The Digital Coach

Stella Kanatouri

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429663338
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Business allgemein

Thanks to digital media, coaching doesn´t have to be constrained by geographical and temporal boundaries. Using digital media to facilitate coaching processes however, creates a distinct form of coaching practice that requires additional skill from the coach.

The Digital Coach contains insights based on a comprehensive, exploratory research that analysed the discussions of a 1, 000 member strong online community of coaches and several interviews with coaches to understand their practical experiences of working with technology. At the same time, the book offers information, insights, and examples that can be readily used by the coaching practitioner. Based on the developments in the field, the book provides suggestions about improving the usability of coaching software, and it offers reflections on how emerging technologies like immersive Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Artificial Intelligence might extend coaching practice. Whilst acknowledging the limitations and potential risks that may arise by integrating digital media in coaching, the book suggests that coaching success doesn't only depend on media capabilities, but also on the coach. The digital coach develops enhanced coaching skills and adapts coaching practice to the media in use.

The book is dedicated to the coaching practitioner who uses digital media or who is considering doing so, and is relevant for coaching supervisors, buyers of coaching services, human resource professionals, and software designers.

1

WHY DIGITAL COACHING?

Coaching as a valuable approach to human development

When people hear the term ‘digital coaching’ they typically ask two questions: Does it mean coaching without a coach? And does it work? Digital coaching means that coaching is assisted by digital media. Digital media can conveniently facilitate the dialogue between coach and client at a distance, or they may support clients’ reflection and problem-solving processes in a self-coaching mode. But, before going into detail about the meaning of digitalizing coaching and whether this mode of coaching could successfully support clients in solving their problems and attaining their goals, it is important to examine why we need coaching in the first place.

Coaching enjoys growing recognition as an approach that can effectively support individuals’ and groups’ positive change and development in the contexts of work, career, or personal life. It offers ‘an intensive and systematic support to outcome-oriented reflection over problems and self-reflection, as well as consultation of individuals or groups to approach self-congruent goals or for conscious self-change and self-development’ (Greif, 2008, p. 59 free translation from the original text). The role of the coach is that of a ‘process consultant’ (Schein, 1999), who facilitates the client’s reflection and problem-solving process (Geißler, 2017) and engages with the client in joint exploration of the problem and action planning (Schein, 1999). Greif, Schmidt, and Thamm (2010) suggest that coaching tends to be successful when:

• The coach provides emotional support and shows empathy.
• The coach helps the client set SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound).
• The coach guides the client to identify concrete solutions to the problem.
• The coach supports the client’s internal and external resource activation.
• The coach supports the client’s learning transfer into practice.
• Feedback about the client’s satisfaction with the process and post-action evaluation of progress.

The emphasis is thus, on accompanying the client, guiding and facilitating the client’s reflection, rather than giving instruction. As such, coaching is distinguished from expert consultation, in which the consultant is commissioned to diagnose the client’s problem and to suggest a solution. The coach doesn’t have a set curriculum and doesn’t determine the coaching contents. Like in psychotherapy, the coach may use methods, such as active listening, reflexive question techniques, mirroring, role-play. It can cover diverse topics, among other, personal life issues, career issues, leadership, work-life balance, performance improvement, work satisfaction, relationship issues, and development of competencies, and it can be offered to individuals or to groups. Whilst coaching has been strongly influenced by the psychotherapeutic tradition (Lee, 2010; Western, 2016) and the two disciplines display some commonalities, for instance in that they provide the client space for self-reflection (Greif, Möller, & Scholl, 2016), coaching differs of course, from psychotherapy, as it focuses on individuals with no identifiable mental health issues.

When coaching emerged in the corporate world in the 1980s, it was a fundamental innovation, as it offered a new method for developing human resources, which until then had relied only on training and teaching (Geißler, 2013). Since the emergence of the field, when coaching was only offered to top management, coaching services have expanded to address all organizational levels as well as non-corporate target groups, and to offer diverse forms of coaching delivery to individuals and groups through face-to-face and technology-assisted communication modalities. Coaching has increasingly gained popularity (Cox, Bachkirova, & Clutterbuck, 2010; Grant, 2003; Grant & Cavanagh, 2007), and research focusing on coaching processes and their outcomes has also seen a steady increase over the years. Industry reports (Bresser, 2013; ICF, 2012) evidence the increase of coaching services, and experts (a.o. Bresser & Wilson, 2006; Bueno, 2010) suggest that coaching is a rapidly growing industry.

Given today’s technological and socio-economic drivers of change, the accelerated use of coaching and its expansion across diverse types of clients and contexts are not surprising (see Figure 1.1). With knowledge being valued as a powerful resource, the continuous learning and skill development of individuals become mandatory. Globalization, the Third Industrial Revolution, the rapid pace of technological change, and the vast amount of information available on the internet are correlating with the rapid obsolescence of knowledge, changing skills profiles, and the eclipse of lifetime careers (OECD, 2004; UNESCO, 2005; World Economic Forum, 2018). The knowledge society is closely linked with the advances in technology, particularly the internet, as up-to-date knowledge relies upon the rapid distribution of knowledge through digital media. Moreover, the explosive growth of digital technologies and along with this, the enabled communication and work across geographical borders and time zones have been essential for globalization. Globalization has created enormous pressures for organizations performing in global contexts to be agile in their learning, if they are to stay competitive. The implication of these pressures is that workers are expected to acquire skills rapidly, to adapt to continuously changing conditions, to problem-solve and to be self-directed learners, in order to keep abreast of current knowledge. The instability of skills and the need for workers to upskill or to reskill are expected to become even more pronounced as the Fourth Industrial Revolution is likely to bring about the displacement of some jobs and to create new occupations (World Economic Forum, 2018). In such times of rapid change, self-directed and lifelong learning are critical. The need for continuous learning emphasizes the importance of developing problem-solving skills, and the ability to reflect on oneself, on one’s own learning progress, and on the problem at hand. Accompanying individuals and groups in their reflection processes, helping them to solve their own problems and develop, in other words, helping them help themselves (Geißler, 2013) lie at the heart of coaching.

Figure 1.1 Coaching for learning, self-change, and self-development

Adding the technology element: what is ‘digital coaching’?

Technology can be an enhancement to the increasingly important coaching services. Whilst coaching has traditionally been delivered face-to-face, technological media enable coaching via distance. Technology may be used to facilitate the coaching conversation, but also to enrich the coaching process beyond the coaching dialogue and to enable self-coaching processes. The incorporation of technology in coaching practice has been driven by the need for time savings, cost efficiency, and flexibility in coaching delivery (Kanatouri & Geißler 2016; Kanatouri, 2017). Particularly, as the scope of coaching expanded to include clients representing top management, middle and lower levels of management, as well as employees, groups and teams, the need arose to keep coaching costs down (Kanatouri & Geißler, 2016). Having to cope with the challenge of offering coaching support to more individuals, while at the same time managing the budget for it, led to initiatives that partly or entirely replaced face-to-face coaching with technology-assisted coaching. Table 1.1 summarizes the different possible uses of technology in coaching along with examples.

Table 1.1 Digital coaching modalities

	Audio-only	Audio-visual	Text	Visual
Coach–client dialogue	Phone Asynchronous audio messages	Video calls HD videoconferencing Avatar worlds with built-in audio (or text) chat Asynchronous video messages	Email Synchronous/asynchronous text-chat	-
Complementary support to the coach–client dialogue	Audio podcasts	Videos Vlogs	Blogs Online articles Pre-set question sets Journals	Images Online constellations Virtual worlds
Machine–client interaction			Pre-set question frameworks Coaching chatbots	-

These different ways of using technology create the following distinct forms of digital coaching:

• Remote coaching (relational): Face-to-face communication is entirely replaced with technology-mediated communication, enabling coaching at a distance regardless of geographic location. Examples include telephone, synchronous and asynchronous text-based communication, video calls, HD videoconferencing, and avatar-based coaching. Remote coaching can be coach-led, where communication takes place between a human coach and client. Several interpersonal communication media – telephone and videoconferencing, emails – also enable coaching conversations in a group or team. Interpersonal communication media are discussed in Chapter 2.
• Remote coaching with supporting tools: This form of coaching refers to the combined use of remote coaching using one, or more of the above communication media and one or more dig...