Coaching at Work: are There Different Kinds of Coaching?

Coaching draws on many different influences. For most people the word itself is connected with sporting activities and it is easy to understand how the relationship between performer and coach works in that setting. The sporting connection also offers some useful comparisons that can help make the case for coaching. Sports coaches are rarely better performers than the people whom they coach. In fact many top sports coaches these days were fairly average performers but recognize that good coaching is not about passing on skills but about being a catalyst to the development of the coachee(s). Coaching also draws on many principles from psychotherapy such as the need to establish the boundaries of the working relationship and the importance stressed on active listening. In coaching at work we can also wee many parallels with Organization Development and Management Training. Many of the structured psychological models such as Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and Transactional Analysis (TA) have enjoyed something of a renaissance alongside the rising popularity of coaching.

I believe that it is these diverse influences that have led to the fragmentation of the coaching approach and the different branches of the profession that are emerging. For the purposes of this article I will concentrate on the main three. Firstly, we have Life Coaching. This normally takes place at the behest of an individual who wants some help in resolving issues in one or more parts of their personal life. This can often involve coaching around relationship difficulties, making a career change, retirement or any of life's significant turning points. Where the Life Coach uncovers some deep rooted, serious issue such as physical abuse or spiralling debt they will normally refer their client for more specialist help.

Then there's Executive Coaching which is normally brought in to help the senior team manage a piece of significant change such as a merger or acquisition. Many Executive coaches are accomplished business people themselves and probably need that credibility to get through the door and make a start. It follows that much of what they do can be thought of as more like consultancy than the coaching I've described here, but that is of little consequence to the executive who feels they've been helped. Finally we have what we might call manager-coaching (for want of a better term). This is coaching undertaken by the manager or team leader as part and parcel of their role and for the benefit of their team members. This is the most impactful type of coaching in my view and the one on which the rest of this book will concentrate.

Despite the variety of influences and the differing types of coaching now on offer, there appears to be a number of common elements that create a philosophy of coaching. Coaching adopts the same stance as humanistic psychology in its intention to bring about the release of potential. There is a nod toward existentialism in the notion that people are not hapless victims but always have choice and that their behaviour is a result of the choices they make. We can see a lot of Eastern influences in coaching in the emphasis placed on operating the present and in the belief that people are equipped with all that they need to be productive. Finally, coaching adheres to the constructivist principle that there is no one single version of truth or reality.

My aim in writing this and my many other articles concerning how coaching compares has been to 'ring fence' coaching so that we can understand how it fits with the other things we do as part of people management. The purpose of managing people at work is to get the job done well and help our team members take advantage of any opportunities that doing the job well presents. Coaching encompasses both of these points because it is performance focused but person centred.

We know that coaching shares aspects of instructing, mentoring, counselling and so on but also has important distinctions. Coaching requires no expertise or background on the part of the coach. Whist instructing and training are effective at developing initial skills and abilities, coaching has proven the most effective way of developing higher skills once people have reached a point where they need to develop in their own unique way. In truth, a good coach - in the widest sense of the term - will probably move from 'tell' to 'coach' and back again within the course of any coaching arrangement. Their concern will be with developing people, not with labelling the type of development they're doing.

Coaching draws on a wide range of influences such as sport, management development and the helping professions. This has led to a fragmenting of the profession and the emergence of specialisms such as Life Coaching and Executive Coaching. However all coaching has unifying principles including recognizing different versions of reality, working in the present and seeing the individual as resourceful, with all the potential they need to achieve their goals.

Let me leave you with a tip...

Before you do anything else get together with the people whom you'll coach and decide on a working definition for yourselves. It doesn't matter if your chosen version doesn't exactly match an official definition but it must provide a consistent approach that everyone can sign up to.