Coaching with Research in Mind

Rebecca J. Jones

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429776892
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Psychology
• Sous-sujet: Industrial & Organizational Psychology

How can coaches maximise the effectiveness of their practice?

What can research tell us about how and why coaching 'works'?

How can we use the evidence base to enable others to reach their full potential?

Coaching with Research in Mind brings together cutting-edge research in coaching and psychology, accessibly summarises the findings, and provides a clear and specific breakdown of what research tells us coaches and leaders should be doing and why.

Rebecca J. Jones provides practitioners with the information and guidance they need to apply research in their practice, explaining how coaches can understand coachee characteristics, how they impact the coaching process and how coaches should adapt their practice to accommodate them. The book explains how to identify which principles of the coaching process influence effectiveness and tailor practice to maximise their impact. Jones also explores the impact of environmental factors and assesses how their influence can be limited.

Coaching with Research in Mind will be essential reading for both new and experienced coaches looking to enhance the effectiveness and impact of their coaching, and for managers, leaders and L&D procurers who utilise coaching as a leadership style.

Section Three

The coaching process

Given the number of books that have been published that focus on the content of this chapter – the coaching process – and the fact that generally, coach education concentrates on understanding different tools, techniques, and approaches in coaching, I am going to start this section with a potentially controversial claim: there is minimal evidence to suggest that there is any difference in the impact of these coaching approaches, tools, and techniques on the outcomes from coaching. Let us first look at the minimal evidence that has been conducted in this respect.

Grant and colleagues (Braunstein & Grant, 2016; Grant, 2012; Grant & Gerrard, 2020; Grant & O’Connor, 2010) have sought to compare the relative effectiveness of solution-focused coaching questions compared to problem-focused coaching questions in a series of experimental studies. While these studies do not purport to replicate actual coaching conditions (they are all conducted in the space of a one-hour session in which participants answer a series of either solution-focused or problem-focused questions in relation to a personal problem they would like to address), they do offer some initial evidence that solution-focused questions (compared to problem-focused questions) tend to have greater effects on outcomes such as increasing positive affect or mood, increasing self-efficacy, and perceived goal progression and decreasing negative affect or mood. However, it should be noted that these studies are all conducted on student samples, and data is collected at both time one (the pre-measure) and time two (the post-intervention measure) in the space of one hour. These conditions mean that the intervention used in these studies have little comparability to a real-life coaching intervention.

Sun et al. (2013) sought to compare the impact of coaching approaches on the relationship between coach and coachee. In this study, 39 support staff working within mental health organizations in Australia attended a three-day training programme on coaching skills and were allocated to either skills or transformational coaching condition. The authors describe skills coaching as directed at improving a coachees’ skill or competence, whereas transformational coaching is directed at helping coachees to shift to a higher level of functioning by changing habitual responses to issues (Hawkins & Smith, 2010). The final day of training varied depending on the condition participants were allocated to either focusing on skills or on transformational coaching. The participants then received 12 coaching sessions (one a month for 12 months), provided by an internal coach who coached the participants using either a skills or transformational coaching approach. Sun et al. (2013) hypothesized that participants in the transformational coaching approach would experience a stronger coaching relationship, including high levels of rapport, to enable the discussion of thoughts, feelings, and values. Whereas for participants in the skills coaching, the coaching relationship may be less important as issues discussed tend to be more skills performance-oriented (i.e. specific work-related behaviours) and less focused on personal development or change. Sun et al. (2013) proposed that coachees who participate in skills coaching may also be expected to invest less of ‘themselves’ in their coaching than those who participated in transformational coaching (Crowe, Oades, Deane, Ciarrochi, & Williams, 2011; Hawkins & Smith, 2010). Sun et al. (2013) found that transformational coaching resulted in a stronger coaching relationship from the perspective of both coaches and coachees, in that, after three or more sessions, rating of the coaching relationship had improved in transformational coaching but not in skills coaching. This is an interesting study that provides an exploration of the role of the coaching relationship in two different types of coaching; however, unfortunately, the authors do not report any detail on coaching outcomes, and therefore, it is not known whether these different approaches and the difference in the coaching relationship had any impact on the achievement of outcomes following coaching.

When we look at these studies in relation to the quality of evidence, the conclusion is not very favourable. For example, neither the series of studies by Grant and colleagues nor the study by Sun et al. (2013) has a clear theoretical underpinning to explain why they anticipate the effects that they predict. In relation to the consistency of evidence, Sun et al.’s (2013) study is the first study investigating this topic; therefore, we are unable to draw any conclusions regarding the consistency of evidence. Grant and colleagues have found relatively consistent results; however, this is not particularly surprising given that the studies reported are in essence a series of replication studies, with very little differences between either the intervention, sample, or measurements across the studies. In relation to the directness of intervention, the directness is very low for the Grant studies as they have isolated one aspect of coaching (the questions) and explored these in a highly controlled experimental setting over the course of one hour only – this intervention, therefore, bears little resemblance to coaching as has been defined in this text and elsewhere. The directness of intervention is also problematic with the Sun et al.’s (2013) study, as while the coaching (either skills or transformational) is more recognizable as ‘coaching’, the focus of the coaching for all participants was as part of a wider programme to learn coaching skills themselves; therefore, the context for this coaching intervention is relatively unique. Finally, with regard to the directness of outcome, no outcomes from coaching were measured in the Sun et al.’s (2013) study, instead the purpose was to assess whether there were differences in the depth of the relationship between coach and coachee dependant on the coaching approach. Therefore, we are unable to draw any conclusions regarding the subsequent impact of these differences on outcomes following coaching. With the Grant studies, all of the outcomes assessed were self-reported from the coachees’ perspective, which means that we would conclude that these are low quality; ideally, third-party ratings or objective outcomes would also have been assessed. Consequently, we would have to conclude that, to date, very little research has been conducted to investigate whether the coaching approach makes a difference to the outcomes from coaching, and furthermore, the research that has been conducted is low in quality and therefore conclusions drawn from these studies must be tentative.

If we accept that the evidence related to coaching processes is limited, it may be helpful to review the evidence from other disciplines. Frequent comparisons have been drawn from the research evidence in the field of counselling and psychotherapy to coaching. As both counselling and psychotherapy hold many similarities to coaching, particularly in terms of the focus on the one-to-one relationship between the client and the practitioner and the role the practitioner takes as more of a listener than an advisor, these comparisons can provide valuable insights into what might make coaching effective. As practitioners working in the field of coaching, we can benefit from the many decades of research that have been dedicated to exploring what works in counselling and psychotherapy, such as the exploration of the impact of the process, approach, or technique on client outcomes in counselling and psychotherapy.

In his text summarizing the research findings related to the practice of counselling and psychotherapy, which was commissioned by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, Cooper (2008) highlights that ‘there is an overwhelming body of evidence to suggest that there is little difference in how efficacious different psychological therapies are (even though it is evident that the therapists are doing quite different things)’ (p. 50). Linked to this point, it has been suggested by Asay and Lambert (1999) that the therapists’ approach or model and technique account for just around 15% of the variance in client improvement following psychotherapy. Instead, the largest contributing factor is thought to be client variables, including events occurring in the client’s life outside of therapy, which are thought to account for around 40% of the variance in client improvement. Next is the therapeutic relationship which is thought to account for around 30% of the variance and finally the client’s expectations or hope around improvement following psychotherapy (otherwise known as the placebo effect) is thought to account for around 15% of variance in improvement.

It is important to be conscious that while we can learn from the counselling and psychotherapy evidence, it is unlikely that all findings will directly translate to coaching, due in part to the differences in the reasons why individuals seek coaching compared to the reasons why individuals seek counselling and psychotherapy. Despite the differences between counselling, psychotherapy, and coaching, it is likely, based on the evidence, that the coaching process is not one of the biggest contributing factors to positive outcomes following coaching.

If, therefore, we are arguing that the coaching process is likely to make little difference to the outcomes from coaching, what is the focus of the chapters in this section? While I propose that coaching approaches, tools, and techniques all have a similar impact on coaching outcomes, this is because they all serve a similar purpose. It is this purpose that is the focus of these chapters. In my view, all coaching approaches, tools, and techniques facilitate the application of three core processes. It is these three core processes that impact how effective coaching is, and, therefore, a coach can ensure they engage with these three core processes during their coaching to make their coaching as effective as possible. These core processes are the use of goal-setting, enabling learning through reflection, and planning for action. It is these core processes that influence the impact of coaching regardless of which specific tool or technique you use in coaching, as long as they are facilitating the application of these processes. It is these processes that will make a difference, not the tool or technique or framework for structuring the format of the questions, or even the type of questions that are asked. As outlined in the previous section on the coachee, your coachee will have preferences that might influence how likely they are to engage positively with these tools and techniques, and this may have an influence on the impact of coaching, this is why it is so important to understand your coachee and tailor your approach appropriately. However, this is as far, in my view, as the difference in this impact goes.

The chapters in this section are focused on these three processes: goal-setting (Chapter 8), enabling learning through reflection (Chapter 9), and planning for action (Chapter 10). In each chapter, I will explain what we know about how this process is likely to influence the effectiveness of coaching based on the evidence and then provide some specific recommendations for your own practice.

Chapter 8

Goal-setting

It is interesting that as coaches seem to get more experienced, are closer towards becoming what one might consider to be a ‘master’ coach, they often tend to become a little distant from the importance of goal-setting in coaching. True, that anyone learning about coaching almost certainly starts by learning about the GROW model as outlined originally by Whitmore (2017), with the ‘G’ in this model forming the goal-setting element. This framework shows us how to frame a coaching conversation, with the discussion of the coachee’s goal forming the start point of this discussion. Perhaps then, there is the perception among some, that as goal-setting is used so centrally in this ‘beginners’ approach to coaching, that once you move beyond being a ‘beginner’ coach, you don’t need to worry so much about goal-setting. However, I am going to present the case in this chapter that as coaches, we should very much worry about goal-setting, regardless of how experienced or advanced we are as coaches. The reason for this is that there are not many aspects of behavioural change that compare to goal-setting in terms of the wealth of evidence that demonstrate how effective it is at generating changes in performance. We know from decades of well-designed, well-executed research, that goal-setting motivates individuals and makes a difference in how they perform. Furthermore, we know a significant amount about the different conditions in goal-setting that influence this motivation and performance change. More than 1,000 empirical studies of the effects of goal-setting consistently show that specific, challenging goals lead to improved performance (Mitchell & Daniels, 2003). However, interestingly, despite the wealth of research on goal-setting generally and the centrality of goals in most coaching approaches, there is virtually no research that directly explores the role of goal-setting in coaching.

In my experience, while many coaches might start with goal-setting as a ‘beginner’ coach, they actually know very little about creating the right conditions to maximize the impact of this goal-setting. Frustratingly, as I have noted, more experienced coaches often then tend to move on from using goals, perhaps considering them too much of a basic approach to be of concern. In this chapter, I will hopefully convince the reader why it is important to always use goal-setting in coaching (whether that is using the GROW model or any other tool, technique, or approach in coaching). Furthermore, to use goal-setting right, it is far from a beginner or basic technique as there are a number of important conditions or factors that will influence the impact of how effective goal-setting is. Let’s start by defining what we mean by goal-setting in the context of coaching.

What is goal-setting?

Setting goals is such a common aspect of our everyday life that it almost seems ridiculous to write this section titled ‘what is goal-setting’ – surely this is common sense? One aspect of research that gives me a sense of perverse satisfaction is when we conduct research and confirm a finding that people...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Section One An introduction to coaching
• Section Two The coachee
• Section Three The coaching process
• Section Four The role of the organization
• Section Five Conclusion
• Research in action: Coach biographies
• Index