Coaches are inherently interested in development, but many of us find research into coaching difficult to access, read and apply. Dr Peter Jackson finds a theme of reflection from recent academic papers
As a practitioner and an academic, I’m fascinated by how those two domains feed each other, and how the connection between the two can be made stronger.
For this issue’s column, I’ve looked back over the last year in two academic journals. Both journals attract good contributions; the contributions are also peer reviewed (each paper is sent to at least two reviewers who offer an anonymous assessment for the journal and feedback for the authors); and they are ‘open access’, so if any of the papers I mention are of particular interest, you can go and read more.
There are of course other very good journals that meet one or two of these criteria. Thinking about putting research into practice, three of the four papers I’m going to discuss come from the International Journal of Evidence-based Coaching and Mentoring, and one from Philosophy of Coaching because it expands on a particular topic that emerges from the other papers featured.
I started by looking at papers that have general learning points for practitioners, in preference to those that deal with very specific cases or contexts. An exception is Joanna Jarosz’ (Jarosz, 2021) paper exploring what managers are having to deal with during the pandemic, focusing on the impact on well-being during the pandemic, and in particular the effect of working from home. This would seem to be something that we’ve all faced in recent times, either for ourselves or our clients. Jarosz highlights the following experiences of the benefits of coaching (p18):
(1) having a safe, non-judgmental environment where everyone (including the coach) was supportive and respectfully listening to each other; (2) receiving a helpful nudge helping to get ‘unstuck’; (3) increased self-awareness and better perception;(4) learning how to use all available resources to one’s advantage.
It strikes me that (1) and (2) are the environment the coach creates to facilitate (3) and (4). Reading the paper as a whole I came away feeling like the coaching provided clients with the opportunity to reflect on their situation and to feel more in control. Studies like this can help us put our own and our clients’ experiences into context, but it also makes me think about paying attention to the fundamental purpose of our coaching.
In the same issue, Chris Wood and Tim Lomas talk about the role of courage in the development and practice of coaches. For me, the appeal of this paper is that it’s looking for core drivers of effective practice from the person of the coach. I have an enduring belief, based on my 15 years of coach education, that this is more productive than a behavioural or competency-based definition of what a coach should do. Those familiar with psychotherapy theory may be reminded of the concept of ‘common factors’: the features of an effective therapeutic relationship that stand apart from techniques, procedures or competencies. There were some interesting insights related to courage in the paper that could provide a reference point for thinking about our own practice, perhaps in supervision:
Courage was required in building trust over time, calibrating with the client, helping the client to feel safe and waiting for the right time to pursue a new direction. (p34)
Holding the space involved courage because it necessitated the coach deploying complete presence whatever the circumstance and subject matter, and there was courage in resisting any client desire for the coach to be active in raising suggestions or giving advice. (p34)
On the face of it The Adequacy of Competency Frameworks for Coaching Academic Deans: A Critical Review would seem to address a very specific context. But here, Iftikhar Nadeem, Bob Garvey and Martin Down present a second order reflection, based on previous field research, and drawing from it learning about how we arrive at effective practice. Their reflections are that good decision-making in practice is so context-dependent that it’s only poorly defined by conventional knowledge or technique.
Using the Aristotelean terms of episteme (knowledge), techne (method) and phronesis (practical wisdom), they draw attention to the importance of the latter (which, incidentally, Bob Garvey has discussed in many other places before, and I recommend his writing). So whereas competency frameworks, with laudable motives, abstract ‘good’ practice (techne) from its context and environment, practical wisdom (phronesis) is perhaps more how you decide what to do, than what to do or how to do it.
To round off this theme, I jump to a paper by Andrew George in the Philosophy of Coaching journal. He develops the idea of phronesis, drawing attention to Aristotle’s emphasis on the application of morality. He argues that reflection facilitated for coaching clients always has a moral dimension as it’s oriented towards action. He makes a differentiation between what’s known as ‘deontological’ ethics (following rules) and ‘consequentialist’ ethics (considering outcomes of actions) as judgments of action, as against ‘virtue’ ethics as judgments of the person. Putting these concepts together, he says:
Reflection, as manifested by phronesis, allows the person to navigate the competing claims of their virtues and to moderate them appropriately. Reflection is therefore essential if one is to / develop as a virtuous person, and so is a prerequisite for both coaches and clients working towards action that is good. (pp8-9)
Should we then reflect more in our supervision, and act more often in our practice, against the test of ‘who do I want to be’ rather than ‘what am I supposed to do?’ Are we the ‘common factor’ and should therefore development focus on the person as much as the actions? If this applies to our own development, might it be useful for our clients?
About the author
- Peter Jackson is a coach, supervisor and is co-director of the International Centre for Coaching and Mentoring Studies at Oxford Brookes University Business School
Email: peter.jackson@brookes.ac.uk
References
- A J T George, ‘Phronesis and reflection’, in Philosophy of Coaching: An International Journal, 6(2), 7-21, 2021
- J Jarosz, ‘The impact of coaching on well-being and performance of managers and their teams during pandemic’, in International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 19(1), 4-27, 2021
- I Nadeem, B Garvey and M Down, ‘The adequacy of competency frameworks for coaching academic deans: A critical review’, in International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 19(2), 3-23, 2021
- C Wood, and T Lomas, ‘The role of courage in the development and practice of coaches’, in International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 19(1), 28-43, 2021