COACHING - Fashionable or Necessary Intervention?

What must be done to rectify the situation?

There is a lot that must be done by all the stakeholders to put coaching on the right path. We cannot afford to lose the opportunity to properly position coaching. This is a powerful human capital development intervention that can benefit the entire humanity all over the world. Coaching can make every human being reach their own internal capability to better themselves. Just imagine how the world will be like if every citizen is assisted to access their own potential and do something about their God given talents. But at the same time think of the damage that will continue to be made by not exposing the people to the truth about coaching. Like all the other economic sectors that show the potential for making money the profession will be highjacked by those who are in it for the wrong reasons. Similarly, coaching could be changed to become what it was not meant to be. We owe everything to ourselves to make what coaching is about materialize.

Wrong practices emerging from the market – we are seeing some disturbing practices emerging from the market whereby coaching is lumped into the same basket with mentoring, training, facilitation, consulting and advisory. This is evident in the way the deliverables and outcomes of such programmes are formulated. This tells us that the buyers and sponsors of coaching do not understand the difference between coaching and these other human capital development interventions. The other reason may be that the consultants that they use to package these requests for the coaching services do not know the difference. This must be addressed as it will lead to our country losing the great opportunity that coaching brings to the human capital development space. We want to develop coaches that are truly going to carry through change and transformation of our executives, managers, and leaders to the benefit of the country and the world. This is the era of coaching and everybody must be given the opportunity to experience true coaching. By just patching it into the traditional human capital development interventions is not doing justice to the profession.

Fashionable to calling everything coaching – we also notice the fashionable practice of labelling every intervention something coaching. When we look deeper into the writeup of such interventions we realise that sometimes it is only the label but the rest is a mixture of all sorts of human capital development interventions like mentoring, training, facilitation, consulting and advisory.

Reluctance to invest resources in understanding what coaching is – it is imperative that all the stakeholders in the coaching sector to invest time, energy, effort, and resources in understanding and explaining what coaching is and what it is not. We cannot continue to burden coaching with this confusion. This is something the whole world cannot afford to ignore. The founding fathers and mothers of coaching gave us a precious gift. It is incumbent upon us to make it become what they originally intended it to become. We require coaches that will invest more resources in their development through practice. This includes integrating coaching with technology communication platforms and offer it virtually. Soon no coach will be able to survive in the sector if they are not able to deliver coaching digitally.

Training and qualification only the beginning – it must be understood that enrolling for training and acquiring qualification in coaching is only the beginning of the long journey in coaching. The evolution of coaching has just begun, and we must propel it forward with enthusiasm and passion. There are many academies, colleges, universities, and business schools that are offering some sort of qualifications in coaching. Many people are responding, enrolling, and studying toward coaching. More academics are willing to undertake research in coaching. They must be supported in one way or another. In the future we will require 50% of theoretical training and 50% of practice before any qualification can be conferred. In fact, the coaching federations to a certain extend are already demanding this in their credentialing process.

Coaching is not about the past – We must continue reminding the clients, buyers, and sponsors of coaching that it is about the future, not the past. It is progressive and dynamic. When we embark on coaching, we are saying that we are thinking about the future, we want to be ready for it, and want to influence it. So, it requires us to have the investment mindset. It does not resolve the past problems or issues but investigates how to prepare the client for the challenges ahead. However, it may consider what did not work in the past or now, and then formulate better approaches in the future.

Coaching is not an event – coaching is not an event but a process, even though the actual coaching sessions may look like they are events. They are the building blocks of the coaching programme whose deliverables are about progress into the future.

The world needs coaching than ever before – we are living in what many call VUCA world, that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. No individual on their own will be able to cope with this world. The pace at which change is happening is becoming hugely difficult to cope with. Coaching is best positioned to support the staff, managers, leaders and executives in growing their organisations.

It is not everybody calling themselves coaches are coaches – unfortunately we must caution the stakeholders in the coaching sector about the fact that it is not everybody that call themselves coaches they are coaches. There are good and bad coaches in the market. The sector is not able to protect the clients against those who are not true coaches as explained in this article. At the same time, we do not want to discourage people from entering the sector just because they are not at the ideal level of competence. That is the journey, and they must be encouraged to undergo it. The more qualified, credentialed, accredited, experienced, and professional coaches the better for the sector. We are asking the clients and all other stakeholders to help us protect the integrity of the profession. At the same time, we want to be flexible, encourage creativity and innovation to grow the profession and the sector across the world.