In this new column series, the multi-stakeholder Future of Coaching Collaboration Group, showcases its initiatives.
Issue 1: introducing the Coaching Knowledge Portal
June 2017, a small group of people, including from GSK, KPMG, PwC, the professional coaching bodies and Coaching at Work, pondered, ‘how can we ensure that coaching is utilised, relevant and useful in tomorrow’s world?’
We were curious about the future of coaching from many perspectives, including it being our livelihood, a fascinating industry, whether it will be just another fad, and what research is being done globally. We quickly realised we didn’t know where to find out about original research: who, where and what. What were the outcomes and what was the impact on leaders and leadership?
As interested buyers, practitioners and coaching academics, it was difficult to find out how parts of the coaching industry system connected together. We could see that keen individuals worked hard in the professional bodies, companies kept the system turning by paying hard-working coaches doing great work, many books were being published and academics studied coaching in the greatest of detail.
However, did any of this mean coaching was meeting the changing needs of the working world? Was research being translated into action by stakeholders? How could we ensure coaching remained relevant to society?
From here evolved the idea of creating a place where you could connect to the key creators of original knowledge in coaching. This would make it more possible to identify new areas of knowledge, assess their relevance and how they connected to other parts of the coaching system. Additionally, it would show visible gaps in coaching knowledge that researchers could fill. Ultimately it would allow a global strategy for coaching knowledge development to be identified, ensuring key stakeholders in the coaching system were connected. Researchers would be providing evidence on which practitioners could build, and demonstrate impact, effectiveness and generate further demand for coaching. A virtuous circle could be created.
It’s an ambitious goal but we’ve laid the first foundations and the Coaching Knowledge Portal is up and running. It already has world-class contributors such as Harvard, Ashridge and Oxford Brookes. The website (www.coachingknowledgeportal.org) is designed to enable anyone involved in developing original knowledge in coaching to share links to activities and projects that contribute to development of the knowledge base.
It’s the place to find out where the thinking is happening for the future of coaching. It offers anyone interested in coaching, as a contributor or user, (eg, potential organisational buyers of coaching, individual clients, new students of coaching, researchers and policy makers) free access to information.
The FCC’s Coaching Knowledge Portal Working Group consists of FCC members Professor Tatiana Bachkirova, Dr Sally Bonneywell, Joy Harcup and Lis Merrick.
Harcup, coach, consultant and researcher, says of the Portal, “It’s an exciting initiative to bring together in one place the great work that’s taking coaching forward into the future.”
Oxford Brookes University’s Tatiana Bachkirova, says, “This connectivity will encourage further collaboration and knowledge dissemination, prevent the duplication of effort and identify gaps where new knowledge needs to be created to develop further the discipline of coaching.”
- REGISTER
If your organisation is doing studies, publishing articles or creating forms of knowledge that you want people to know about, register for free here: - www.coachingknowledgeportal.org
- The FCC is an independent, not-for-profit group consisting of representatives from professional coaching bodies, academic institutions, workplace sponsors of coaching, Coaching at Work and other stakeholders in the coaching field.
- www.coaching-at-work.com/future-of-coaching