Coaching has proliferated since the early 1980s when Sir John Whitmore founded the coaching industry as we know it. At a time when we face global challenges — scientific, technological, planetary — that require our collective ingenuity in response, we believe coaching’s power to create interdependent and collaborative working is needed more than ever. The opportunity to achieve a positive impact is enormous.
As we publish the updated Sixth Edition of the world’s No. 1 coaching book, “Coaching for Performance,” we clarify some of the most common myths and misconceptions around coaching.
Myth no.1: Coaching is about teaching
Despite the existence of professional organizations like the International Coaching Federation (ICF), with members in 170 countries, if you look up the words ‘coach’ or ‘coaching,’ you’ll be none the wiser about what all these people are up to. The first definition usually mentions a bus for long journeys, a horse-drawn or train carriage and traveling. Other definitions describe sports instruction, private tuition and extra teaching. It might surprise you to learn the first is more relevant. Coaching is all about a journey and nothing about instruction or teaching. The coachee acquires facts and develops new skills and behaviors, not by being told or taught but by discovering from within, stimulated by coaching.
In this way, the coaching process fosters evolution at every stage, for evolution emerges from within and can never be taught in prescriptive ways.
Myth no.2: Organizations need hierarchical cultures
Hierarchical culture exists in most of the world’s organizations. Sadly, this type of culture is detrimental to both employees, leaders and, ultimately, the organization because it is one of the lowest-performing cultures.
When leaders are presumed to have all the answers, it implies that no one else does. People working in this culture are disempowered and disengaged; they “do what they are told” and fear getting it wrong. Our research all over the world has shown that fear is the biggest blocker of potential and performance.
This is why the highest-performing leaders know they don’t have all the answers. The good news is that leaders can be taught this. When we show them how they can be a Transformational Leader, their response is to feel a weight has been lifted off their shoulders.
Myth no.3: It’s best to follow the rules
When we worked with a leading global industrial gas and engineering company to bring in a safety culture, we discovered a “command and control” management structure that led people to follow the rules. This type of “dependent” culture creates interference because there is little room for the potential of the human being to come through. The result is both performance and enjoyment levels will be low.
By adopting a coaching style of leadership, the organization saw a 74% decrease in incidents. The following year, they lost no time because of injuries on any of their construction sites for the first time.
Few organizations take a proactive approach to creating and measuring their culture, yet this is key to improving performance. Our Performance Curve model focuses on four stages of organizational development. Updated with the latest data, it provides coaches with a valuable tool to explore an organization’s prevailing cultural ethos and mindset with coachees.
Myth no.4: Coaching is only for certain types of endeavor
While the popular image of coaching is associated with sports or tuition, the principles of coaching can be applied to any type of activity. They will have the impact of raising performance. What we mean by performance is the result of reducing interference and increasing potential. This thinking stems from Tim Gallwey’s Inner Game, which inspired Sir John Whitmore’s definition of coaching: Coaching is unlocking people’s potential to maximize their performance.
After all, how did you learn to walk? Did your mother or father instruct you? We all have a built-in, natural learning capability that is actually disrupted by instruction.
Adopting the principles of coaching in a development journey is far-reaching: individuals can evolve and transform their work and lives, while organizations can develop and transform the work and lives of their people.
Myth no.5: Coaching has rapidly established itself, and there is no further headroom for growth
Since coaching emerged 40 years ago, many have recognized its enormous value and potential and started a journey of self-discovery that has had a profound effect on them. Today more than 100,000 coach practitioners are working around the world. Coaching has proven its effectiveness as a business practice, with organizations reaping the rewards. The demand for coaching skills in the workplace has risen exponentially.
However, coaching’s associated values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors are yet to become the norm for everyone. Our studies show leaders are predominantly still in a “command and control” style of management, and today, we see an urgent need to redesign the relationship between employer and employee. Indeed, there is a need for all of us to embrace a new paradigm in leadership that will create a new way of interdependent working across organizations and beyond — globally.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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