Coaching Models: A Cultural Perspective

A Guide to Model Development: for Practitioners and Students of Coaching

Diane Lennard

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415802130
• eBook ISBN: 9781135965808
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

"In addition to providing an extensive analysis of strategies for changing performance and the factors that can impact coaching effectiveness, this book offers what may be a unique value: instead of promoting one approach as the best, Dr. Lennard guides readers through a highly customized process of developing our own individualized coaching model. As a result of the book's thought-provoking activities, I strengthened my own sense of personal authenticity and saw new ways to coach and collaborate fully with employees who may have very different perspectives." — Tita Theodora Beal, Learning & Development, Pfizer, Inc.

"This is a wise book. The essential take-away is simple and profound. Develop, refine, and apply your own (as in ownership) personalized coaching model. Much is provided; nothing is imposed. Readers are invited to reflect on unique and defining experiences, strengths, values, perspectives and style and to begin creating their own 'work in progress.' Coaching Models will be a compelling read for experienced coaches and new coach practitioners alike." — Bethene LeMahieu, Ed.D.; Professional Coach and Conversation Conservationist

Coaching Models: A Cultural Perspective encourages and assists students and practitioners of business coaching to develop and apply their own coaching models. The entire field of coaching will benefit from having coaches who use their models to continually improve their practice.

The first part of this book presents the model development process by looking at the relationship among culture, beliefs, and behavior in the coaching context. It explains the importance of identifying cultural factors that influence the way coaches approach coaching interactions, and their coaching models.

The second section provides coaches with information and strategies for developing personalized coaching models, applying them to specific contexts, and reflecting on their interactions to refine their core coaching practices.

The third part describes the evolution of the author's own coaching model—the Performance Coaching Model—and illustrates how one coach incorporates unique perspectives and sets of skills, knowledge, and experience in her coaching practice.

Part I The Foundation

1 Introduction To Coaching Model Development

DOI: 10.4324/9780203876350-1

There is now an abundance of literature on coaching as a way to facilitate the learning and performance of clients, but little has been written about facilitating the learning and performance of coaches. Many of the books and articles describe effective coaching models but few recommend that coaches develop their own approach to coaching, based on their unique combination of strengths.

Whereas coaching helps clients, coaching models help coaches. Coaching is a dynamic interaction that facilitates the learning, development, and performance of the person being coached. Coaching models facilitate the learning, development, and performance of coaches.

This chapter presents five basic ideas that are fundamental to understanding coaching models and their development:

1. Coaching models are tools for coaches.
2. Cultural factors influence coaching beliefs and practices.
3. There is no one right way to coach.
4. Coaches learn and coaching models evolve.
5. Start from where you are.

1 Coaching Models Are Tools For Coaches

What is a model? A model is an intellectual device that highlights the key elements of a process and their interrelationships. It can be visual or verbal. A model includes whatever elements the developer considered most essential and eliminates others. It does not replicate every detail of a process, event, or phenomenon.

In this book, a coaching model refers to a general guide or a framework of ideas for understanding and navigating an approach to coaching. Coaching models help practitioners and students of coaching think about and understand the process of coaching. Coaches can use their model to generate interesting questions for reflection on coaching effectiveness, then to guide improvements.

The use of a model can lead to greater insight and understanding, as well as new ways of thinking about the structure and process of coaching. A model simplifies and clarifies the complexities of coaching. Rather than ignore the complexity of the coaching process, coaches can use a model to focus on essential factors and manage the complexity. Although individual models may differ, they focus on what is fundamental to coaching and give coherence to the underlying structure of the coaching process.

As a conceptual tool, the coaching model facilitates the process of inquiry that is crucial to ongoing learning about coaching effectiveness. Because a model clarifies the big picture and highlights specific elements of coaching, you can use your model as a springboard for such questions as: What are the boundaries of coaching? What core practices am I using and why? Where do I need to put more attention? To answer questions like these, reflection is required. Your responses may change as you reflect on your coaching process, assess your effectiveness, and evaluate your practice. In fact, more than likely, they will. Therefore, keep in mind that your coaching model is a work in progress. You can refine and modify it over time.

It is critically important for experienced and new coach practitioners to develop their own unique frameworks for thinking about the structure and process of coaching. Why would you invest the time to do this? Bottom line: when you develop your own clearly articulated, critically evaluated coaching model, you give yourself a tool that can guide your actions, place needed boundaries around your coaching practice, and facilitate planning for improved coaching effectiveness.

2 Cultural Factors Influence Coaching Beliefs And Practices

Individual perspectives influence each practitioner's approach to coaching and those perspectives are significantly influenced by culture. Often the term culture is used to refer only to nationality, but all people (coaches and those who are coached) have their own individual cultural orientation. The term individual cultural orientation refers to your sense of identity and the way you see the world as reflected in the complex interplay of your values, attitudes, and behavior. It informs your approach to coaching, consciously or not. Therefore, a focus on your individual cultural orientation becomes an integral part of developing your own coaching model.

For the purposes of this book, a basic definition of culture advanced by Edgar Schein in his book Organizational Culture and Leadership will be used:

Culture is “a pattern of shared basic assumptions that was learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems” (2004, 17).

By recognizing that humans are cultural beings, each with complex cultural identities, coaches increase their ability to relate to others and to identify influences on their own ways of thinking and acting in coaching situations.

Marshall Singer, who researched patterns of perception and identity, noted that each person has a unique set of group identities and experiences; each person is culturally unique. He points out that every identity group has a culture of its own, and every individual is a part of many different identity groups and cultures simultaneously. He stated that “because no person is a part of all and only the same groups as anyone else and because each person ranks the attitudes, values, and beliefs of the groups to which he or she belongs differently, which is what culture is all about, each individual must be considered to be culturally unique” (Singer 1998, xiii). No two individuals share the exact same group memberships or give the same importance to the group memberships they share. Consider the various groups that people belong to and how these may influence their cultural orientation—an industry, a discipline, an organization, a family of origin, a country of origin, educational institutions, a gender, a socioeconomic class, an age group, a language, a philosophy.

The practice of coaching is immeasurably strengthened when coaches develop and work with a coaching model that takes into account their individual cultural orientation—their unique set of experiences and perspectives—and the cultural context of the choices they make. While you cannot be completely free from your cultural conditioning, you can remain flexible and open to responding, adapting, and changing when you communicate with a culturally different person. By acknowledging and appreciating this, you can partner more effectively with the people you coach and not impose your own beliefs and values.

To develop your model, you need to recognize and understand your individual cultural orientation. The greater your awareness of personal style, behavioral tendencies, and hot buttons, the better you can manage these influences, and not impede the success of the coaching interaction. Equally important is your awareness of your own individual cultural identity, derived from membership in groups that have informed your values, beliefs, and behaviors. Your core values influence the way you see the world. They affect your attitudes towards behaviors you consider most appropriate and effective in each situation. Your unique set of perspectives and experiences influence the way you approach your coaching process and practice.

The renowned anthropologist Edward T. Hall states that “there is not one aspect of human life that is not touched and altered by culture” (1976, 16). Becoming aware of the cultural influences on your own approach to coaching, the unique perspectives as well as the skills you bring to your practice, requires self-reflection. This might include such questions as: What core values and beliefs drive your behavior in a coaching context? What draws you to coaching? What are your goals for coaching? What skills do you want to apply to coaching interactions? What are your areas of expertise, capabilities, and strengths? What are your preferred coaching methods and tools? What are the underlying principles of your coaching approach and the ethical guidelines that matter to you?

Consider also how your views of coaching may be inspired and informed by philosophical or theoretical frameworks from other disciplines. For example, a coach who values scientific research and development may view coaching as a process of helping people to develop a hypothesis about what to do, then test it out and take action based on evidence; a coach who has an interest in botany may frame coaching as a process of seeding and nurturing clients' growth. Depending on their individual view of the world, each coach may position the coaching model in terms of a preferred paradigm or a guiding metaphor— research, botany or whatever inspires and informs the coach.

Coaching models have personal meaning and resonate with the coaches who develop them. They incorporate the coach's views about people, learning, performance, and organizations. Personalized coaching models may differ, but they share a dynamic structure: a heightened awareness of the coach's own unique viewpoints, values, and preferences. As a result, the coach is more likely to master one of the key competencies of effective coaching: ability to recognize and respect the different viewpoints, values, and perspectives of the people they coach.

3 There Is No One Right Way To Coach

Just as all coaches have their own individual cultural orientation, they also have skills and areas of expertise that influence their coaching practice. Some coaches are line managers who have moved up the ranks of an organization. Some are practitioners with a background in psychology or counseling. Many draw on years of professional experience in a range of interrelated fields: organizational development, management consulting, training and development, sports, health, education, linguistics, human resources, business strategy; and in my case, marketing, education, and theatre. When developing a coaching model, experienced coaches as well as students of coaching are encouraged to think about the knowledge and skills they have acquired from various disciplines, and how they might integrate them into their approach. Each coach's cultural orientation, personal experiences, and preferred theories and practices matter.

There is no one, universally accepted coaching approach. Nor is there any reason to refrain from using and adapting a multiplicity of approaches. In fact, by examining coaching from a variety of angles and perspectives, you will be better able to distinguish the essential elements of your own coaching process and practice, including the related skills and competencies. Your approach will invariably build on your own experience and the principles and practices of others in coaching and related fields.

To begin to think about developing your personalized coaching model, you may find it helpful to examine the different ways that practitioners approach coaching. Consider the following examples of coaching models:

Timothy Gallwey's Inner Game Model

Timothy Gallwey attended Harvard, was captain of its tennis team, and developed the “Inner Game” model of coaching with origins in sports. Drawing on his experience teaching tennis, he developed a unique approach to unlocking people's potential and helping them become better learners and performers. Gallwey realized his tennis students were incorporating his instructions as “command and control” self-dialogue. Their internal dialogue and negative thinking were interfering, rather than enhancing, performance and learning.

To change this, Gallwey developed ways to focus the mind of the players on something other than hitting the ball back. He asked them to watch the seams of the ball as it spins, or say the word “bounce” out loud the moment the ball hits the court and the word “hit” the moment the ball makes contact with the racket. He also gave players a strategy of asking themselves descriptive, non-judgmental questions (e.g. “How high is the tennis ball as it passes over the net? Which way is the ball spinning as it comes toward you?”). This mental conversation eliminates the interference of unhelpful beliefs (self-talk), generates nonjudgmental awareness, and focuses attention. The result was better performance, learning, and enjoyment of the process. Gallwey created a formula to describe his approach:

Performance = potential – i nterference (2001, 17).

For more than 20 years, Gallwey has applied the “Inner Game” model to business situations. The model has been used to help corporations manage change and develop leaders. It also helps individuals work more effectively in teams.

John Whitmore's GROW Model

John Whitmore developed his model after training with Gallwey and later co-leading the Inner Tennis, Inner Skiing, and Inner Golf holidays with Gallwey. Building on Gallwey's success with athletes, Whitmore created his own model geared specifically to business professionals. His “GROW” model is based on a structured series of open-ended questions, similar to Gallwey's, to raise professionals' awareness of what is happening and what they are experiencing. The questions also heighten their sense of re...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Part I The Foundation
• Chapter 1 Introduction To Coaching Model Development
• Chapter 2 Theoretical Foundation Learning Theory for Coaches
• Chapter 3 Theory-Based Guidelines
• Part II The Coaching Model
• Chapter 4 Coaching Model Functions And Characteristics
• Chapter 5 Identification And Selection Of Coaching Model Components
• Part III The Performance Coaching Model Example
• Chapter 6 How The Performance Coaching Model Evolved
• Chapter 7 How The Performance Coaching Model Is Applied
• References
• Index