Coaching has become an increasingly multifaceted and complex industry and market. Against this backdrop, in the latest in its occasional column on trends, coaching think-tank, the Future of Coaching Collaboration, explores how stakeholders and service providers are responding to the needs and interests of internal coaches and sponsors
In the Future of Coaching Collaboration ( FCC) group we seek to bring together and give voice to the different parts of the complex ecosystem around coaching in organisations. This includes from coaching buyers, providers, academics and professional bodies.
This ecosystem is not only a multifaceted space but an increasingly crowded one, especially for coaches in organisations. How different from only a few years ago when coaching sponsors often felt alone and adrift, seeking out informal networks where they could share concerns with peers.
Our industry is maturing. Coaching has moved in-house to a significant degree, is no longer the preserve of executives and is embracing both the virtual world, with MS Teams and Zoom the key medium for the industry through the pandemic, and the digital world through ‘coach bots’.
Engagement/response
These changes have been followed by a shift in the way coaching bodies, academic institutions and suppliers seek to engage with coaches and coaching sponsors in organisations. Whereas five years ago you might have struggled to find the right networking experience as an internal coach – today you’re spoilt for choice. Coaching bodies recognise that a significant part of their market are in-house coaches, many of whom seek accreditation and continuing professional development (CPD) or continuing personal and professional development (CPPD). Coaching providers are responding to the growing sophistication of their buyers with a more nuanced approach to relationship building and means of adding value.
Behind all this are the stalwarts of reflective practice, the academic institutions, who don’t tend to stratify their audience by role, but rather by the depth of their curiosity. Universities are where we go for serious reflection and research into what drives coaching impact, a key concern of coaching sponsors and committed in-house coaches.
The training and accreditation market has held a view that the needs of internal coaches and external coaches are broadly similar, with greater focus on efficiency in the case of internal coaches (given they’re often operating as coaches as an add-on to their day job) and sometimes with a managerial or mentoring dimension that’s valued by their organisation.
This is fair to a point, though it won’t remain so. Internal coaching models are maturing and diversifying, as are the needs and interests of the internal coach. Solutions like the coaching apprenticeship model have been developed to bring more flexibility to the route to competence, and the concept of coaching-style conversations has become central to leading with empathy. ‘Leader as coach’ is the latest trend that many more organisations are adopting to humanise their culture in the face of both demographics and the pandemic.
Coaching sponsors
The not-so-new kids on the block are the coaching sponsors who’ve moved from being perceived as gatekeepers a decade ago to strategic shapers of coaching culture, roles, standards and services in organisations today. These are the people that professional bodies want to engage with to better understand the evolution of the industry and who providers want to get alongside to promote their solutions.
When we ask what sponsors want from networks, we hear the following:
- A safe space to talk about real issues with people who get my concerns
- A place where I can explore coaching without being ‘sold to’
- New ideas to drive efficiency and effective delivery and management of coaching in organisations
- Somewhere we can go to learn, so we don’t make the same mistakes as others in earlier stages of their journey
- A place where we can exert an influence on how ‘coaching’ develops
- Access to straightforward, pragmatic solutions and evidence that helps us build the business case for coaching
- New learning that we can cascade to our coaches in accessible and cost-effective ways, generating scale differently from the external industry
- Development of standards that help us work to an external ethical code and professionalise what we do
Table 1 offers some questions to ponder around identifying your wants and needs in engaging with the coaching ecosystem.
Table 1: What do you want from the coaching ecosystem?
How do you choose who to engage with and when? Here are some filtering questions to help you find the right balance of support:
- Are you a coaching sponsor or coach practitioner? Is your interest strategic or practitioner focused?
- Is it the network, or access to knowledge/training/accreditation, that’s more important to you?
- Is meeting with sector peers important for you?
- How deeply do you want to engage? Are you up for being an active and contributing member or do you only want to be a relatively passive recipient?
- What’s the balance of intimacy and breadth you’re looking for – will you benefit more from learning sets or conferences?
- Do you want on-demand solutions and materials or real-time conversations?
- Do you want an exclusively coaching community, a community of people management and OD/talent professionals or a mixed community of coaches and providers?
- Do you want an in-country network, or a more international one?
- Is this more for your development, for your organisation, or so you can contribute to the coaching ecosystem?
Supporting internal coaches and coaching sponsors
At the FCC we seek out and give voice to different parts of the coaching ecosystem. Here’s what some of our stakeholders say about why and how they support internal coaches and coaching sponsors:
A place to consider strategic issues
Leadership coaching company, CoachSource: “Many of our clients ask us if they could talk to another of our clients about a given issue they’re struggling with – so we thought creating a forum to help make that happen more readily would be welcomed! In many organisations, even large ones, it seems the person overseeing coaching is often a ‘party of one’. Usually they are highly passionate about coaching’s success in their organisation, but they are often operating on their own, not easily able to benchmark with others, learn the latest thought leadership, or to just ‘make sure they’re doing it right’ when talking to peers.”
Professional services firm, Grant Thornton: “About 10 years ago we recognised in our firm a need to incorporate a growth mindset. This led to us building our business development and leadership development programmes around an accredited coach development programme and sharing our experiences with our clients. The interest this generated led to us leading the trailblazer group for the new Coaching Professional apprenticeship standard and running regular networking events.”
European Mentoring & Coaching Council (EMCC): “We have developed Global Circles, where sponsors are able to share and work on best practice with other multinational organisations (often by sector).
These Circles serve as a platform for benchmarking the internal coaching practices of various major global corporate leaders in respective sectors.”
A private, safe, sometimes exclusive, space:
CoachSource: “Most of the gatherings in the coaching field are vastly attended by external coaches. Our Coaching Champions Community is open only by invitation to corporate HR and learning leaders responsible for executive coaching in their organisation. Our events feature a facilitator and two panellists from member organisations, so it is led by organisational sponsors themselves.”
A place to grow as coaches and to strengthen enquiry:
Association for Professional Executive Coaching and Supervision (APECS): “An environment where they can continue their CPPD….We provide a business, society, psychology and reflective practice – systems informed – set of standards, with a focus on coaching, team coaching and supervision in business environments. The related master level accreditation process allows and respects diverse individual experiences, by being capabilities based, developmental, qualitative and enabled by reflective practice and dialogue.”
Oxford Brookes University: “Mostly our activities are intended to develop communities of practice and the interaction of practice with theory and evidence-based practice.” Oxford Brookes University Coaching and Mentoring Society runs two annual conferences: on research and on supervision.
EMCC: “Our affiliated country organisations in the UK, France and Belgium have been organising a bi-annual two-day conference for internal coaches.”
External standards that internal coaches can hold themselves to:
EMCC: According to the EMCC, the Global Code of Ethics, with its eight co-signatories, is very useful for all coaching practitioners, including the internal coaches in corporates. The third version of the Code (July 2021) reflects the expansive range of client work, use of digitalisation and AI, and inherent challenges to ethical practice around diversity, inclusion and privacy.
In addition, the EMCC says, “We have realised that there is still a gap where the in-house coaches themselves are looking for peer discussion inside (easier to fix) and outside their own organisations (harder to fix), skill development and (often) supervision. Our aim is to broaden the scope of our current membership packages to reach these in-house coaches and provide them with the opportunity to address their needs irrespective of geography.”
Association for Coaching (AC):
The AC has launched a Leader Coach Accreditation Scheme to enhance how it supports and develops leaders in the workplace. The coach is required to work effectively to the AC Coaching Competency Framework (https://bit.ly/3j8XEO7). The focus is on fitness to practise rather than theory. Contact: accreditationoffice@associationforcoaching.com
Support for leaders seeking to enhance the reputation of coaching internally:
International Coach Federation (ICF): The ICF’s Coaching in Organisations (CIO) network provides access to insight, and research services in a one-stop shop that makes it easier for organisations to procure, and disseminate.
A way to connect with credible providers:
APECS: “We provide access to a community of experienced supervisors and access to master accredited experienced executive coaches, supervisors, and team coaches.”
A place to collaborate and move our industry forward:
ICF: ICF CIO members in the UK have a safe space to network. They can co-create the agenda and start evolving coaching strategy and practice together.
FCC: Subgroups are pointed to discuss current issues according to multi-stakeholder interests, eg, Technology and Coaching Group ( looking at the interplay between both) or the Coaching Research Portal (home to new original knowledge and research in coaching from different sources).
Conclusion
We notice a proliferation of support for coaches in organisations with the power of peer learning at the core. Where you connect may depend on who you already know, as well as what you are looking for. Many support routes are free or low cost. Engaging from your organisational sponsor role rather than your coach practitioner role can open access to a wide range of expertise, cost-effective CPPD and a community of likeminded people.
There’s a world of riches out there among your fellow travellers. Our advice is to reach out, connect and enjoy the ride together.
More about the FCC
The Future of Coaching Collaboration (FCC) is a multi-stakeholder group with representatives from corporates, leading coaching professional bodies in the UK, academia, research institutes and Coaching at Work magazine.
FCC was launched in April 2015 with the aim of collaborating, professionalising and innovating to safeguard the coaching profession. The group emerged from the Coaching at Work-led Accreditation Forum, which gathered together coaching professional body representatives with coaching sponsors to increase collaboration. Work done by members of the Forum led to initiatives including a set of tables, comparing coaching professional bodies’ ethos, rationales and philosophies.
- FCC Coaching Knowledge Portal: https://bit.ly/3kWg86S
- To connect with the FCC reach out to us at: http://bit.ly/36jKOo8