The study, conducted in August and September, asked coaching professionals in the UK to reveal the part meaning and purpose played in their coaching and whether discussions about these issues were becoming more important to both coach and client.
The results indicate that for the 1,046 coaches who responded to the survey, meaning and purpose are growing in importance and are becoming common features of their coaching sessions. Four out of five (82 per cent) said they addressed the area of meaning and purpose in their coaching, with almost two-thirds saying discussions featured in either every session with clients or at least regularly, every three to four sessions.
What’s the big idea?
So what do coaches understand meaning and purpose to be? While there is a dictionary definition of both terms, they can each have a very different meaning to individual coaches. By far the greatest number (93 per cent) said meaning and purpose helped people on their larger journey through life outside of work, while 79 per cent said meaning and purpose reflected a person’s spiritual values and questions about a deeper purpose of life and their role within it. Two-thirds (69 per cent) said they reflected what life asked of us as individuals.
“Meaning and purpose is about understanding who you are and what you stand for,” commented one coach. Another said it was “the underlying reason why people do what they do, whether that is within or outside of work”.
For others, meaning and purpose answers fundamental questions such as: “Why do I get out of bed in the morning?”, “Who am I?” and “What am I doing here?” “Purpose is where we’re trying to go. Meaning is why,” concluded one respondent.
It is hardly surprising, then, to find coaches responding affirmatively to questions about the importance of addressing issues of meaning and purpose with their clients. Some 86 per cent of coaches said doing so was either very or quite important to them, with 78 per cent indicating that such discussions were of equal importance to their clients.
Three-quarters of coaches (75 per cent) said addressing meaning and purpose was becoming more important to them in their work. “Such questions encourage clients to explore what is missing in their lives, recognise their potential or inner resources, [identify] whose rules they have been following up to now [and] choose new rules,” wrote one coach.
Many indicated that they addressed meaning and purpose because they felt it was integral to living an inspired and fulfilling life, or that it was the basis on which most behaviour rested.
Defining focus
In recognising their own meaning and purpose in life, clients are then more able to define where their focus should be and the strategies and actions required to achieve their goals. “It connects the client to who they really are and not to who they think they are,” said one coach.
Another, whose clients are all from the corporate sector, commented: “It is a way of creating stillness, perspective and realism in a client’s life, connecting them with what is truly important in our chaotic and often somewhat dysfunctional business world.”
One coach suggested that their own interest in the subject and desire to find meaning and purpose in their own life was informing discussions with clients: “I think that as my interest has increased, I bring it to the sessions more and clients have fed back that they find it beneficial.”
However, responses from coaches about how they addressed it with clients reveal some are still wary about raising the subject. Although 42 per cent said they addressed these issues fairly regularly and 14 per cent said they did so in every session, a fifth (20 per cent) said meaning and purpose were only addressed as and when a client broached the subject.
This was reinforced by responses to how coaches addressed these issues in their sessions. While just under a quarter (24 per cent) said they actively prompted clients to think about meaning and purpose the most common method, the second most popular method, along with appreciative inquiry, was to talk about such issues only if or when the client did so (14 per cent).
“I find approaching this with clients must be very finely tailored to each individual. With some it is a central part of the coaching. For others, just an introduction to the notion is all that is appropriate,” wrote one respondent.
Yet coaches believe there are many benefits to be had in persuading clients to discuss meaning and purpose. Top of the list is an increase in work productivity (20 per cent), followed by reaching their full potential (19 per cent) and achieving alignment with their job (17 per cent).
Tried and tested
So which clients are keen to address these issues and what are they hoping to achieve? While the coaches responding to the survey failed to pick out any one group as significantly more interested in these issues than another, two factors stood out: age and change.
Coaches indicated that people reaching middle age, or those dealing with massive change in their lives, such as divorce or redundancy, were more likely to want to explore the meaning and purpose of their lives. However, while Generation X (30-45) are asking themselves: “Is this it?”, Generation Y (under 30) are waging a war between their expectations (of a sublime work-life balance) and reality.
Coaches have many theories about why addressing meaning and purpose is becoming more important. “Because the world [is] becoming more irrational and out of balance”, “market conditions and the pace of change”, 9/11 and climate change were some. Others pointed to “people achieving their ‘goals’ earlier in life” or “[finding] they have everything they want materialistically but something is missing”.
Some suggested we are all “becoming more spiritually aware” and that a spreading acceptance of spirituality and a greater preparedness for people to discuss their beliefs and motivations openly is driving clients to broach the subject. Yet when asked if they were linked, two-thirds of coaches said spirituality was totally separate to meaning and purpose.
The bigger picture
On the subject of whether coaches believed meaning and purpose was becoming more important to their clients, 36 per cent said more clients were talking about these issues, but 53 per cent said they hadn’t noticed any difference in the past year.
However, coaches did indicate that some clients wouldn’t necessarily make overt references to meaning and purpose in their sessions, using other language instead to address the issues. “They might not use the words but it’s what they are looking to address,” reported one.
“I feel there’s no point”, “I feel empty”, “lost”, “disillusioned”; these are all terms coaches say clients use when referring to issues of meaning and purpose. Others will describe themselves as stressed, burnt out, unmotivated or disconnected.
“I work in a corporate environment where issues of confidence, self-esteem, motivation and happiness in the workplace are emerging,” wrote one coach. “For coaching to be successful, goal clarity is one of the must-haves and many of my clients are seeing their goals linking in with the bigger picture [and] their life, and do not wish to separate these from work, which also sits within this context.
Practically, therefore, conversations around meaning and purpose arise naturally.” Another concluded: “As I only ever want the best for my clients, if they want to explore meaning and purpose, I encourage this. The important factor is that by doing [so] we get results.”
For more on the survey results visit www.cipd.co.uk/coachingatwork/articles/purposesrvy.htm
Volume 3, Issue 6