How is Coaching Different?
The ICF defines coaching as: “Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.
Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Coaches help people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives.
Coaches are trained to listen, to observe and to customize their approach to individual client needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach’s job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has” ICF - www.coachfederation.org
Which do you think is the most important aspect or characteristic of Coaching in relation to any other discipline or aid process?
Popularity: 62% [?]
Comment by Leonardo Ravier on 31 May 2008:
I would like to bring the discussion to another level or aspect related to the initial question.
Our role is to integrate or differentiate the coaching of other professions or processes aids? Or the way could be differentiation through integration? What do you think we should do to strengthen and develop coaching as a profession?
I would like to hear more opinions, I know that there is a wide range of thinkers among readers and contributors.
Comment by James on 15 May 2008:
Well done Leonardo, very much appreciate your post.
I agree with the term “intervention” not being associated with coaching.
To Jonathan’s point on “intervention,” if coaching is to have it’s own identity then we must be able to frame our discussion and thought around it in a way that is uniquely “coaching!”
I would suggest that the majority would experience the term “intervention” in a pejorative sense as it relates to coaching…that is to say their first experience of hearing the word within the context of a coaching dialog.
While a method may have an agenda, coaching in and of itself is not based on an agenda. Which is a distinction that seems to be uniquely coaching.
Leonardo, you make so many points…I’ll just share a couple thoughts at this point…
I don’t know that I see the process and context as being different sides of the same coin. A context can be held consistently over a given period all while using one or more processes.
A subtle point I offered was that of “being the first.” Is it possible that the perceived overlap between therapy and coaching can be, in part, due to therapy claiming to broad of territory for it’s own? In other words, if coaching had been recognized as a profession first…where then would this dialog be today? How would the therapy as a whole be shaped?
The next question for me is…who’s most concerned with the distinction of therapist versus coach? I truly don’t feel that this is something being driven by coaches. Who will ultimately decide what defines the coaching profession?
Comment by jsibley on 14 May 2008:
Leonardo, thanks for such a great job summarizing what we had said recently.
Stacey, thanks for chiming in. It’s true that “intervention” may come from another tradition, but I’m not sure it has to have the pejorative connotation you mention (although we could still agree to use a different term, even if that were true). Can’t one speak of intervening in a system, and aren’t we doing that even by observing, let alone coaching?
Also, as a historical note, and to highlight a potential similarity without wanting to demarcate turf or say that one thing is better than another, the idea of “meeting the client where he/she is” is an integral part of the social work worldview. Just an interesting similarity.
Glad to hear more voices and also looking forward to hearing more from James.
Comment by Stacey Basting on 13 May 2008:
I’m so enjoying this conversation. A lively debate is such a wonderful learning opportunity! I have a few thoughts related to recent posts.
First, I agree with Leonardo that viewing coaching as a subset of psychology would be unfortunate. While psychology based research in coaching currently dominates the field, coaching’s origins are simple. A “coach” carried passengers in the 15th century to their destination, private tutors (or coaches) saw students safely through exams, and sports “coaches” began in the 1880s to assist athletes in improving their performance. Basically, coaches have a history of meeting passengers or clients where they are at and accompanying them on a journey of sorts. It evolved prior to as well as along with psychology.
I think as coaching evolves, additional voices will further contribute to the literature. Psychology folks, with their rich tradition in publishing, simply have a head start. We’re now seeing more business management, leadership, adult education, theology, philosophy, and others adding their perspectives to the mix. How exciting that we can all learn from each other, honoring each others’ traditions and what we bring to the table and together creating a rich way of helping people learn and grow–not to create a cookie cutter, or child of another profession, but to create a new and powerful way of looking at things.
An additional distinction here is related to the term “intervention”, a possible carry over from certain psychology traditions. I would echo some of Leonardo’s comments here. I don’t find it useful in my coaching because it seems to imply the client as broken, rather than whole. I don’t see myself as intervening in anything. If I were, would I not be judging my clients’ current circumstance? That’s a trap I’d prefer to avoid.
As coaches with so many diverse backgrounds learn and grow in coaching, I think clarity in role and purpose is essential. However, I like the idea of a flexible definition that leaves room for growth, or perhaps it’s a definition based on process rather than content (where this thread began).
I like James’ encouragement to look at this with a new lens, viewing coaching as a tool versus a profession. Along these lines, I think you might find a post by David Drake on this site interesting…he shares an article he wrote about Coach as Artisan. He includes comments about the history of coaching as well as makes comparisons to the research tradition in psychology and other related fields. http://www.coachingcommons.org/inventing-the-future-of-coaching/are-coaches-artisans/
Looking forward to hearing more thoughts!