what is coaching presentation

What is Presentation Coaching? The best way to improve your presentation skills

February 24, 2024

I am sure, if you have ever thought about presentation coaching, you will have asked “what is presentation coaching?” and how does it work. 

When our clients say that they need presentation training for their team, we never just say yes. first, we want to know what they want to get from presentation skills training, and what results they expect., the world of presentation coaching can be perplexing. businesses often seek a magic bullet, uttering the phrase “presentation training” with the hope of instant transformation. but what truly lies beneath this umbrella term is it merely about boosting confidence or is there more to understand.

As we ask our clients more questions, we better understand the problems they face and how we can help them.  While almost everyone wants to increase confidence when presenting, many people ask for help ‘improving my presentation delivery’.  But we ask them questions so we know what business improvements they want to see, and how can we help those individuals build lasting presentation skills and create compelling presentations.  

One thing many people overlook, is that great presentation skills are more than how you stand, how you use your hands and how you use your voice.   Presentation delivery skills are important, but they tend to be the icing on the cake, after you’ve got a brilliant presentation to start with.

Over the last 15 years our team of business presentation coaches , all with 20+ years’ experience as business leaders, have developed a process for fast, effective corporate presentation coaching.   We’ve coached thousands of executives in the UK to become brilliant corporate presenters.  

At its simplest, a great executive presentation coaching programme will address the following areas:

What is Presentation Coaching – Eight Key Elements

Let’s look at each essential element in turn.

1.  More Than an Ordinary Presentation Training Course

If you really want to transform your presentation skills and become a powerful and effective presenter, then you need coaching that makes a lasting difference.  Some people run training courses that take people through PowerPoint slides.  At Benjamin Ball Associates we do it differently. First, we tailor your coaching to exactly what you need. Presentation Skills Coaching , Public Speaking Coaching , One to One Presentation Skills Coaching , Pitch Coaching – they are all subtly different.

Your coaching here is based exclusively on presentation role play .  You bring along a business presentation, a talk, or a situation that you want to work on.  Over the course of an intensive half-day, usually, we show you what you are doing well and what needs changing. 

Our unique PitchPresent Methodology means fast, lasting improvements.  You make changes based on the skills you learn and see the difference.  Every person gets individual advice, and you go away with a clear plan to make sure you embed those presentation skills changes for ever.

2.  Understand Your Audience

“Designing a presentation without an audience in mind is like writing a love letter and addressing it ‘to whom it may concern.’” – Ken Haemer , AT&T

One overlooked element in many presentation training courses is a proper analysis of your audience. This is important because there is no such thing as a generic presentation. Every presentation is written for your audience.

With Benjamin Ball Associates presentation coaching you’ll learn how to think about your audience and how to prepare your presentation so that your audience is enthralled from the start.

What are your audience’s prior experiences with the topic? What are their hopes and concerns? Use this knowledge to chart your course.  You can then tailor your message so that is resonates and leaves a lasting impression.  A presentation is only a presentation when you are speaking directly to your audience. 

Contact us for a free consultation on your coaching needs

2. Be Clear What You Want to Achieve

Imagine setting sail without a map to your destination. The same principle applies to presentations. Before embarking on your journey, it’s crucial to be clear on your objectives. 

A presentation is never about ‘telling people something’.  The Benjamin Ball Associates Planning Process will give you powerful tools to make sure you are on course from the beginning.  

3. Build a Narrative and Use a Winning Structure

A presentation without structure is like a house without a foundation – destined to crumble under the weight of its own content. Skilled presenters understand the power of crafting a compelling narrative, one that guides the audience on a clear and engaging journey. This narrative serves as the architectural blueprint, ensuring your message unfolds seamlessly, leading to impactful takeaways.

When you use our presentation coaching, you’ll learn some simple structures to transform your presenting effectiveness.  You’ll start your presentation powerfully , build powerful arguments and then end your presentation brilliantly.

4. Use Language Than Engages

Presentations shouldn’t be one-sided monologues. Effective presenters understand how to ignite the spark of engagement. This can involve incorporating interactive elements, posing thought-provoking questions, or developing a sense of community with your audience. By weaving engagement into the fabric of your presentation, you transform passive listeners into active participants, creating a dynamic and enriching experience.

And great presenters understand how to master powerful spoken language.   Spoken language and written language are completely different.  During the BBA coaching sessions we’ll give you a crash course on Power Language , The Language of Leadership.  It will make your presentations sound professional and land with impact.  

5. Perform with Confidence and Enthusiasm

While confidence is certainly desirable, it’s just one instrument in the presenter’s orchestra. Delivery covers a wide range of techniques. It’s the maestro’s baton, changing the audience’s perception and engagement. When you master the art of pacing, vocal variety, and body language, you can transform your presentation from the sharing of information into a proper business experience.

During your coaching, you’ll quickly identify a handful of changes to your presentation delivery to give you the confidence that you have mastered the art of presenting with style.

6. Taming Butterflies; Soaring Like an Eagle

Even the most seasoned presenters experience nerves. But remember, nerves aren’t foes, but rather sources of energy waiting to be harnessed. The good news is that you can quickly overcome nerves and transform them into focused enthusiasm.

Over our 15 years coaching executives to improve their business presentation skills, we’ve developed a series of powerful techniques to quickly overcome nerves so that you look and feel confident.  We look forward to helping you too.

7. Visual Aids that Add Value

Visuals can be powerful allies in the presenter’s arsenal. However, just as a cluttered canvas can distract from the masterpiece, poorly designed slides will hinder your message.

When you understand the core principles of visual design you can create slides that complement your presentation, not overshadow it.

Our set of presentation design rules will help you take control of your PowerPoint and use it to deliver the results you want.

8. Practice Like a Professional

Every great athlete, musician, public speaker, and presenter will practice their skills.   There are good ways to practice and bad ways. 

 When you practice your presentation properly, you’ll learn how to subtly adjust what you say and how you say it so that your audience gets the best experience possible. You want your audience not only informed, but also inspired and engaged.

Remember, effective presentation training goes beyond a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s about empowering you to discover your unique voice and orchestrate a symphony of skills that means your audience reacts as you want.

What to do next to improve your presentation skills

Expert presentation coaching goes beyond simply boosting confidence or focusing on isolated skills. It is a comprehensive approach, covering all eight areas outlined above. By mastering these interconnected skills, you can significantly enhance your career prospects and contribute to the success of your organisation.

Improving presentation skills has always been one the most important tasks for business leaders.  Start today. 

Transform your presentation skills with tailored coaching

We can help you present brilliantly. Thousands of people have benefitted from our tailored in-house coaching and advice – and we can help you too .

“I honestly thought it was the most valuable 3 hours I’ve spent with anyone in a long time.” Mick May, CEO, Blue Sky

For 15+ years we’ve been the trusted choice of leading businesses and executives throughout the UK, Europe and the Middle East to improve presentation skills and presentations through coaching, training and expert advice.

Unlock your full potential and take your presentations to the next level with Benjamin Ball Associates.

Speak to Louise on +44 20 7018 0922 or email [email protected] to find out more and discuss transforming your speeches, pitches and presentations.

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Contact us for a chat about how we can help you with your presenting.

What leaders say about Benjamin Ball Associates

Manager, ubs.

"Essential if you are going to be a spokesperson for your business"

Senior Analyst, Sloane Robinson

"Being an effective communicator is essential to get your stock ideas across. This course is exactly what's needed to help you do just that!"

CEO, Blast! Films

“Our investment in the coaching has paid for itself many times over.”

Ed Coulthard

Corporate finance house.

“You address 95% of the issues in a quarter of the time of your competitor.”

Partner International

“Good insight and a great toolbox to improve on my presentations and delivery of messages to not only boards, analysts and shareholders but to all audiences”

CEO, Eurocamp

“We had a good story to tell, but you helped us deliver it more coherently and more positively.”

Steve Whitfield

Ceo, ipso ventures.

“Ben did a great job on our presentation. He transformed an ordinary set of slides into a great presentation with a clear message. Would definitely use him again and recommend him highly.”

Nick Rogers

“Moved our presentation into a different league and undoubtedly improved the outcome and offer we received.”

Head of IR, Equinox

“A fantastic job reviewing and transforming our marketing material and helping us get our message across with clarity to potential investors.”

Sylvie Armand Delille

Let's talk about your presentation training needs, +44 20 7018 0922, [email protected], our bespoke presentation coaching services, investor pitch coaching, executive presentation coaching, public speaking training, executive media training, new business pitch coaching, privacy overview.

Rehearse your slide show with Speaker Coach

Speaker Coach helps you prepare in private to give more effective presentations.

Speaker Coach evaluates your pacing, pitch, your use of filler words, informal speech, euphemisms, and culturally sensitive terms, and it detects when you're being overly wordy or are simply reading the text on a slide.

After each rehearsal, you get a report that includes statistics and suggestions for improvements.

Note:  Speaker Coach in PowerPoint was previously known as Presenter Coach.

Rehearse with Speaker Coach

Speaker Coach is compatible with Microsoft Edge version 15 or later, Chrome version 52 or later, and Firefox version 52 or later. To see which version of  Microsoft Edge you have, refer to Find out which version of Microsoft Edge you have . Microsoft Edge is updated with Windows. For information on updating, see Update Windows 10 .

Open your presentation in PowerPoint for the web .

Sign in with a personal Microsoft account (hotmail.com, outlook.com, live.com, msn.com), or an Microsoft 365 work or school account.

On the Slide Show tab, select Rehearse with Coach . (If you've turned off the Simplified Ribbon, you don't have a Slide Show tab; instead use the View tab to start Speaker Coach.)

The presentation opens in a full-screen view, similar to Slide Show.

Select Get Started at the lower right when you are ready to begin rehearsing.

As you speak, Coach gives on-screen guidance (in the lower-right corner of the window) about pacing, inclusive language, use of profanity, filler words, and whether you're reading the slide text.

When you're through, exit the full-screen view. Coach opens a Rehearsal Report that summarizes what it observed and offers recommendations .

Open your presentation in PowerPoint for Android.

Select Rehearse with Coach . The presentation opens in a full-screen view, similar to Slide Show.

Select Start Rehearsing in the dialog box when you are ready to begin rehearsing.

When you're through, exit the full-screen view. Coach opens a Rehearsal Report that summarizes what it observed, and offers recommendations .

Open your presentation in PowerPoint for Windows desktop.

After you review your Rehearsal Report, close the window or select Rehearse Again to practice the recommendations you've received.

Open your presentation in PowerPoint for iOS.

Tap the More menu, and then tap Rehearse with Coach . The presentation opens in a full-screen view, similar to Slide Show.

When you're ready to begin, tap Start Rehearsing .

After you review your Rehearsal Report, close the window or tap Rehearse Again to practice the recommendations you've received.

Open your presentation in PowerPoint for MacOS desktop.

Select Start Rehearsing in the dialog box when you are ready to begin rehearsing. To receive on-screen guidance, check that Show real-time feedback is selected.

Tips for using Speaker Coach

Sign in with a Microsoft account (hotmail.com, outlook.com, live.com, msn.com) or a Microsoft 365 work or school account. You can view and edit a presentation for free in a web browser by saving the file to OneDrive and using PowerPoint for the web to open it.

You need a microphone in your computer that can hear your speech and an internet connection.

We recommend that you rehearse in a quiet place with a microphone.

After you close the rehearsal report, it disappears. If you want to save a copy of it, you must take a screenshot.

Other things to remember

Currently, Speaker Coach only understands English, and it's only available when your Office user interface language is English. See Change the language Office uses for help with the Office user interface language setting.

Coach works best with one speaker rehearsing. It may not work well if more than one person is rehearsing at a time.

Coach will continue to learn as folks like you use it, and it will add more kinds of suggestions in the future.

Unlike the Rehearse Timings feature, Speaker Coach doesn't add timings to your slides. Speaker Coach is for practicing and feedback. It doesn't prepare a slide show to be run automatically.

Presentation recommendations

To relax and slow yourself down when you're nervous, take a deep breath.

Pause if you need a moment to gather your thoughts. Quiet moments don't adversely affect your presentation.

Speaker Coach gives you a gentle nudge by suggesting specific replacement terms for certain words. You make the final decision about what words to use in your presentation.

It's all right to repeat shorter bits of text from a slide, such as a title or bullet point, just try not to read the entire slide.

Speak naturally and vary the pitch of your voice to keep the audience more engaged and focused on your key points.

For more recommendations see Suggestions from Speaker Coach.

Important information about Speaker Coach

Speaker Coach is one of the cloud-enhanced features in Microsoft 365 and is powered by Microsoft Speech Services. Your speech utterances will be sent to Microsoft to provide you with this service. For more information, see Make Office Work Smarter for You .

Speaker Coach is not currently available to our government customers hosted in our Government Community Cloud (GCC).

Frequently asked questions

What features and critiques are available for the web version.

Web will always have the most up to date features because that's where we make them available first. After we get feedback about the features on the web version, we'll extend their availability to mobile and desktop.

What features and critiques are available for desktop versions?

On desktop apps, you'll get feedback while you rehearse on pace, monotone, filler words, speech refinement, originality, and inclusiveness.

What features and critiques are available for iOS and Android versions?

Speaker Coach is now available for iOS on both iPhone and iPad. You'll get rehearsal feedback on pace, pitch, filler words, speech refinements, originality, repetitive language, and inclusiveness. At the end of the session, you'll get a summary report optimized for iPhone and iPad. Repetitive language and Pronunciation will come soon on these platforms.

Who can use Speaker Coach?

Speaker Coach is currently available to everyone in free preview—even if you don’t have an Office subscription. You can try out Speaker Coach on the Web or on an Android or iOS device.

In which languages and markets is Speaker Coach now available?

Speaker Coach is available for all English-speaking markets. We're working now to expand to new languages, including Spanish, French, and Japanese.

In which languages and markets are body language, pronunciation, and repetitive language critiques available? Will they be made available in other languages and markets in the future?

Pronunciation is currently available only for the US English market. The rest of our features are available for all English-speaking markets. We're working to expand these features to more languages and markets soon.

Where can I get more information about Speaker Coach?

Go to our support article Suggestions from Speaker Coach or see our Speaker Coach tutorial .

Present with real-time, automatic captions or subtitles in PowerPoint

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What is Coaching and How Can It Transform You [Ultimate Guide]

Coaching, traditionally associated with the rigors of athletic disciplines and strenuous training regimens, has undergone a notable metamorphosis through the decades. Its contemporary significance, however, extends far beyond its initial connotations. What, then, defines coaching in today’s context? And how has its influence seeped into diverse facets of our professional and personal lives, transcending its original athletic boundaries?

The Origins and Evolution of Coaching

Coaching, in its essence, is a partnership between the coach and the coachee where the former aids the latter in unlocking their full potential. Historically, the term “coach” found its roots in sports. Athletes, in their pursuit of excellence, would collaborate with coaches to develop their skills and reach peak performance. However, the definition of coaching has broadened over time. It’s not just about athletic prowess anymore but about unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their personal and professional lives.

Recognizing the Evolution from Athletics to Personal Growth

Over the years, the shift in coaching has been evident. Although coaching started in the realm of sports, its effectiveness soon translated to other sectors. The workplace, for instance, began to see the benefits of coaching in terms of leadership, management style, and overall learning and development.

Diving into Workplace Coaching

Workplace coaching has become an integral part of a good work environment. It is not merely a management style but an entire coaching culture that organizations are adopting. The International Coach Federation (ICF) describes workplace coaching as a thought-provoking and creative process that assists individuals in maximizing their professional potential. Such coaching often involves one-on-one coaching sessions, focusing on the present and the future.

International Coaching Takes the Stage

International coaching is another facet of the coaching industry. As the name suggests, this isn’t limited to any one region or culture. Organizations like the International Coach Federation (ICF) play a pivotal role here, setting standards and ensuring the quality of coaching delivered globally. This type of coaching primarily focuses on business leaders and their specific challenges in a global setting.

The Modern Evolution

With societal advancements and complexities, human aspirations and the need for learning and development also amplified. Modern coaching, especially coaching in the workplace, resonates with this dynamic. Today, a professional coach not only guides but also asks the right questions to help the coachee unlock their mind, set precise goals, and navigate challenges. This form of coaching leadership promotes a coaching relationship that is deep and meaningful, fostering a coaching approach rather than a mere directive one.

Basics and Beyond

Understanding the basics of coaching is essential, but what does it mean to be a good coach? It means possessing a set of coaching skills, from asking the right questions to building a trustful coaching relationship. A good coach knows that each coachee is unique, and the approach should be tailored to their needs.

In conclusion, the history of coaching, from its athletic origins to its modern embodiment in personal and workplace development, showcases its profound ability to transform individuals. Whether it’s helping someone hone their abilities on the athletic field or aiding a business leader in fostering a coaching culture in their organization, coaching remains a powerful tool for change and growth.

Types of Coaching: A Step-by-Step Exploration

Understanding the Essence of Coaching Before diving into the types of coaching, it’s essential to grasp the essence of coaching. At its core, coaching is a thought-provoking partnership where the coach helps the coachee navigate challenges, set goals, and achieve their objectives. Each coaching type has a unique purpose and methodology, but they all center around this foundational essence.

Life Coaching – The GPS for Life’s Journey

• Purpose: Life coaching provides guidance in personal and professional spheres, helping individuals clarify their goals and navigate life’s challenges.
• Coaching Means: A life coach typically engages in coaching conversations, exploring coaching questions that help the client delve deep into their aspirations and hurdles.
• How It’s Different: Unlike coaching that has a narrow focus, life coaching considers all aspects of an individual’s life. This approach is broad and holistic, addressing both personal and professional challenges.

Executive Coaching – Sharpening the Corporate Edge

• Purpose: The primary goal of executive coaching is to enhance a leader’s effectiveness in the corporate arena. It’s about refining leadership style, improving decision-making, and optimizing organizational strategies.
• Coaching Process: This involves one-on-one sessions where the coach aids managers and leaders in understanding their leadership coaching style, addressing challenges, and leveraging their strengths.
• How It’s Different: Unlike general life coaching, executive coaching is tailored for the corporate environment. It often intertwines with learning and development strategies, ensuring that leaders can drive organizational success.

Sports Coaching – The Athletic Blueprint

• Purpose: As one of the most traditional forms of coaching, sports coaching aims to improve an athlete’s performance, devise strategies, and ultimately win games or competitions.
• Coaching as Part of Strategy: Here, the coach helps athletes develop skills specific to their sport. They might use techniques from renowned figures like Timothy Gallwey, emphasizing the need to learn rather than teach.
• How It’s Different: While other coaching types might focus on mental or strategic improvement, sports coaching has a distinct physical component. It’s about optimizing both the body and the mind for peak athletic performance.

Understanding What is Coaching: Key Elements for Effective Practice

Step 1: Understand the Foundation of Coaching To become a successful coach, it’s crucial to recognize that coaching isn’t merely about offering advice. It’s a comprehensive process that hinges on understanding, questioning, and action.

Step 2: The Power of Active Listening

• Rule of Thumb: Every word matters. While this might seem fundamental, truly hearing someone is at the heart of effective coaching.
• Why It’s Essential: Active listening ensures the coach grasps the coachee’s perspective, emotions, and concerns. This forms the base upon which further coaching and mentoring strategies are built.
• How it Differs: Differences between coaching and therapy are notable here. While therapy may involve deep dives into past experiences, coaching generally focuses on the present and future, requiring acute attention to the coachee’s current state and goals.

Step 3: Mastering Powerful Questioning

• Coaching Leadership Style: A unique aspect of the coaching leadership style is the ability to ask thought-provoking questions. Questions that push the coachee to reflect, reevaluate, and potentially reimagine their beliefs and actions.
• Skill Set Needed: Wondering what skills do you need for this? It’s the ability to challenge respectfully, provoke thought, and inspire introspection, all while maintaining a supportive environment.
• The Impact: By working with the client and immersing them in thought-provoking conversations, the coach paves the way for genuine self-awareness and growth.

Step 4: Crafting Action Plans for Tangible Outcomes

• Beyond Conversations: Remember, coaching would be ineffective if it stopped at discussions. The real essence lies in translating conversations into actions.
• How Coaching Works: In every coaching session, coaches collaborate with coachees to devise action plans. This ensures that goals are not just aspirational but grounded in actionable steps.
• Management and Execution: Leveraging coaching management style, coaches guide coachees through the planning process, from setting clear objectives to outlining the roadmap and addressing potential hurdles.

In summary, the journey of effective coaching encompasses genuine listening, deep questioning, and actionable planning. These elements, when skillfully integrated, create a coaching environment where coachees are empowered, inspired, and poised for success.

The Impact of Coaching on Individuals

Effective coaching reverberates throughout an individual’s life. Through coaching competencies, individuals undergo a personal transformation, discovering newfound confidence and realizing their aspirations. It’s imperative for a coach, in order to be effective, to establish a solid mentoring relationship. By deploying the right skills to help, they facilitate thought-provoking sessions, guiding clients to uncover their potential.

The Impact of Coaching on Organizations

When organizations use coaching, they harness enhanced decision-making and team dynamics, leading to greater productivity. Ensuring that coaching is not just a function but an integral part of line management and overall growth strategy is crucial for sustained success.

Choosing the Right Coach

Selecting the ideal coach is a pivotal decision. Just as you’d be meticulous in finding the perfect pair of shoes, the same attention is required when opting for a coach. Here’s a quick checklist to guide your choice:

• Credentials and Experience: As coaching is considered a profession, ensure the coach’s qualifications and background are impeccable. It’s akin to preferring a qualified doctor for health concerns.
• Alignment with Personal Goals: Ensure the coach’s specialization matches your aims. It’s about pairing with the right expertise, similar to not seeking corporate guidance from a sports coach.
• Trust and Rapport: Engage in thought-provoking interactions with potential coaches. Aim to establish a connection characterized by trust, ease, and fluid communication.

Remember, the right coach can catalyze significant personal and professional growth, so choose wisely.

Coaching, which historically found its roots in the realm of athletics, has evolved into an instrumental resource for both individual advancement and organizational development. As one navigates the complexities of personal and professional landscapes, the invaluable insights and guidance of a proficient coach can serve as a lighthouse. Therefore, in our continual quest for excellence and understanding, it may be prudent to consider: is coaching the guiding star we’ve been in search of?

While both aim to guide, coaching is often more structured and goal-oriented, while mentoring may be more holistic and relationship-based.

If you find yourself at crossroads, seeking clarity or looking to enhance specific skills, a coach might be beneficial.

Sessions can range from 30 minutes to several hours, depending on the objective and the coach’s approach.

Absolutely not! Anyone, irrespective of age or profession, can benefit from coaching.

Yes, coaches adhere to strict confidentiality norms, ensuring your discussions remain private.

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Presentation Coaching

Most leaders think being a skilled presenter simply means speaking with more confidence.

Confidence is a result—not a requirement—of strong presentation skills.

Being able to present and speak effectively, to be clear and inspiring, to bring people along and include them, and to move people to action are core leadership competencies.

Presentation Coaching helps leaders develop and strengthen the three discrete skill sets that are the bedrock of a masterful presenting:

• Structuring and Writing ( what is being presented)
• Platform Skills ( how it is delivered)
• Audience Engagement (to whom ).

Leaders interested in building presentation skills typically have a specific goal or event to prepare for, such as:

• Presenting to the Board or other key stakeholders
• Speaking at staff meetings, town hall sessions, and conferences
• Selling to prospective customers
• Pitching to potential investors
• Conveying technical information to non-technical audiences
• Presenting in English when it’s not their native language

Presentation Coaching typically begins with a self-assessment of the leader’s existing presentation skills, to help the leader and coach identify strengths and opportunities for growth.  This assessment, paired with the leader’s goals, informs the focus and content of the coaching, to most effectively help the leader build the key skills of masterful delivery:

• Structuring and Writing Delivery is critical, but without a clear, concise and concrete message, leaders will fail to make an impact in their presentations. Coaching helps speakers establish a purpose for the presentation and craft a message specific to that purpose.
• Platform Skills Building platform skills helps leaders overcome anxiety, eliminate distracting mannerisms that get in the way of effective delivery, and broadcast to the audience how they should feel about them and their message.
• Audience Engagement The most effective and impactful presentations feel more like a dialogue than a monologue. A speaker’s ability to establish credibility and build connection with their audience is critical to motivating the audience toward a desired outcome—and determines whether a presentation is truly successful.

The best presenters rely on more than a confident tone, mountains of data, or a polished slide deck. To deliver messages with the greatest impact, speakers need to understand their own purpose and goals, and how to present their message in a way that engages and inspires their audience in support of those goals.

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Put simply, coaching is a process that aims to improve performance and focuses on the ‘here and now’ rather than on the distant past or future.

While there are many different models of coaching, here we are not considering the ‘coach as expert’ but, instead, the coach as a facilitator of learning.

There is a huge difference between teaching someone and helping them to learn. In coaching, fundamentally, the coach is helping the individual to improve their own performance: in other words, helping them to learn.

Good coaches believe that the individual always has the answer to their own problems but understands that they may need help to find the answer.

Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.

John Whitmore, in Coaching for Performance.

The ‘Inner Game’

No discussion of coaching would be complete without mention of Timothy Gallwey and his insights into the ‘ inner game ’.

Gallwey’s book, The Inner Game of Tennis , revolutionised thinking about coaching. He suggested that the biggest obstacles to success and achieving potential were internal, not external. His insight was that coaches could help individuals to improve their game by distracting them from their inner dialogue and, in particular, the critical voice that said "Not like that! Concentrate on your hands! Angle it differently!".

By distracting that inner voice, the body could take over. It turns out that often the body has a very clear idea of what to do when internal dialogues are suppressed. Gallwey used the example of asking people to focus on the height at which they hit the tennis ball. This activity has no relevance in itself, but the simple act of focusing on it distracted the inner voice and enabled the capable body to take over. The individual relaxed and their tennis improved immediately.

Gallwey’s real insight was that this didn’t just apply to tennis, but that individuals generally did have the answers to their own problems within themselves.

The essential part of coaching, then, is to help people to learn to silence that inner voice and allow their instincts, or their subconscious, to take over. Sometimes that means distracting it, and sometimes it’s about exploring the ‘worst case scenario’ and removing the fear.

The Competence Cycle Model of Learning

One useful model for learning is the Competence Cycle, a four-stage model that can help you identify your competences:

1) Unconscious Incompetence

You don’t know that you don’t know about something.

A good example would be a child who has never seen a bicycle, or has no idea that any language exists other than their own.

2) Conscious Incompetence

You have become aware that you lack a particular skill.

An example might be the child who has seen other children riding bicycles, or heard someone speaking another language, and therefore wishes to learn.

3) Conscious Competence

You have learned how to do something, but you still need to think about it in order to do it.

An example would be the child who can ride a bicycle but falls off if they stop watching where they are going.

4) Unconscious Competence

You have learned how to something so well that it has become hard-wired into your brain.

You no longer have to think about how you do it, but just do it. In fact, if you think about it too hard, you may not be able to do it.

Coaches need to identify the stage at which an individual is at to use the right sort of language to help them move to the next stage. After all, it’s difficult to try to improve a skill if you don’t know that you lack it.

The Differences Between Teaching, Coaching, Mentoring and Counselling

Although teaching, coaching, mentoring and counselling all share some key characteristics and skills, they are nonetheless quite different and it’s important to be aware of the differences.

Teaching and Training

Teaching and training involve an expert teacher who imparts knowledge to their students.

Although the best teachers will use participative and interactive techniques, like coaching, there is very definitely an imbalance of knowledge, with the teacher as expert knowing the ‘right answer’.

See our page: Teaching Skills for more information

Coaching involves the belief that the individual has the answers to their own problems within them.

The coach is not a subject expert, but rather is focused on helping the individual to unlock their own potential. The focus is very much on the individual and what is inside their head. A coach is not necessarily a designated individual: anyone can take a coaching approach with others, whether peers, subordinates or superiors.

‘ Coaching ’ is one of the essential leadership styles identified by Daniel Goleman (see our page on Leadership Styles for more and take our ' What Sort of Leader are You? ' self-assessment to find out how well-developed your coaching leadership style is).

The key skill of coaching is asking the right questions to help the individual work through their own issues.

For more on questioning, see our pages on Questioning Skills .

Mentoring is similar to coaching. There is general agreement that a mentor is a guide who helps someone to learn or develop faster than they might do alone.

In the workplace mentors are often formally designated as such by mutual agreement, and outside of an individual’s line management chain. They usually have considerable experience and expertise in the individual’s line of business.

A mentoring relationship usually focuses on the future, career development, and broadening an individual’s horizons, unlike coaching which tends to focus more on the here and now and solving immediate problems or issues.

See our further pages: What is Mentoring? and Mentoring Skills for more information.

Counselling

Counselling is closer to a therapeutic intervention. It focuses on the past, helping the individual to overcome barriers and issues from their past and move on. Here, the focus may be either internal or external.

For more about the role of the counsellor, see our pages: What is Counselling? and Approaches to Counselling .

The differences between these various 'learning methods' can be summarised as:

Based on the work of: Clutterbuck, D. & Schneider, S. (1998)

A Coaching Spectrum

Many ‘coaches’ will recognise significant overlap between their role and that of a teacher. This may be particularly true of sports coaches, who are often highly skilled in their particular sport and looking to hone the technique and skills of their athletes.

It may therefore be useful to look at both coaching and teaching as on a spectrum.

As a coach, there will be times that you are very much led by the person being coached. These times are likely to be in the majority, especially for coaching at work.

However, there may also be times when you are the expert, and imparting information. Examples might include on the meaning of a psychometric test, or best practice in a particular area where you have some knowledge. For sports coaches, it might also include making a decision about when a particular activity is safe and why.

You can think of this as a bit like the nine levels of delegation (and for more about this, see our page in Delegation Skills ). It does not actually matter to anyone else what level of delegation of coach leadership you use—as long as it works for you and the person being coached.

The term ‘coaching’ means many different things to different people, but is generally about helping individuals to solve their own problems and improve their own performance.

It doesn’t matter whether coaching is used in sport, life or business, the good coach believes that individuals always have the answer to their own problems. They just need help to unlock them.

Further Reading from Skills You Need

Coaching and mentoring require some very specific skills, particularly focused on facilitating and enabling others, and building good relationships. This eBook is designed to help you to develop those skills, and become a successful coach or mentor.

This guide is chiefly aimed at those new to coaching, and who will be coaching as part of their work. However, it also contains information and ideas that may be useful to more established coaches, especially those looking to develop their thinking further, and move towards growing maturity in their coaching.

Continue to: Coaching Skills Coaching at Home

See also: Developing Your Coaching Philosophy Learning Approaches What is Psychometric Testing?

How to Use PowerPoint Speaker Coach to Improve Your Presentation Skills

Want to rehearse that important presentation on your own? Turn to PowerPoint's Speaker Coach to sharpen your skills.

Want to improve your body language and speaking when making online presentations? You can use PowerPoint Speaker Coach to gain instant feedback and build confidence.

Microsoft PowerPoint includes a powerful tool called Speaker Coach. It is a rebranded and enhanced version of Presentation Coach, initially added to PowerPoint in 2019.

With remote and hybrid working environments now familiar, presenting successfully to diverse online audiences using only slides, a webcam, and a mic is a more valuable skill than ever. In this article, you will learn about Speaker Coach and how it can help you.

What Is PowerPoint Speaker Coach?

You'll find Speaker Coach under the Slide Show tab in PowerPoint on Windows, macOS, and on the web as part of your Microsoft 365 subscription. Speaker Coach can offer real-time feedback on your body language (web version only) and speech as you rehearse a presentation while speaking into your mic and camera.

When finished, a Rehearsal Report shows your overall strengths and weaknesses. You can use the information to improve your presentation skills .

The tool offers many advantages over traditional methods of rehearsing a presentation. It helps you practice independently instead of depending on colleagues for feedback.

Speaker Coach also leverages AI to point out mistakes that alienate an audience. These nuances can be missed by people that work closely with you. The tool can also be helpful outside of professional situations. For example, planning on giving a speech at a wedding, commencement, award ceremony, or commemoration? Speaker Coach can also help you rehearse for these events, whether online or in-person.

Microsoft adopts a privacy-focused approach with Speaker Coach and does not save the videos or audio of you rehearsing.

Key Features of PowerPoint Speaker Coach

Powerpoint Speaker Coach can make you a more dynamic presenter.

Improved Body Language

Body language is still a meaningful way to connect with an audience, even if only the top half of you is visible. The web-based version of Speaker Coach can assess your body language by using your webcam and offers tips as you present.

For example, Speaker Coach pops up a warning if you are too far back from the camera or too close. Additionally, notifications appear if you obstruct your face with your hand or don't make eye contact with the audience.

Improved Speaking

Speaker Coach includes many more features for improving your verbal presentation skills.

• Pace makes sure that you are not speaking too quickly for the audience to understand your message.
• Pitch helps you adjust your volume: a monotone presentation will simply put people to sleep – not what you want!
• Originality identifies the slides you read too extensively. This sounds unnatural and can make a good presentation go bad.
• Filler words such as "um" and "you know" are identified as these can undermine the audience's confidence in your information.

Other features include scanning for repetitive language and encouraging variation in word choice with synonyms for overused words. Inclusiveness warns if you are alienating audience members by using culturally insensitive language or profanity.

The web-based version of Speaker Coach can even tell when you may have mispronounced a word. It will display the correct way to pronounce the word and offer you the ability to practice pronouncing it. Microsoft has said Speaker Coach is optimized for General American English and is improving the pronunciation feature based on user feedback, a tacit acknowledgment that accents vary.

Related: Tools to Give an Online Presentation From Anywhere

PowerPoint Speaker Coach Makes Suggestions for Improvement

The killer feature of Speaker Coach isn't just that it grades your presentation skills. It also gives specific suggestions for how you can improve.

Feedback from Speaker Coach includes a Learn More link. This Microsoft Support page offers information on the criteria Speaker Coach uses to assess your presentation and recommendations for making a mediocre presentation stellar.

While some of these might be obvious (like, don't swear) Speaker Coach also points out more subtle mistakes that can shape how your message is received. The support page explains that academic research suggests that audiences best understand presenters who speak at a rate of about 100 to 165 words per minute. Speaker Coach is assessing your performance relative to that metric. However, it also leaves space to adapt to your speaking style over time.

Related: Every Microsoft PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcut for Windows Worth Knowing

Note: Microsoft has said Speaker Coach will be added to Teams in early 2022 to help you communicate better during meetings.

How to Use PowerPoint Speaker Coach for Body Language Feedback

Non-verbal communication is an art that can make or break your presentation. Use the feedback from PowerPoint Speaker Coach to perfect the nuances.

• Open PowerPoint on the Web and go to Slide Show > Rehearse with Coach > Enable Show Body Language Feedback .
• A window will open at the bottom right. Click Start Rehearsing . Leave show real-time feedback enabled.
• Rehearse your presentation.

How to Use PowerPoint Speaker Coach on Windows and macOS

Speaker Coach works the same on both Windows and macOS, though do note that body language and pronunciation feedback are unavailable:

• Open a PowerPoint Presentation and go to Slide Show > Rehearse with Coach .
• A window will open at the bottom right of your screen. Click Start Rehearsing .
• Rehearse your presentation

Feel Empowered by PowerPoint Speaker Coach

Use Microsoft Speaker Coach for a unique way to improve both your online and in-person speaking and presentation skills. Its AI-based approach frees you up to practice when and where you want to, without need to impose on colleagues. In an increasing remote and hybrid working world, its range of features can make you a more dynamic presenter.

You may come to find Speaker Coach so useful that you begin to find that using PowerPoint to both give presentations and design the accompanying slides becomes fun again.

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Article • 13 min read

What is Coaching?

How to be an effective coach.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

You've probably heard people talking about coaching in the workplace. You might have even received some coaching in the past, or you might have used coaching to improve a person's performance, even if you didn't actually describe it as "coaching" at the time.

But what actually is coaching, and how do you use it? And what skills do you need to be an effective coach?

In this article, we'll look at the basics of coaching in the workplace. We'll clarify what it involves, and review the key approaches that you can use to be a successful coach. We'll also review some situations where coaching can be useful, and look at some examples of coaching questions.

About Coaching

Coaching is a useful way of developing people's skills and abilities, and of boosting performance. It can also help deal with issues and challenges before they become major problems.

A coaching session will typically take place as a conversation between the coach and the coachee (person being coached), and it focuses on helping the coachee discover answers for themselves. After all, people are much more likely to engage with solutions that they have come up with themselves, rather than those that are forced upon them!

In some organizations, coaching is still seen as a corrective tool, used only when things have gone wrong. But in many companies, coaching is considered to be a positive and proven approach for helping others explore their goals and ambitions, and then achieve them.

Coaches in the workplace are not counselors, psychotherapists, gurus, teachers, trainers, or consultants – although they may use some of the same skills and tools.

Most formal, professional coaching is carried out by qualified people who work with clients to improve their effectiveness and performance, and help them achieve their full potential. Coaches can be hired by coachees, or by their organizations. Coaching on this basis works best when everyone clearly understands the reason for hiring a coach, and when they jointly set the expectations for what they want to achieve through coaching.

However, managers and leaders in the organization can be just as effective as externally hired coaches. Managers don't have to be trained formally as coaches. As long as they stay within the scope of their skill set, and maintain a structured approach, they can add value, and help develop their people's skills and abilities.

The key challenge for managers is to separate their management role from their coaching role. Our article Informal Coaching for Managers includes ideas and best practices on how best to do this.

Although coaching in the workplace is just as important as coaching in sport, the approach is different. Sports coaches mentor their athletes, using technical skills, experience, and a "telling" style of direction. By contrast, questioning and reflection are often more important in workplace coaching.

Where Coaching Can Help

Here are a few examples of questions that you can answer with the benefit of coaching:

• How can I manage my time better to achieve all I want in life?
• What should I do next in my career within the organization?
• How can I reduce the stress in my job or my life?
• How can I achieve a better balance between work life and home life?
• What skills do I need to grow and develop further?
• How can I improve my relationship with a specific colleague?

Our articles on Coaching for Team Performance , Coaching with Feedback , Coaching for Talent Development , and Coaching Through Change look in more detail at specific situations where coaching is useful.

Golden Rules of Coaching

These are the fundamental "rules" of coaching:

Coaching is Founded on Confidentiality and Trust

Coaching can be successful only if coachees are able to discuss every aspect of an issue or challenge with their coach. The coach may need to listen to personal problems or private information that must be kept confidential. (Unless, of course, it involves criminal activity or activities harmful to the team, its clients or the organization; or affects the safety and welfare of other people.)

The Solution to the Coachee's Issue Lies Within the Coachee

This may sound unusual, but it means that the background of an issue and the options available are generally known to the coachee. The coach's job is to ask the right questions to help coachees arrive at their own conclusions. As we've said before, this is a very powerful way of helping people to change.

Of course, the coach can provide helpful input or suggestions, but the best answers usually come from the coachee.

There's a difference here between the type of coaching conducted by a professional coach (who doesn't know about the day-to-day functioning of the organization) and coaching conducted by a manager (who does). As a manager, you probably have useful knowledge and experience, and you're responsible for helping people find the right answers to questions they're asking. However, be sensitive and humble in the way you help people – situations may be more complex than you initially think!

There's no Judgment or Fixed Agenda, but Have an Agreed Goal for Each Session

For a coaching session to work well, there should be a lot of relaxed conversation, and the session should be free from the fear of judgment and should not follow any set pattern. At the same time, coaching conversations must be focused in order to be effective.

The coachee should have a general idea or outline of the objectives of the coaching, both within the specific session and in the longer term. The coach then helps the coachee arrive at that destination by whatever route seems appropriate. The coach should check with the coachee during the session to determine if they're both moving in the right direction.

Coaching is About the Whole Person

Although a coaching session will probably focus on one issue, coaches must remember that they're having a conversation with a whole person who has specific experiences, emotions, and patterns of behavior.

Workplace coaching will probably focus on workplace issues, but coaches must recognize that other factors and issues will likely enter the conversation.

The Coach and Coachee are Equal Partners

The best coaching conversations are set up so that the coach and coachee are equal partners, whatever relationship and hierarchy might exist in the workplace. The coachee will define the actual issue, while the coach will use his or her skills to help deal with the issue.

Coaching Looks to the Future and Next Actions

Coachees are typically looking for some change to their performance, career, or life direction. Determining the right path may require the coachee to look at past experiences and decisions.

However, the most positive coaching experiences are sessions that conclude with an agreed set of next steps or actions to take.

Good coaching sessions typically last between one and two hours. If they're less than an hour long, it's likely that the topic, or topics, won't be reviewed in sufficient detail. If a session lasts more than two hours, both the coach and coachee may lose focus and concentration.

Key Approaches Used in Coaching

These are useful approaches that you can use in coaching sessions:

Structured Questioning

Most coaching is achieved by asking the right questions – the types of questions that coachees would ask of themselves.

With practice and experience, you can develop a sense of what the right questions are. But as a simple rule, start with open questions, and then ask more specific and probing questions once the coachee has raised an issue or concern.

Active Listening

Listen actively so that you pay attention to the fine detail of what coachees are saying, and how they're saying it. This is key to understanding a coachee's position at a deep enough level.

Is there a lot of emotion attached to the words that the coachee is using? If so, what emotion? Passion, fear, excitement, dread, anger, joy?

How does the coachee's body language compare with the words being spoken? We often use words lightly, but the underlying meaning may say a lot about what we feel or believe. For example, phrases starting with "I should do …" or "I must do …" are very different from phrases starting with "I will …"

Summarizing and Repeating

During a coaching session, summarize where the coaching conversation, or part of the conversation, has led. This helps the coachee relax and continue, as they know that you have taken an interest, and see the whole picture.

You should also occasionally repeat what coachees say – particularly when it could help you understand how their behaviors or expressions might be seen by others.

Checking in With the Coachee

During a coaching session, it really helps to confirm with coachees that the session is going well for them and that it's covering what they want it to cover.

It's normal for coaches to give "homework assignments" to coachees. This does not mean the coaches are taking on the role of teacher. It simply means that both coach and coachee agree that some structured thinking time between coaching sessions is of value.

Example Coaching Questions

A member of your team has asked you to help them improve her time management. You schedule in a coaching session with her, and ask these questions:

• Where are the key conflicts in your use of time?
• What usually stops you from leaving work at a regular time?
• How do you think you could address that problem and stop it from happening?
• What stops you from getting up an hour earlier to do X?
• What support do you have at home to do Y?
• How could you get more support at home for Y?
• How could you get more support at work for the regular tasks you perform?
• How do you feel about delegating at work and at home?
• What is the main priority for how you spend your time?
• How do you deal with distractions?

These are simple, open questions. But the answers to these and other similar questions will often show that the real issue behind a time management problem, for example, has nothing to do with time management – but rather, something to do with how the coachee feels. If you have an issue with time management, try answering some of the questions above. Substitute X for an activity you believe you want to do, but never seem to make time to do it. Substitute Y for a home or family task that you always have to do yourself.

External coaches often have to deal with a coachee's major life changes and more wide-ranging career considerations. When managers act as coaches, they should think about whether to coach on these topics, depending on whether there's a potential conflict of interest with the manager's regular organizational role.

Coaching is great for helping people develop their skills and abilities, and for resolving issues before they become serious.

Coaching is useful in many different situations, and you can use coaching as part of your everyday role. Use the approaches we've discussed here, as well as tools such as the GROW model to help you structure your sessions.

Always remember to keep the coachee's interests at the forefront of coaching sessions. Also, try to let coachees come up with their own conclusions through open questions, rather than giving them the answers directly.

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Recognizing and Relating to Emotions

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Comments (1)

saddam taaban

I think there is a mixing between coaching and mentoring. in my knowledge, a coacher is someone within reporting chain, mentor is someone outside reporting chain. Lesly Jon (Oakwood international institution)

about 1 month

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Presentation Coaching

Trusted by global brands & leaders, how can a presentation coach help you.

You really can’t escape presentations.

From monthly town halls and company events, to keynotes, roadshows, webinars and more, achieving success goes hand in hand with being an effective communicator.

But that’s actually good news. Because once you learn how to present so that people listen and see the real impact you can have, you’ll start looking forward to every presentation.

Our executive presentation coaching program will help you achieve just that: combining years of theater training, Hollywood storytelling tactics and understanding of how the brain works and what makes people behave in a certain way, your dedicated coach will help you:

• Lay the foundations for a great presentation using proven content structure
• Turn simple ideas into powerful stories that drive action
• Add color to your presentation using dynamic vocal delivery
• Learn how you can use your body to strengthen your message and make a point
• Create visual aids that actually help your presentation

Leave your CEO, investors, teams, customers motivated & inspired.

Get tailored 1:1 presentation coaching and learn how to give presentations confidently.

Presentation Coaching Types

Not all presentations are created equal. Depending on your needs and the types of events you want to prepare for, you can choose to get coached on different presentation styles and methods.

Company Event Presentation

Want to make sure that the presenters on your next company event are ready to put their best presenting foot forward?

Leading companies work with Clear Communication Academy’s coaches to reduce stress before their next corporate event and to create powerful agendas, comprising engaging speakers and presentations people will remember.

Ted Talk Coaching

Have you ever wondered what makes TED Talks so addictive and engaging? Speaking at TED can be a huge career move, but to stand out among all those great speakers that present at TED, you need to be able to tell an exciting, engaging story that people connect with.

Since TED talks are so specific, we developed a TED style coaching program, built to help you prepare and deliver a TED presentation that ticks all the boxes: from story and narrative, to vocal delivery, stage presence and audience interaction.

Conference Presentation

Get expert guidance in preparing your next keynote or guest presentation and learn effective techniques to take control of any live or virtual stage.

We’ll devise a personalized process to help you structure your narrative, calm your nerves and find your unique presentation style, so that by the time you’re standing in front of an audience you’ll be completely calm, confident, and ready to take listeners on a journey.

Who Presentation Coaching is for

Our 1:1 presentation coaching program is for individuals who have an upcoming presentation and want to wow audiences with outstanding content & delivery.

Thought leaders

…who want to strengthen their authority in the industry and share expertise in a clear, concise manner

...who want to lead more effective and empowering meetings with peers and teams

Founders & CEOs

...who want to take their presentations to their board from boring to brilliant

Entrepreneurs

...who looking to raise capital and ensure potential investors see the full potential of their business

Professional speakers

...who have a looming presentation and need expert help to ensure everything runs smoothly

Sales professionals

...who want to create presentations that clients actually understand and listen to

Personally public speaking can be difficult and intimidating. LaQuita Ann minimized these feelings and helped me overcome great odds so I could ultimately communicate my message successfully.

Not only does she work with you on performance but on the material. She becomes fully invested in you and your goal of effectively performing to the best of your ability. She is all in! In my case, I had never spoken for more than a couple hundred people in church or at film screenings.

I had to speak for thousands of extremely influential people at a YPO event and she prepared me emotionally, mentally and physically. I felt like I was able to achieve my best simply because she believed in me. I will never speak in public unless I prepare with LaQuita Ann!

...looking to raise capital and ensure potential investors see the full potential of their business

How Presentation Coaching Works

Our 1:1 presentation coaching program include personalized attention and tailored plans to help you reach your most important objectives, whether that’s stage presence, vocal delivery, storytelling and content creation or a combination of all. Included in 1:1 coaching:

What are your initial skills and what are your strengths vs. weaknesses?

Your dedicated coach will create a personalized plan to attack those areas that are critical to YOUR success.

Prepare to turn your plan into action through proven exercises and skill-building activities.

Practice your presentation and receive actionable feedback, as well as tips and ideas on how to improve.

I have never considered myself a good presenter, but Laquita has the gift and knowledge of nudging you in the right direction while you are learning a lot. She does not give you the solution, but teaches you how to find it.This is why you raise the bar. I am looking forward to working with her to further progress in this journey.

I have been speaking professionally for years and LaQuita was able to improve almost every aspect of my talk, including clarity, delivery and timing. She’s wonderful at teaching how to pull the audience in and keep them engaged and is both honest and direct about what works and what doesn’t. Wholeheartedly recommend her and look forward to working with her again.

LaQuita is a force of nature. She commands with such authority, cutting to the core. I had the privilege offing coached by her, truth is I feared her in the process because she’s the best and you don’t meet with the best.

What you will Leave with

Depending on your previous experience, current skills and deadline for your next presentation, our coaching sessions will provide you with a personalized step by step plan to put your best presenting foot forward. Here are some of the results you can expect to see in as little as one session:

We’ll teach you:

• Have a clear objective and structure for your presentation
• Understand how to emphasize the most important points in your presentation
• Learn how to create presentations that tell a story
• How to combine engaging visual aids with powerful delivery for maximum audience engagement
• How to interact and connect with your audience and think on your feet when things don’t go as planned

Q: What makes your presentation coaching method unique?

A: We combine the science of psychology with the art of performance to help you deliver presentations that people listen to and remember.

Q: Will the process be tailored to meet my needs?

A: Yes. You’ll work with a dedicated coach to identify exactly which areas you need to develop further and you’ll receive a personalized plan to reach your objectives.

Q: Does coaching take place in-person or online?

A: We offer both virtual and in-person 1:1 sessions.

Q: How many sessions will it take to get prepared for the presentation?

A: It depends on several factors, like the length of the presentation, the material you already have, and so on. Generally, it will take 3-5 sessions to get your presentation in the best shape possible but this can vary.

Q: How much will coaching cost?

A: The cost depends on the package you select and the frequency of the coaching sessions.

Additional 1:1 Coaching Sessions

• TED Talk Coaching
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• Public Speaking Coaching
• Storytelling Coaching

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Ready to raise the bar on your communication skills? Please fill out the form to schedule your training, learn more or ask questions

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What Is the GROW Coaching Model? (Incl. Examples)

Being effective in this profession takes a certain amount of skill beyond being a good listener.

Asking the right types of questions to encourage a client to have a personal insight into their own growth is the overall goal. Having a framework for those types of questions is incredibly helpful.

The GROW model is one of the most popular coaching frameworks. The approach can be used in a wide variety of coaching modalities. In this article, we’ll explain more about this approach to coaching leadership and personal development.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients create actionable goals and master techniques to create lasting behavior change.

This Article Contains:

What is the grow coaching model, 6 examples of the grow coaching model, 40 best grow model coaching questions, 5 grow coaching model exercises and worksheets (+ pdf), grow model coaching powerpoint templates, a take-home message.

This framework for coaching was developed in the 1980s by Sir John Whitmore and his colleagues at Performance Consultants International. He wrote the book Coaching for Performance (1988), which has been widely used for decades. Seeking to find a more effective way to lead in business, GROW was developed to create stronger leaders. The approach has helped improve performance across the globe.

GROW is an acronym for the following components:

Goal (aspirations) Reality (current obstacles or situations) Options (strengths, resources) Way forward (accountability and personal actions – what, when, by whom, and the will to do it)

This model takes goal setting to a higher level. Well-set goals are inspirational and challenging. When reaching for a broader goal perspective with this approach, leaders are more productive, self-motivated, and fulfilled.

Coaches aren’t viewed as having the answers for their clients. Effective coaches ask the powerful questions that open their clients up to their own potential within this solution-focused framework. Empowered people don’t need someone else to have the solutions; they are given opportunities to find solutions for themselves.

This model is frequently used in organizations. When GROW is utilized, the culture of the organization allows growth for all employees, starting with leaders. Establishing a coaching culture helps hold people accountable for their actions in all directions.

Finding clarity around a goal allows for the structure of GROW to begin with what matters first. This type of clarity helps an individual or group to envision the steps required to move forward. This structure opens people up to broader goals and enables them to find a personal connection to that goal.

A desired change can tow emotional reactions with it. The reality stage of GROW allows people to explore their motivational connection to the goal. This part of the structure allows for the exploration of strengths and how they will support forward movement.

In the options stage of the GROW model, people are supported as they brainstorm various strategies to meet the needs of the goal. It is a vital stage to allow participants’ imagination to roam. It can be incredibly fun to imagine an unlimited budget and resources.

After the process of generating abundant options, the way forward portion of the GROW model harnesses the client’s will to create action plans. During this phase, a coach can find out what their client is actually willing to do to move toward their goal. This phase creates opportunities for accountability and structure for tracking future progress.

It is recommended that most of the coaching session time be spent in the goal and reality phases when utilizing this model. When goals and reality get thoroughly explored, deeper vision helps clients to move forward more easily. This model doesn’t have to be absolutely linear. Revising the first two phases is sometimes helpful in sparking higher commitment to goals and actions.

The framework allows for adaptability in creating coaching cultures. Once this culture becomes the norm, this framework allows for people to work and live together more harmoniously and productively.

1. Management/organizations

Every leader should know some form of coaching skills. The GROW model is terrific for creating a scaffolding for building employee growth potential. The structure allows for the coachee to lead the conversation and will enable the manager to better understand the employees’ personal connection to goals.

A coaching culture provides the opportunity for employees to feel heard through improved communication skills. It also develops rapport and camaraderie within an organization. Human beings who are more connected to a common goal will move toward that goal with better results.

2. Individual

Coaching the individual allows for a safe space to explore personal motivation toward growth-related goals. GROW can be used as a framework for any type of goal. Personal development can occur in any setting, whether it’s business, health, or any other area where obstacles need to be overcome.

3. Group or team

The GROW model can be utilized in a team or group setting to clarify team goals better. Building teamwork through group coaching is a powerful way to initiate team motivation toward common goals, as well as improve morale. Group coaching helps to get everyone on the same page and to define roles and personal responsibility toward team goals.

4. Parenting and teaching students

Like managers, parents and teachers should all have coaching skills in their tool bag.

Communication in families can prove to be difficult if children are not able to speak their values. Utilizing Socratic questioning allows kids to realize their potential and their motivation to achieve personal goals (McLachlan, Eastwood, & Friedberg, 2016). GROW allows an easy framework to broaden children’s minds and to help parents and teachers better understand children’s perspectives.

A variation of the GROW model that is important to note is TGROW, where T stands for topic. Before heading straight to goals, an exploration of the topic that the coachee would like to focus on better attunes them with their expectation in a session.

From time to time, human beings need to explore a topic that is unrelated to other areas of growth. Allowing first for topic exploration puts the coachee in the driver’s seat for the coaching conversation.

Another alteration of the GROW model adds tactics and habits to increase specificity toward goal attainment. The T asks questions about the specific steps the client will take toward goal achievement. The H establishes how success will be maintained.

This alteration of the GROW model allows the client and coach to forge a more precise plan. It also illuminates daily personal responsibilities and actions that one must take to stay on track.

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Although there are many potential questions to ask in a coaching session, below is a list of the 40 best coaching questions.

• What would you like to focus on today?
• What’s important to you at the moment?
• What does your ideal future look like?
• What will you be doing in five years?
• What new skills do you want to learn or develop?
• Where is your life out of balance?
• What challenges are you facing at the moment?
• What would make you feel that this time has been well spent?
• What are you currently working toward?
• How can you word your goal in positive language?
• What is working well at the moment?
• What do you need?
• What excuses have you always used for not achieving your goals?
• What have you done so far to improve things?
• What parts of your life will be impacted by you achieving your goal?
• What is the biggest obstacle you are currently facing?
• What does self-sabotage look like for you?
• What is your inner critic saying to you?
• What fears are present?
• What are you passionate about?
• What is your first step?
• If you had 50% more confidence, what would you be doing that would be different?
• If success was guaranteed, what would you do?
• If money was not an obstacle, what would you do?
• What action step is the best use of your time at this moment?
• If someone else came to you with your obstacle, what would you tell them?
• What strengths can you use to move forward?
• If you could do only one thing this week, what would it be?
• What would you do if you answered to no one?
• What is the most efficient use of your time in this moment?

Way forward

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how motivated are you to achieve your goal?
• What will it take to get that motivation closer to a 10?
• Whatever your first step is, can you think of anything that might stop you from doing it?
• How committed are you to achieving this goal?
• How do you want to be held accountable for this goal?
• How will you celebrate when you’ve achieved your goal?
• What are you going to do in the next 24 hours?
• What will you do when you’ve achieved your goal?
• Who do you need to include in your journey to that goal?
• What else do you need to consider before starting?

We know from Self-Determination Theory that autonomous motivation is important in effective goal setting (Deci & Ryan, 2008).

Utilizing the goals portion of the GROW framework is therefore vital to connecting with a client’s motivation.

Opportunities to introduce concepts in positive psychology that a client may be unaware of are plentiful in coaching relationships. Through the introduction of VIA character strengths , clients can begin to build creative ways to utilize their strengths in their lives and workplaces. More engaged employees produce better results (Robison & Gandhi, 2019).

In the goals section of the framework, helping a client realize their strengths and align them with their goals is a helpful exercise. Goals are anchors for hope (Oettingen & Gollwitzer, 2002), and the more human beings are aligned with their core values in movements toward those goals, the better engaged people will be in participating in actions that will make those goals realized.

Here is a helpful goal-setting exercise to use with clients.

When working in the reality  of the GROW framework, it is important to remember how perspective works. If a client has never experienced the beauty of reframing and growth mindset conversations, it would be a perfect time to serve them with this information.

Broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 2001) gives clients the ability to open themselves to possibilities through increased positive emotions. By asking a client about what is working well, you can help their brains become more open.

Offering your clients unconditional positive regard gives them an opportunity to explore their personal perspective. This area of GROW allows for an invitation for self-assessment. This part of the framework can illuminate the information that is required to adequately solve problems.

Here is a helpful reality worksheet to use with clients, with more shared in our Unconditional Positive Regard worksheets  article.

The options = of the GROW framework can be magical. It allows clients to explore possibilities and choose which of those possibilities will best move them forward. When the client develops these options, they are more motivated and emotionally connected to them.

Here is a helpful options worksheet to use with clients.

Each coaching session will reveal a way forward for the client. A coach’s job is to collaborate with their client to assist them in connecting with what they want to do and how they will take their next step. This portion of the framework helps to develop a commitment to goal achievement.

This stage of the GROW model clarifies action steps and prepares a specific plan forward. Identifying future obstacles allows clients to plan ahead and keep the momentum going when these obstacles inevitably pop up. Having an accountability buddy in the process will help a client hold themselves to what they said they were going to do.

Here is a helpful way forward worksheet to use with clients.

The GROW model can be utilized in online group coaching , as well. Here is a helpful GROW With Your Team exercise to use in a group setting. It’s useful to have a framework in place when many voices need to be heard.

The GROW model in action – South West Coaching Ltd

The templates in this presentation highlight the “how” of the GROW model. It is a helpful presentation to offer leaders in any area responsible for others. These GROW Templates explain the GROW model.

17 Tools To Increase Motivation and Goal Achievement

These 17 Motivation & Goal Achievement Exercises [PDF] contain all you need to help others set meaningful goals, increase self-drive, and experience greater accomplishment and life satisfaction.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

The GROW model is a simple yet highly effective coaching framework that can be used in any coaching setting. When a coach creates a reliable scaffolding for a session, the client can easily move through whatever they need to explore to decide what action steps, if any, they’d like to take moving forward. It can be adapted to fit into any setting where decisions need to be made or obstacles overcome.

The benefit of having structure when coaching is that the client-chosen topic can move forward on their terms. It helps set an agenda, and open-ended coaching questioning allows clients to be open to the possibilities that might be revealed. Holding space for other people is hard work. The GROW model makes the process a little more structured.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free .

• Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Self-determination theory: A macro theory of human motivation, development, and health. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne , 49 (3), 182-185.
• Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist , 56 (3), 218-226.
• McLachlan, N. H., Eastwood, L., & Friedberg, R. D. (2016). Socratic questions with children: Recommendations and cautionary tales.  Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy ,  30 (2), 105-119.
• Oettingen, G., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (2002). Turning hope thoughts into goal-directed behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 13 (4), 304-307.
• Robison, J. & Gandhi, R. (2019, March 13). Make engagement central to culture and reap the rewards. Gallup. Retrieved from https://www.gallup.com/workplace/247493/engagement-central-culture-reap-rewards.aspx
• Whitmore, J. (1988). Coaching for performance . Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

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Great! Thanks so much!

I’m working at RMG sector. my task is to inhouse the goods timely from port to factory after shipment done as well as documents. besides i m corresponding with overseas shipper and vendor over mail or, phone. what should be my next GROW model? pls describe me by giving someone complete GROW model example.

It’s probably a little bit tricky for me to make specific recommendations without knowing more about your work context. If you need more support and examples of the GROW model in practice, I’d suggest taking a look at John Whitmore’s book where he first conceptualized and described it: https://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Performance-Potential-Principles-Leadership/dp/185788535X

I hope this helps a little.

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Coaching Presence: What is it and How to Develop it

Icf core competencies: coaching presence.

By Lucia Baldelli

The concept of having a coaching presence is important for several reasons.  A good presence assures the client that trusts the coach, and the coach trusts the client and their abilities. At its core, the coaching presence is seen in a few of the ICF core competencies.  Specifically, competency 2 Embodies a Coaching Mindset, competency 4 Cultivates Trust and Safety, competency 5 Maintains Presence, and competency 6 Listens Actively. In this article we will see what is coaching present, what it means for a coach to be fully present, and how to develop it.

What is coaching presence .

To explain the concept of coaching present it is important to look at what “presence” is. In our common language, ‘being present’ means staying fully focused and engaged in the present moment, without being distracted by internal thoughts or external distractions. It involves being fully engaged in whatever we are doing or whoever we are interacting with, without allowing our mind to wander.   

We become more aware of our senses and notice the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and physical sensations around us. We accept whatever comes as it is, without judgement or the need for it to be different. We suspend evaluations, criticisms, or comparisons, allowing ourselves to experience and accept the present reality without resistance. 

Being fully present often goes hand in hand with mindfulness, which is a state of non-judgmental awareness of the present moment. It involves observing your thoughts, emotions, and sensations without getting caught up in them.

When it comes to interacting with others, being present involves wholeheartedly participating, listening, and responding with genuine interest and openness. It opens the door to deep connection and meaningful interactions with others.

In his book Presence-Based Coaching: Cultivating Self-Generative Leaders Through Mind, Body, and Heart , Doug Silsbee describes presence as “a state of awareness in the moment, characterised by the felt experiences of timelessness, connectedness and a larger truth”. 

Coaching presence encompasses much more than what we might think. It refers to the state of being engaged as a coach in the coaching relationship. It involves a combination of mindset, skills, and qualities that coaches cultivate to create a space that is safe enough to be transformative. 

What are some signs that coaching presence is being demonstrated? 

• The Coach is listening without interrupting and is mentally focused on what is being communicated on the other side, instead of his/her inner talk. The Coach gives undivided attention to the other person and his/her body language shows genuine interest and engagement in the dialogue.
• The Coach is responsive by acknowledging, summarising, paraphrasing, asking questions that are connected to what has just been communicated. 
• The Coach is aware of the emotions in the room and notices tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language to gain insight into the emotional state of the other person. Empathy is a key ingredient to welcome their feelings.
• The Coach is comfortable with whatever happens in the session. Even strong emotional reactions or opinions are welcomed with curiosity and no judgement to create a safe space for open and honest communication.
• The Coach adapts the pace of the conversation to what is needed and allows time for silence and reflection to allow deeper insights to emerge. 

If you are interested to go deeper in how to demonstrate more curiosity in coaching , you can read our recent article.

Curious to get more coaching tips and insights?

Icf core competency 5: maintaining coaching presence.

Here is how ICF defines presence, one of the Core Competencies: the coach “Is fully conscious and present with the client, employing a style that is open, flexible, grounded and confident.”

According to ICF, when coaching presence is being demonstrated the Coach  1. Remains focused, observant, empathetic and responsive to the client  2. Demonstrates curiosity during the coaching process  3. Manages one’s emotions to stay present with the client  4. Demonstrates confidence in working with strong client emotions during the coaching process  5. Is comfortable working in a space of not knowing  6. Creates or allows space for silence, pause or reflection

Here is an overview of the Updated Core Competency. 

When coaching presence is demonstrated, the coaching process is in flow and the Coach stops worrying about “doing coaching” and starts “being a Coach”. This allows the other person to do deeper work and enables greater trust in the relationship. Coaching comes with ‘ease and naturalness’.

The Updated ICF PCC Markers define what is being searched for in a recording: 5.1: Coach acts in response to the whole person of the client (the who).  5.2: Coach acts in response to what the client wants to accomplish throughout this session (the what).  5.3: Coach partners with the client by supporting the client to choose what happens in this session.  5.4: Coach demonstrates curiosity to learn more about the client.  5.5: Coach allows for silence, pause or reflection.  adding an element of partnership and co-creation of what happens during the session. 

This can only happen when the Coach is comfortable not knowing what might happen and the direction that the conversation might take. 

Why is it Important to Exhibit Coaching Presence?

Exhibiting coaching presence is crucial for several reasons:

• It helps to establish trust by creating a safe and supportive environment where the other person feels comfortable sharing their thoughts, feelings, and challenges. 
• The Coach’s genuine engagement and investment in the other person’s growth foster a sense of authenticity in the relationship. 
• When the Coach is attuned to the other person’s emotions, this signals empathy and understanding, leading to deeper work and more impactful coaching.

The Human Behind the Coach

• Willing to take your coaching game to the next level? Discover how you need to be different to become an artful coach.

How to Develop Your Coaching Presence

Looking for some ideas to develop and enhance your coaching presence? Here are some strategies and approaches that can help.

• Mindfulness Practice – Engage in mindfulness exercises and meditation to cultivate present-moment awareness and develop the ability to focus your attention fully. Mindfulness can help you become more attuned to your own thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, allowing you to bring a greater sense of presence to coaching sessions.
• Self-Reflection – Reflect on your coaching interactions and assess your level of presence. Consider how you showed up in sessions, what distractions or barriers may have hindered your presence, and how you can improve your focus and engagement. Journaling or discussing your coaching experiences with a mentor or supervisor can be helpful in gaining insights and identifying areas for growth.
• Emotional Intelligence – Enhance your emotional intelligence by deepening your understanding of your own emotions and learning to empathise with others. Emotional intelligence allows you to better connect with the other person and respond empathetically to their emotional experiences, fostering a more present and supportive coaching presence.
• Active Listening Skills – Practise and refine your active listening skills. Focus on listening without interruption, demonstrating understanding through verbal and non-verbal cues, and asking thoughtful questions that reflect your engagement and attention. Active listening helps you become fully present in the conversation and signals that they are valued and heard.
• Body Awareness – Develop awareness of your own body and its signals. Pay attention to your posture, breathing, and physical sensations during coaching sessions. Practising techniques such as grounding exercises or body scans can help you stay present in the moment and avoid being caught up in distractions or mental chatter.
• Supervision and Mentoring – Engage in supervision or mentoring relationships with experienced coaches who can provide feedback and guidance on developing your coaching presence. They can offer valuable insights and help you to see what you do not see.

Deepening conversations

• Start Date: 04/01
• End Date: 11/04

Conclusion 

Developing coaching presence is an ongoing process that requires self-awareness, practice, and a commitment to continuous learning and growth. Through deliberate efforts and reflection, coaches can deepen their presence and create a more impactful coaching experience for their clients.

References 

• Presence-Based Coaching: Cultivating Self-Generative Leaders Through Mind, Body, and Heart , by Doug Silsbee
• The Gift of Coaching Presence , by Sadhan Bhattacharya
• Updated ICF Core Competencies
• Updated ICF PCC Markers

Related articles

• ICF Credentials Paths: Requirements for ACC, PCC, MCC , by Lucia Baldelli MCC
• Converting Your Clients Using a Coaching Discovery Session: Questions to Ask , by Lucia Baldelli MCC
• The coaching relationship: definition and key elements , by Lucia Baldelli MCC
• The five components of coaching , by Lucia Baldelli MCC
• What does partnership mean in coaching,  by Lucia Baldelli MCC
• Building trust in a coaching relationship , by Lucia Baldelli MCC
• How to end a coaching session , by Lucia Baldelli MCC
• Designing actions in coaching , by Lucia Baldelli MCC
• What is the difference between intuition and interpretation , by Lucia Baldelli MCC
• Evoking awareness in coaching by Chester Jackson PCC
• Use of silence in coaching: a powerful tool , by Lucia Baldelli MCC
• Curiosity in coaching , by Karen Bruns PCC  
• Check In in coaching , by Lucia Baldelli MCC
• Coaching mindset: definition and how to embody it , by Chester Jackson PCC and Raquel Silva PCC
• Direct Communication in Coaching: An Essential Core Competency,  by Karen Bruns PCC
• Establishing the Coaching Agreement,  by Lucia Baldelli MCC
• Group vs Individual Coaching: differences, benefits and which is best , by Lucia Baldelli MCC and Roni Givati PCC
• Emotional Intelligence and Coaching: the importance for effective practice,  by Raquel Silva PCC
• The Arc of a Coaching Conversation: Fundamental Steps for a Successful Session,  by Chester Jackson PCC
• Reflective Inquiry in Coaching,  by Karen Bruns PCC
• What coaching is and isn’t , by Lucia Baldelli MCC
• The 3 Levels of Listening,  by Karen Bruns PCC

About Author

Lucia Baldelli

Lucia Baldelli is an ICF MCC credentialed coach and has co-authored the book The Human Behind The Coach. In her 20+ years of Organisational Coaching she has worked in multicultural environments, becoming fluent in three languages. Lucia is the founder of the coaching school Coaching Outside the Box, bringing her passion for unleashing human potential through coaching.

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What is Coaching?

Aug 09, 2014

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What is Coaching?. Coaching is helping another person figure out the best way to achieve his or her goals, build skill sets or expertise, and produce the results the organization needs.

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What is Coaching? Coaching is helping another person figure out the best way to achieve his or her goals, build skill sets or expertise, and produce the results the organization needs.

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🏀 Men's Tournament

👀 See the bracket

Check your bracket

💪 Edey vs. Burns

📊 Final four bracket predictions

📖 How tournament history can be made

NCAA | March 31, 2024

Minnesota state wins the 2024 ncaa division ii men's basketball championship.

Minnesota State is the 2024 NCAA Division II men's basketball champion after beating Nova Southeastern 88-85 off a game-winning three pointer with less than a second on the clock.

This victory came one day after the Minnesota State women won their respective title .

WHAT A SHOT WITH 0.6 LEFT 😱😱 WILLINGHAM FROM THE CORNER @MinnStMBBall !!!! pic.twitter.com/rvW3RdSGT0 — CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) March 30, 2024

2024 NCAA DII men's basketball championship bracket

The DII men's basketball tournament continues through the championship game on Saturday, March 30:

Click or tap here for the printable bracket ➡️

2024 NCAA DII men's basketball championship schedule

*All times in Eastern

National Championship: Saturday, March 30

• (1) Minnesota State 88,  (2) Nova Southeastern 85

March 15 | Regional quarterfinals

• (1) Gannon 97, (8) Lincoln (PA) 63  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (2) California (PA) 96, (7) West Virginia State 80  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (4) West Liberty 100, (5) Millersville 78  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (3) Charleston (WV) 93,  vs. (6) Concord 55  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• ( 6) Chico State 78, (3) Mont. St. Billings 64  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (2) CSUSB 52,  (7) Alaska Anchorage 49  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (8) Azusa Pacific 60, (1) Cal State LA 59  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (5) Central Washington 110, (4) Cal St. Dom. Hills 90  | WATCH FULL REPLAY

March 16 | Regional semifinals

• (1) Gannon 103,  (4) West Liberty 88  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (3) Charleston (WV) 68, (2) California (PA) 67  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (2) CSUSB 75,  (6) Chico State 73  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (8) Azusa Pacific 82, (5) Central Washington 74  | WATCH FULL REPLAY

March 16 | Regional quarterfinals

• (3) Minnesota Duluth 59,  (6) Fort Hays State 58  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (2) Northwest Missouri State 73, (7) Southwest Minn. State 43  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (1) Minnesota State 75,  (8) Arkansas Tech 68  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• ( 4) MSU Moorhead 73 , (5) Pittsburgh State 55  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (3) Southern New Hampshire 75 , (6) Bloomfield 70  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (7) Post 80, (2) St. Thomas Aquinas 72  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (1) Saint Michael's 68,  (8) Southern Connecticut State 62  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (4) Daemen 74,  (5) Jefferson 66  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (6) Lake Superior State 74,   (3) Walsh 72  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (7) Upper Iowa 82, (2) Kentucky Wesleyan 72  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (1) Uindy 71,  (8) William Jewell 65  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (5) Ferris State 81,  (4) Northern Michigan 65  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (3) Florida Southern 80,  (6) Clark Atlanta 72  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (2) West Georgia 75,  (7) Lee 61  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (1) Nova Southeastern 115,  (8) Benedict 95  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (5) Embry-Riddle (FL) 104,  (4) Alabama Huntsville 78   | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (6) Lander 85 , (3) Lincoln Memorial 76  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (7) Emmanuel (GA) 70 , (2) USC Aiken 69   | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (1) North Georgia 89,  (8) Wingate 80  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (5) UNC Pembroke 98, (4) Catawba 94  OT  | WATCH FULL REPLAY

South Central

• (3) Colorado Mesa 95,   (6) Eastern New Mexico 77  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (2) Fort Lewis 86,  (7) Lubbock Christian. 72  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (1) West Texas A&M 81,  (8) Angelo State 66  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (4) DBU 86, (5) Colorado School of Mines 73  | WATCH FULL REPLAY

March 17 | Regional semifinals

• (3) Northwest Missouri State 71,  (2) Minnesota Duluth 62  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (1) Minnesota State 78,  (4) MSU Morehead 55  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (3) Southern New Hampshire 69,  (7) Post 64  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (1) St. Michael's 86,  (4) Daemen 62  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (6) Lake Superior State 88,  (7) Upper Iowa 80  | WATCH FULL REPLAY  
• (5) Ferris State 94,  (1) UIndy 87 OT  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (3) Florida Southern 93,  (2) West Georgia 87 OT  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (1) Nova Southeastern 81, (5) Embry-Riddle 73  | WATCH FULL REPLAY  
• (6) Lander 86,  (7) Emmanuel (GA) 78 OT  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (1) UNG 86,  (4) Catawba 70  | WATCH FULL REPLAY  
• (3) Colorado Mesa 85, (2) Fort Lewis 80  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (1) West Texas A&M 60,  (4) DBU 54  | WATCH FULL REPLAY  

March 18 | Regional finals

• (2) CSUSB 74, (8) Azusa Pacific 67   | WATCH FULL REPLAY

March 19 | Regional finals

• (3) Southern N. H. 73,   (1) Saint Michael's 61
• (1) Nova Southeastern 98,  (3) Florida Southern 66  
• (1) North Georgia 70,   Lander 67
• (5) Ferris St. 86, (6) Lake Superior 81
• (1) Minnesota St. 43, Northwest Missouri St. 42
• (1) Gannon 67,  (3) Charleston (WV) 65
• (1) West Texas A&M 88, (3) Colorado. Mesa 76

March 26 | Quarterfinals 

• (6) CSUSB 99, (3) Gannon 65 | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (2) Nova Southeastern 68, (7) Southern N.H. 60 | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (1) Minnesota St. 98, (8) Ferris St 70  | WATCH FULL REPLAY
• (4) West Tex. A&M 90 ,  (5) North Georgia 76  | WATCH FULL REPLAY

March 28 |Semifinals

• (2) Nova Southeastern 91,  (6) CSUSB 77   | WATCH FULL RECAP
• (1) Minnesota St. 79,   (4) West Tex. A&M 72    | WATCH FULL RECAP

How to watch

NCAA Championships Pass will stream 120 DII men’s and women’s basketball tournament games (all games from first round through quarterfinals) live on NCAA.com. Games will be available on NCAA.com , school sites that stream through Hudl and opt to co-distribute the live streams, and the NCAA Championships Pass app available for Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Google TV.

Prices for viewing (first round through quarterfinals)

• $9.95 per game
• $29.95 per championship
• $49.95 for all games

Semifinals and finals viewing

• Semifinals: Thursday, March 28 on CBS Sports Network (2p ET, 4:30p)
• Championship: Saturday, March 30 on CBS (3p ET)

🎟️ Get NCAA Championships Pass

DII NCAA men's basketball championship history

The Division II men's basketball championship consists of a 64-team field with eight qualifiers from each region competing at a single regional site. Twenty-three teams earn automatic qualifications and the remaining 41 receive at-large bids to the tournament. Once the eight regionals conclude, respective teams will advance to the Men's Elite Eight at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana.

The DII men's basketball national championship dates back to 1957, skipping 2020 due to COVID-19, with the first-ever championship trophy going to Wheaton (Ill.). Kentucky Wesleyan is the winningest team, with eight national championships. Evansville follows with five titles.

Below is a list of all DII men's basketball champs since 1957:

**Student-athletes declared ineligible

2024 NIT bracket: Schedule, TV channels for the men’s tournament

Zach Edey vs. DJ Burns Jr. headlines a classic big-man battle in the Final Four

This week in DII sports: The DII college basketball season, wrapped up

Dawn Staley named Naismith’s 2024 Coach of the Year

C LEVELAND (FOX Carolina) - On Wednesday, some of the most outstanding players and coaches in women’s basketball were honored at Cleveland Browns Stadium Key Bank Club.

South Carolina’s Dawn Staley won the Werner Ladder Naismith Women’s Coach of the Year.

This is the third year in a row Staley has won the award and the fourth time overall. She is the first first men’s or women’s coach to clinch the award three consecutive times.

“Being named Werner Ladder Naismith Coach of the Year is always an honor and always the work of every coach, every person on our staff,” Staley said. “When we first brought this team together last summer, I don’t think any of our staff would have predicted the position this particular group of young women have put us in this week. But, we all stuck with it; we adapted to what our players were capable of at each step in their development. And the result has been one of the most fun seasons I’ve had in my coaching career, and I credit our players for that, for showing us that there’s more than one path toward a goal.”

Stanford’s Cameron Brink was named Defensive Player of the Year.

Brink is coming off her senior year for the Stanford Cardinal, a season in which she averaged 17.4 points per game along with 11.9 rebounds and 2.8 assists. Brink helped lead Stanford to a national title during the 2020-2021 season as a freshman.

Iowa’s Caitlin Clark won Jersey Mike’s Naismith Women’s Player of the Year.

Clark is coming off a historic 2023-2024 campaign, averaging 32 points per game along with 7.3 rebounds and 9 assists. This marks Clark’s second consecutive Naismith award. The Hawkeyes’ guard has her team back in the Final Four as they seek to avenge last season’s national championship loss.

Watch the full acceptance speeches here:

Below is the full list of finalists for Women’s Player of the Year:

• Stanford’s Cameron Brink
• UConn’s Paige Bueckers
• Iowa’s Caitlin Clark
• Southern California’s JuJu Watkins

Finalists for Women’s Coach of the Year:

• Iowa’s Lisa Bluder
• Southern California’s Lindsay Gottlieb
• South Carolina’s Dawn Staley
• Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer

Finalists for Women’s Defensive Player of the Year:

• South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso
• Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo
• Ohio State’s Celeste Taylor