Organizations, business leaders and personnel must learn to work effectively in today’s fast paced, highly volatile, complex and globalized business environment. Rapidly changing collaborative technologies, the shift from routine work to non-routine knowledge economies, the need to consider multi-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary approaches, along with the need for more nimble and adaptive business structures, have changed how we do business, our working environments and the way we work. In response, organizations worldwide have relied for years on team-based work structures to better solve complex issues and complete projects/tasks and achieve specific outcomes within and across organizations and business units.
This white paper uses a comprehensive and considered literature review to explore the concept of team coaching as it relates to supporting organizational teamwork in today’s complex and volatile business environment. The goals of this paper are to provide organizational leaders and business-coaching practitioners with an evidence-based guide to how and why team (business) coaching is important and to show how this model of practice can be used to support organizational team-oriented problem solving, complex-project/task completion and better achievement of organizational goals and outcomes.
Traditional business practices and problem solving, whether at the individual, work group or team level, is often hampered by personal, disciplinary and/or organizational culture boundaries that inhibit us from looking beyond our confines for new or better solutions. Many of the business issues we face today involve wicked problems that defy traditional solutions and can only be ameliorated or solved by collaborating with people who bring a diverse set of knowledge, skills and perspectives to the issue. Thus, we can no longer always rely on the wisdom of the people within one organization, let alone one discipline, to solve some of our more complex business issues.
Additionally, our traditional views of what teams are, what they need to operate and what supports them are no longer fit for purpose when considered against current business realities. Without knowing what the key drivers or essential and enabling elements for team successes are or how and when to apply them, business leaders will continue to make costly mistakes in terms of time, money, effort and the achievement of organizational goals and outcomes.
Academics and practitioners within fields such as, but not limited to, business, business coaching and organizational development have examined the successes and failures of teams within the business context for many years and have identified (1) team design and structure, (2) team launch and (3) ongoing team coaching as being the key drivers for improved team performance. Providing the foundation for this improved team performance are three essential and three enabling conditions respectively:
Lastly, qualified and competent team coaches have been shown to positively influence the success of team-based personnel systems and processes, and therefore play key roles within each of the business-team design, structure and support elements. Within this business context, the team coach has a dual focus: one that focuses on individual team members and allows them to discover how their personal characteristics, behaviors and perspectives impact the team and business processes; and one that focuses on the larger objectives and successes of the organization. It is this dual focus and discovery process that differentiates business coaching from other types of coaching. Thus, private and public organizations wishing to achieve successful team-based outcomes must consider incorporating qualified and competent team business coaches into all of their team-oriented work structures and processes.
Qualified and competent team coaches positively influence the success of team based personnel systems and processes, and therefore play keys roles in supporting team-based personnel structures.
In this white paper, we explore the limited research available on contracting—the setting up, use and monitoring of the business coaching relationship. We do not try to develop a standard coaching contract as that would be too constraining for the majority of business coaches—each contract must be customized to the client’s requirements. Instead we provide a list of factors that should be considered in developing an effective contract.
The business coaching interaction uses all the elements we associate with wholesome and effective human relationships such as dialog, reflection, enquiry and exploration of meaning. But this interaction takes place within a specific and unusual context—a learning conversation where the agenda for the interaction is determined by only one of the partners in the conversation. This mix of familiar and unique can lead to misunderstandings and dilemmas for both parties unless the implicit psychological contract that is operating is made explicit. The initial exploration of the terms of reference for the relationship and its continual monitoring are at the core of contracting.
Other disciplines and helping therapies such as counseling have a wealth of experience in the management of these areas. Our research identified good practice that recognizes clarity of mutual expectations as vital for a good working relationship. We describe three types of contracts that invariably operate in any helping arrangement:
The elements under each of these contracts are varied, and we have reviewed what communities of practice and professional associations have identified as critical. These groups include the International Coach Federation (ICF), the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) and the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches (WABC). The Executive Coaching Forum, for example, provides a valuable service with the Executive Coaching Handbook where they have a competency model that describes the requirements of a coach, including a specific section on contracting. The complexity of this section illustrates the dynamic nature of the contract. One area of particular interest is clear accountability. Negotiating the coaching contract can be an ideal opportunity to engage the sponsor fully with setting the coaching goals and designing the evaluation criteria. Real sensitivities are, however, involved in such three-way contracts, and we suggest the use of a no-fault exit clause for both sides if it becomes clear that things are not working. Some practitioners have identified issues with the three-cornered contract specifically and even the four-cornered contract, where the line manager is not the direct manager of coaching.
In general, the business coach can effectively steer through the maze of who the client is in this relationship by maintaining transparency and appropriate ethics. For example, a mismatch between the career aims of the individual and the requirements of the organization is not unusual. The business coach must negotiate goals based on the common ground between these two perspectives and use the business coaching intervention as a method of bringing them together.
The WABC Professional Standards for Business Coaches are explicit in the need to hold the potential tension between organizational and client agendas: “I will put the client first while at the same time respecting the objectives of the client’s organization.”
The issue of confidentiality is particularly marked in this regard as sponsors/line managers often assume they will receive reports of the progress of the coaching. Clearly this is not at the business coach’s discretion and a contracting conversation must take place with the sponsor and the executive to agree on the frequency and extent of reporting.
We suggest including the following key elements in the business coaching contract. Additional elements are identified in the full paper.
The evidence shows that a business coaching contract should be negotiated early in the relationship and revisited often.
This case study provides critical insights into how coaching creates value in an organization.
Phillips, J. J. (2012) Coaching for Business Impact: Creating Value, Including ROI, Through Executive Coaching. In Phillips, P. P. and Phillips, J. J. Measuring the Success of Coaching. ATD Press, pp., 183 – 201.
This paper explores an integrative and systemic approach to business coaching which captures the way it interfaces with organisational, interpersonal and intrapsychic systems.
One of the joys of writing this column is that it gives me the excuse to pause and reflect upon my recent learning about research and practice and to consider how it may be of interest to you, my readers. Over the last month or so I have been particularly taken by what it means to be a master practitioner and how research can help us attain that level of practice. It started with my recent move to Middlesex University (England) as Director of Programs for their Professional Doctorate Program. The candidates in this program undertake a doctorate in and through their own practice. Unlike the conventional doctorate where the focus is on academic knowledge, this doctorate’s focus is on practice itself, including all the messiness of real life and context. Within my new role, I have the opportunity to work with senior practitioners from a range of professions and talk with their professors and senior academics. It is fascinating to note that we are all intrigued by the question, “What makes mastery?”
All of us are struck by the great similarities between different disciplines–it seems that the process is the same, although the technical knowledge may be vastly different. For example, I had the delight of working with Dr. Susan Melrose, a professor of the performing arts, and I loved her perspective–to quote: “Disciplinary mastery is always relational: it is undertaken somewhere, by and for someone, with reference to (and thereby rearticulating the terms of) one or another disciplinary tradition”–this has a resonance for me when thinking about coaching. As we meet with our clients we are co-constructing a ‘performance’ with them. As we seek to probe what mastery really looks like and how it can be acquired, we are in the same realm as the performer seeking to construct a depiction of Hamlet or Sleeping Beauty which communicates and explores anew some aspect of what it means to be human.
The question of mastery has real power for coaching when we consider where we are as a profession. If we are to construct the boundaries of what constitutes our body of knowledge and practice, we need to be able to articulate in a clear manner what it means to be a master practitioner in our field. Here we differ from a performance artist in that we need to differentiate ourselves from other related disciplines. The academic requirements, i.e., the amount of stuff we need to know, are relatively straightforward. They are not easy, but they are straightforward. There may be differences in the focus of some courses depending upon the preference of the professors teaching them–but the amount and depth of study are monitored by the university accreditation boards and audited against the standard of a current body of knowledge in the area. However, with all due respect, we know that passing a master’s degree is not indicative of mastery in a profession. A master’s degree identifies that you have the required technical knowledge, NOT that you have the required professional knowledge and skills. For this we need to develop–through practice–the professional know-how and ‘gut feel’ indicative of a seasoned practitioner. This is the elusive but necessary ingredient of mastery.
So what might it be? The literature shows us a variety of perspectives and comes up with ‘practice wisdom’ and ‘expert intuition,’ both of which try to identify the process by which a practitioner produces a decision or constructs a flexible innovative intervention within the context they find themselves, i.e., their particular client or situation. It is relational, as Susan Melrose says. Let us take a moment to reflect: When was the last time you surprised yourself in practice and thought, “I wonder where that came from? Why did I do that? It worked but where did I get it from?” Probably quite recently! Your expert intuition was in full flight. You probably rationalized your decision or design AFTER the event, but it arrived like magic at the time. As Schön1 would have said, you were ‘knowing in action.’
We are starting, as researchers, to get some sense of what is happening in practice wisdom so we can help practitioners attain the holy grail of mastery. It is not appropriate to call it ‘intuition’ –expert or not–as this is a catchall phrase suggesting it is innate and without rational basis. My own view is that we are working with a kaleidoscope (I thank one of my students, Steve Wigzell, for this metaphor), each color contributing to the pattern is one aspect of what we are bringing to the interaction. For instance, we will bring technical knowledge from various disciplines: learning theory, change management, etc., but also our knowledge of context, the pragmatics in operation, our own values and beliefs, our experience in similar situations, etc. All these and more are part of the color spectrum we have in our kaleidoscope. For each client and situation, we rotate the kaleidoscope again to produce a pattern unique and specific to that client and situation.
The creation of each new pattern has to happen fast and effortlessly ‘in the moment’ through ‘reflection in action,’ and, as such, is the result of using images, examples, and understandings achieved through practice. A person’s performance nearly always uses several kinds of knowledge (technical, experiential, etc.) in some integrated form and is influenced by both context and feelings.
What recent research has shown is that the transition from novice to competent practitioner can happen when one or two areas of work are mastered. The transition from competent to master practitioner needs the practitioner to not only be using a broad and deep knowledge base, but also to be actively creating knowledge by applying their expertise in new arenas. To create new knowledge, experts must be well versed in the problems and methodologies of the field in which they work and actively engaged in problem finding. These experts are posing questions and instituting investigations that push the boundaries of their work.
So there we have it–if you want to develop expertise and be a Master Practitioner, you must be a problem finder and hence a researcher!
Enjoy your problem finding!
This article first appeared in Business Coaching Worldwide (October Issue 2010, Volume 6, Issue 3).
1 D. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner (Basic Books: New York, 1983) An old one but a good one and well worth a read
Dr. Annette Fillery-Travis is a senior researcher and education coach with the Professional Development Foundation. The author of more than 60 research articles and studies, her book. The Case for Coaching, presenting a literature review with research case studies and interviews from over 20 organizations on coaching efficacy, was published in 2006 by CIPD, UK.
The U-process is sometimes known as the process of transition, and in the field of coaching this U-process is typically represented in Scharmer’s model of change. In the process of transition, the client can move from anxiety, through happiness, fear, threat, guilt, denial, disillusionment, depression, gradual acceptance, and hostility to moving forward.
The U-process is considered a mid-range change theory with a sense of an emerging future. Scharmer’s process moves the client through different levels of perception and change, with differing levels of action that follow. The three main elements are sensing, presencing, and realizing. These represent the three basic aspects of the U (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Scharmer’s U-Process Model
This process helps the client to work at different levels of perception and change, and allows different levels of action to follow. All three levels are extensions of the learning process. As the coach and client move into the U, sensing is about observing and becoming one with the world; moving to the bottom of the U, presencing is about retreating and reflecting and allowing an inner knowing to emerge; moving out of the U, realizing is about acting swiftly and with a natural flow from the knowledge and understanding that have emerged.
The U-model suggests co-creation between the individual and the collective, i.e., the larger world. It is about the interconnection or integration of the self with the world. At the bottom of the U is the “inner gate” where we drop the baggage of our journey, going through a threshold. The metaphor used here is that of “death of the old self” and “rebirth of the new self”; the client emerges with a different sense of self. On the Web is a lovely dialogue between Wilber and Scharmer where they discuss the seven states and the three movements in this one process (Scharmer, 2003).
Superficial learning and change processes are shorter versions of the U-movement. In using this as a coaching process, the client moves downwards into the base of the U, moving from acting, to thinking, to feeling, to willing. This is to help the client to download with the coach, to let go and discover who they really are, to see from the deepest part of themselves, developing an awareness that is expanded with a shift in intention.
Otto Scharmer (2007), in an executive summary of his new book, Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges, describes the U-process as five movements: co-initiating, co-sensing, presencing, co-creating, and co-evolving. Scharmer describes this as moving “first into intimate connection with the world and to a place of inner knowing that can emerge from within, followed by bringing forth the new, which entails discovering the future by doing.” The following case study demonstrates the five-step process.
Case Study: The Global Convention on Coaching (GCC)
From July 2007 until July 2008, I played a role as Chair of the GCC Working Group, Research Agenda for Development of the Field, and Carol Kauffman took the part of Facilitator. The GCC was originally established to create a collaborative dialogue for all stakeholders in coaching worldwide, with the ultimate aim of professionalizing the industry. Nine initial working groups were formed by the GCC’s Steering Committee to discuss critical issues related to the professionalization of coaching, producing “white papers” on the current realities and possible future scenarios of these issues. These white papers were presented at the GCC’s Dublin convention in July 2008. Using the U-process model, this case study summarizes the working group process of the research agenda, which comprised a 12-month online dialogue, with the addition of monthly telephone conversations.
Figure 2: U-Process Case Study
1. Co-initiation
Co-initiating is about building common intent, stopping and listening to others and to what life calls you to do. In the Working Group for the Research Agenda, the group built common intent by first setting up the group, defining its purpose, and beginning to discuss the dialogue process. It was agreed that the chair and facilitator would invite specific individuals to join the working group, and those members would suggest other individuals who might have a key interest in the research agenda for the field (i.e., the emerging coaching profession). The group began their online dialogue, once all had accepted the invitation and received instructions on how to use the online GCC web forum. It was agreed that there would be three communities working together: the Working Group, the Consultative Body for the Research Agenda, and the Steering Committee, which was responsible for the leadership and management of the other groups.
2. Co-sensing
Observe, Observe, Observe. Go to the places of most potential and listen with your mind and heart wide open. The chair and the facilitator of the working group had to learn to co-facilitate, observing each other’s skill and competence. They had to be willing to listen to each other, noting each other’s style in facilitating an online dialogue. They needed to create the group, and to facilitate the way forward with the group, learning to take constructive criticism and appreciation from each other, guiding the group forward without being prescriptive. Both chair and facilitator agreed to co-chair the process, remaining mentally and emotionally open to each other’s divergent opinions, ways of being, and styles of interpersonal communication, whether working with the group online or by phone.
3. Presencing
Connect to the source of inspiration and will. Go to the place of silence and allow the inner knowing to emerge. Each individual in the process reflected and regularly added their thoughts and feelings to the online forum. Debate, conflict, and agreement emerged—with chair and facilitator taking responsibility to keep the group on track without being prescriptive. The chair and facilitator each had to connect to their own individual source of inspiration and come together as one voice to guide the group.
4. Co-creating
Prototype the new with living examples to explore the future by doing. This entailed harnessing the energy of the working group to draft a current reality document of its online and tele-conference dialogues; this document was revised four times. The group brought in a facilitator for a second consultative body who entered that dialogue at stage 1 (co-initiating), but who, at the same time, entered the working group dialogue at stage 3 (presencing). Trying to move forward with their own working group process, yet move the consultative body from stage 1 to stage 2 (co-initiation to co-sensing), was a complex, parallel process. The chair and facilitator enlisted the help of an editor, Nick Wilkins, to manage the writing process of the white paper during the working group’s co-creation (stage 4).
5. Co-evolving
Embody the new in ecosystems that facilitate seeing and acting from the whole. The final stage of the process was the physical gathering at the Dublin convention. This took place in three stages: pre-convention, convention, and post-convention (post-convention work has just begun). Several months prior to the convention, all nine working groups began to work together online and by telephone to share their own varied stages in the U-process; they learned from each other as they gathered momentum moving toward Dublin, which was to be the culmination of their year-long project. Some groups had lost participants during the 12 months through disagreement; others managed to harness the energy to move through each of the stages together. The three stages were:
This U-process is applicable to large innovation projects where the unfolding takes place over a long time (a year in this instance). The team composition in such projects will change and adapt to some degree after each movement; in the GCC process, the Working Group for the Research Agenda lost and added new members, whereas the Consultative Body was a looser entity with only certain members playing a strong role. This was a process of discovery, exploring the future by doing, thinking, and reflecting. As Scharmer explains, it facilitates an opening via “the tuning of three instruments: the open mind, the open heart, and the open will” (Scharmer, 2007).
At any one time there were three U-process journeys taking place for the research agenda: within the working group, the working group interacting with the consultative body, and the working group interacting with the steering committee.
In Conclusion
Models offer a great sense of structure yet flexibility for the coach practitioner, but remember that simplicity is a prerequisite. In this series, I explore models from an experiential learning premise, as the client always brings his or her experience into the coaching conversation. The client’s experience is underpinned by a range of factors, including gender, race, culture, education, life experience, and personality. In my next article, we will begin to explore the use of four quadrant models.
Note
This article is adapted from the author’s Business Coaching Wisdom and Practice: Unlocking the Secrets of Business Coaching (2009, Johannesburg: Knowledge Resources). Her book Business Coaching International will be published September 2009 by Karnac, London.
This article first appeared in Business Coaching Worldwide (October Issue 2009, Volume 5, Issue 3).
Global Convention on Coaching (GCC). (2008). Dublin Declaration on Coaching Including Appendices. Global Convention on Coaching. Dublin, 22 August. www.gsaec.org/pdf/Dublin_Declaration_Coaching_Appendices.pdf.
Scharmer, C.O. (2003). Mapping the Integral U: A Conversation between Ken Wilber and Otto Scharmer, Denver, CO, 17 September. Dialog on Leadership. www.dialogonleadership.org/interviews/Wilber.shtml.
Scharmer, C.O. (2007). Addressing the Blind Spot of Our Time: An Executive Summary of the New Book by Otto Scharmer: Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges. http://www.presencing.com/presencing-theoryu/theoryu.shtml.
Senge, P., Scharmer, C.O., Jaworski, J., and Flowers, B.S. (2005). Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society. London: Nicholas Brealey.
Stout Rostron, S. (2009). Business Coaching Wisdom and Practice: Unlocking the Secrets of Business Coaching. Johannesburg: Knowledge Resources.
Dr. Sunny Stout Rostron, DProf, MA is an executive coach and consultant with a wide range of experience in leadership and management development, business strategy and executive coaching. The author of six books, including Business Coaching Wisdom and Practice: Unlocking the Secrets of Business Coaching (2009), Sunny is Director of the Manthano Institute of Learning (Pty) Ltd and founding president of COMENSA (Coaches and Mentors of South Africa). More about Sunny in the WABC coach directory. Contact Sunny.
Coaching as an Experiential Learning Conversation
One of the core areas where coaches work with clients is that of learning. However, the conversation with your client centers on what is meaningful to them. If significance and relevance are to emerge from the coaching conversation, it doesn’t matter what is relevant to you; it matters what is relevant to them. It is therefore important to be aware of your own assumptions about what the client needs.
If you are guiding, directing, and giving your clients all the information they need, it will be difficult for them to ever be free of you. It is helpful if the client embodies new learning personally and physiologically; you can’t do their learning for them. What you do as a coach is to help them reconstruct their own thinking and feeling to gain perspective and become self-directed learners. At the end of each coaching session with my clients, we integrate their learning1 with the goals they have set, confirming what action, if any, they are committed to:
Nested-Levels Model
Although models create a system within which coach and client learn, it is essential that models are not experienced as either prescriptive or rigid. If the model is inflexible, it means it is fulfilling the coach’s agenda, rather than attempting to understand the client’s issues.
This nested-levels model was developed by New Ventures West (Weiss, 2004), and introduces the concept of horizontal and vertical levels in coaching models. The nested model works first at the horizontal level of “doing,” eventually moving into deeper “learning” one level down; reflecting about self, others, and experience at a third “ontological” level where new knowledge emerges about oneself and the world (Figure1).
In her article, Pam Weiss talks about the two different camps of coaches. In jest, I call them the New York versus the Los Angeles camp. The New York camp says, “I’m the expert, let me fix you,” while the L.A. camp says, “You are perfect and whole and have all of your own answers.” Joking aside, each of these camps comes up short, even though coaches often fall into one or the other. The role of coaching is actually about developing human beings. It is not really about “I have the expertise” versus “you already have all your own answers.”
The Expert Approach
Contrary to what experts might think, clients are not broken and are not in need of fixing. Clients may be anxious, stressed, nervous, overworked, and even narcissistic—but they don’t need fixing. They are mostly healthy human beings going about their jobs and lives, experiencing their own human difficulties. Your job as coach is to help the clients learn for themselves, so that when you are no longer walking alongside them, they have become “self-directed” learners (Harri-Augstein and Thomas, 1991) and do not need you anymore. The second view about “expertise” also has limitations. The role of expertise is that, as coach, you are an expert; but coaching is not about the coach giving all the answers; that tends to be the role of the consultant, i.e., to find solutions for the client.
The “You-Have-All-the-Answers” Approach
The “you have all the answers” assumption is partially true, but there are several limitations. The first one is that we all have blind spots, and it is your job as coach to help the client to identify their blind spots. Secondly, it’s perhaps a bit of “mythical” thinking that the client has all of the answers already; the flip side of that argument is that, if it does not work out, the client assumes blame and fault. In other words, “If I have all the answers, I should be able to do it myself without help.” If that is not the case, they could feel, “Oh dear, if I am not able to do it myself, then perhaps I’m a failure.”
Both of these approaches are “horizontal,” i.e., they skim the surface of the work you can do with the client. Both help people to maintain the lives they currently have. The expert “New York” approach helps the client to do it better, faster, and more efficiently, and the “Los Angeles” approach may withhold key insights and observations from the coach that could help build the client’s awareness of their blind spots. What is important, rather than “fixing” the client, is the skill of “observation” on the part of the coach. There is no problem in helping the client to do it better, faster, or more efficiently—that is often what the organization hopes for in terms of performance improvement. However, it is important for the client to gain the learning they need to address blind spots and to build their own internal capacity and competence.
Learning Level
If you continue to help people accomplish tasks, achieve goals, and keep on “doing,” they risk falling into the trap of being “busy” and possibly overwhelmed. They may not, however, necessarily get the “learning” they need to develop self-awareness and self-management. I know all too well about this trap of being excessively busy. If we keep “doing” without reflection, we eventually burn out. To keep individual executives performing better and better, they need to work at one level lower-at the level of learning. They need to learn how to “do the doing” better. As soon as an executive begins to work with a coach, they begin the possibility of working at one or two levels deeper.
As coach, you will be asking questions to help clients reflect, review, and gain useable knowledge from their experience. In the nested-levels model, the higher levels don’t include the lower ones, but the lower levels include the higher ones. So we need to help clients address their purpose one level down, at the level of learning. At this level you may ask questions such as, “How are you doing? What are you doing? What are you feeling? How are your peers/colleagues experiencing you/this? What is and what isn’t working? What is useful learning for you here? What needs to change and how?”
Ontological Levels-Being and Becoming
The third and fourth levels of the coaching intervention using this model are that of who the client is and who the client wishes to become in terms of thinking, feeling, and being. Your questions move from “what do they need to do” and “how do they need to do it” (doing), to “how does their style of learning impact on how they do what they do; what do they need to learn in order to improve thinking/behavior/feeling/performance/leadership” (learning); to questions about “what do they need to understand and acknowledge about themselves, who are they, how do they be who they are, and what needs to change (being and becoming)?”
So what assists people in getting things done? Above all, it is about clarifying goals, creating action steps, taking responsibility, and being accountable. In order to perform more effectively, we need to help clients shift down a gear to learn how to work with competence (a set of skills) rather than just learning a specific new skill.
Learning
Your job as coach is to help the client be open to possibilities of learning something new, and to help them relate to themselves and others at a deeper level. To use the nested-levels model, you could ask questions such as:
Our aim with this model is to shift any limiting sense of who the client is so that they can interact and engage with the world in new ways. As clients begin to shift, it has an impact on others with whom they interact in the workplace. It also means addressing issues systemically, from a holistic perspective, whether those issues revolve around health, stress, anxiety, performance, or relationships with others. Our task as coaches is to widen the circle, enlarge the perspective of the client, and help them learn from their own experience how to reach their potential.
A great way to start any coaching intervention is to ask your clients to tell their life story. The coach begins to understand some of the current issues and presenting challenges, and begins to observe patterns of thinking, feeling, and behavior. Because we work with Kolb’s theory of “understanding experience in order to transform it into useable knowledge,” this model helps us to determine the context in which the client operates, where individual and systemic problems may be occurring, and how organizational values and culture impact on individuals and teams. It is at this level that the coach’s ability to observe, challenge, and ask appropriate questions can be most transformational.
In Conclusion
Coaching models help us understand the coaching intervention from a systems perspective, analyzing the “structure” of the interaction between coach and client. This series of articles takes a practical look at how coaching models are constructed, and how they can help you to flexibly structure the overall coaching journey as well as the individual coaching conversation with your business client. In my next article, we will explore the use of the U-process model, sometimes known as the “process of transition,” typically represented in Scharmer’s U-process. This article is adapted from Business Coaching Wisdom and Practice: Unlocking the Secrets of Business Coaching (2009, Johannesburg: Knowledge Resources). Business Coaching International will be published mid 2009 by Karnac, London.
This article first appeared in Business Coaching Worldwide (June Issue 2009, Volume 5, Issue 2).
Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Stout Rostron, S. (2009). Business Coaching Wisdom and Practice: Unlocking the Secrets of Business Coaching. Johannesburg: Knowledge Resources. Stout Rostron, S. (2006). Interventions in the Coaching Conversation: Thinking, Feeling and Behaviour. Unpublished DProf dissertation. London: Middlesex University.
Weiss, P. (2004). “The Three Levels of Coaching.” Available at: http://www.newventureswest.com/three_levels.pdf.
1 “Learning conversations” refers to research into learning conversations and self-organized learning, developed by S. Harri-Augstein and L.F. Thomas (1991:24).
Dr. Sunny Stout Rostron, DProf, MA is an executive coach and consultant with a wide range of experience in leadership and management development, business strategy and executive coaching. The author of six books, including Business Coaching Wisdom and Practice: Unlocking the Secrets of Business Coaching (2009), Sunny is Director of the Manthano Institute of Learning (Pty) Ltd and founding president of COMENSA (Coaches and Mentors of South Africa).
In my writing so far, I hope I have whetted your appetite for coaching research and put a convincing argument that it cannot be left as an “academic” pastime, but should be part of every practitioner’s arsenal.
Most of us do not have the time to carry out research per se, but given that our profession is in its infancy, there is much to discover in the literature about the true potential of what we can offer as coaches and how this can impact upon our clients and their organizations! We can contribute to the growing body of knowledge ourselves by delving into journals and articles, discussing “hot topics” within our networks and generally making our literature our own. As practitioners we contribute a valuable perspective when we talk with our peers and to academic researchers.
Over the last year I have been contributing to a working group on research as part of the Global Coaching Convention. This convention was established to create a collaborative framework of stakeholders in coaching with the aim of professionalizing the industry. Quite a job and at times I think the size and complexity of the aim has daunted even the hardiest souls. As in any undertaking of this size, there has been a debate about the value of such an initiative. Detractors say that the coaching community has grown organically so far and it should be left to continue doing so. Others say that the convention is taking on too big a job, and with so many diverse agendas on the table, there is little hope of getting collaboration or consensus so people are wasting their time. I will not go further into the debates other than to mention that if any of our clients came out with such a view, we might well consider challenging it! But enough of my soap box, as a good researcher I shall admit my bias and point everyone in the direction of the GCC’s website for the latest news and events.
Sunny Stout Rostron and Carol Kauffman chaired and facilitated the research working group and they did a grand job in challenging our process and thinking as well as generally bringing the project home. The core piece of work was a review of where we are, as a community, in terms of our research. Sunny and Carol will be publishing the full piece in the near future, but I would like to share with you some of the thinking it sparked with me.
First and foremost, we agreed that if we are thinking of moving to becoming a profession then we have to define what our body of knowledge is—what is it that makes our offer different to that of occupational psychologists, management consultants or other related fields? Research is the route to defining our knowledge. Even if we are simply looking at, and comparing, each other’s practice we are engaging in research.
The second point that struck a real note with me was our discussion around whether we should define what is “good” and what is “bad” research. This question and its real depth gets in the way of many of us entering the world of research. It throws up all kinds of questions about what is the “correct” way of doing it, reporting it or even defining it.
Let us first consider our purpose in doing research. For me and many others it is to find something out or to learn, and the best evidence of learning is to change behaviors. So we are effectively saying to our colleagues:
“Trust me—I have looked at this issue and found XYZ. You can now take my findings and apply them directly to your practice.”
That is quite a thing to say. We are suggesting people change their practice and behaviors because of what we have found out. To do this (and still sleep at night) we need to know that we are right (or valid) and not leading people down the garden path on a scenic route to nowhere. Some researchers have taken the easy route out of this dilemma and stuck to one way of doing research, irrespective of the question they are asking. Usually the method of choice is a controlled experimental study where one group gets coaching and one group doesn’t, and at the end there is some measure of impact on behaviors (with everyone hoping there is a positive effect on those who have been coached)!
Everyone breathes a sigh of relief as they are doing a scientific study and don’t have to justify themselves any further. Oh if only life was that easy! As we have discussed before, what you research and how you do it is determined by the question you are asking NOT the other way around. A controlled experiment would be terribly complicated and confusing if we wanted to explore how and what elements of the coaching engagement are of most value to a diverse range of clients. Trying to control for all the factors that would be different between groups would make it untenable (and unusable).
Identifying the research method used as the main differentiator between good and bad research is therefore not a sensible path and will only lead to restricting the type of research question we will be able to ask (and answer). Our criteria for whether an inquiry is “good” research must be: Is there coherence between the question, the method used to research it and the analysis undertaken, and has everything been done to the standards of good practice? Let us leave the question of what is good practice to one side for another day and take that as read; we can then be happy to consider good research to include any method or even mix of methods that makes sense for the question we are asking.
The same thinking should be brought to bear on the question: What is the best research to do? Everyone wants to do research that will set the world alight, but choosing a topic isn’t easy. Governments have been engaged in foresight exercises for many years trying to second guess the research investment they should make to enable them to meet the challenges for the future. They have invested a significant amount of money, but it has resulted in quite a lot of what has been described as crystal gazing.
Experience has shown that such exercises are useful for mapping current drivers for research, but usually fail to foresee the big issues for the future, e.g., the exponential rise in the use of the mobile phone and the personal computer. If we cannot see what will be the main issue for the future then the best research to do is the research that speaks to you and your practice, i.e., the research that follows your passion. Chances are that your passion will be shared by others—go ahead and ask them—and if that is the case then you can be confident that there will be an audience for your work.
This article first appeared in Business Coaching Worldwide (October Issue 2008, Volume 4, Issue 3).
As an introduction to how people are thinking about research for the future, have a look at these two papers. If you do not have access to these journals through a library or database, then just go to the website of the journal and order the download direct to your computer.
Linley, Alex P. 2006. “Coaching Research: Who? What? Where? When? Why?” International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring Vol. 4, No. 2 (Autumn): 1
Bennett, J.L. 2006. “An Agenda for Coaching-Related Research: A Challenge for Researchers.” Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research Vol. 58, Part 4: 240-249
Dr. Annette Fillery-Travis is a senior researcher and education coach with the Professional Development Foundation. The author of more than 60 research articles and studies, her recent book The Case for Coaching, presenting a literature review with research case studies and interviews from over 20 organizations on coaching efficacy, was published in 2006 by CIPD, UK.
I am sometimes surprised to learn that coaches are failing to gather a range of information from their clients prior to the commencement of the coaching process. In the absence of such information, how is it possible to calculate an ROI?
In the early 70s, Donald Kirkpatrick introduced a model for evaluating the benefits of training. This same model is used today by training and human resources departments to evaluate the ROI of coaching. The model has four levels:
Each level in the model requires information from both the client and the organization. In order to be of value, the information must be gathered before, during and after the coaching process.
In an article entitled An ROI Method for Executive Coaching: Have the Client Convince the Coach of the Return on Investment (2005), Mary Beth O’Neill outlines a method for engaging the client in taking responsibility for the gathering of this data. By taking ownership of their learning and measuring their progress and outcomes, clients support their own development through the coaching process.
A recent client of mine began to keep a reflective journal of each of our coaching sessions. In this journal, he identified different areas on which he wanted to comment (leadership, finances, emotions, family, learning, and ideas). After each session, he would record what he had learned about himself during the coaching or note something that had stimulated his thoughts or feelings. This journal became an invaluable resource for the client, as he would often revisit entries that were several months old, reflecting on how much he had changed and the progress he had made.
He and I took the outcomes he had recorded in his journal and applied them to Kirkpatrick’s model. The Results (Level 4 of the model) showed improvement in his leadership style, his interaction with his staff, the speed with which he could think creatively, and his understanding of self on an emotional level.
With all of this in mind, what data should you be gathering? Be very clear and specific about what, why and when you require any data from your client or from the organization. Provide a clear context for the use of the information.
A list of potentially useful data to gather is provided below. This list is by no means exhaustive:
Once you have captured your data, apply it to the different levels of Kirkpatrick’s model.
One small but rather important tip is to remember that coaching results occur in both the short term and the long term. ROI calculations sometimes focus solely on the “now,” computing gains, savings, and losses as of the completion date of the coaching partnership. Yet the benefits of coaching continue long after the coaching relationship has ended. Building in an evaluation at the completion of the coaching process, and then re-evaluating results at subsequent time intervals, will provide you with some excellent information. And, if the client takes ownership of the process and can see the benefits for him or herself, the result is a great win-win for both of you.
This article first appeared in Business Coaching Worldwide (Spring Issue 2006, Volume 2, Issue 1).
O’Neill, Mary Beth. 2005. “An ROI Method for Executive Coaching: Have the Client Convince the Coach of the Return on Investment.” International Journal of Coaching in Organizations 3:39-47.
Bronwyn Bowery-Ireland is the CEO of International Coach Academy, an international coach training school. She has been an executive coach for over 10 years.
