This series of columns by an anonymous coaching buyer takes a thought-provoking helicopter view of what’s going on in the industry.
This issue: sticky coaches
With the economic crisis ever prominent in the news, companies eschewing pay rises and bonuses, and another wave of voluntary redundancies due (the second this year for my organisation), there is understandable anxiety about where the next pay cheque is coming from.
Coaches are no different. I’ve recently had to contend with the phenomenon of the ‘sticky coach’ – a coach who sticks to a client, continuing to charge for a service that is providing limited, if any, value.
There are two ways sticky coaches come into being. The first is by moving with the client from organisation to organisation – for me a worrying indicator of client dependency. This normally occurs only at senior level where the employee negotiates a personal package that includes a coach they want to work with.
The second type is the coach who simply refuses to go away. For many organisations coaching is a short-term intervention, but coaches, who are adept at building rapport and, therefore, relationships with clients, often like to stay in touch – and the client is flattered by the continuing attention.
To say this is problematic is perhaps contentious: many coaches genuinely care about their clients and stay in touch out of personal interest. Where’s the harm in the occasional cup of coffee between former client and coach? Or is the issue the coaching buyer’s frustration at an inability to control coaching within an organisation?
There is no clear-cut answer, but an HR colleague in a public sector organisation often rails at the naivety of his organisation’s staff, who fail to see that for many coaches, staying in touch is a form of marketing, with the coach ready to swoop in and offer another bout of coaching when the going gets tough.
Is this another form of dependency building between coach and client? Does it matter that a client always works with the same coach over a number of years?
While the industry rightly lauds its ethical frameworks for clients, the challenge of making a living in the current economic climate perhaps raises a question about whether business ethics are sidelined when your client base is looking thin and the mortgage is due.
Indeed, do some coaches use their ethical coaching framework as a cover for what might be unhelpful practices from an organisational perspective? You might not harm the coaching client, but the organisation is paying for it and has other interests.
Following on from the European Mentoring and Coaching Council conference on research in July, it would be interesting to see whether dependency is an issue for clients, and why coaches really stay in touch with former clients. Ultimately, sticky coaches bring us back to the question of the purpose of coaching in the organisation. In reminding us of this question, sticky coaches do fulfil a purpose.
This column was inspired by the title of the book A View from the Balcony: Leadership Challenges in Systems of Care by G de Carolis, M Linsky (foreword) and R Heifetz (foreword), Brown Books, 2005.
Heifetz urges leaders to move back and forth between the operational field and the balcony view to get a better perspective (see also R Heifetz and R Neustadt, Leadership Without Easy Answers, Harvard University Press, 1994.)
Let us know what you think at: thefacelessclient@coaching-at-work.com
Coaching at Work, Volume 6, Issue 6