Dimension Strategies

Many powerful trends are causing the growth in coaching

Coaching has been steadily growing as an industry over the past few decades for a number of reasons. Those reasons come from fundamental changes in the way corporate America is run and the effects of the global economy, as well improved access to education and financial resources for entrepreneurs and students. These changes have increased the opportunities we all face. They give us more choices. But they also leave us to our own devices more than ever. With no set patterns, established corporate ladders, or clear mentors, we often have to figure out our own paths to achieving our career and professional goals. By exploring the reasons behinds these changes we can learn by coaching is becoming an increasingly popular aid for the modern professional.

Lack of traditional corporate loyalty

The massive layoffs of the 1980’s and 1990’s pretty much crushed any semblance of corporate loyalty in most of America. Major companies brutally cut workforces and sent people who had given their entire careers to one firm to the curb with barely a whisper of a compensation package to show for it. The layoffs hit all types of companies from technology firms like IBM and HP to manufacturing firms such as Ford and GM. The staples of American industry broke many of the historical bonds of trust that had been set up over the previous decades that had created strong and loyal workforces. Now that company loyalty is dead and employees have to learn to fend to for themselves. Even if they went to a competitor or another firm in another industry, they were left knowing they were on their own. It taught people to look out for themselves and to manage their own career without relying on some company to take care of them. Coaches filled this new void by giving people in transition someone who was there to help them succeed on their own terms in their own way.

More choices are available for careers

Improved access to education, training, and self-learning materials has increased the opportunities available to everyone in today’s society. For much of recorded history people have stayed very static in their crafts or professions. Boys whose fathers were locksmiths often became locksmiths themselves. Additionally, women and minorities or foreigners were very often shut out from most career paths. But in the last 100 years, at least in America, much of the old barriers have been breaking down. They have a long way to go yet for true equality, but the choices are still there. Industrious and confident people can often find a way if they have the will power and vision. Coaches can help people find that will power and develop that vision for achieving success in life.

People are spending more time than ever in their work, they want it to be meaningful

People spend most of their lives in their day jobs or in school. They often spend 40 – 70 hours a week, day in and day out, working for someone else (or for themselves). One of the biggest reasons that people hire coaches today is because they want their work to be meaningful. They want to find a role where they can make a difference in the world. How they accomplish this is often a unique path for every person. Some people make radical changes and leave their professions for something new. Other people keep their day job but find some way outside of work to add to society. Still others find ways in their day jobs to serve others and be more productive. However they do it, they often hire a coach to help develop and execute a strategy to accomplish it.