THE ISSUE
An organisation has negotiated a contract with a coaching consultancy for 50 of its executives to have ongoing executive coaching for six months, with up to six sessions per person. The contract has been negotiated and agreed between the organisation’s head of L & D and the MD of the consultancy. The CEO of the client organisation has no experience of being coached.
Alex is an experienced executive coach working as an associate on this assignment. He has never met the head of L & D or any of the line managers of his assigned coaches, one of whom is Charlie.
Charlie believes he is being groomed for promotion, and this is also Alex’s understanding which underpins the purpose of the coaching. Unbeknownst to either of them a customer has lodged a complaint to Charlie’s line manager about the quality of his customer care.
Alex receives regular supervision for this assignment, provided by the consultancy. The supervisor’s contract is to support the coaches and provide feedback to the consultancy about any recurring themes from the coaching team and/or if he/she has concerns with any one coach or dyad in the programme. The Head of L & D and the consultancy MD meet monthly to review progress and to share any concerns they have about the programme as a whole or any of the coaching assignments.
- The above is adapted with thanks from an example in Carroll & Gilbert, Becoming an Executive Coach: Creating Learning Partnerships, London: Vukani, 2008
THE INTERVENTIONS
Alison Hodge
Executive coach and APECS accredited coach supervisor
Alex’s situation is an all-too-familiar one coaches bring to supervision. Alex appears to have been briefed by the consultancy with little discussion or contracting with either line manager or head of L & D. These conversations would enable him to agree realistic and appropriate coaching outcomes with his client. He may only discover the underlying agenda once he’s in the middle of the work, which raises key questions around whose need Alex serves and how the coaching will be evaluated.
Questions include what contracts need to be set up/agreed, what needs to be explicit in each of these contracts, what factors need to be considered within each contract, and what are some of the possible pitfalls in this complex system.
In addressing these, I am curious about the consultancy and their approach to this assignment. How and why does the consultancy allow their associate coaches to engage in what might be called a ‘duplicitous’ agenda (ie, performance issue not promotion). What stops them actively encouraging the coaches to understand the organisational context more thoroughly? What has inhibited or prevented Alex the coach from seeking to contract these terms with the consultancy? Why might Alex hesitate to engage with the line manager and/or L & D up front? What has prevented the consultancy from engaging with the CEO who has no direct experience of the relevance or value of coaching? How might the consultancy gain a more thorough appreciation of the context and issues the organisation is facing that will give the coaches clearer purpose?
Without a frame for the purpose of the coaching and how it may contribute to the overall change or development intentions, I wonder how effective this programme may be and what changes the organisation might hope to achieve with those enrolled as clients. Likewise, how will the coaches be able to evaluate their contribution and effectiveness through this programme?
Lorenza Clifford
CSA qualified and AOCS accredited coach supervisor
It’s immensely helpful with a complex contract to map out the ‘territory’. Seeing different parties on paper with lines of communication drawn in allows me to ask: what has been agreed already between X and Y, and does Z know about this? What are the existing expectations in the relationship between A and B, and how does adding C alter that? My training in Transactional Analysis has taught me to draw in the triangles between myself as supervisor, and between the coaches in their positions.
I have marked four of these on the figure (see below) that I would consider most valuable; from my perspective without further information. I don’t think you have to be involved in all of the conversations, because other parties can add information once they have clarity. You may assist by being curious about what lines of communication are open, what has been agreed, and what they don’t know or have assumed, to stimulate conversations they need to have. Consider:
- Purpose and context
- Roles, agendas, performance
- Needs, preferences, expectations of parties
- Appropriate communication
- Desired outcomes and consequences
As an external coach or supervisor, your offer to have extensive three-way conversations may not be taken up by cost-conscious line managers who are busy focusing on their people and client work. You can influence them by spelling out the benefits and value: eg, setting the coaching on a strong developmental foundation; recognising the real starting point for performance conversations.
Another approach is to look with your client at the risk: eg, what would be the consequence of not having clarity and agreement about how confidentiality and feedback will be handled? What anecdotes could you give of this?
References and further information
- M Carroll & M Gilbert, Becoming an Executive Coach: Creating Learning Partnerships, London: Vukani, 2008
- R Napper & T Newton, TACTICS, 2000
- www.taresources.co.uk
