Everyone can be a coach

To focus on the role and value of coaching, we need to examine several fallacies associated with the concept of coaching. This can help clear up the confusion and improve the practice of coaching.

We define coaching simply as "helping others to learn and apply useful abilities." This rather broad view of the concept is narrowed when we address the various concerns and fallacies of the coaching process.

EXPOSING THE STEREOTYPES

* Coaching is carried out only by special people called coaches.

This may be the case in some organizations; but, in reality, anyone can be a coach. With the exception of work situations, many people happily engage in coaching practices. For example, parents coach their children in all sorts of activities - not just sports. The fact that the quality of coaching may vary from person to person doesn't undermine the basic argument that everyone needs to learn how to be a good coach.

Increasingly organizations are expecting their managers to become coaches, but often, managers are reluctant to take on the role. They don't view themselves as teachers, which may be their only model of how to help someone to learn. If accepting the role of coach is a problem for a manager, then the manager and the company need to address the issue, not avoid it.

* Coaching only applies in one-to-one work.

Effective coaching usually is behind winning teams, which is why teams need coaching as much as individuals. Yet in business, leaders too often assume they can assemble a group, call it a self-managing team and expect the group to magically gel as an effective team. Removing old-style authoritarian bosses without replacing them with an alternative is abdication, not empowerment. This can lead to disillusioned chaos, rather than improved performance. Effective team coaches can help these groups to become productive and supportive teams.

* Coaching is all one thing.

The kind of coaching needed in organizations is a far cry from the old authoritarian coaches beloved by football and baseball fans. The inner-game approach of Tim Gallwey has influenced modern sports coaches in tennis, golf and skiing. This approach emphasizes a focus on meeting the needs of individuals, effective questioning and actual performance improvement, rather than command and direction.

* Coaching is about providing new knowledge and skills.

Adding new knowledge is only a part of what is needed in coaching. Let's take the example of time management; managers often bring us this common problem in our roles as coaches for coaches. These managers often have attended two or three time-management courses, and many have invested heavily in electronic technology or fancy paper-based systems. Yet, most are still unable to manage their time effectively. All these attempts at adding new knowledge and skills seemed to have failed. What usually is needed in such cases is to examine the person's habits, which can seriously undermine any attempts to foster change. The person may, for instance, have a deep-seated pattern of procrastination. Getting to the root of this habit and helping develop new behaviors are the keys to change.

* If coaches stray outside simple instruction in knowledge and skills, they are in danger of getting into psychotherapy.

We are not suggesting that coaches should become psychotherapists - or that they should have training in this area. We believe coaches can simply follow the example of good parents: Listen to others person, try to understand their real concerns, and offer support and encouragement.

Our research on how people learn at work revealed that many people were heavily influenced by their managers in ways that are outside normal skill and knowledge acquisition. Time and again, people spoke of how a manager had given them the courage to branch out and aim for a better job or encouraged them to work with more-senior people.

The research also turned up cases where the manager was a tyrannical autocrat who forced people to learn through fear. The person learned the relevant skills but also learned to fear people in authority. This latter example could be the more powerful - and could undermine future learning potential. In one case, it was only through a sensitive coach that the person learned it was all right to ask for advice from senior managers. This coach was most effective in helping the person learn how to learn in appropriate ways. It didn't take a psychotherapist to do this. It took someone who possessed the awareness and capability to help the person address his problem.

* Coaches need to be expert in something to coach.

Coaching goes beyond imparting expertise and knowledge to students. We have, for example, coached managers in areas such as finance or information technology where we don't claim any particular expertise. By asking pertinent questions and listening, however, we could help these managers set sensible learning goals and assist them in finding the resources to meet these goals.

* Excellent coaches are born, not made.

Not true. Coaching can be learned, but for the autocrat, it can be a tough learning experience. Although we have developed materials and workshops to help people learn to be effective coaches, it is useless to offer a standardized training course in "coaching skills." Coaching often requires the development of a new mind-set. Some people may have many coaching skills already, but they may use them inappropriately. And, any development program for coaches needs to be conducted in a coaching style. Effective coaches, for example, respond to individuals as individuals and allow participants to drive the process.

* Coaching is vertical.

The definition of vertical means that coaching processes are based on a more senior person coaching a more junior individual. This is the most common form of coaching in many re-engineered and downsized organizations, but senior people often have heavier workloads and cannot be effective coaches about everything. In any case, a strictly vertical coaching model can undermine true empowerment. Managers often find that their assistants feel more empowered if they can coach their bosses in job skills, such as working with a keyboard and operating software. This is vertical coaching in reverse.

Horizontal coaching also is useful. Peers coaching peers can be an extremely effective way for people to learn. Learning groups made up of co-workers can meet on a regular basis where one objective is to coach one another in relevant work skills.

* Coaching has to be done face to face.

This may be the most obvious method of coaching; however, using the telephone and e-mail can be alternative methods when it is not possible to be there in person. Increasingly, many teams are virtual teams and rely heavily on electronic communication. If people assume that e-mail is strictly for information sharing, they're missing opportunities for coaching.

* Coaching is aimed at fixing immediate performance problems.

This is an unfortunate assumption. In organizations it gives the sense that coaching is only for those who are failing. Coaching then becomes conceptualized as a remedial approach. Our notion of coaching is closer to the best sports models. Tennis players or golfers of exceptional ability regularly use their coaches. Coaches are best employed when they help their students take a strategic approach to learning. Some of the best golfers have decided at a certain stage in their careers to fundamentally change some aspect of their game. In the short term, their games suffered. But they focused on the long-term benefit and more than likely have been rewarded for their efforts.

CONCLUSION

Fashionable ideas such as the learning organization will have little value unless organizations focus on the development of coaching capability across the spectrum of the workforce. The process of coaching is too important to be left only to appointed coaches.

Ian Cunningham, Ph.D., chairs the consulting company Strategic Developments International and the not-for-profit Center for Self Managed Learning; in London. Linda Honold is founder of the consulting group Empowerment Systems. She earned her master's of science of industrial relations from the University of Wisconsin and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in human and organizational development.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Society for Human Resource Management
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