The good news is that I have begun to see an increased interest among coaches in taking their skills and practices into broader systems to address critical social issues. I’ve seen this in working with educational programs where we’ve come to realize that in order to fully develop coaching cultures in schools: (I) coaching needs to become part of the curriculum and degree programs for new teachers and administrators; (2) policy makers and unions need to incorporate coaching into their expectations for what it means to be a teacher: (3) communities and parents need to take a coaching stance in their roles in developing their children; and (4) the current staff need to incorporate coaching into their classrooms as part of a shift in how we think about and create learning environments for children and youth. It is no longer enough to just provide coaching to individuals and groups; we need to develop ways to bring it into whole systems in order to engage more of the stakeholders and sustain the desired changes. I look forward to the day when coaches are invited to join teams to design social interventions and innovations.
THE EMERGENCE OF THREE KEY DISTINCTIONS
‘[We] are in the presence of a serious trend . . . that sees the emergence of a ‘meta profession’ at the heart of all the help-related professions and which therefore represents a profound and unstoppable trend which can contribute to the lasting development of people and institutions.’ – Vincent Lenhardt
As one indicator of coaching’s future, I am finding that more and more of my clients want help with embedding coaching approaches and skills in the conversations within their organization and with their clients/customers. While formal coaching will continue to serve a specialized role within organizations, I increasingly believe that the power of coaching as a “technology” will be integrated into the way people do their business as a means to create sufficient and lasting effect. The only way to make this work is if we have clearer and more substantial distinctions about “coaching” that move beyond the narrow caricatures, such as between coaching and consulting or therapy, that are commonly perpetuated by coaches seeking to distinguish themselves (see Coutu & Kauffman, 2009a, p. 22). There is value in these distinctions even as there is a need to simultaneously move on from these debates to get to the work that needs to be done. Debates on the utility of different fabrics for the deck chairs are of little use if your client is the captain of the Titanic.
I have come to make three distinctions that I believe will define the next stage of development for coaching. I see them as part of creating a more nuanced lexicon for how we talk about this work and how we think about and plan for its future. The three distinctions are ”coach,” “coaching services” and “coaching approaches.” Coaches are people who contractually provide explicit coaching services and who are recognized as members of a coaching profession. This discrete set of people are the ones for whom the further development of a coaching discipline and profession would be most helpful and appropriate. However, in doing so, few claims can be made on people (e.g., other professionals, parents teachers) who are taking a more implicit coaching approach through the course of their work in organizations and as professionals. These people draw on the same coaching skills but ate not labeled, by themselves or others, as coaches. They are informed by but are not tied to coaching as a practice, a profession, an association, or a primary identity. In this way, coaching can be seen as a movement that is profoundly shaping the arenas in which it is practiced and is yielding a spectrum of users in which only some people are professional coaches.
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