Training or Coaching?

Every day we are faced with choices that can affect not only our lives, but also our personal evolutionary path. Change can be experienced passively, by suffering it and letting events unfold autonomously, or consciously and proactively, by striving to direct events strategically towards a specific goal, the realisation of one’s desires.

Contrary to what one might think, the division is not so clear-cut: in fact, the majority of people live somewhere between the two extreme positions, with a more or less evolved degree of awareness that justifies their proactivity towards determining external events. It is awareness that is the essential element that allows one not only not to get stuck in front of certain choices, but also to be able to live one’s life fully and satisfactorily.

In this sense, embarking on a path with the support of experienced professionals can be the first major sign of a need and a drive for improvement that must and can be nurtured with the right tools. These include coaching and training, two very different forms of ‘training’, whose peculiarities can be appreciated through a sports metaphor

Coaching could be compared to training with a personal trainer in the case of life coaching or to a sports team training in the case of group or team coaching.

Conversely, training could be compared to group training hours in gyms, where different people who do not necessarily belong to the same company or reality come together to do a common workout.

As can easily be guessed, each course may be more or less suitable for each individual, depending on the time of life one is going through and the specific problems that need to be solved. It must therefore be made clear that there is no right or wrong choice, but only a choice that gives an effective result for what the individual or company is looking for.

Given the absolute centrality of the person, with his or her more or less manifest needs, the first step is always to listen: only in this way can one understand which form of training is the most effective at that moment in time, for that individual or company.

Coaching is a journey that takes the coachee from where he/she is when he/she starts to a new, more aware self: this awareness helps people to achieve their goals, improve their skills and maximise their potential.

During the coaching process, the role of the Coach, an experienced professional who works closely with the coachee, helping him/her through an empowering relationship, to acquire greater self-awareness, develop new skills and achieve a satisfying outcome for the coachee, is essential. The coach does not provide the answers, but accompanies the coachee on this path that helps him/her discover the answers within him/herself.

One of the main advantages of a coaching path is its ability to promote the coachee’s self-awareness and self-determination: the coaching path helps the individual to identify his or her own strengths and weaknesses, and to focus on personal and professional goals. This makes it possible to make more conscious decisions about one’s future, both in personal and professional life.

Likewise, coaching is also a valuable tool for managers and entrepreneurs who wish to increase their competences and skills, with direct personal, family and business benefits.

Finally, the coach can help the coachee develop a clear and concrete strategy to achieve their goals by providing constant support and constructive feedback during the development process.

In the business environment, coaching generates very important benefits thanks to the different possible paths.

• 1to1 coaching, through which companies support their employees so that they can develop their skills and complete specific work tasks, improving their performance and contribution to the organisation;
• group coaching, these are individual coaching sessions carried out in groups, which add to the benefits of 1to1 coaching the strength of a shared path with other colleagues;
• team coaching, the focus is on improving the qualities of a work team by improving its interactions to achieve a shared objective.

Among the various definitions of training, I was struck by one from Oxford Languages: ‘maturation of the individual, due to study, experience, environment’. It is therefore clear that in the concept of training, two essential parts come together, namely the study of notions and information and the practical experience that each individual puts into practice of those notions and information.

Lately, I have begun to distinguish between two categories:

• information, i.e. as that type of training that increases the technical skills needed for a specific activity, whether professional or not;
• training (or training pathway) understood as pathways that help people evolve.

This is why I like to speak of evolutionary training, indicating with this terminology those paths that allow one to combine a greater awareness of oneself and one’s potential with practical and operational tools with reference to specific topics.

My classrooms are gyms where people can spend time training together with other participants on aspects of their personal and professional lives that create evolutionary blocks. My aim is to provide everyone with at least one practical tool to improve their personal or professional life with reference to the topic discussed in the classroom.

The training can be approached in different forms, including classroom training courses, online training courses, workshops, and training courses for companies. Training can be provided both to individuals, who find themselves in the classroom with other individuals with whom they have no particular connection, and to work teams (corporate or otherwise).