IS IT ON THE CARDS?
A coach at a global organisation has discovered that his client, who wants promotion, is heading towards a disciplinary. However, his boss hasn’t told him this. Can supervision help the coach find clarity?
A large multinational engineering company employs seven executive coaches. There ought to be clarity around the desired coaching outcomes through clear contracting and open discussion, yet this is proving hit and miss. HR has approached one of the coaches to take on an individual. The coach had an initial meeting with the client, who saw coaching as a way to support his hoped-for transition into senior management. However, his boss has told the coach that the client is heading towards a disciplinary ( a ‘yellow card’), even though the boss hasn’t told the client.
In the words of Edna Murdoch, co-founder, Coaching Supervision Academy: “Supervision explores what is going on deep inside the coach as they work, and encourages reflection on the relationship between the coach and their coachee. The organisation itself cannot be ignored. The coach goes away with a clear ‘super’ vision of their practice and some areas for self-reflection and development.”
Keeping in mind these words and the seven-eyed model of supervision developed by Peter Hawkins, how can this coach’s supervisor help him to be a better coach for this client, without ignoring the organisation, and learn from this for the future?
Neil Williams
Founder, NVW Solutions
It seems that the two objectives are incompatible in order for the coach to coach the individual and yet satisfy the company’s intentions. Also, ethically, I am wondering if my coach client should be coaching someone who doesn’t know there’s a disciplinary issue lurking. As supervisor, I would need more information about what is really happening. Are HR and the boss really working together and do they have the same agenda?
Ideally, the intake meeting should take place with both boss and client, to establish the coaching objectives, but this does not appear to have happened at contracting stage.
If it is a ‘yellow card’ situation, this should have been discussed by the boss and his direct report (my client’s client). I would encourage the coach to consider how to bring it into the open, preferably with the boss “coming clean”.
If the boss won’t do this, then I suggest the coach gets an agreement from his client that he will deal with the performance issue before coaching recommences. The coach should not be doing the work of the boss. What is the company culture?
As my client’s supervisor I would encourage them to ensure clear contracting with all parties, going forward. I would also encourage them to reflect on the importance of their own role and responsibility.
I would feed back to my client my concerns about the possibility of them being used by the management, instead of them fulfilling their roles. I would ask the coach to consider what they could do to establish the best route so a clear contract is redrawn and everybody is in agreement.
Jackie Arnold
Founder, Clean Executive Coach
As a Clean Language coach supervisor I would start by asking: “What would you like to have happen?”
I would summarise the answer for the coach to hear, then continue to ask clean questions to establish how the coach had set up the sessions (the contract) and what meetings he had had with all parties. I would ask questions such as “…and what happened just before your meeting with HR and the boss”, to establish his thought process before contracting. Once I had a clear picture of the way the supervisee had set up this contract, I would delve further.
In this case, it is clear that the objectives for the coaching were not agreed with all parties. My question would therefore be
“…and when the boss and your supervisee have conflicting coaching outcomes, what needs to happen next?”
At this juncture I would introduce the visual “box” in order for the supervisee to have clarity and a helicopter view of the situation.
I would ask questions such as: “…and is there anything else about clarity and openness in this relationship?”
This would allow the supervisee to “see” the situation and to consider all possibilities. Then I may go back to the first eye of the model (seven-eyed model) and ask “…and when you’re noticing your own coaching and remaining client-centred, you’re like ….what?”
We would ensure in a collaborative way that the supervisee goes away with a robust action plan.