Many coaching approaches are based on positivity. Just don’t let it become oppressive, says David Megginson of the Coaching and Mentoring Research Unit of Sheffield Business School
Positive thinking and positive psychology need to be differentiated. Positive thinking stems from the work of Samuel Smiles1 in 19th century America and more recently of Norman Vincent
Peale2, 3. Positive psychology takes a rigorous, evidence-based approach to positivity. Like positive thinking, it turns its gaze towards the positive, but looks at the data rather than telling stories.
Both, however, take their place in coaching – and many would argue it is a fairly central place.
Positive psychology probably dates from Martin Seligman’s involvement in the field4. There is however tension between this “reasonable approach” and the farther reaches of what physicist Murray Gell-Mann describes as “quantum flapdoodle”5 (Ehrenreich, 2009, p685). The latter tendency is exemplified for me by Mohr6, where the universe is a fast food ordering service delivering our greedy dreams.
Appreciation in coaching
An early exponent of positive psychology in coaching is Mike Pegg7. Solution focused coaching seems to be solidly based in positive psychology. Peter Szabó8 (2009) in Switzerland and Paul Jackson and Mark McKergow9 (2002) in the UK have popularised this approach. Szabó and Meier8 (2009) assert:
Compliments or appreciative reinforcement are always high up on the list in surveys about what coaches did in the coaching session that was most helpful for clients. (p62)
Many other coaching approaches place strong emphasis on can-do positive thinking.
Ehrenreich’s view
Ehrenreich’s case is an ad hominem argument based on personal experience. She had breast cancer and was oppressed by those who said that if she thought positively nothing bad would happen. This she found offensive and she lays charges against positive psychologists for legitimising the oppressiveness of positive thinkers.
Life coaches should rely on positive psychology. However:
Many salesmen and managers had played sports in school and were easily roused by speakers invoking crucial moments on the gridiron. In the late 1980s, John Whitmore, a former car racer and sports coach, carried coaching off the playing fields and into the executive offices, where the goal became to enhance ‘performance’ in the abstract, including the kind that can be achieved sitting at a desk. (p62)
She invokes others involved in coaching who channel warrior spirits, success coaching, sympathetic magic, the Law of Attraction and positive vibrations, quantum physics and the uncertainty principle – and then exonerates them by asking:
What attracts the coaching profession to these mystical powers? Well, there’s not much else for them to impart to their coachees… All they can do is work on your attitude and expectations, so it helps to start with the metaphysical premise that success is guaranteed through some kind of attitudinal intervention. And if success does not follow, if you remain strapped for funds or stuck in an unpromising job, it’s not the coach’s fault, it’s yours. (p63)
I value positive thinking and positive psychology and continue to use them, but Ehrenreich’s arguments make me think a little before I plunge in.
References
- 1 S Smiles, Self Help, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1866/1997
- 2 NV Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking, Cedar, London, 1953/1990
- 3 NV Peale, The Amazing Results of Positive Thinking, Cedar, London, 1960/1990
- 4 MEP Seligman, Learned Optimism. Knopf, New York, 1998
- 5 B Ehrenreich, Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America & The World, Granta Books, London, 2009 (see Review, Coaching at Work, vol 5, issue 2)
- 6 B Mohr, The Cosmic Ordering Service, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2006
- 7 M Pegg, The Art of Encouragement, Management Books 2000, Chalford, Glos., 1995/1997
- 8 P Szabó and D Meier, Coaching Plain and Simple: Solutions–focused Brief Coaching Essentials, Norton, New York, 2009
- 9 PZ Jackson and M McKergow, The Solutions Focus: The SIMPLE Way to Positive Change, Nicholas Brealey, London, 2002
Coaching at Work, Volume 5, Issue 4