Our approach to coaching applies this principle through what we call the Integrated Development Model
Now we know this may be broader than many current beliefs around coaching so let us give you a little further explanation.
An effective coaching interaction may include elements of learning, teaching, one to one discussions, resolving conflict, personal development, group development, decision making, guiding, advising, making suggestions, and so on. It may cover other areas of development that have previously been arbitrarily put in defined boxes with labels on such as mentoring, team building, training, counselling, consulting etc.
What is the point of these labels? They appear to be used to help people distinguish and thereby identify what they think they want and what they are getting; “I need a consultant to help me define my strategy”; “I need a trainer to give us leadership skills”. So you go to the consultant box and find someone who says “I’m a consultant” and then to the trainer box and find someone who says “I’m a trainer”.
If we continue this schema, to the consultant we must then say “thou shall consult and not train, mentor or coach”, and to the trainer we must say “thou shall train and not consult, give counsel or team build”.
Clearly this is nonsense. The labels then are not helpful, instead they constrain and they limit. The person who says ‘I’m a consultant’ or ‘I’m a trainer’ immediately puts limits on their own scope and potential.
We realise that you may not agree with this way of thinking, most people don't, largely because a large part of our societal development is based on the creation of rules and structures and so we become used to and comfortable with that way of thinking. Our point is that the rules and structures around personal development and growth aren't helpful - you can't make nature fit the structure. There is only one self, and there is only one world so you have to acknowledge all aspsects of both systems if you are to make the relationship between the self and the world around it work.
So are the labels relevant? The coaching interaction is that of a human relationship between two or more human beings in which the coach uses, with flexibility and adaptability, whatever resources they have access to. The greater the flexibility and adaptability and the greater the range of resources available, the better the coach.
Current and popular opinion, particularly within HR and Training organisations, seems to be to try to define coaching as a form of interaction that has a specific format and a set of rules and dynamics, perhaps even becoming a licenced profession.
Defining coaching is, in our opinion, unnecessary other than for facilitating easier teaching/learning of the coaching style of conversation. It is helpful, although not necessary, to have a defined structure and clearly understood methods and models to be able to teach coaching. This teaching is generally directed at the coaching conversation which is something we regard as only one aspect of coaching in its wider context and we discuss the coaching conversation later in this article. However, to apply such structure to the process of coaching, in our view, does nothing other than apply limits and constraints to its application.
There are some arguments for licencing and controlling coaching as a profession, but this seems to achieve little more than limit its effectiveness and we discuss this later under choosing a coach and licencing.
The coaching conversation
So what we’re saying here is that in our view (and our approach supports this through the Integrated Development Model) coaching in its wider context, what you might call coaching with a big ‘C’ includes everything that one human being can do ecologically to help the development of another human being or group of human beings in the direction of their choosing.
There is also, of course, a specific skill set for the coaching conversation, one to one or with groups, that you might call coaching with a little ‘c’ that we feel, in the context of this article, should be described in our own words also.
Therefore, as people who have studied it, taught it and do it all the time in many different ways with great success, let us share with you our view of what the coaching conversation is and begin by considering the various possibilities from first principles and working up…
Firstly, a coaching conversation is a process, and that’s the first thing to get clear. It is not necessary for the coach to have any knowledge of the content, the subject, being discussed. It is therefore possible for someone to be a pure process-coach and get not only effective results, but some of the most magical results that a coaching conversation can achieve. The pure process-coach uses communication based largely around open questions to catalyse a torrent of internal thinking and processing in the client’s mind, none of which need be known to the coach. This approach is often referred to as Socratic questioning so named after Socrates, the first scientist and philosopher to have identified and reported its benefits. Socratic coaching is a phrase used to describe the coaching approach that is content free and focuses purely on the process or dynamic of the communication.
Occasionally in our coaching training workshops we will show this by taking all students simultaneously through a Socratic coaching conversation process and bring them each to a solution, better than anything they had previously thought of, to a problem of their own choosing of which we have no knowledge. We typically get around 80% success rate and it looks like a bit of a party trick, but to be honest it just shows the power of pure process coaching. The power is in the elegance of the sentence structure and questioning patterns and many people throughout history have studied and applied these principles with great effect.
One of the great advantages of this approach is that because the coach has no awareness of the content of the issue the coach is totally unable to make (or leak) suggestions, judgements, opinions, leads or anything else to the client. The solution is therefore totally the client’s. Ownership, commitment and all manner of psychological needs are met when people come up with their own solutions through this process. It has been said, by Miles Downey and others, and we would agree that this is where the magic really is.
More than a process coach
That said, sometimes it’s not possible for people to come up with their own solution. Perhaps they have no prior experience of their situation, no reference structures to draw on, insufficient understanding of the issue being addressed and so they need the input of external (to them) knowledge, experience and inspiration.
Sometimes the coach can provide this, or sometimes the coach helps to identify what needs to be answered and where the client may best go to find it.
The coach is also a problem solver and understands the nature of the structure of problems. They are able to direct the client to root causes and key obstacles by asking deeply exploratory questions. Questions that the coach can recognise the answers to which would be very helpful to the client.
So coaching conversations work entirely in the client’s model of the world – in the client’s perception – and with questioning, knowledge input and suggestion the coach works with the client’s subjective experience. The coach, therefore, should know how a persons subjective experience is formed, how it is influenced, and how it is effected by interactions in the outside world context.
Coaching conversations are therefore context specific and different frames for coaching conversations are relevant in business, in teaching, in sport, in therapy and in personal development and growth and so on.
A coaching conversation can be more than one to one. Often we will coach groups or teams sometimes using two or more coaches together – if the situation warrants it.
The coaching conversation is one of the resources that can be drawn on in the wider context of coaching - everything that one human being can do ecologically to help the development of another human being or group of human beings in the direction of their choosing.
A word on choosing a coach and licencing
There appears to be a developing movement to define the profession so it can be controlled and licenced. So far the profession is self-controlled and we hope it stays that way. The purpose of licencing coaching seems to be directed at developing a means to warrant the quality of coaches. The process would include some form of competence assessment and so the licence would mean something and give some form of assurance to the purchaser. It would lead the purchaser to believe they were getting a ‘good’ coach.
There is however a slight flaw with the process of licencing. All car drivers have a driving licence and yet there are good drivers and bad drivers, all professions have an entry qualification to practice professionally and yet there are good and bad practitioners in most professions and most have their rogues to be watchful for. So a licence to practice is no warranty, it is simply a statement that some level of competence was demonstrated to someone at some point in time hopefully with some integrity surrounding it. Standards of licenced coaches could be poIiced, and such approaches always sound good in theory but this is notoriously difficult to put into practice. Supervision is intended to address this, but because the coaching process is essentially a confidential one, the only real measure of coaching effectiveness is the satisfaction of the client. If you’re going to choose a coach for yourself, what would a licence actually mean to you? Not a lot. Conversely a licence may actually convey a false sense of security.
Licence or no licence, if you’re looking for a good coach you need to be able to assess their suitability for yourself and not rely on someone else having done the work for you.
So how do you choose a good coach? The same way you’d choose a good television, or computer…
- Do some research and find out about the technology available
- Ask your friends who do they use
- Talk to some coaches on the phone and ask them what they offer and what approach they take
- Meet the coach face to face and decide whether you like them
- Get 2 or 3 past clients to talk to as references and make sure you talk to them
- Find out how much they cost and make your choice
If you’re happy after all the above then it’s got to be worth trying for 4 sessions to see how you get on. We don't recommend less if you want to make real progress.
You would also do well to be clear of your success criteria – a good coaching session should give you what you’re looking for and that could be any of a whole list of things from insights, understanding, answers to key questions, clarity of direction, explanations, motivation, self esteem, confidence and so on, to simply giving you a big lift and making you feel good about yourself.
One final thought to leave you with – every coach we know has a coach. That’s because they know how good it is.
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