For the third time in the history of The Library of Professional Coaching (LPC) we are offering “A Best of . . .” volume of Curated. In this instance, we are also providing a theme that brings the selected essays together in a coherent manner. The theme is: Coaching Trends and Strategies.
In past editions of Curated, we have worked primarily with one criterion in the selection of essays—namely the number of times the essay has been accessed. For this edition, we engaged three criteria. First, we did choose some essays that have frequently been accessed. Second, we have chosen some essays that have received thoughtful and appreciative comments from readers. Apparently, these essays offered enough insightful (or provocative) content to elicit these reactions. Third, we made use of the SEO ratings of essays in this library. In recent years, each LPC essay is given an SEC rating for clarity and “readability.” Some of the essays that met one or more of these three criteria have already been included in a previous edition of Curated. These essays were set aside.
From a list of approximately 30 “best of” essays chosen on the basis of these three criteria, we have selected those which are most directly aligned with the major theme of this edition of Curated—the trends and strategies of professional coaching.
Coaching Trends
The first two essays offer a contemporary (2022) perspective regarding trends in the field of professional coaching.
Five Big Trends
2020 has certainly been a year of the unexpected. Many coaches have found it necessary to completely rethink and rework their offering in order to adapt to doing business in the midst of a global pandemic. With the likelihood of disruption continuing well into 2021, coaches are now putting into practice business models which probably weren’t even on their roadmap this time last year. In fact, many of our coaches have been able to grow their businesses exponentially during the pandemic.
Predictions
This essay continues the exploration of trends in the coaching industry. Growth in the coaching industry has been exponential, as people lost their employment due to COVID and are displaced by technology. Furthermore, COVID highlights a yearning to live more purposeful and meaningful lives. Covid has also accelerated 4th and 5th industrial revolution Coaching is impacted by the rise of Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, and Wearable Technology. General societal trends lead to new modes of coaching related to diversity, equality and inclusion—as well as personalisation, individualisation and customisation.
Coaching Strategies
We offer four sets of essays concerning effective coaching strategies. We begin with two essays that offer a foundation for the consideration of diverse coaching strategies.
Generational Age Groups
Any study regarding the challenge of coaching men and women from all age ranges must take into account social and cultural aspects of age groups that broadly define who these people are and what they represent. One way of doing this is to identify age-related characteristics that are reflected in literature on the nation’s four existing generations. While demographic generalizations are simplifications of reality and must be used with care in reaching conclusions about specific age groups, demographic researches often provide important insights regarding each of the four generational groupings. So, in reviewing characteristics of the four age cohorts, our purpose is to present generational flavor.
Personal and Executive Coaching
Personal coaching and executive coaching share many fundamentals. However, they can and do differ in their agenda setting, content, and objectives. Executive coaches also face unique challenges posed by the incorporation of the client organization into the coaching process. In over 25 years as an organizational consultant and 17 years of personal and executive coaching, I’ve seen the many ways coaching can assist in both individual and organizational growth. As a teacher of leadership development, I am continuously reviewing the competencies and deep skills required of leaders and coaches. All of this has contributed to my understanding of the distinctions between personal and executive coaching.
We next turn to three essays concerned with general coaching strategies.
Say It Skillfully
As coaches we must learn to interact in a powerful, open, and honest manner at work. We must help people create a shared reality in which all voices are heard, including the unpopular ones, and understood in the most effective manner possible. Most professionals understand the concepts of being respectful and cooperative, but they don’t actually know how to do it when times get a bit stressful. It’s both finding the words and how to say them, so as to honor oneself and others. As a coach what do you do if everyone else agrees on a decision, but you see it differently. What do you do?
Reframing Circumstances
Friends in Deed was formed in the 1990s to help people live and die with HIV and AIDS. The Tuesday night Big Groups were facilitated by the founder of the center, Cy O’Neal. When participants were about halfway through their story, Cy would interrupt and ask: “How are you right now, in this moment?” Sometimes the answer was simply, “sad,” or “angry,” or often, “scared!” Those responses were much more helpful than the story itself, in helping clients moving toward action in realizing their immediate quality of life. Cy was bringing those in the room into presence. As a coach, I rely on my experience in the Tuesday Big Group to streamline the way I thought partner with my clients. Coaches, too, need only enough story to understand how to help the client identify what’s critical to focus on in the session.
Coaching MAPS: Metaphor, Analogy, Parable and Simile
In recent years, psychologists and human service providers have coined a term, “intersubjectivity”, that refers to our capacity, in interaction, with other people to create reality together. This co-creation is often modified if another entity (such as a third person) enters the relationship The third entity need not be a person. It can be an image, idea or story. The third entity enters a coaching relationship when either the coach or client offers an analogy—or when the coach and client engage a metaphor, parable or simile. We are looking at “reality” in a new, enriched way when the third entity interplays with the dynamic relationship we have already created. Professional coaching is one of the most dynamic relationships in which we engage. A timely analogy, metaphor, parable or simile can be introduced that makes this reformed reality that much more a source of insight, inspiration, guidance and enactment.
We turn finally to four essays concerned with personal and executive coaching strategies.
Positive Psychology
Leaders are stressed. Their families are affected by it. This is interfering with both their business and personal lives. Low morale, modest engagement and uncertain performance are increasingly becoming the norm. With anxieties about work overload, burnout, stagnant wages and future job loss, these challenges create significant employee disconnect and anxiety among the work culture. What role do concepts of positive psychology have in helping people to not only effectively handle these issues but open their hearts and minds to move forward with newfound confidence, resilience, determination, hope and vision for a better future? How can workers and their organizations create a more positive and proactive workplace that bridges economic and human goals? What will give employees satisfaction?
Coach as Mid-Wife
Coaching for transformation requires a new skill set guided by new metaphors. As coaches, we know the power of metaphor to invoke change in the service of our coachees. I wonder what metaphors would best describe our work and roles as coaches. Traditional metaphors of coaching include coach as thinking partner, facilitator, healer, guide, mentor. In all of these metaphors, there is an implicit ‘power over’ relationship. However, we know as coaches that we are partners to our coachees and recognise that the real work is the work of the coachee and less ours. In this context, are there different metaphors that better describe the work and the role of the coach that embodies this genuine partnership, where each party has something valuable, diverse, and necessary for the transformational process?
Coaching Intricate Minds
My client was pacing up and down the room, occasionally balancing on the edge of the carpet as if it was a tightrope. About an hour into the conversation, she finally sat down across from me without interrupting the flow of conversation for even a second. The thoughts and words had started to slow, the emotions had quieted down, and so had the movements. We started to work on defining action steps. My client is a beautiful example of an individual with a trait that the Polish psychologist and physician Kazimierz D?browski called “psychomotor overexcitability.” People with this trait release emotional tension through movement in a way that may seem extreme to the more even-tempered. It is important to note, however, that this quality does not stem from a psychological disorder, but rather a healthy variation in the person’s neurological wiring.
Team Coaching
Coaching is increasingly recognized as a fundamental leadership skill, required across the board if organizations are to succeed in getting the most from their people, in encouraging people to collaborate effectively, and in creating the kind of environment needed to foster innovation and extraordinary performance. More and more organizations are teaching their leaders how to coach, but the focus tends to be on coaching individuals. What about training leaders to coach their teams? In a recent piece of research, we found a wide range of different activities being practiced under the banner of team coaching. Few of the coaches we interviewed had undertaken formal training specific to coaching teams. If a leader has direct reports and she believes that she will need to coach them as a team in order to maximize their collective performance, then she must learn to be a team coach.
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This is our eight annual volume of Curated. It represents some of the best of 1,000 plus essays that have been published in the Library of Professional Coaching over the past decade. We hope that you find this sample of the best we have published to serve as vivid evidence of the value-added nature of our digital library. We also hope this volume of Curated serves as a motivator for your further exploration of many valuable resources to be found in this coaching treasury.
William Bergquist
Co-Curator