence.

Q: What is the difference between "primary" and "secondary" emotions?
A: Primary emotions are the initial felt response to a trigger; secondary emotions are reactions to the primary emotion (e.g., shame about feeling fear). Coaching often surfaces the primary layer.

Q: What is the "shadow side" of a strength?
A: Every strength has an over-used form. Curiosity can become nosiness, confidence can become arrogance. Coaching names both so the client can dial each up or down.

Q: What is "values clarification" in coaching?
A: A process of helping the client name what matters most to them at a principles level, then auditing current choices against those values to reveal where action is misaligned.

Q: What is the difference between "values" and "goals" in coaching?
A: Values are directions you move in; goals are specific points you want to reach along those directions. A goal achieved without values often leaves the client feeling empty.

Q: What is the "act–drop–commit" decision tool?
A: A tool for choosing next action: Act (if there's a clear next step), Drop (if the item no longer matters), or Commit (if the client needs to make a decision before acting).

Q: What is the "control vs influence" model (Stephen Covey)?
A: A coaching distinction between the things the client can directly control (their actions, attention, words) and the things they can only influence (others' behaviour, outcomes). Coaching aims energy at the controllable circle.

Q: What is "first-person" vs "third-person" coaching language?
A: First-person: "I notice I feel defensive." Third-person: "That client felt defensive." Some coaches invite the client to describe themselves in the third person to gain perspective.

Q: What is the "observer position" in NLP?
A: A perceptual position in which the client steps out of the situation and views it — and themselves — from a detached vantage point, often used to soften strong emotions.

Q: What is the "association vs dissociation" distinction in NLP?
A: Associated: re-experiencing the moment from inside, in first person. Dissociated: viewing the moment from outside, on a screen. Coaches help the client choose the position that produces insight or calm.

Q: What is "future pacing" in coaching?
A: Asking the client to vividly imagine completing the action they have committed to — including what they will see, hear, do, and feel — to embed the intention.

Q: What is "chunking" in coaching?
A: Moving between abstract, big-picture language and concrete, sensory detail. Coaches help clients "chunk down" to specifics when abstract talk becomes foggy.

Q: What is the "meta-model" in NLP?
A: A set of questions designed to recover deleted, distorted, or generalised information in a client's language — e.g., "What specifically?", "According to whom?", "How do you know?"

Q: What is the "Milton model" in NLP?
A: Artfully vague language patterns (used in Ericksonian hypnosis) that open up a client's search space without narrowing it the way a literal question would.

Q: What is "perceptual positions" in NLP?
A: Three classic positions: your own view, the other person's view, and a detached observer's view. Skilled coaches invite the client to take all three.

Q: What is "alliance" in the coaching relationship?
A: The collaborative bond: a felt sense of being on the same side, with mutual trust, agreed purpose, and emotional safety. Considered the most reliable predictor of coaching outcomes.

Q: What is a "coaching niche"?
A: The specific population and problem a coach chooses to serve (e.g., "first-time managers in tech"). Niching helps coaches attract clients and deepen expertise.

Q: What is the "supervision hour" requirement in ICF credentialing?
A: ICF requires a minimum number of mentor-coaching hours with a qualified mentor coach for credentialing at ACC, PCC, and MCC levels.

Q: What is the "practicum" in coach training?
A: The required observed coaching sessions — recorded, scored against competency markers, and reviewed — used by ICF to verify coaching skill.

Q: What is "mentor coaching" in coach development?
A: A structured process in which an experienced coach reviews another's recorded sessions, gives feedback against competencies, and supports their credentialing.

Q: What is "shadow consulting" vs "coaching" as an internal role?
A: An internal coach sometimes offers consulting, training, or facilitation on the side. The coach's value is highest when the role is clearly held as coaching, not as a disguised advice role.

Q: What is the "psychological contract" in workplace coaching?
A: The unspoken expectations of coachee, sponsor, and organisation. Misalignment here is a common cause of coaching engagements failing to land.

Q: What is the "stakeholder triangle" in workplace coaching?
A: The three-way relationship between the coachee, the line manager/sponsor, and the coach. Effective work requires explicit alignment of all three.

Q: What is "sponsor reporting" in workplace coaching?
A: How progress, themes, and outcomes are communicated back to the organisation funding the coaching. Must be agreed up front to protect confidentiality and trust.

Q: What is "levels of evaluation" for coaching impact (Kirkpatrick-style)?
A: Reaction (how the coachee felt), learning (what they learned), behaviour (what they did differently), and results (organisational outcomes such as engagement, retention, or performance).

Q: What is the "Phillips ROI" model for coaching?
A: Phillips adds a fifth level to Kirkpatrick: ROI — comparing monetary benefits of behaviour change with the cost of the coaching programme.

Q: What is "single-loop" vs "double-loop" learning in coaching?
A: Single-loop: correcting an action to fix a problem. Double-loop: questioning the assumptions and mental models that produced the action. Coaching aims for double-loop change.

Q: What is "triple-loop" learning?
A: Examining how the learner learns — reflecting on the reflective process itself, and on the conditions that make reflection possible.

Q: What is "transformational" vs "transactional" coaching?
A: Transactional coaching improves performance within an existing frame. Transformational coaching shifts the client's identity, meaning-making, or sense of purpose.

Q: What is the "logotherapy" lens in coaching?
A: Frankl's view that humans are driven by a search for meaning. Coaches working in this lens help clients surface meaning even in suffering or setback.

Q: What is "ACT" (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and how does it touch coaching?
A: ACT uses acceptance, defusion, present-moment contact, values, and committed action. Coaches borrow its defusion techniques (e.g., naming the inner critic) without being therapists.

Q: What is "cognitive defusion"?
A: Stepping back from a thought so that it is experienced as a thought, not as a literal truth — e.g., "I notice I'm having the thought that I am not good enough."

Q: What is "the observer self" in ACT?
A: The part of you that watches your thoughts and feelings pass by without being defined by them. Coaching often invites the client to act from this perspective.

Q: What is "values-driven action" in coaching?
A: Helping the client translate stated values into concrete, observable behaviours on a chosen timeline — the "commit" half of ACT.

Q: What is "self-compassion" (Kristin Neff) and its place in coaching?
A: Treating oneself with the same kindness one would offer a good friend. Coaches normalise it as a counterweight to harsh self-judgment after a setback.

Q: What is "emotional agility" (Susan David) and how does coaching apply it?
A: The ability to recognise, label, and choose response to emotions rather than being driven by them. Coaching builds it through noticing, normalising, naming, and acting.

Q: What is the difference between "complaint" and "commitment" in coaching?
A: A complaint is what you don't want; a commitment is what you do want, owned and time-bounded. Coaching converts complaints into commitments.

Q: What is the "perfectionism paradox" in coaching?
A: The client believes that holding the highest standards is what produces the best results, but perfectionism often produces avoidance, procrastination, and burnout. Coaches help clients trade it for "excellent enough."