Please Stop Calling it Coaching!

There is no doubt that coaching is the most popular recent fad in realm of leadership and management development.  In the market today you can find any number of self proclaimed, newly certified, and nationally acclaimed practitioners all claiming to be professional coaches.  We now have former: therapists, executives, professors, athletes and sports coaches, and a wide range of writers and commentators all jumping into this newly emerging profession.  The danger in all of this is that coaching is very quickly going to go the way of "empowerment," a term that once meant something very specific but eventually came to mean nothing as people attempted to lump all of their corporate agendas under the then popular banner. I would like to see if we can't save coaching, both the term and the profession, from that same fate.  I think the place to begin is to separate genuine coaching from everything else that is currently taking place under the banner. 

Coaching is a distinct practice that requires a specific set of competencies.  It is not the same thing as leading, managing, teaching, or mentoring.  And while it is true that leaders can be teachers or managers can be mentors, competence in any of these has no bearing on the practice of coaching.

There are two fundamental differences between all of these practices.  The first is the nature of the relationship involved.  In business you can have a mentor but that relationship is driven by the willingness of the mentor.  You can also have leaders, managers, and teachers and by virtue of the authority granted to them by the organization they can do all of those things to or with you whether you like it or not, that just comes with the job. 

Coaching is distinct in that the relationship is driven by the coachee.  This is because authentic coaching can only take place in the presence of the demand for it. No one can coach you if you don't' want to be coached. You can be led, managed, or taught whether you like or not but not coached.

The second fundamental difference has to do with the competencies involved and the nature of the practice.  Authentic coaching isn't about dispensing advice, providing tips and techniques, being a paid friend, or showing people how to prioritize their work to be more efficient.  This is like the oil change guy at Jiffy Lube thinking he is a NASCAR crew chief.  What I am pointing to here is that managing, teaching, and mentoring typically are focused on what one is doing.  Authentic coaching is about who one is being.  This is a radically different game. If what you are doing is not prioritizing things then any number of people can quickly teach you how to fix that.  This isn't coaching, as you will be the same person only now you can prioritize the very same things you were already doing.

What a coach will do is work with you at a much deeper level to change your way of being in the world so that your tendency to be easily distracted or scattered is displaced by a new capacity to stay focused, centered, and clear about what really is critical to your capacity to lead your people.  As a result you will develop a new clarity about your fundamental commitments in work and life and the question of learning to set priorities becomes moot. 

Coaching is the most potent tool available for performance enhancement but it's in danger of losing its importance and potential as organizations try to institutionalize it into simplistic handbooks and daylong courses.  It is much more than a fancy wrapper for instructions, a package for inspirational slogans, or a sugarcoating for orders.  Coaching is a unique form of relationship and communication that, at is highest level, can transform the performance and potential of an individual or team.  It is an interactive process that enables individuals and teams to see something about their performance that they would otherwise be unable to see.  Authentic coaching opens the door to new worlds.

Without coaching a player is limited to merely honing or incrementally improving an existing level of performance. That is what teachers, mentors, or managers do by providing tips and techniques.  Real coaching provides a reinterpretation of actions and possibilities so that a quantum shift in results can occur.  It is dependent upon a specific type of trust between the coach and the player and has as its foundation a precise set of observing, listening, and speaking skills.

We started honing the practice of coaching 25 years ago when we began our work with athletes and soldiers, people who are under constant pressure to perform. In these worlds as a player or soldier develops their competence and career they spend more time with a coach.  Moreover as they get better the higher the caliber of coaching they demand. Thus the most expert athletes work with the most expert coaches and the most promising officers go to best schools and work with the best coaches in the service.  

You will find the same process in any field where performance matters, be it music, dance, or art.  It is only in the business world where the reverse typically happens.  As a manager moves up through the organization roles and responsibilities grow more complex, the need to engage in innovative thinking increases and the cost of missed opportunities rises dramatically.  Yet typically as the demands on the managers time expands he spend less and less time learning let alone spending any time with a coach.  The reason for this is simple.  It is only in the business world that we live in the delusion that competence somehow develops on its own or is immune to the rapidly changing world around us.  It ought to then come as no surprise when our flagship companies are blindsided by innovation, new competitors, or are slow to develop new practices and processes.  Their most senior players have been insulated in many cases for years, from new ideas, practices, or structured development of their performance. 

No amount of tips and techniques, goal setting or priority planning is going produce the tectonic shift that is needed in most of today's business leaders.  Instead of a new cadre of captains of industry we have watched the emergence of a crop of analysis addicted, risk adverse, caretakers.  They are no more leaders than our politicians who won't make a move without consulting the polls.  If there was ever a time when authentic coaching could make a difference it is now!

The challenge we face is that most people think that the fundamental competence of the coach is speaking - what you say to someone.  This is no surprise as most of our images of a great coach involve some inspirational speech delivered at the critical moment with great theatrics.  The reality is that the most critical competence in coaching is listening, not listing like paying attention to or the tired practice of active listening.  The authentic coach brings a deep capacity to listen to the story that a person is living in and has the competence to shift that story, which in turn shifts the performance.  This has nothing to do with simplistic affirmations or spinning things.  It is about knowing what you are listening for and then moving in four basic realms to open a new world for someone to step into.  The four realms I am pointing to are:

• Mood - your story about the future and what it holds for you
• Distinctions - how you make sense of the world
• Standards - how you assess yourself and your performance
• Practices - what you do from day to day that produces the results you are currently experiencing.

Each of these is a topic unto itself so for now let's just hold that collectively they are the keys to a specific set of competencies that are required of one who wants to be an authentic coach.  Leading, managing, teaching, and mentoring are all important but lets please not confuse them with coaching.  In these times of great upheaval we need real business leaders.  These leaders need all of the coaching we can provide them.  Let's not lose the moment and the power of what's possible by watering down the practice of authentic coaching.