Edgar Schein: Process Consultant or Coach?

Vikki, excellent contribution. I haven´t found many people, coaches among them, who know Ed Schein work and ideas. I have read all three books on Process Consultation and many Schein´s articles and I´m sure coaching practice would benefit from applying Schein ideas regarding Process Consultation. Just take, for example, the 10 principles of PC and his ideas about inquiry.

BTW in your article you are quoting Schein¬¨¬•s article ‚Äö√Ñ√∫Coaching and consultation revisited: are they the same?‚Äö√Ñ√π published in the book “Coaching for Leadership: The Practice of Leadership Coaching from the World’s Greatest Coaches” by Marshall Goldsmith (editor):

http://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Leadership-Practice-Greatest-Coaches/dp/0787977632

Keep Up the Good Work!

Thanks Abiel for the addition of where to find the book. I actually have a copy of Schein’s 1969 edition of Process Consultation.

Schein¬¨¬•s distinctions about when we are in a coaching relationship and when NOT are kind of striking for some people, mostly who work doing “executive coaching” and working for companies where someone else besides the client set the agenda in their “coaching” sessions with executives of those companies.

Schein is emphatic that we must make a clear distinction between two situations: 1) when a client defines the helping (coaching) situation as “one in which he or she wants individual help to work on a personal issue” and 2) when “a manager asks someone to take on a coaching role to work with an individual to improve job performance or to overcome some developmental deficiencies”.

In 1) “the resulting process can be likened to counseling or therapy,” and in 2) we are talking about something that could be related to “indoctrination or coercive persuasion”.

Schein is clear: “If an organization `imposes’ a coach and a predetermined direction of learning then by definition we are dealing with indoctrination, not coaching”.

These Schein¬¨¬•s ideas are now related with “non directive” schools of coaching.

(Quotes from Schein´s article “Coaching and consultation revisited: are they the same?”)

A very interesting side of Edgar Schein’s work of Process Consultation that could be very useful to incorporate in coaching practice (if you are not doing it right now) is the use of “Active Inquiry”. The assumption underlying Active Inquiry is that the client will reveal essential facts about the his /her situation when he trust the consultant / coach.

Active Inquiry is useful because:

1. Builds up the client’s status and confidence in the helping relationship.

2. Coach / Consultant gather as much information as possible.

3. Involves the client in the diagnosis and generation of solutions / courses of action.

4. Creates a helping relationship that is safe for sharing facts and feelings.

Schein describes three levels of Active Inquiry: pure inquiry, exploratory/diagnostic inquiry, and ‚Äö√Ñ√∫confrontive” inquiry.

Pure inquiry, is intended to stimulate full disclosure from the client. It begins with silence from the coach / consultant, due to the fact that he´s just trying to get the story in a very factual way.

At this level, “who” and “when” questions are appropriate “why” questions are not. The coach / consultant doesn¬¨¬•t interfere with the cognitive processes of the clients, doesn¬¨¬•t suggest ideas, causes, insights.

Schein explains pure inquiry very clearly when he shares this experience regarding US POWs from North Korea and China back in 1953:

“I remember vividly advice that Rioch had given all of us, that if one is trying to elicit information in an area that may be socially or emotionally sensitive, DO NOT ASK ABOUT IT. Instead, rely on a chronology, on a natural history of events and let the sensitive stuff come out in its own way. So I asked people to tell me in as much detail as they cared to about the circumstances of their capture and then what happened. In other words I encouraged them to tell their story in their own way, and found that this elicited enormous amounts of very personal information without ever threatening anyone. The degree to which repatriates confessed to behaviors that might have been judged as reprehensible, if one did not know the conditions in the prison camps, also suggested that they were not biasing their stories just to make themselves look good. Rather I got the impression that they were relieved to be able to tell someone what actually had happened. ”

-1993, Schein, Edgar. The Academic As Artist: Personal and Professional Roots.

Exploratory/diagnostic inquiry, is useful when the client has told all his whole story. The coach / consultant now tries to direct the client’s focus with questions like “How did you feel about that?”

With exploratory / diagnostic inquiry the coach / consultant gets the client to explore her situation at a deeper level. Here, with the help of the coach / consultant questions, the client brings feelings, hypotheses, cause and effect relationships, and future actions to the conversation.

Confrontive inquiry, Schein warns us, must NOT occur before pure inquiry and exploratory/diagnostic inquiry are used. Here the coach / consultant INSERTS his/her ideas about the discussed situation. The idea here is to take the client to a more creative and critical thinking about her current situation. For example: Have you thought that she did this because….?

Schein’s PC and inquiry ideas give the the coach / consultant very good insights regarding how to approach clients in a constructive and helpful way. Schein recommends: “Be Constructively Opportunistic with Confrontive Interventions”.

You can read this ideas in Process Consultation Revisited, 1999, by Ed Schein.

Hi Abiel,

Thanks for the great information you share with us. Vikki

Dear Vikki,

Thanks for this piece, had not thought about consultant/coach differences.

If it is possible, could you please refer to http://www.edschein.com as the official website? this is the site that forwards to the MIT server now. Thank you!

“Schein is emphatic that we must make a clear distinction between two situations: 1) when a client defines the helping (coaching) situation as ‚Äúone in which he or she wants individual help to work on a personal issue” and 2) when ‚Äúa manager asks someone to take on a coaching role to work with an individual to improve job performance or to overcome some developmental deficiencies”. Am I correct to interpret that one of his concerns is the coaching process may be ‘contaminated’ as a result of (1) and (2)?

However, the common practice in corporate coaching nowadays is that the Organization has a ‘process/system’ for specific groups of employees in their respective talent pools, who can sign up for coaching (volunteering with no coercion), have choices to ascertain which coach fits their chemistry, and work on issues that are ‘guided’ and ‘aligned’ to both the employees’ needs and the stakeholders’ needs (usually the attainment of KPIs that are the objectives of both the employees & the stakeholders). Could such a ‘process/system’ help to reduce ‚Äúthe resulting process likened to counseling or therapy, and indoctrination or coercive persuasion”?

Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia

I liken Schien’s ‘Active Inquiry’ as a inquiry/questioning sequence/process steps which advocate giving sufficient ‘time’ for the coachee to fully undergo ‘inquiry & experience processing’.

However, in most coaching conversations, there will be ‘moments of leveraging’(the ability to detect these leveraging points can determine between good coaches and great coaches?). Moments where there are ‘cues’ that may point or open up windows of opportunities towards the attainment of the agreed coaching goal/outcome. Should the coach then continue with the process of ‘active inquiry’ or intuitively explore the ‘leverage point’, and not lose the window of opportunity?

What are your thoughts on applying ‘coaching concepts’ to coaching practice? Will there be alignments, misalignments, double binds, etc?

Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.

Hi Billy,

Thanks for taking this conversation to the next level.
My response to your questions are “it depends” – and what it depends on are the coachee, the coach, the situation and the context. These variables are dynamic in that the mood and perspective of the coachee and coach may change from moment to moment as the context shifts and the situation evolves.
As a coach, I apply coaching concepts along with many other models, tailoring them in the moment. A key characteristic of a great coach is that they are authentic and use all of their senses and experiences in the moment as they work with a client. Sometimes this means breaking the rules.

Vikki G. Brock
Director, History and Archive Division
The Coaching Commons

Thanks Vicki for your sharing on ‘living and breathing authenticity’ while coaching, flowing with the ‘flow’, sometimes breaking the rules, all in the interest of the coachee. It reminds me that we need to ‘adapt & adjust’ to move from ‘theory’ to practice, in order to achieve the sought outcomes.

I too “apply coaching concepts along with many other models, tailoring them in the moment” in my practice. With so many coaching concepts & models evolving nowadays (I am overwhelmed with the talents out there), I do find that it can be quite fruitful to consider adopting/using coaching concepts & models, specifically for specific coaching moments. For example, when coaching in a ‘sales contexts’, I find that coaching concepts & models specifically conceptualized, developed & applied for sales coaching (and better, if available for a specific industry) generally work more effectively than other generic coaching concepts & models. What are your experiences about this?

Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.