During the 1970s, Paul Simon wrote a song about the “bridge over troubled waters.” There are obviously many kinds of troubled waters in our world today—some swirling around in our personal lives and others swirling around in the organizations where we work. Some of us help our coaching clients address the personal turbulence, while others of us help clients address the turmoil operating in their organizations.
If the subject of coaching is water, what about the bridge itself?. Is the bridge the same for personal and organizational coaching, or does it come in several different forms? Is the design different for those doing personal and life work with their clients, from those working with executives and others working in an organizational setting? Even more importantly, we ask: is there a bridge that crosses between personal and organizational coaching—or are these two different worlds, between which there is a chasm that is not easily crossed?
We believe that there are important distinctions to be drawn between these two branches (or should we say Markets? Aspects? Labels?) of professional coaching and believe these distinctions are important to acknowledge when considering not only the preparation of professional coaches, but also the assessment (and credentialing) of men and women who are preparing for or currently engaged in professional coaching. However, we also believe that a sturdy (and passable) bridge exists between personal and organizational coaching—one that reflects not only the way in which most professional coaches actually work in the field, but also the way in which there is much for personal and organizational coaches to learn from one another via constructive dialogue. We offer articles in this issue of The Future of Coaching that identify the nature and size of the gap between personal and organizational coaching, as well as elements that provide a bridge between these two coaching perspectives and enterprises.
Three of the articles are contributed by authors who have already published in the Library of Professional Coaching. The first of these articles was written by two experts in the global outreach of professional coaching, Allen Moore and Jay Rybeck. They offer a panoramic view of coaching in organizational settings. While they build their analysis on interviews they conducted with global business leaders, their findings clearly identify both organizational and personal challenges being faced by these 21st Century leaders.
The second article, written by one of us [WB] centers on the career, as a key interface between personal and organizational coaching. This essay specifically focuses on the concept of career anchors (as originally introduced by Edgar Schein) and applies it to the different ways that entrepreneurship is displayed in contemporary organizational settings.
The third article reports on similarities and differences between personal and organizational coaching as represented in the responses of more than 200 coaches to two surveys on the Development of Coaching. Through analysis of results from these surveys, several important differences between personal and organizational coaching have been identified (as well as many similarities). This article is the seventh in a series of reports derived from these two surveys.
Development of Coaches: VII. Are There Any Differences Between Personal and Organizational Coaches?
We also offer three interesting articles from first-time contributors, all of whom write from the perspective of practicing coaches.
Rashmi Ripley writes as a coach about her experience with people inside and outside of organizations. Her article asks us to consider just how different—or not—are the problems and blocks that we face in our personal and professional lives.
The Executive and the Unexamined Life
Sandi Stewart, a coach training instructor and a member of the ICF’s Independent Review Board, shares her perspectives on the similarities and differences between life and executive coaching as forms of practice—including several different categories of executive coaching. She explicitly calls out some of the complexities inherent in organizational work that the executive coach must face.
Differences in Personal and Executive Coaching
Mary Jo Ammon compares the structural differences between life and executive coaching engagements, describing the differences and similarities she sees in major stages of coaching engagements. She draws on her own experience in 20+ years of coaching to details substantive differences in contracting and process, among others—and comes to a conclusion about what holds both types of coaching together.
Coaching in the Real World: One Size Does NOT Fit All
We believe that these six articles provide important and diverse perspectives on personal and organizational coaching. They complete a three-issue series on personal coaching (issue eight) and organizational coaching (issue nine).
Co-Editors
Bill Carrier
Bill Bergquist