Some businesses will look at the organisation as a whole.

But others are finding that, by improving the individual performances of management and other employees within a company, this will have the knock-on effect of improving the business overall.

Business Coaching is increasingly being seen as a tangible means towards individual improvement. Similar to Life Coaching but within a business context, coaching looks to improve an individual's personal and professional fulfilment and ability to embrace change and ultimately looks to help the subject to fulfil his or her potential - all of which will have beneficial effects on the overall business.

Accelerating Performance is a specialist in workplace innovation and thought leadership using a combination of tools including coaching, mentoring, analytical tools and training.

"The consensus is that we only use about 20% of our potential, " explained Caitlin O'Connor, managing director of Accelerating Performance. "With personal growth we can exceed this figure, and through this improvement, coaching has been proven to increase the productivity of a company by between 15% and 20%" Indeed, the National Centre for Partnership and Performance has placed an exact figure of 15.6% on the actual increase.

According to O'Connor, the root of coaching is similar to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, with self-actualisation the ultimate goal.

"To achieve this, people need to get to know themselves - and coaching can help this, " she said. "We use a number of tools to assist the client to better understand themselves, and to stretch their potential - not only for the benefit of their company, but for the benefit of themselves."

Despite the evidence that coaching can have a tangible effect on a company's bottom line, there is occasionally a perception that the results of coaching are difficult to define and correlate. This is perhaps because, as a relatively new phenomenon in Ireland, coaching has yet to achieve the official imprimatur of common national accreditation. However, this could soon be addressed.

There is already an accrediting body in Ireland called the LCBAI (Life and Business Coaching Association of Ireland), and another independent body, the ICDN (the Irish Coaching Development Network) is essentially bringing together people from coaching, academia and other related areas to create not only recognition, but standards and accreditation within a national context (FETAC, HETAC, etc).

Indeed, the stated mission of ICDN is to work with the relevant educational institutions, coach training organisations and coaching associations on the co-development of an independent national framework for the development and accreditation of professional Life & Business coaches in Ireland.

Similarly, CIPD (the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) has recently set up an accreditation programme for coaching, which will be rolled out in Ireland in the near future, and a UK university is offering a degree and masters programme in coaching.

Finally, a supervision programme for coaches is currently underway, and the first supervisors will be in place later this year, or early 2008.

These supervisors will ensure that working coaches adhere to the criteria of being a coaching practitioner, as well as ensuring that they remain up to date with the latest tools of life and business coaching.