In part 2 of her two-part series examining coaching and technology, Adina Tarry highlights the importance of taking an ethical perspective as technology becomes more widespread and sophisticated.
This issue: Coaching and technology: revolution or co-evolution?
Just as I anticipated in a LinkedIn article posted at the start of the year, 2018 has so far been a year when all things related to digital technology have exploded into mainstream consciousness, into the media and into conferences, talks and dedicated events. The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics is now one of the top issues for debates about work and increasingly in coaching.
As coaches we’re closely connected to our clients, in both private and organisational settings, and the scope of our activity is defined not only by our world, but their worlds as well. Many of our clients’ worlds are increasingly populated by technology and the availability of all sorts of biometric ‘gadgets’ plus endless access to platforms enabling free developmental tips and tools, measuring everything from people’s pulses, cortisol levels and sleep waves to intelligence and personality aspects.
Many gather such information out of curiosity and in a quest for self-development and for answers to personal or work-related questions. Such self-directed developmental initiatives are becoming the norm, particularly among younger generations.
In the case of executive and business coaching clients, their worlds are filled with even more sophisticated and pervasive technology and access to a multitude of applications. Examples include personalised virtual reality assisted training and development programs accessible on mobile devices 24/7, and AI-enabled advice on recruitment and immersive virtual reality assessment and recruitment consumer-like experiences. They include the Panopticon (the all-seeing eye of surveillance) of open and public fora, much like social media, where team members and managers alike are expected to talk with each other, in real time, all the time, while presence and inputs are constantly monitored and used in performance assessment.
This is the world around which we as coaches engage with our clients, in work that requires empathy, sympathy and enables a two-way exchange of all kinds.
As a result, our clients and their worlds can be challenging in new ways – and we are expected to challenge them in new ways too.
Digital revolution
Where are we as individual practitioners and a community of coaches, in relation to this digital revolution?
Some of us still remember the previous so-called IT revolution of 1969. As a result, I found myself in mid-1990 working in business for Alcatel and IBM, delivering flexible hours, from office or home, enabled by a laptop and mobile phone. Yet in 2018, I still hear debates on the merits of allowing people to work from home. I’m reminded of the huge variation and time lag, even in organisational settings, in the uptake of technology.
Observations and anecdotal evidence tell us that there still are coaches who completely reject any non face-to-face interaction (including via ’phone and Skype) because, they say, it is not effective and they cannot add the value they know they otherwise add through actual presence. Others have been delivering coaching online in some form for many years and never found this to be a challenge. And there are those who may prefer to work face to face but are happy to blend this with virtual work as needed.
Meanwhile in other helping professions – therapy and counselling – online intervention has been successfully deployed for some time. A series of research projects (see articles on use of technology in therapy and counselling here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21382535) have brought to light interesting results. One is that there is no difference in terms of positive outcome, between human delivery and virtual delivery of therapy. In fact, clients favour online therapy for convenience and 24/7 access.
Interestingly, more than half of clients also prefer virtual sessions because they feel less anxious about being judged and having to keep up with social conventions. All of which arguably takes the shine off the quality of ‘the relationship’ and ‘the connection’, also known to contribute to positive final outcomes in the talking professions.
Technological revolutions of course involve profound change and evoke typical human reactions to change: resistance, rejection, adoption, adaptation – with percentages distributed across all responses, as is typical for statistics in complex systems.
Both coaches and clients in all settings create a diverse and fragmented landscape with a spectrum of reactions, attitudes and behaviours around applied technology, demonstrating how we all learn to live with technology and change, eventually and in some way or another. This diversity in itself triggers a number of questions for individual practitioners and the coaching community on values, beliefs and ethics (see box, ‘Questions to consider for coaches’).
In addition, some of our clients will have their own concerns about technology. These may include how they view the technological ‘invasion’ in their work, ethical dilemmas about the ubiquity of social media and the Panopticon-like setting of their own offices and teams, and pressures to be seen to play along, when in fact uncomfortable and ethically challenged by their organisational settings.
Coaching co-evolution
Our importance as coaches in the future seems to be assured because while technology may replace repetitive and simple tasks, the need for higher cognitive inputs and ability to make meaning and find purpose will actually increase, to shine a light on the path ahead, for all of us, in a world increasingly complex and challenging.
As a result, for us coaches, most of our ethical dilemmas are likely to be around ensuring our core business (and not technology as such) reflects our existing guiding principles of confidentiality, duty of care, safeguarding and conflict of interests. Which also happen to be topics discussed in the wider society and even politics. And we could also be influencing policy and advise on the wider panels, on the fundamental question: is technology a threat or an opportunity?
Let’s co-evolve rather than be forced by events and evolution, to achieve a smoother transition to the next state of balance of the wider system, with the assurance that we will have a role to play as champions of augmented performance, possibly alongside machines.
We need to exercise those – so far inimitable – capabilities for consciousness, social connectivity and wisdom, and flexibly and adaptively embrace change, stay with the future and remain respectfully dedicated to learning about our clients’ technology- dominated world, to deliver our core business. Our mission remains that of supporting self-development and the fulfilment of clients’ goals and aspirations, particularly at a time when they are themselves tested.
New technologies will trigger – as they usually do – ethical debates, even if this time they may be of a different kind and on a different scale because of the unprecedented power – transparent and stealth – of their impact over our lives at home and at work.
Opinions and responses will be distributed across a range of attitudes and values systems that will make people accept, reject and adapt in some way to the new reality.
Technological advances will not stop and accordingly, coaching will have to review its core identity and deliverables, to better adapt to and serve the needs of our clients, including around change and the imperative of adaptation to their new world.
Adaptation and competence to effectively operate in a coaching environment will require self-awareness, honesty and a commitment to deliver in practice services that respond to clients’ needs, and support their future success in a world that will become increasingly technology dominated.
How ready are we? How competent, capable and willing? What do we need to do to keep up the pace and retain the relevance and value-add of our work for clients and society? The answers to such questions and calls to action are still being defined. As ever, time will tell.
- Adina Tarry’s book, Coaching with Careers and AI in Mind (Routledge), has just been published
- www.adinatarry.com
Questions to consider for coaches
- What to do with the belief that ‘we personally’ matter in the coaching equation and with the hubris left hanging?
- How can a coach who doesn’t embrace technology help clients who do?
- Are we personally and as a profession for or against technology?
- Are we aligned or unaligned with our clients on this?
- Can we work effectively against our beliefs?
- Are we motivated, competent and capable of being in our clients’ world, when this world may be downright unappealing to us?
- Can we be honest and, putting aside commercial considerations, deselect ourselves from potentially lucrative assignments, ideally referring such opportunities to others whose professionalism we trust and who are better suited and aligned to the coaching brief and client environment?
- How objective can we be in relation to our choices, behaviours and the impact they may have on our clients?
- Is technology something we need to keep a specific focus on? If so, how?
- How can we ensure we stay relevant individually and as a profession?