Alignment coaches can encourage and assist leaders to look beyond their current job and their immediate responsibilities to a bigger arena – what our colleague Laura Whitworth called the “bigger game.” In a previous article by Foley and Bergquist (2009), we presented a case study about Greg, the North American President of a German engineering firm, and the coaching issues he faces while he remains at a firm whose values are misaligned with his, so at to provide for his family. Greg’s family work history is consistent with what we found in our research. As a father, he rationalizes working in a job where he is misaligned or even dislikes, so he can allow his kids to follow their dreams. His father did the same and his father before. We argue that a father must model what he wishes his children to become—playing the bigger game. It would seem that organizational coaches themselves can find a “bigger game” in their work with the ethical dimension of leadership among the leaders with whom they work.
Conclusions
The first key point we wish to make, in closing, is that personal and organizational coaching must be blended when working with the inhabitants of the organizational underground. Some of those reading this article might conclude that these issues of unemployment and underemployment are really matters to be addressed by those doing personal coaching, rather than those doing coaching in an organizational setting. Given that these clients don’t have an organization to call home, why would an organizational coach become interested in or declare that they are competent to help address the challenges faced by these unfortunate men and women? In this article, we have tried to make the case for a vital role to be played by those with expertise in organizational coaching.
The second key point we wish to make is that addressing the issues of the organizational underground requires that professional coaches assume a much broader perspective regarding their opportunities and obligations—they must engage a much bigger game. This second key point returns us once again to the issue of ethics. There is a more fundamental reason for the vital role to be played by organizational coaches (and personal coaches, for that matter): professional coaches of all kinds should make a commitment to the “bigger game” as Whitworth (2004) has framed it. “I want to be engaged in creating a shift in how human beings relate to each other. I firmly believe that much of what does not work on our planet is because a majority of the world’s population does not know how to interrelate in a healthy, positive, and empowering manner. That’s all: they don’t know how. We can do something about that! We can help to put into place a universally aligned system of relating or caring or engaging with one another. (p. 1)”
Professional coaching is not just about economic benefits for the client and coach. It is not just about increasing corporate profitability or non-profit efficiency and effectiveness. It is about making the world a better place in which to live and to ensure that our bio-sphere is sustainable. This is the bigger game of professional coaching.
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