William Bergquist and William Carrier
The Future of Coaching is concerned with the very heart and soul of professional coaching—it addresses the challenge of coaching’s future status, direction and long-term goals. It also offers the strategies and tools needed for this challenging future. Much as individual professional coaches assist their clients in focusing on their own individual future and the future of organizations with which they are affiliated and often lead, so it is important that the field of coaching itself address this fundamental coaching question: what will the future be for this human service field?
Issue Thirty Five: Generativity and the Deep Caring of Professional Coaching
One specific set of developmental issues are likely to take “center stage” in mid-life. It is during this time when professional coaching is most likely to be engaged. These issues concern what Erik Erikson identifies as the matter of Generativity—caring deeply for that about which we care—as it contrasts with Stagnation—a failure to care deeply about anything at this specific period in life. Erikson offers the following summary description regarding the deep caring that is central to Generativity: “Caring is the widening concern for what has been generated by love, necessity, or accident; it overcomes the ambivalence adhering to irreversible obligation.”
The state of Generativity is important for coaching clients to appreciate and set forth as one of the meta-goals in their life and work– especially when contrasted with a state of Stagnation in life. A professional coach is perfectly positioned to assist their clients in finding one or more of the four modes of Generativity in their interactions with colleagues, in the leadership they provide in their organization or community, and in the deep caring way in which they attend to those people and projects of greatest importance in their life. We offer fifteen essays in this issue of The Future of Coaching that focus on the application of Generativity theory to the practice of professional coaching.
Issue Thirty Four: Spirituality and Coaching
Until recently there were two “third rails” in the field of professional coaching. These were topics that were never to be addressed during a coaching session—nor mentioned in any dialogue among coaches about the struggles they are having in their work. One of these “third rail” themes is money and finances. This is still a forbidden topic—which is one of the reasons why we will soon be devoting an entire issue to this topic. The second forbidden topic has been religion and spirituality. While many founders of the field of professional coaching came to their work as coaches with deeply held religious beliefs, these beliefs were not to be shared with their coaching clients nor were these beliefs to influence the content and strategies of their coaching sessions (unless they have been contracted to do coaching precisely because of their religious beliefs).
This is now all changing regarding spirituality. It is no longer a third rail. For instance, at a summit conference held last year in the state of Maine, senior-level coaches brought the matter of spirituality and coaching to center stage in their deliberations. Furthermore, many of the most successful executive coaches speak about and write about ways in which their own spiritual orientation – be it Christian, Jewish or Buddhist—has informed their practices as a coach. The fundamental reasons that they are serving as a coach are often informed by their religious beliefs or spiritually based values.
It is time for us to look more deeply into what spirituality means, how it impacts the world in which we are engaged as coaches, and the broader perspective we must take in welcoming and entertaining diverse spiritual practices and values. This deeper exploration is particularly important given what is occurring in our deeply troubled mid-21st Century world. This issue of The Future of Coaching is devoted to these important matters regarding spirituality and coaching. Five of the ten essays appearing in this issue have been prepared specifically for this issue, while the other five essays have already been publishing in The Library of Professional Coaching or in The Library of Professional Psychology (our companion library).
Issue Thirty Three: The World of Interpersonal Dynamics in Professional Coaching
Interpersonal relationships are increasingly complex in our world of digital communication, volatile societal conditions, and the ongoing need (and desire) to connect with other people. The challenge of enhancing interpersonal relationships is particularly great for those involved in the helping professions—for they must address these concerns among their clients as the very nature of the helping role is itself changing as a result of these same complexities: digital interactions, volatile social settings and continuing (but often confusing) desires on the part of their client to be with other people and, at the same time, to find time alone.
Given this challenge, the editors of The Future of Coaching (in The Library of Professional Coaching) and The Future of Professional Psychology (in the The Library of Professional Psychology) have joined together in the production and publication of this set of documents concerning Interpersonal Relationships.
Issue Thirty Two: The Neurosciences and Coaching: II
We return once again in this thirty second issue of The Future of Coaching to findings from the neurosciences as they relate to professional coaching. Neurobiological studies of memory, emotions, stress, interpersonal relationships, neuroplasticity and many other aspects of human life are broadening and deepening our perspectives on the professional coaching enterprise—while pointing the way to new coaching strategies and tool. Some of the essays includes in this issue of The Future of Coaching were published in the Library of Professional Coaching (LPC) when the neurosciences were just beginning to emerge as revolutionary subdisciplines of biology (often overlapping with subdisciplines in the field of psychology). Other essays have appeared more recently and focus on specific issues that hold major implications for professional coaching.
Issue Thirty One: The Crisis of Expertise III–What You Believe and Disbelieve May Kill You
This issue of The Future of Coaching has to do with why some people (in fact many people) more generally reject the best expert information available and science-based guidance from leaders. These essay concern the people who believe (sometimes vociferously) outlandish and often bazaar conspiracy theories and misinformation that have the potential to put people in danger and (in numerous cases) cause loss of life. As the third and final issue in The Future of Coaching that is concerned with the crisis of expertise, attention is also directed toward structures, processes, cultures and attitudes that enhance (rather than block) the generation and use of valid and appropriate expertise.
Issue Thirty: Leadership and Stewardship: Nurturing the Field of Executive Coaching
This issue of the Future of Coaching brings together two important themes: (1) stewardship and (2) leadership development. They are brought together within the context of nurturing the field of executive coaching. Furthermore, the essays contained in this issue build on outcomes from a summit conference on executive coaching that was held in April of 2022. Called the New Executive Coaching Summit (NECS), this 2 ½ day meeting incorporated not only a two day in-person meeting that was held at a Bed and Breakfast Inn in Harpswell Maine, but also a one-half day virtual meeting that brought together the 22 participants in the in-person meeting with 20 other senior executive coaches from North America and Europe.
Issue Twenty Nine: The Coaching Tool Chest–A Further Update
When we founded the Future of Coaching, we intended to include one or more tools in each issue (or at least most issues). While we kept with this practice for several years, we have decided more recently to devote entire issues of the Future of Coaching to the presentation and description of professional coaching tools. We use the term “Tool Chest” when titling these issues. The digital chest in this issue of Future of Coaching contains a wide variety of “tools.” There are several inventories that can be administered with a single client, with a team, or with an entire organization. There lists of questions that can be posed to our coaching clients, and there are descriptions of entire coaching processes.
Issue Twenty Eight: The Crisis of Expertise II–Blind Spots and the Role of Coaching
It is clear that we humans are influenced by a range of factors beyond our awareness. Beginning to understand these factors and implement techniques to become more aware of our thinking and decision-making, makes us smarter and reduces over-confidence, ignorance and poor decision-making. Given the resistance to these tools, leadership coaches and consultants are in a position to nudge their clients to apply these tools for better understanding and decision-making. These observations lead to an important question: in what ways are coaching practices concerned with the “blind spots” of clients (especially not knowing what they don’t know) and how does a coach address the unwillingness of some clients to acknowledge areas where they need but do not have adequate knowledge? In general, we must then ask: how common are these blind-spots in society or in business settings? How does one as a professional coach go about identifying possible blind-spots in an individual and helping the individual see this for themselves? What are some of the techniques that can be used to help leaders?
Issue Twenty Seven: The Crisis of Expertise I–Setting the Stage
It is evident that the roles of leaders, particularly in a fast-changing world, and the roles of leaders, advisors, experts and that of lay-people is unclear (at least in many environments) leading to distrust, rejection and animosity. There is also the broader challenge that is now found in many societies. This is the widespread disbelief in expertise or at least the lingering skepticism that was precipitated by disparate, changing and often contradictory displays of expertise regarding COVID-19 over the past two years. Many people simply don’t trust either the competence or intentions of those claiming to be experts regarding health (and many other matters).
Issue Twenty Six: The Neuroscience of Coaching
Learning the basics of our biology validates humanistic and soft skills theories used in executive coaching and leadership development practice. Employees contribute more when they feel safe, have clarity, are included, treated equally, aren’t put down, and are provided autonomy. Laboratory studies using MRI technology validate these principles. As the field of behavioral neuroscience has evolved, it’s offered hard scientific evidence that leaders can understand. Coaches who grasp these dynamics and learn how to apply neuroscientific approaches can be more effective. This volume of The Future of Coaching features several articles related to the neuroscience of coaching.
Issue Twenty Five: Enriching the Dialogue: The MAPS of Coaching
A 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. This is an important point for each of us as a coach to acknowledge. A new, third entity is being brought into the dialogue between the two of us. 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. The outcome of this relationships can be a reformed sense of reality for each of us and both of us. 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. In this issue of the Future of Coaching we offer examples of essays of each type of MAPS that have been posted in the Library of Professional Coaching. We might argue about the category to which each article should be assigned—but probably can’t argue about the diversity and potential wealth of insights these essays offer. Each of these essays makes the case for a generative use of a MAPS inside a coaching session, or in consideration of coaching strategies and concepts regarding human nature and behavior. [Note: we have featured some of these essays by providing links to them in LPC.]
Issue Twenty Four: Coaching for the Greater Good
Coaching is a personalized service that is classified as one of the helping professions. Coaches help their clients to mature, to expand their world view, to grow their capacity for generative action, to develop self-confidence and peace within, to care for their well-being, and to develop into someone who can create their desired difference in their communities and, perhaps, the world.
When we think about ‘the greater good’, it is often in the context of altruism, generosity, and service. There is general acceptance that the ‘greater good’ refers to some type of service or action on behalf of others, beyond our selves. It entails prioritizing something in order to take care of something bigger than us. For coaches, this equates to being of service by providing coaching for ‘the greater good’ of the community, to support an individual or team focused on solving a challenging social, health, or economic issue, and/or to make a difference that will result in world betterment.
Coaches often enter the field of coaching to support others who wish to discover and achieve greater good in the world they want to impact. We do this by helping our clients to expand their perspectives, stop self-sabotaging behaviors, open their hearts, and become aware of who they truly want to be in the world. In many ways, coaching is organically a phenomenon of the greater good and as we expand the perspective and consciousness of each person we coach, we contribute to the collective ‘greater good’ culture.
Issue Twenty Three: Perspectives from the Waterfront–Assessment and Coaching
We’re all probably looking for the Truth in some version or form, seeking the bottom-line, top-level, last word on subjects we care about. We want to understand, to know with certainty, the meaning and nuance of leadership, our relationships, about our skills and talents. We look for this certainty because we want to make the “right choices” and take the “right actions.” But that certainty often leads to blindness because it mistakes certainty for correctness.
In seeking the Truth, we often find more effective targets in creating grounded opinions. In this effort, we often find that assessments can be a good thing. An assessment adds data points for our consideration. Depending on how valid and reliable an assessment is in measuring its stated domain, it enables a (more) trustworthy perspective and understanding. In turn, this allows us to make more informed decisions.
Importantly, assessments don’t offer the Truth; rather, they offer the client (and coach) a lens through which to view the measured area of interest. The client has the personal responsibility to assess the data and interpretations, discuss with their coach, reflect on and make sense of what the data mean to them, the draw their conclusions and make their choices accordingly. Assessments can act as effective guides to action when weighed carefully.
Issue Twenty Two: Diverse Perspectives on Coaching
These essays represent perspectives on professional coaching that are founded in several different schools of psychotherapy, as well as the psychology of adult and organization development. We also offer essays that build on perspectives from outside the discipline of psychology—perspectives that are as diverse as philosophy and neurobiology. We are fortunate to be able to publish this wide variety of viewpoints on professional coaching. We are also honored to be able to offer essays written by some of the major thought leaders who have influenced the field of professional coaching.
None of this would be possible without the generous cooperation of John Lazar, co-founder of IJCO and custodian of the IJCO archives. We also wish to thank the authors of these essays in granting permission for us to publish or republish their remarkable work. There were some fears on the part of several authors that their work might now be dated (given its publication, in some instances, more than a decade ago). You will find that this is not the case—the themes and insights are still relevant and poignant. That is part of the power manifest in the writing of these legendary leaders of our professional coaching field.
Issue Twenty One: The Development of Coaches–Reports from the First Phase of a Long-term Research Project
This issue of The Future of Coaching is devoted to a series of reports that convey and interpret results from two version of a questionnaire that was initially prepared by the Development of Coaches Research Collaborative in cooperation with the Collaborative Research Network of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. The initial survey was completed in 2009 by 153 coaches from throughout the world. The second version, distributed in 2015, was based on the first (with only minor editing changes) by the Library of Professional Coaching in cooperation with ITLCInsights. Fifty-eight coaches provided responses to the second questionnaire — yielding a total of 211 responses to the two surveys.
We are providing you with all eight of the reports that have been published over the past several years in the Library of Professional Coaching. We also include the very important (though admittedly lengthy) ninth report that provides a summary and broad interpretation of results obtained in this first phase of the Development of Coaches project.
Issue Twenty: Professional Coaching as an Interdisciplinary Art and Science
In this 20th Anniversary issue, we are examining the nature of both art and science in the field of professional coaching. We are looking at ways in which the interdisciplinary nature of coaching is recognized and incorporated in contemporary coaching practices. We also provide concepts and tools that enhance the interdisciplinarity of coaching. Given that this is a moment of celebration and reflection for the two of us, you will find several articles written by one or both of us in this issue. You will also find us incorporating essays that are relevant to the theme of this issue that have previously been published in the Library of Professional Coaching.
Issue Nineteen: Coaching to Contradictions
William Bergquist has written many books over the past forty-five years—one of the most noteworthy being The Postmodern Organization (1993) (which has been identified by some observers as one of the founding publications in the emerging field of postmodern organizational theory). Bergquist has recently decided to move beyond postmodern theory as it applies to organizational interventions and organizational coaching and consulting. He has engaged the perspectives of a noted philosopher, Richard Rorty, and his focus on irony and contradiction in contemporary life.
Issue Eighteen: The Coaching Tool Chest Updated
In this issue, we’ve updated our tool chest with a number of interesting and useful coaching tools for your review. We have sorted these coaching tools into four categories: (1) brief essays on coaching strategies, (2) brief essays on coaching concepts, (3) coaching questions, (4) listing of coaching resources and (5) coaching-oriented assessment instruments.
Issue Seventeen: Health-Based Coaching and Wellness
During this fifth year (2018) in publishing The Future of Coaching we made the unprecedented decision to devote three of the four issues to coaching in one sector of society: health care. The first two issues focused on the coaching of healthcare professionals (especially physicians). In this fourth issue, we look at health-related coaching from a different perspective—that of those who are the recipient of information and treatment in the domain of health.
Issue Sixteen: Professional Coaching and Assessment: A Powerful Alliance
In this issue, we will explore the Future of Coaching through the lens of assessment. As coaching matures, our focus on data, particularly that which can be replicated and measured, expands. We’ll hear from experienced Executive Coaches who use assessment in their practices.
Issue Fifteen: Coaching Physicians/Part Two
There is perhaps no one in this turbulent world of healthcare who is swirling around more dramatically than the physician. Who else has to assign priorities more frequently on a daily basis than the leader of a healthcare team. Who is more likely to feel the pull between care and financial contingencies than the women and men wearing the stethoscope. It is to this person—the physician—that we are devoting two consecutive issues of The Future of Coaching. This is setting a precedence for this digital magazine. We have never deemed it appropriate or necessary to offer this sustained (two issue) attention to one specific coaching theme – until now.
Issue Fourteen: Coaching Physicians/Part One
In this and the following issue, we’ve asked physicians who coach, coaches who coach physicians and physicians who have been coached to share their experience. We’ve included brief essays from some medical students at Georgetown School of Medicine who are being coached – to show you, with Fellows’ and coaches’ permission, the effects coaches are having on medical students.
We have been fortunate to be greatly assisted in the preparation of this issue by our colleague, Margaret Cary, MD. Throughout her career, Maggie became involved in nearly every aspect of medical care – office family medicine; emergency medicine at a ski resort; turnaround implementer in a failing occupational medicine clinic; a medical device startup; the Federal government as both political appointee and career Fed in two different Departments; a medical communications company; and a medical insurance quality organization. Everywhere, she saw the consequences (physicians might call them sequelae) of the missing parts and overwhelming pressures of the standard education of physicians.
Issue Thirteen: Vulnerability and the Dynamics of Professional Coaching
Vulnerability – do we even dare touch this very delicate topic. The vulnerability of our coaching clients: how hard do we push and are we at all responsible for the stress and potential emotional responses of our clients when we address difficult issues? Are we entering into the domain of psychotherapy when our clients become vulnerable? And what about our own vulnerability as coaches – as human beings? How much of this do we share with our clients? And when do we ask for support ourselves when faced with a difficult client or with a situation that provokes our own emotions (what psychodynamically-oriented therapists call “counter-transference”)?
We weren’t sure when planning for this issue of Future of Coaching if this is a topic to be broached in a publication about coaching practices. Then we looked at existing essays in the Library of Professional Coaching and found many that addressed the issue of vulnerability (one of which we republish in this issue of Future of Coaching). So, we decided to move forward with this theme and have provided you, our reader, with some thought-provoking essays for your own reflection regarding vulnerability in yourself and your clients.
Issue Twelve: Ethics in Action
This issue focuses on some of the key things to know about ethics in coaching. It provides steps you can take to build a consciously ethical practice. Two categories of articles appear here (along with a third section that provides valuable coaching resources):
Here’s what’s in this issue:
Section 1: How do we think about ethics as coaches?
In Seeking Ethical Maturity Through Curiosity And Continuous Learning, Kathy Taberner, an executive coach and author on curiosity, offers two principles for continued learning and growth as ethical professionals.
In Case Studies and Good Questions to Ask Yourself, Patrick Williams gives us some real life examples of ethical dilemmas and then some questions to ponder for us to stretch our ethical thinking muscles.
In The Ten Commandments for Game Changers, Thomas Zweifel brings the 10 Commandments to life in the modern age of coaching and shows us the ethical conversation that has been going on for ages.
In It’s Okay…Not Today…But I Support You Guys Anyway, Jonathan Lewis Smith shares his personal challenges in opening people into the possibility of a different ethical mindset.
Section 2: What are some of the tools that build ethics into our coaching practice?
In The Coaching Ethics Code and Coaching Review Process, Sandi Stewart outlines the ethics review process at the International Coach Federation and provides insights into the thinking of the Independent Review Board and it’s continuously improving process.
In Agreements, Terms and Conditions and Why They Matter to You and Your Business!, Janine Schindler’s first contribution to our magazine makes the point that where you start (the contracting phase of an engagement) has a lot to do with where you end up (the outcomes) and how you get there (process and ethics).
In When Ethics Could Collide: Nine Practices, Kathy Taberner offers suggestions to maintain ethical action when different cultures create impact because of different values.
In Ethics in a Historical View & A Framework for Ethical Decision Making, Patrick Williams delves into the deep philosophical roots of ethics and then gives us a method for how to make ethical choices.
Section 3: Additional Resources for Engaging Reflection on Coaching Ethics
In The Coaching Tool Box, Sandi Stewart offers some resources and links for further reading on ethics in our industry.
In this issue’s The Book Shelf, Kathy Taberner reviews Values and Ethics in Coaching by Lardanou, et al. Kathy recommends reading Lardanou’s book for thoughtful approach to what ethics are and how they can be effectively applied in coaching.
Issue Eleven: The Coaching Tool Chest
What tools do you want to keep on your tool belt? What do you want to have ready at hand because you use them constantly—like a carpenter uses hammer? What will you want to keep in your tool chest, where you’d put the more specialized tools you need to be able to find but don’t necessarily need all the time?
Issue Ten: Personal and Organizational Coaching: Is There a Bridge?
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?
Personal and Organizational Coaching: Is There a Bridge?
Issue Nine: The Terrain of Organizational and Executive Coaching
Despite the many attempts to differentiate between two areas of professional coaching–personal and organizational coaching (and often an attempt to define one as somehow superior to the other), there are clearly many overlaps and many successful practitioners work in both areas. We have chosen to devote two separate issues to these two areas in large part because there is too much to say about both personal and organizational coaching to place in one issue. This ninth issue of The Future of Coaching is devoted to the challenge of coaching in an organizational setting — often with women and men who occupy key leadership positions in this setting.
The Terrain of Organizational and Executive Coaching
Issue Eight: The Terrain of Personal and Life Coaching
This is the first of two issues devoted to the pillars of professional coaching. One pillar is organizational and executive coaching, the other (to which this issue is devoted) is personal and life coaching. While we are reviewing each in separate issues, we believe that they are intricately interwoven. Whether that person being coaches works in an organization or is an organization unto themselves is not necessarily the defining factor of our work. We write “an organization unto themselves” deliberately to highlight the obvious observation of our profession: that people are quite complex in their history, experiences, actions and desires.
The Terrain of Personal and Life Coaching
Issue Seven: Coaching and the Sociology of Knowledge
This issue focuses on a somewhat elusive but critical theme operating in our world: the institutionalization of knowledge. Building on concepts coming from the sub-discipline called “the sociology of knowledge”, our theme concerns ways in which knowledge is framed in the various societies in our contemporary coaching world and the even more specific ways in which knowledge is framed in subsets of each society.
Coaching and the Sociology of Knowledge
Issue Six: Supervision and the Future of Coaching
The purpose of this issue is to add more substance to the discourse of coaching—and to do so in a flexible and positive way. Our intent with this issue is to present a balanced perspective on coaching supervision, mentor coaching, and peer consultation within the coaching profession.
Supervision and the Future of Coaching
Issue Five: ROI and Beyond–The Promises, Pitfalls and Perspectives of Coaching Program Evaluation
In this issue we focus on one of the key questions now being asked about professional coaching: does it work and is it worth the investment. We also move beyond these fundamental questions to the broader issue of program evaluation processes as directed toward an assessment of coaching programs. In other words, we are evaluating the evaluation process and considering ways in which the current ROI and program evaluation processes can be improved — and have asked some of the leading figures in the field to provide us with some guidance.
Issue Four: Coaching in the Professions — Challenges and Culture
In this issue we focus on coaching to a particular kind of client, namely men and women working in professions. Articles in this issue have been written by professionals who are also coaches and by experienced coaches who have spent many years working with professionals. At the heart of the challenge of coaching are the unique cultures to be found with each profession.
Issue Three: We Invite You to Make a Mess — Enhancing Research Regarding Professional Coaching
As we did in Issue Two, we focus on the cartography of coaching: how do we enhance research in the very “messy” environment of professional coaching. We offer several analyses from the last decade as well as today about the challenges inherent in these research initiatives and point the way to future explorations of and diffusion of results from studies done about professional coaching strategies and outcomes.
The Past, Present and Future of Coaching Research
Issue Two: “Here Be Dragons” — Exploring the Terrain of Professional Coaching
We write in this and our next issue of our common effort in the cartography of coaching: the research which underpins the workings of our efforts and highlights the performance of our profession. In this first of two issues on the systematic effort to document coaching, we’ll address research in and about coaching both historically and conceptually—we’ll cover the terrain rather broadly.
Issue One: Coaching Across the Generations
At the Santa Fe Conversation, a topic of some interest for many participants was the way professional coaching extends “across the generations.” This phrase refers not only to challenges associated with coaching men and women at all stages in their life, but also those associated with a coach of one generation and stage in life working with a client from a quite different generation and stage in life. We decided to devote this first issue of the Future of Coaching to this theme:
Coaching Across the Generations
Background
The genesis of this digital magazine is to be found in a two day meeting held in Santa Fe New Mexico during the month of November, 2012. Fourteen senior level professional coaches gathered together at the Santa Fe Conversation to talk about ways in which the field of professional coaching can be best nurtured. Sponsored by the Library of Professional Coaching (LPC) and choice magazine, the meeting produced some important insights and proposals regarding this nurturing process (many of which will be featured in future issues of this magazine). One of the proposals concerned the creation of a new digital magazine, hosted by LPC, which would focus on the future of coaching. About six months after the Santa Fe Conversations, the two of us, William Bergquist [WB] and William Carrier [WC], decided to collaborate on the founding of this new magazine, having both participated in the Santa Fe meeting. This is the first issue of the third LPC magazine. We hope The Future of Coaching [FOC] will have a long future, as the field of professional coaching itself evolves and changes over the years to meet new client needs and societal challenges.
Each issue of FOC will contain articles in most of the following categories: (1) articles based on research about coaching or based on some concept(s) related to the theme of the issue, (2) articles written about or by leaders in “partner” organizations that are concerned uniquely or extensively with the theme, (3) conversations (usually interviews) with professional coaches who are doing work that relates specifically to the theme, (4) conversations (usually interviews) with leaders of organizations who represent or are faced with challenges related to the theme, (5) tools of the coaching trade related to the theme, (6) strategies and tips related to running the business of professional coaching and caring for the soul of the coach (and clients) and (7) book reviews related to the theme.
While we recognize that there is quite a bit to do in producing each issue of FOC, we have already received considerable support from our colleagues at the Santa Fe Conversation and from many friends and colleagues who were not at the Santa Fe meeting. We are particularly honored to have the support of John Lazar, who, along with one of us [WB], founded the International Journal of Coaching in Organizations [IJCO]. While this wonderful journal no longer is being published (due in large part to the recent rise in costs associated with producing and distributing a high quality printed publication), we will be able to include articles from IJCO in their original form or as revised by their original author(s).