COACHING - Fashionable or Necessary Intervention?

Problem Statement

There are strong problem statements that call for the attention from all the stakeholders in the coaching sector. This includes the coaches, client companies, sponsors of coaching, providers of coaching training, coaching federations, etc. The following points confirm this fact

Fragmented Voices – there are many voices in the coaching sector at national and global levels and in most cases these voices are not in agreement. Whereas the diversity of views is encouraged it is not always ideal when it comes to the general framework that the entire world must be aligned with. Competition is encouraged but there must be a sense of responsibility by every stakeholder not to compete against each other to the detriment of the profession. Sometimes our own egos as coaches are self-defeating. At the same time there are those who just want to enter the profession without doing the minimum to meet the expected professional standards. This is often the reason why there will be reluctance to lift the professional standards.

Unregulated Profession – the fact that coaching profession is not regulated makes the above point very difficult to address. We are not asking for regulation by the authorities as that will take away the creativity from the profession. I am for the self-regulation by the coaches themselves. The local and international coaching federations must lobby strong players in the market to adhere to the norms and put pressure on all the stakeholders to demand minimum standards to be met. This should include clarity in terms of what coaching is and what it is not.

Non-Alignment – self-regulation in the coaching industry will lead to standardisation and alignment of coaching practices. This will cover all the stages of the coaching value chain starting with training, through credentialing and accreditation, through to contracting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of practices, endings and post coaching relationship management.

No entry Barriers – as it is now everybody can just decide to call themselves a coach and start practicing. If the client is not familiar with coaching that person could continue calling mentoring, training, and advisory as coaching. So, the client will continue paying for the services classified as coaching, which they are not. So, there is a need to educate the market about the difference between coaching and other related human capital development interventions.

Lack of knowledge about Coaching – not all the buyers of coaching, which are mostly the human resources teams, are knowledgeable about coaching, and yet they are the trusted representatives of their companies when securing the coaching services. Coaching is a specialist human capital development intervention. Its procurement must be done by the company representatives who have been properly trained and understand its working very well.

Sponsors have no experience on Coaching intervention – the above point applies to the sponsors or financiers of coaching, who most cases happen to be the line managers and bosses of the coaches. Since coaching is transformational in nature it is strategically important to ensure that the managers of the coaches understand the impact of coaching on their staff undergoing coaching. Otherwise, they will not adjust their leadership style as their staff members are progressing as a result of the coaching intervention. This could become counter productive and lead to unintended consequences like the staff leaving these managers and the organisation due to frustration.

No culture of coaching in the organisations – the first thing that must be in place before the implementation of the coaching programme is for the organisation to be ready to welcome the culture of coaching. This must be facilitated as it will not come on its own. There are certain behaviours that are expected from the leadership for the coaching programme to succeed. In many cases this entails a change or adjustment of the various people related processes in the organisation like leadership development practice, performance management, team development, talent management, succession planning, continuous professional development, personal development planning, organisation development & design, etc.

Supply market lacking coaching practice – on the supply side we see insufficient emphasis on acquiring experience through coaching before calling themselves coaches. Several coaches transition from other related human capital development professions into coaching, especially towards the end of their professional careers. However, the common mistake committed is not going through comprehensive training and practice to augment their skills and competences.

Coaching still viewed as an exclusive intervention – as mentioned, in most cases coaching is still viewed as exclusive intervention for the select members of the staff, mostly executives and senior management teams. The future of coaching is dependent on the accessibility made possible by all the employing organisations, including governments. We also expect the learning and educational institutions to build coaching into their programmes. The coaching way will become the normal way of human capital development. Managers are expected to be trained on the coaching way of managing and leading.

Coaching lumped with other related interventions – although coaching is an addition to the human capital development portfolio of interventions it is completely different to the other related interventions. The tendency to request service providers of coaching, mentoring, training, consulting and advisory in one request for proposals as one offering delivering consolidated outcomes creates huge confusion in the market. Yes, the outcomes could remain the same, but the approaches and processes are different and should be separated.

Coaching viewed as an external intervention – the fact that coaching is delivered by the coaches that are external to the organisation does not mean that the coaching programme should be seen as an external intervention. The organisations must move from the premise that it is part of the internal human capital portfolio of interventions, but it is delivered by coaches who happen to be from outside. It is for this reason that we encourage the organisations to start with cultivating a culture of coaching, followed by the development & design of the coaching programme, and then the implementation thereof. The engagement of the external coaches is not a coaching programme itself but part of its implementation.

Very few accredited and credentialed coaches in the market – the supply side of the coaching service offering is almost left unattended. The market behaves as if there are no issues on the supply side of the market. Whenever I mention to the stakeholders that we have a shortage of coaches most of them frown at me. I would then explain further to say that delivery of development through coaching is a highly specialised process that requires qualified, accredited and credentialed coaches. Yes, everybody can call themselves coaches. But organisations that are serious about human capital development through coaching and have taken strategic decision to integrate it into their practices would want their people to be coached by the best. The best to become available just because you want them. You will have to find them. And they are not available in abundance. This is a challenge that the supply side must address. The coaches have huge responsibility to develop themselves to meet the growing demand for the best coaches by the market. As more clients become knowledgeable about coaching it is going to be difficult for anyone to just rock up, call themselves a coach, and then hope to get assignments to coach.

Coaching federations not empowered to intervene – the coaching federations do not have the capacity push for change and transformation aggressively. This is understandable as because the federations are at the mercy of the members who pay fees that sustain their services. These coaches do not have to belong to these federations. They voluntarily take the membership. Rather than forcing the members to address the change and transformation imperatives they would rather motivate and encourage them to do so. There is hope from the market wherein more client companies demand that coaches produce their credentials that include formal training qualifications, accreditation, credentialing certificates, coaching hours logged, and membership of the reputable coaching federations.

Commercial interests put forward – unfortunately the behaviours of most coaches continue to be driven by commercial interest. Whereas this is not wrong, and it is understandable, we must recognise the fact that coaching is a helping profession, and all the coaches must meet the quality of the coaching way of being. This means that long before one considers to become a coach they must have what it takes, from personality perspective, to become a player in the coaching sector.