Coaching Online

A Practical Guide

Kate Anthony, DeeAnna Merz Nagel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781317413622
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Computer Science

Translating traditional coaching methods and competencies for use in the online world, this informative and timely guide shows coaches how to transform their face-to-face practice into one that utilises technological means of communication with clients, mentors, and everyone else associated with their practice.

The book offers up-to-the-minute practical and ethical information from two world-expert coaches, leaning on their combined 50 years of experience and study. It covers the practice of online coaching via email, chat, audio/telephone and video methods, as well as the ethics of online coaching (including an ethical framework), case material, supervision, mentoring and training, and a look into the future of the coaching profession in light of technological developments and the culture of cyberspace.

Whether you are a coach-in-training or established Coaching Master, this book is an accessible and invaluable tool for taking and maintaining your coaching services online.

Chapter 1

Cyberculture and its impact on the coaching profession

DOI: 10.4324/9781315685939-2

Introduction

We live in a digital culture, with our coaches swimming in a world of electronic communication and devices unprecedented in the history of human lifestyle and work practice. Where once a handwritten letter, or at a push a telegram, was the normal way to reach each other (and before that carrier pigeon or smoke signals!), we now use electronic mail, an instant messaging programme, a direct message on one of the many social media platforms, or a text message via our mobile phones. We can add our voices to the medium and add video to enhance the process. It has become rare that we are not contactable using some form of technology and it takes a determined person to keep it that way (known as being ‘off-grid’).

With the rise of technological avenues of communication and ways of seeking information has come a raft of new issues for us as a community in the developed parts of the world. We have new levels of stress in light of information overload, new demands on us being available at any time of day or night and new issues that impact on us emotionally, such as bullying by strangers. In the 25+ years that the World Wide Web has existed, whole generations have grown up not knowing a world where these concerns did not exist. Yet the professions that seek to help a human in life and work have barely noticed the huge shift in how we live and work. This should be a huge concern for those of us in the coaching profession, and also its affiliated professions of counselling, therapy and other mental health areas.

There are many who would argue that the word ‘cyberculture’ itself is now outdated and irrelevant, but we choose to use it here simply to define that digital world that we now inhabit in the context of coaching and mentoring clients. Put simply by Wikipedia (as of February 2021):

Internet culture, or cyberculture, is a culture that describes the many manifestations of the use of computer networks for communication, entertainment, and business, and recreation.

We should pause here to note that the author did not reach for a textbook to find that simple definition; she opened a new tab on her preferred browser and typed the word, before right-clicking and selecting what came up to make it appear in the first draft of this book. This is a good example of how living in a cyberculture works – access to seemingly unlimited resources available at our fingertips, which are accepted as a normal way of gathering information. In addition, this information can be accessed via a multitude of electronic devices – PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and increasingly the appearance of wearable technology such as wristwatches.

Society has tended to fall into one of two camps as the culture of technological use developed: those who resisted it encroaching more and more into how we work and live, and those who embraced it doing so. In our experience, the field of coaching has landed between the two – awareness of it happening and resistance to welcoming it as a tool with which to work with our clients in full. This has been mirrored in the sister fields of counselling and therapy, although we recognise that there will be a tipping point at which there are no coaches or therapists who remember a world pre-Internet. What this chapter endeavours to do is not convert the reader into zealotry regarding using technology, but rather to help recognise that even the hardest resistance to technology cannot be useful to the modern coach if they contract with clients for whom the use of it is a way of life.

How technology has shaped our modern lives

As coaches, we tend to be more aware of the need to maintain a work-life balance and the need to look after ourselves holistically. This will of course look different for different individuals and encompass anything from early morning fresh smoothies and walks on the beach; using essential oils or other life-enhancing techniques or ensuring frequent face-to-face contact with groups of a like-minded social intention. We work hard to ensure our life is in balance, incorporating family life and children, our clients, our homesteads, physical environments and nourishment from academic or professional pursuit. In looking after ourselves and our minds, we can ensure that we are fit to practice with other individuals who are seeking to attain, if not the same way of living, then at least a more positive version of the one they have. Put simply, if there was nothing to improve, they are unlikely to have sought out a Life or Career Coach.

However, our lives have changed immeasurably in light of being permanently connected, or at least having the perception of being permanently connected, and this is a way of life and work that has not arrived fully formed on our doorsteps. Technology has seeped more and more into our daily lives and routines until we are so used to its presence that we are lost when it is suddenly removed from us. It is now a rare human being (in countries that have a developed communication structure) that does not carry a mobile or smartphone with Internet access. For example, mobile phone penetration in Africa is higher than some other parts of the world, which has led to the success of money transfer systems such as MPacer in Kenya – a system that at the time of writing is only just being recognised in the Western world.

As coaches, the majority of us have been trained in a non-connected world. The basis of a coaching relationship has generally been to meet physically with another individual to work together, using techniques and strategies that will help the coachee improve their life in some way – be that emotionally, at work or to gain better financial success. This has followed the same traditional lines as a therapeutic relationship in general over decades – a consulting space designed for two or more people to work together using a physical presence.

Interestingly, we have seen a rise in attention to the telephone coaching and therapy relationship only as a reaction to the development of the online relationship. In the United Kingdom, guidelines from the main professional counselling body regarding telephone work (Payne et al., 2006) were introduced only after the second edition of guidelines for online work were published (Anthony and Jamieson, 2005). It is recognised by the authors that telephone coaching has a long and happy place in the profession, but in the context of cyberculture, the landline telephone – although an example of using technology itself – should be considered as an early form of technological communication, rather than an intrinsic game changer as to the way life is lived digitally today.

Core coaching training has little reference to how we actually live. This is not to say that it ignores day-to-day communication methods, which by their very nature need to be referenced, but rather that the field of coaching has not moved forwards in its practical or theoretical foundations to consider how the use of technology itself has impacted on us, both emotionally and in relation to how we attempt to live healthy individual lives whether at work, home or play. It may be true that the modern coach will email homework exercises to the coachee or provide downloadable .pdf workbooks on a USB drive to complete by hand, but these tools remain stuck in how we worked before we were able to take advantage of technology.

Modern coach training needs to look at how, for example, the use of a coaching app will fit into the individual’s life, and what the emotional fall out will be in light of that. Will it be a fun tool that makes mood-tracking easier, or will it be yet another electronic task that has to be completed when your coachee would rather be offline completely? If it is the latter, is that forging resentment to the coaching process and possibly you as coach which will impact on the ability to move forwards in changing a life for the better?

As thought leaders in our field, we have constantly made known that in our opinion the use of technology for technology’s sake is to be avoided. It may be convenient that video connections mean we do not need to travel or spend precious resources hiring a consulting room, but if the connection to the Internet is poor, resulting in choppy visuals or broken audio, the coaching process will be seriously damaged. Equally, a smartphone app may have millions of pounds or dollars invested in it, be visually pleasing, and have great emojis to represent our delicate state of mind at any given point, but without a solid connection to Wi-Fi it is pretty much rendered useless.

The importance of the empathetic coach

The coach who rejects the use of technology in their life and work is, of course, just as useful as one who embraces it! We do not pretend that such ways of working no longer exist, or that they should be rendered so out-of-date as to be useless – there is a fine tradition of coaching thought and theory that evidences the life-changing power of the coaching process for the individual before the World Wide Web was invented, and as such it still needs to be recognised as the traditional core of what we do. Using technological means within our work should be seen as an improvement rather than a replacement if they are to be used at all.

The coach who chooses not to develop an awareness of the rise of technology needs to carefully consider their relevance to today’s profession, and their fitness to practice if they are to work with individuals who do embrace technological tools and increasingly rely on it as a normal facet of life and work. There are many avenues of coaching practice that need no modern devices to improve on the core intentions of the work – the Breathing Coach for example may rely entirely on sitting with a coachee and breathing with them as they teach their techniques! However, if this coachee wishes to use an app to help them maintain their work outside of the session, the coach needs an awareness of how such tools work and what the benefits (and indeed pitfalls) may be as it impacts on the work. At the extreme end, the Breathing Coach who rejects such apps denies the client autonomy in how they wish to work on improving their life and health.

This simple example underlines how we as coaches need to fully appreciate the changes in society as they apply to our work in light of technological advancement, and the advent of the Internet in changing how we communicate on a daily basis. We can reject the use of technology and this need not be a bad way of living; but we will only be able to work with an increasingly small niche of clients with a like-minded way of life. If we cannot empathise with our client, we are rendered unable to appreciate changes in lifestyle and work practices that are probably essential in improving their lives.

These coaches may see many positives in a strategy of telling the client to turn off their phones or their laptops, and to find environments where there are no Wi-Fi hotspots – and as a general strategy in reducing stress levels and combating the overwhelm many of us experience in light of information overload that the Internet affords us, this is often good advice! But to assume that being disconnected permanently is the answer to balancing our lives may be compared to amputating an arm to treat a sprained wrist. For the modern coach, to be effective in helping the client improve their lives is to be able to empathise with that way of life, whether it matches our own preferred way of living or not.

The coach as passionate advocate

Equally, we should not assume that our own passion for connected living and electronic tools is shared by our client. The coach who uses the methods of communication and stand-alone programmes that are available to us in modern society may find them intensely useful in both their own life and work, and be enthusiastic in sharing this with colleagues and family as a benefit as to how they can enhance our emotional and practical strategies for maintaining a positive way of being. But the coach as technology zealot when it comes to working with a particular client is rarely a good intervention. There is strong caution to be exercised when advising a client to (for example) email an employer with a list of changes they wish to be made in the workplace to improve their own daily practice. There are well-documented examples of how misinterpretation of the written word can result in disastrous interpersonal relationships, completely negating the intention of the coachee in the first place.

There is, however, a good argument for the Internet-savvy coach to be prepared to educate their clients as to what online or electronically based services there are when they see a good fit. For example, a client who uses a smartphone may be unaware of the myriad of different mood-tracking apps that exist and may find the concept of using the mobile phone as a personal tool attractive. Similarly, the coach well versed in the many types of online support forums is well placed to give appropriate links to their client, particularly when the client needs more therapy-based input in their lives to run alongside the coaching process.

The disinhibited coach

It is also not too early in this book to mention the importance of recognising how communication over electronic means – particularly considering the fast-paced nature of such communications – are strongly influenced by what John Suler named The Online Disinhibition Effect in 2001 (revised in 2004). In our work in the field of technological use within coaching and other forms of therapeutic practice, we have come to recognise disinhibition online as being central to the work in a hugely positive, and equally a hugely negative, way. We shall explore this theme comprehensively in Chapter 7, but in summary we may view it thus:

The nature of working without a physical presence, or with a physical presence but at a distance, means that elements of inhibition that shape our daily interactions as being acceptable in society are either diminished or not apparent at all. Within a coaching or therapy relationship, this is often seen as a positive effect as the client feels freer to discuss elements of their life and emotions that may impact on the work. Conversely, it may be seen as a negative effect as they may display behaviour that is not wise and which they would not display in a face-to-face situation.

Understanding disinhibition and the impact it has on us as coaches is important. One of the first written assignments our students have when training is to examine a situation where they now recognise that they or another were disinhibited – from an inappropriate Twitter interaction to over-sharing personal information on a professional forum....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• About the authors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Cyberculture and its impact on the coaching profession
• 2 Defining coaching and distinguishing it from counselling
• 3 Working without a physical presence (with text)
• 4 Practical issues in coaching
• 5 Applying the IAC Coaching Masteries™ to online coaching
• 6 Ethical framework for technology-delivered coaching
• 7 Essential psychosocial aspects of cyberculture
• 8 Creating a continual professional development programme as an online coach
• 9 A Look to the future and concluding thoughts
• Index