The Chronicle of Coaching provides a snapshot of what’s happening in the coaching profession, and is updated weekly. Compiled and edited by Ruth Ann Harnisch, Christine Heinrichs, and Linda Ballew.

In this week’s Chronicle:: Top professional golfer Phil Mickelson improved his swing under the advice of a new coach, and the New York Yankees fired the baseball team’s fitness coach, while Scotland tries a new training program for sports coaches. When it comes to athletics, can men coach women? Can women coach men? Should they? A study offers answers.

A coach in Australia is in the headlines, accused of financial crimes. That apparently hasn’t hurt general acceptance of coaching Down Under. Academic coaches in India are responding to a major change in admissions testing. Business advisors in the Cayman Islands get free training in coaching. Bahrain business leaders concerned about succession planning may use a coaching culture to address the transition.

Those succession planning issues are universal – a U.S. coach hired to help a company retain experienced workers gives advice to reduce the gap opening as Baby Boomers retire. The Wharton School partners with a coaching firm for mutual benefit, and a city in England advertises to hire business coaches for a government-funded program. An industrial psychologist shows how his work includes coaching.

A major U.S. health provider doubles its staff and space for health coaching. Life coaches are helping people get in shape for summer, and Borders offers life coaching events to its customers. Little League parents get coached on being supportive. A downtown spa offers streamlined life coaching for the time-pressed executive.

A nonprofit coaching group matches volunteer coaches with organizations that help the poor. A group of agricultural businesswomen hires a coach as keynote speaker for their conference. A success coach launches a new website with online tools, another offers pointers on coaching senior executives from a less-senior position.

Blogs advise serving others as a route to happiness and offer an exercise using fantasies to tap inner aspirations. A coach gives you permission to give yourself permission to live your dreams. Another offers ten steps from thought to profitable action.

And as always, if we missed anything, let us know at info@thefoundationofcoaching.org

New Zealand College Headed by Coach in Financial Scandal
May 6, 2007, The New Zealand Herald (Auckland, New Zealand)
The self-styled coach defends his perceptions as different from those of the judge overseeing the liquidation of eight campuses for teacher aide training, affecting 120 students. Public funding of $1.2 million is implicated in building a $30 million property empire instead of education.

City Advertises for Personal Business Coaches
May 7, 2007, ic Coventry (England, UK)
A government-funded program is paying for coaches to provide small businesses in Coventry with in-depth coaching, business support and advice. The idea is to enhance the growth and development of local businesses and local employment opportunities.

Scottish Sports Coach Training Program Launched
May 3, 2007, The Herald (Scotland, UK)
A former tennis player and coach is the driving force behind a foundation-funded pilot program to improve sports coaching nationwide.

Coaching Centers Shift Focus
May 3, 2007, The Hindu (Chennai, India)
Coaching centers are responding to the elimination of India's Common Entrance Test by broadening their programs to improve competencies for comprehensive examinations.

Mickelson Hires New Coach, Gets Instant Payoff
May 2, 2007, USA Today (USA)
The No.3 professional golfer in the world, Phil Mickelson, hires swing coach Butch Harmon and promptly tied for third in the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. An analyst breaks down the results of the coaching.

Injury-Plagued Yankees Fire Fitness Coach
May 3, 2007, New York Times (New York, USA)
With four players unable to play due to hamstring injuries and a disappointing 10-14 start to the season, the team's new fitness coach got the ax.

Industrial Psychology Includes Coaching
May 7, 2007, Asbury Park Press (New Jersey, USA)
This regular column focusing on occupations features an industrial/organizational psychologist who explains what he does and how his work helps individuals and businesses succeed.

How to Choose a Coach
May 8, 2007, TrainingZone.co.uk (England, UK)
Determine your aims in working with a coach, work out the practicalities, decide on a wide or narrow focus, check credentials and references and then follow your gut feeling.

Business Advisors Get Coach Training
May 7, 2007, Cayman Net News (Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands)
A volunteer consultant from Miami gave a free seminar on working with the entrepreneurial personality and improving communication with the four behavioral types to 20 local coaches as part of a business advisor training series.

Good Sports Coaching Is the Same for Both Sexes
May 6, 2007, The Boston Globe (Massachusetts, USA)
Athletes respond to being challenged, to positive encouragement and to honesty, regardless of the sex of the athlete and the sex of the coach. The increase in funding for women's sports has brought more men into coaching their teams, but common sense, trust and never violating the teacher -pupil relationship overcome gender differences.

Company Hires Coach to Attract, Retain Employees
May 6, 2007, The Enquirer (Ohio, USA)
Recognizing the problem of replacing retiring workers, one company brought in an executive from a coaching firm to help replace, retrain, and retain. She offers advice that can help others.

Coach Keynotes Ag Women's Conference
May 7, 2007, Sioux City Journal (Iowa, USA)
She contributes humor to lighten the hearts of the Iowa Women in Agriculture at their conference, "Taking Charge of Your Farm's Future… A Toolkit for Ag Women," July 24-25 in West Des Moines.

Little League Parents Get Coached
May 4-10, 2007, Downtown Express (New York, USA)
A two-hour session preceding the Little League season gave parents the heads-up on the importance of fun, teamwork, making friends and building self-confidence.

Forum Focuses on Coaching Business Leaders in Bahrain
May 5, 2007, Gulf Daily News (Manama, Bahrain)
The June 19-20 event will bring together speakers and business executives to find ways for businesses to develop a corporate culture of coaching and overcome the lack of succession planning, mentoring and apprenticeship programs that have resulted in a dearth of senior managers.

Life Coaching Gains Advocates in Australia
May 2, 2007, The Age (Victoria, Australia)
This writer attends a coaching session and reports on the difference between coaching and therapy, enhanced goal attainment, resilience and overall wellbeing through coaching.

See a Life Coach to Get in Shape for Summer
May 2, 2007, The Boston Herald (Massachusetts, USA)
When you change your body, you might be open to other life changes. This coach set up shop at a spa to help clients exercise their options for a more balanced life.

Career Coach Gives Your Permission to Give Yourself Permission
May 2, 2007, Animation World Network (California, USA)
Why wait to pursue your dreams? Give yourself permission to do whatever you want.

Coach's Exercise Taps Wishes
May 4, 2007, Embody (England, UK)
Working through eight steps of a fantasy can reveal surprising desires and help direct life decisions.

Executive Coach Blogs Her Ten Steps for Action and Success
May 4, 2007, The Coach Virtual Assistant (Pennsylvania, USA)/a>
Her strategies map the course from thought to profitable action.

Coach Advises, Serving Others Leads to Happiness
May 1, 2007, Embody (England, UK)
Kindness is the fifth of this coach's Seven Habits of Smiley Spiritual People.

Senior Managers Can Coach the Frantic Executives Above Them
May 8, 2007, PR Web (California, USA)
Pressures in the Corner Office work against developing good relationships, but those who report to them can advance business goals using coaching techniques. A new book on the subject of harried management addresses the inability of senior executives to take time for the Big Picture.

Executives Get Comprehensive Lifestyle Assessments and Coaching
May 2, 2007, Inside INdiana Business (Indiana, USA)
This downtown spa has packaged its services into two compressed assessment sessions followed by a week of action steps to jump-start positive life changes.

Wharton School, Lee Hecht Harrison Announce Partnership
May 3, 2007, Primenewswire (Pennsylvania, USA)
The alliance will provide more coaching for Wharton students and consulting research and development for LHH.

Borders Offers In-Store Life Coaching Series
May 1, 2007, PR Newswire (Michigan, USA)
The bookstore plans a weekly program featuring a life coach who will answer questions from the audience. The coach, who has a program on Sirius Satellite Radio, will meet some of her listener-clients in person for the first time, including a woman pursuing a dream to become an opera singer.

Success Coach Launches Web Site
May 1, 2007, PR.com (Texas, USA)
The expansion reflects the increasing needs of the 2.3 million individuals enrolled by its customers.

Coaches Encouraged to Volunteer
May 2, 2007, PR Newswire (California, USA)
The Coach Initiative, a nonprofit coaching organization, announced a partnership with Virgin Unite's nonprofit to rescue homeless and street kids at the Conversation Among Masters coaching conference held this week. The coaching group will pair volunteer coaches with key organization individuals.

By Vikki G. Brock

The roots of coaching from the decade of 1930s include personal success literature, such as the classics: Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich.”

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), founded in 1935, is based on a philosophy of self-responsibility which is the foundation for being coachable.

In the business environment, Harvard Business professor Elton May, founder of the Human Relations Movement and Industrial Sociology, conducted the Hawthorne Studies (between 1927 through 1932) at Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Chicago. Similar to coaching, these studies focused on motivation and productivity in the workplace.