THE MIDDLE AGES
Hello, I am Roach the Coach and I am your guide through the Coaching Chronicles. There are 4,500 species of us cockroaches so we are well placed, across the globe, and across time, to tell you about coaching…
The Middle Ages is characterised by explorers desperate to find new lands, people and treasure. One of the most famous was Marco Polo, a Venetian traveller and writer, and one of the first Westerners to visit China.
Polo’s father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, were jewel merchants. In 1260, they all left Venice to travel to the Black Sea, then joined a diplomatic mission to the court of Kublai Khan, the Mongol ruler of China.
As you know, Kublai Khan or Konsultant Khan as he was known then, ruled with a rod of iron. Konsultant Khan was not an idiot and saw the mentoring dynasties (now known as the Ming Dynasty) and the coaching dynasties (Qin Dynasty) as inevitable.
He saw that the writing was on the wall for his directive way of working and decided to help his people make the transition to non-directive working. He asked Polo to go to Europe and bring back 100 Christians acquainted with the Seven Arts – building rapport, goal setting, contracting, questioning, listening, working ethically and moving to action.
On his way back, Polo thought a lot about what his contribution could be to this new-fangled coaching way of being. As he struggled to find a path home, he realised that he could do with a map to help him find his way. Polo suddenly realised that helping people find their own maps to their destinations would fit beautifully with non-directive coaching. It was up to the ‘client’ to decide where they wanted to go and if they wanted to use the map.
Of course, apart from mapping the territory, Marco Polo’s other legacies include Venice Airport, a breed of sheep and the minty sweet with the hole in the middle.
Another explorer inspired by Polo was Christopher Columbus – he once famously said that “by prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination”.
He wasn’t referencing his exploring activities, but his coaching experiences.
In fact, Columbus was a very accomplished coach. He was one of the first to work in America. People believe that when Columbus claimed he had found America, he meant the land he had discovered. In fact, it was a claim about his coaching discovery:
A Always
M Manage
E Expectations
R Robustly
I In
C Coaching
A Apaches
One thing all coaches can learn from the great coaches of the Middle Ages is the importance of exploring. For example, Dante was busy writing The Divine Comedy. This book has been hailed as one of the greatest literary works ever composed in the Italian language. Second only to the song, Shaddup You Face by Joe Dolce.
Dante was born in Florence at a time when mentoring and non-directive ways of being were becoming the norm. Dante’s mother died when he only 10 and her loss meant he had no constant source of help or guidance. But he was smart – he realised that he would have to develop a map to guide him through his life choices. Dante also knew that keeping a journal was an excellent way to capture his thoughts and learning.
And so he began his work on The Divine Comedy. His book is littered with maps and charts that he created to help him on his coaching journey including:
Purgatory Chart: This details the CPD activity
and lifelong learning
programme he followed
through his career
Chart of Hell: This sets out the process to
accreditation with a
professional body
Paradise Chart: Containing his client
feedback
Inferno Chart: Summarising the coach
selection processes he
endured and the invoicing
procedures of his clients
Dante’s Map: This was his ultimate
masterpiece. His five-step
coaching framework:
Dream
Act
Nurture
Tinker
Evaluate
So remember the Middle Ages put coaching on the map. As J R R Tolkien said: “Not all those who wander are lost.”
- Sam Humphrey is an independent coach