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Research matters – How long have you got?

by | Nov 7, 2010 | Articles, Research matters | 0 comments

Do hours and minutes equate to effective coaching or should sessions be ‘lean and mean’, asks David Wagstaff, visiting research associate at Sheffield Hallam University’s Coaching and Mentoring Unit

How much time do you need for an effective executive coaching session? The question came up for me after a visit to my GP. I knew I had a limited time with the doctor. Seven minutes later I was outside with two prescriptions.

I wondered how the doctor would measure up against International Coach Federation (ICF) criteria1, for example:

  1. Meeting ethical guidelines and professional standards? Probably OK – no reason to question him
  2. Establishing the coaching agreement? No explicit contract. The implicit contract was, ‘I’ve got a problem – you’re the doctor, tell me how to fix it’
  3. Establishing trust and intimacy with the client? Trust because of position and title; intimacy or any sense that I was known – absent
  4. Coaching presence? End of the day, seemed tired and rushed
  5. Active listening? Enough to gather information to diagnose and prescribe
  6. Powerful communication? None
  7. Direct communication? Clear
  8. Creating awareness? None
  9. Designing actions? ‘Take the tablets and come back if it doesn’t go away’
  10. Planning and goal setting? As above
  11. Managing progress and accountability? As above

I normally work in sessions of 105 minutes; could I reasonably achieve anything useful in such a short time?

Bond, Alred and Hughes2 discuss different length therapeutic and counselling sessions, pointing out that Egan suggests “helping can be lean and mean and still be fully human”3 (p36), with sessions lasting as little as five minutes2 (p139). The 50-minute hour favoured by psychodynamic practitioners is “long enough to get depth in interviewing but not long enough to get too tired!”4 and they cite research by Turner et al5 in which a student counselling service “reduced the length of each session to 30 minutes. They found that clients seemed to gain as much from these shorter sessions”. Alternatively, person-centred therapists may have clients who “have wanted and benefited from sessions lasting two or three hours or even longer”6. So length depends on orientation and preference and may not influence effectiveness.

So if time doesn’t determine effectiveness, what does? Kline’s7 main thesis is: “Create a particular environment, and people will think for themselves” and “To stop, sit down and think for ourselves, especially with someone paying attention to us expertly, is worth the time it takes” (p190). For her it is the quality of the time and the expertise of the “thinking partner” (p147) that is important.

It’s also important to be clear about our intention and expectation. Schein 8, in identifying different consultancy approaches, states: “It is a key assumption underlying Process Consultancy that the client must learn to see the problem for himself by sharing in the diagnostic process and be actively involved in generating a remedy”(p9). This approach and that advocated by Kline7 most closely match the aims and expectations of the coaching.

The two other approaches described by Schein8 are very different. The Expert approach occurs when the client knows what he needs and where to get it. Perhaps seven minutes is all that it takes with my GP (the Expert). How much time my client and I need for our coaching to be effective remains to be seen. Next!

References

  1. ICF competencies: www.coachfederation.org/research-education/icf-credentials/core-competencies/
  2. G Bond, G Alred & P Hughes, in C Feltham and I Horton (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Counselling & Pyschotherapy (2nd ed), London: Sage, 2006
  3. G Egan, The Skilled Helper: A Problem-management and Opportunity-development Approach to Helping (7th ed), New York: Brookes/Cole, 2001
  4. P Trower, A Casey & W Dryden, Cognitive Behavioural Counselling in Action, London: Sage, p37, 1998
  5. P R Turner, M Valtierra, T R Talken, V I Miller and J R DeAnda, “Effect of session length on treatment outcome for colleges students in brief therapy”, Journal of Counselling Psychology, 43, pp228-232, 1996
  6. D Mearns and B Thorne, Person-centred Counselling in Action (2nd ed), London: Sage, p123, 1999
  7. N Kline, Time To Think, London: Ward Lock, p20, 1999
  8. E H Schein, Process Consultation, vol 1: Its Role in Organization Development, Massachusetts, Addison-Wesley, 1988

Coaching at Work, Volume 5, Issue 6

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