As we try to identify good coaches and ensure some quality control, is it time to review our competencies, asks Dr Carmelina Lawton-Smith of Oxford Brookes University Business School
How would you recognise a good coach? It’s a challenge that so many individuals and organisations wrestle with. Often the approach is based on little more than trial and error. Yet we know that knowledge and experience in a field may be a very poor reflection of coaching expertise. Knowledge of an industry can generate collusion and a consultancy mentality.
Often, the contact is initiated by personal recommendation, but we know that rapport and matching can be important considerations (De Haan, 2008), so a good coach for one person may not be a good coach for another.
Authors recommend a ‘chemistry’ meeting to help select the right coach (Jarvis, 2004), but Wycherley and Cox (2008) highlight that this seems a “rather limited and imprecise” way of selecting a suitable coach. They conclude “there are benefits from focusing on the objective selection of coaches using robust standards and criteria, rather than relying on surface or deep diversity factors or subjective matching approaches based on initial rapport” (p49).
In an effort to provide these “robust standards and criteria”, a number of professional bodies have produced competency frameworks. For example, the European Mentoring and Coaching Council UK has published a competency framework as part of its “quest to develop our profession, to promote good practice and to educate and enable clients of coaching and mentoring to demand good practice”.
Such frameworks ‘speak the language’ of organisations and attempt to define the key competencies required of coaches to demonstrate their expertise. But can a list of competencies ensure the quality of the coach? If not, what is the point of them?
Value of frameworks
Competency frameworks can be valuable in defining the core learning that might drive initial qualification or entry to the profession. They allow a minimum benchmark to be set, but may be less useful in assessing quality and predicting future effectiveness.
There are a number of issues with the application of competency frameworks in the coaching context. The diversity apparent in coaching makes it hard to be definitive about which list of competencies is most appropriate.
We know that more than one list of potential competencies can be effective (Bono et al., 2009). If alternative accreditation frameworks are equally valuable, then none may reflect a set of core competencies required in coaching. In addition, De Haan et al. (2011) identified that the behaviours clients found “most helpful” were listening, understanding and encouragement, so it may be possible for an effective coaching relationship to exist based on these alone.
Coaching approaches such as ‘The Thinking Environment’ (Kline, 2009) can prove effective despite demonstrating very few of the expected competencies, and Griffiths and Campbell (2008) also found when evaluating the International Coach Federation core competencies that there were a number of anomalies and overlaps.
Such variability in competency lists may reflect the view that different contexts require different approaches and support, say Fillery-Travis and Lane (2006) who suggest that assessing the competent coach relies on knowing “effective for what”. Such issues raise questions about the value of such competencies to assess quality and predict future performance.
Capabilities approach
Many authors highlight that the effective coach is far more than “a set of skills and techniques” (Wang, 2013), as might be implied by competencies. In fact, the more experienced the coach, the less reliant they are on established tools and techniques. Their confidence often results in greater risk taking and more innovation.
Coaching competencies define behaviours and activities that were successful in the past so may prove less so in a fast-changing environment where innovation and creativity is required. As Drake (2011) notes, “many of these competencies seems less useful for assessing and developing people at more advanced levels”.
One might then question how effective a list of competencies can be in identifying the best coaches.
The coaching context also brings additional complications. Garvey notes that “competency frameworks and standards carry with them assumptions of control, simplification, reductionism, predictability and compliance” (2011, p63). But in such a complex field this predictability may not be assured.
Organisations may therefore use a competency-based assessment that might not be justified. This has led Bachkirova and Lawton-Smith (2015) to question “whether such frameworks are fit for purpose” and to highlight that the complexity and unpredictability of coaching may need a new model. They suggest one that builds on the competency frameworks with a set of “capabilities”.
“A capabilities approach… is explicit in appreciation of the diversity of coaching styles in contrast to excessive universality of competencies that aim for predictability of the coaching process. A capabilities approach implies an approach to coach training and education that allows the development of the coach in congruence with the individual’s characteristics and values, who they are as a person and not only as an opportunity to assimilate a repertoire of competencies.” (p131)
We might therefore argue that although lists of competencies have made a significant contribution to the development of coaching, they may now be in need of review.
Dr Carmelina Lawton-Smith is an independent coach and senior lecturer on the MA Coaching and Mentoring Practice at Oxford Brookes University Business School.
clawton-smith@brookes.ac.uk
References
- T Bachkirova and C Lawton-Smith, ‘From competencies to capabilities in the assessment and accreditation of coaches’, in International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching, 13(2), pp123-140, 2015 http://ijebcm.brookes.ac.uk/
- J Bono, R Purvanova, A Towler and D Peterson, ‘A survey of executive coaching practices’, in Personnel Psychology, 62, pp361-404, 2009
- E de Haan, Relational Coaching: Journeys Towards Mastering One-to-One Learning, Chichester, UK: John Wiley, 2008
- E de Haan, V Culpin and J Curd, ‘Executive coaching in practice: What determines helpfulness for coaching clients’, in Personnel Review, pp24-44, 2011
- D Drake, ‘What do coaches need to know? Using the Mastery Window to assess and develop expertise’, in Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 4(2), pp138-155, 2011
- European Mentoring and Coaching Council UK (2009) [online] https://emccuk.org
- A Fillery-Travis and D Lane, ‘Does coaching work or are we asking the wrong question?’, in International Coaching Psychology Review, 1(1), pp23-36, 2006
- B Garvey, A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Coaching and Mentoring. London: Sage, 2011
- D Gray, ‘Journeys towards the professionalisation of coaching: Dilemmas, dialogues and decisions along the global pathway’, in Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 4(1), pp4-19, 2011
- K Griffiths and M Campbell, ‘Regulating the regulators: Paving the way for international, evidence based coaching standards’, in International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 6(1), pp19-31, 2008
- J Jarvis, Coaching and Buying Coaching Services. London: CIPD, 2004
- N Kline, Time to Think: Listening to Ignite the Human Mind (2nd Ed), London: Ward Lock, 2009
- Q Wang, ‘Structure and characteristics of effective coaching practice’, in The Coaching Psychologist, 9(1), pp7-17, 2013
- I Wycherley and E Cox, ‘Factors in the selection and matching of executive coaches in organisations’, in Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 1(1), pp39-53, March 2008, ISSN 1752-1882
Join the conversation
Are competencies enough in coaching? Have your say. Go to: http://bit.ly/1K96JuI