What Does Performance Coaching Mean in the Post-Recession Economy?

Next week the European Mentoring and Coaching Council have the UK Conference in London (you can find out more on the website http://www.emccouncil.org/uk/public/conferences/index.html). 

At last years event I caused a bit of a stir by suggesting that many people working as coaches could not perform the essential – foundational – skills. The argument was supported by the results of a number of Assessment Centres of external coaches in the twelve months prior, notably at HSBC and the one the School of Coaching ran with BSkyB, where numbers of experienced coaches failed to pass. 

My second point, equally unpalatable, was that the coaching market would dry up because too much attention is put on developmental and very little on the performance i.e. achieving business results.  One individual, a senior player in the profession, when asked why there was this bias responded, “because we are afraid of pinning our flag to the performance mast”.  That’s not good enough – and not good for the coaching profession.

So this year there will be a panel discussion on the Thursday 6 May to discuss these issues. It will feature David Megginson of the EMCC, John Blakey, author of ‘Where were all the coaches when the banks went down’ and myself. I will make sure that a report of the discussion is available.

The essential, foundational skills that I refer to are the skills that enable the player (coachee) to do the thinking for themselves. Many coaches who will tell you they have a ‘questioning approach’ are merely leading the coachee to their, the coach’s, own solution.  In other words they are doing the thinking thus depriving the player of the opportunity to build those skills, take responsibility and discover their own authority.

Executive coaching is a collaborative conversation that creates ideas, action and results for the leader, team and the organisation. Without a performance focus coaching will always be a ‘nice to have’ rather than an essential business tool and enabler. And coaches should be able to coach.

I think for many, Coaching can be a shield behind which they can safely articulate the frustrations they may experience. Nothing wrong with that, but for performance to emerge, clarity should lead to passion, passion to conviction, and conviction to action. More than at any time, organisation's futures are being determined by a combination of employee passion, engagement and empowerment. As coaches, our job is to enable that. Shame I can't post a link here, but see Simon Sineks talk on Ted.com to see an example of something I wish I had said first :)
by Richard Merrick at 11 May 2010 15:00