The Business Coaching Process: Helping A Client Analyze and Solve Problems

The business coaching process is centered on the task of identifying, analyzing and solving problems—not unidimensional puzzles or profound, life-altering mysteries. As a business coach, I make extensive use of a threedimensional model of problem analysis. It can be of great value in addressing the complexities of a client’s problem. This essay concerns the nature of this three-dimensional model and the ways in which it can be used by a business coach in understanding the nature of problems that a client is likely to experience. This essay also provides a conceptual base for making sense of the many other strategies of executive coaching—and other forms of organizational coaching—that we will be identifying in this series of articles for WABC. This three-dimensional model suggests differing ways in which coaching clients are likely to approach the identification and solving of problems (and therefore different strategies that might be used by a coach in addressing the problems of their client).