Coaching supervision at scale
Jill Pinington, Association of Coaching Supervisors (AoCS)’ regional coordinator for The North of England, talked to three members of the AoCS’ Leads team, and took part in the FCC Roundtable discussion on the future of coaching. She explores implications, challenges and opportunities for coaching supervision
We hear the world’s call for coaching at scale: what then for coaching supervision?
As we contemplate coaching supervision at scale, how must we change, and what are we willing to compromise?
Quality, risk, and psychological safety issues can all get in the way when we scale coaching. If we stick with the traditional coach supervisory approach of one-to-one, one-to-two, or a small group that we were taught was quality standard, is it possible to meet the growing cascade of demands placed upon us?
How do we offer supervision to groups of 15 people and make it genuinely useful: are they herd or heard? This approach could be seen as a herd mentality, to ‘sheep dip’ coaching supervision, just to meet advisory requirements. Can we ensure all those in the room have their supervisory needs met: are the normative, formative, restorative and supervision requirements for each participant heard? Let’s look at how realistic it is to split a two-hour session between 15 attendees:
- With a five-minute check in and check out, that leaves a 7.33 minutes-long supervision spot for each supervisee to work in a traditional mode.
- One or two brave souls bare all in a fishbowl session on their issues and spotlight supervision for them with the hope that the quality learning translates for all present.
- Peer supervision, with one supervisor to a group of 15 coaches, who decide on a theme to explore and break out into groups of three or four people, with the supervisor visiting each group and the whole group reconvening to discuss what they have learned.
Operating each model, what do we gain or lose? Are these groups open or closed? The forming, norming, storming, performing rituals and group dynamics may enrich or hinder the peer supervision approach.
Much depends on the organisational ethos and training of the supervisees. The culture, standards, quality, expectations, confidentiality required all need to be contracted for whichever option seems most appropriate. It’s important to disentangle needs, ownership and egoic issues.
As we’re propelled into coaching at scale, there’s an increasing move towards internal coaching through manager coaches, and a pressing need for coaching supervisors and the questions they bring.
What structure and frameworks do we need for supervision in organisations? Are the people developing coaching hubs and hybrid platforms bringing their design work to supervision now? And how are the users of coaching hubs participating in those hubs and platforms? Is it as the designers intended? And what does this mean for supervision of the ethical issues and risks when coaching happens through new media?
Regarding the question coaches are often asked – what is your speciality? – supervisors help coaches reframe a positive development mindset around this. For example, instead of thinking about what is given up or missed out on by specialising, what are you gaining when you find your niche? With more coaching relationships being internal, the supervisor might be both coach and leader and/or coach and supervisor. The 7-eyed model (Hawkins & Shohet, 2006) is blown out of the water! How many eyes have we got in this Brave New World? Supervision education needs to help supervisors encompass an evolving landscape, so the experience of the supervisor matters to manage the dual relationships well. There’s no right or wrong, it’s about what’s appropriate and the benefits. How are coaches learning about ethical decision making if not through processing cases with their supervisor?
Coaching supervision is a relatively young concept and there’s a need to clearly explain the distinction between supervision and coaching and CPD. Also between management supervision and coaching supervision.
Focusing on information-giving to explain why coaching supervision is important to help coaches reduce blind spots, prevent a ‘rut’ in their coaching practice and eradicate biases.
Arguably as we scale up internal coaching within organisations, where often the coach is also a manager, the future of coaching supervision becomes even more controversial.
The coaching in this arena can become more mentoring than coaching and coach supervision can morph into action learning. Does this matter if everybody is learning?
Supervision follows in the wake of coaching at scale, and ultimately, the only way the budget and resource will stretch to include it is through team, group or peer supervision. As coach supervisors we’re knowledgeable and we’re responsible in a systemic way. We support people as individuals, in teams, in organisations, asking the right questions to elicit developmental change and the progressive outcome to evolve into the new world.
Coaching supervision is changing because it must, to thrive in business in the new economy.
This calls for maximum flexibility.
How about thematic coaching supervision where we tailor the supervision offer based on the coaching speciality? This can include the many paradigms at play, such as supervision of:
- personal or societal or global themes, such as climate change, Covid-19, diversity and inclusion
- life experience themes, such as maternity and bereavement
What if we supervise specific fields of coaching such as: healthcare, entrepreneurs, elite athletes and SMEs?
And coaching supervision could be more focused to meet the needs of the coach based on the accrediting body.
Or it may be best if we slice the supervision landscape targeting the generations served: millennials, generation XYZ, etc.
The growing use of coaching apps is proving favourable to millennials and an attractive option to commissioners of coaching solutions. This offers a great opportunity for universal access to coaching and therein coaching at scale. It presents wholescale access. It also comes with challenges to where and who most benefits from coaching supervision input. Where do you put your energies? To the app developer or to coaches writing the script, or both?
We can choose to let supervision shrivel to a high-quality offer accessed by a very few. Or we can evolve with the new world of coaching at scale, with supervision at scale, and make sure our supervision voice is heard. I see the future of supervision as part of the construction of coaching brought up to date and offered according to the modality of coaching employed.
Reference
P Hawkins and R Shohet, Supervision in the Helping Professions, Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education, 2006
Find out more
- The Association of Coaching Supervisors (AoCS) is a global community who learn together about what’s topical and relevant. We widely share experience, research and practice, and develop collectively. We actively promote supervision and supervisors through our directory. We are raising the voice of supervision in the coaching profession and beyond. Change is a constant theme, and our profession enables coaches to show up well-prepared to work with people through change in their context. AOCS Leads who contributed here were Nick Bolton, Jackie Arnold, Benita Stafford-Smith.
- www.associationofcoachingsupervisors.com