Openness to be questioned/explored, willingness to accept & embrace, critical to analyze & immersed into creative thoughts, engaging into intellectual discussions/conversations about coach & coaching-related research findings so that theory is supported by evidential practice, and practice is supported by evidential research/theory, should go a long way for the coaching discipline/profession. I see the Institute of Coaching as one of the vehicle for achieving all of these. Am I correct to say that?

As far as I am aware, there are only a handful of institutions and coach practising firms that are willing and seriously investing & engaging into coaching research. To me, the coaching discipline/profession needs ‘seriousness’, determination, and concerted efforts in research. In this respect, I envisage the Institute of Coaching is among the pioneers of ‘serious’ coaching research.

My personal wish is to see more research done to verify/validate coaching practice. The Institute of Coaching may hold the answers? What are your thoughts on this?

Are we seeing a pioneering and evolutionary process in the coaching discipline/profession/industry with the establishment and the work of the Institute of Coaching?

Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.

For example, in therapy, there is research supporting the importance of the relationship between therapist and client and of the role of the client’s hope. This doesn’t prescribe what to do, but does begin to look at the role of fit between therapist and client. I would find it surprising if there isn’t useful research to be done about the fit between coach and client.

There is also increasing research on the role of right-brain to right-brain interaction in therapy and healing.

I hope that coaching doesn’t become yet another silo where only research from within the field is valued. Coaching seems like exactly the sort of field where we might look at what we can incorporate from psychology, neuroscience, adult development, etc., as David Rock also mentioned.

When I read “What if the main stream learns to appreciate genuine acknowledgment and sincere curiosity?” I imagine some potential hypotheses that could be researched:

- Common factors in coaching are genuine acknowledgment and sincere curiosity

- These factors correlate with successful coaching (e.g., the client meets his/her goals)

- These factors are present in coaching and not in other forms of helping (or are more present)

Perhaps these are all true, perhaps not.

It’s reasonable to hope to avoid the pitfalls seen in other professions. At the same time, that still leaves room for a lot of research that could be useful to our profession.

And if researchers try to isolate aspects of coaching that ‘work’ and then try to reconstitute it in some linear fashion, we’ll get something much less than mediocre coaching, as a result.

On the other hand, what if they see the light and realize there is something to intuition and whole brain (and body) integration, after all? What if the main stream learns to appreciate genuine acknowledgment and sincere curiosity? Wouldn’t that change them? Might it not change the world?

Coaching is not a medical therapy, nor even a new form of psychology. Coaching is, dare I say it? Better.

Uh oh, maybe I’ve just stabbed my own stake in the sand for the coming turf war.

I think it’s also good that there is further research going to occur, as we’ve not explored more than a few percent of the issues that should be explored I believe.

The challenge with an institute like this is it quickly becomes a voice for psychologically-trained (both positive and general) practitioners to try to do what they have been trying to do for years, which is own the intellectual high ground. Unfortunately this is often by attempting to trash any other ideas or approaches to coaching that are not based in psychological paradigms. I’m sorry psychologists, but systems thinkers are equally important, as are people who’ve trained deeply in learning theory, and even people who’ve studied how the brain works. There are fierce intellectual battles for conceptual supremacy at the start of any new field, and the outcome of these battles do mean something: power, resources, etc. It happens in religions, it happens in coaching. May the institute flourish, may the arguments be useful, and may I never see the kind of research come out of this as I see coming out of some universities that directly attack the bulk of the coaching field in order to get column inches in the newspaper for their authors.

Some of you expressed concerns, so I’d love to address that.

Dean expressed worry we’d become reductionistic and strangle the life and soul of coaching. I agree with his concern – it is exactly what we don’t want! We want to find rigorous ways to study the heart of coaching. It is a joyful, powerful experience and we must find reliable and valid ways to study what is truly exciting and powerful. One of the grants we’re looking at is studying positivity for example.

Dean also comments on how he’d hate to see coaching become overanalyzed and result in homogenized. I hope for the exact opposite! I hope for diversity and multiplicity in coaching. Different approaches work for different people at different times, and what one coach does best another does not. Our research needs to reflect the real world – we are not, nor ever should be, a one-size-fits-all profession.

For those of you who are not aware of the rich tradition of qualitative research – where one can dive deeply into the lived experience of coaching – Dean’s point is correct. We need to cultivate many forms of research, quantitative, qualitative and even transpersonal. However, on one point we disagree, I do think good research can make the practice of coaching better.

Rey Carr also raised some important points. Regarding Rey’s comments that we need to “lower” the bar. I believe coaching practitioners can do high-level research. Great research doesn’t have to be overly complicated. I would hope for synergy.

David Drake made a great comment – while we need evidence-based practice, we also need practice-based evidence. I hope practice can inform research and the reverse.

Regarding the “Wild West” comment, I used it because it is so often quoted as a criticism of the field – but I think your point is well taken. I do think he was wrong then – and he’s even more wrong now!

Equally, it is crucial that psychologists do NOT hijack the research agenda. The agenda should be informed by the entire field. I am also dismayed by psychologists who suddenly dub themselves coaches without coach training (as the Wild West one) – I think this dishonors the field. My own experience was that I was as credentialed as a psychologist could be, and my own coach training showed me how vastly different coaching is from therapy. So I believe very strongly in coach training.

Much of my time is spent in my executive coach supervision practice. I currently supervise about 25 top-level coaches from around the world. None of them are psychologists and each of them does superlative work. I see that their coach training has prepared them to effectively do very important and transformative work.

Thank you all for the opportunity to connect with you – and please come visit our website.
We have our first iteration up, videos are coming, and we welcome feedback on what else we can add.

Best,
Carol K
Director, Institute of Coaching

Over the next year, we will convene 3 one-day meetings of experienced coaches through which we will come up with an instrument that can be used to describe what happens during a specific coaching session. The instrument will consist of a list of items describing the coach, the client, and the coaching dyad, and users of the instrument will rate each item, as it applies to a specific session, on a scale from “highly uncharacteristic” to “highly characteristic”.

Given similar research that has been done on the process of psychotherapy, we expect that this instrument will be able to be used for future coaching research such as:

- What are the differences between different types of coaching?
- How does what coaches actually do in sessions compare to what coaches believe they do?
- How is coaching different from neighboring fields?
- What coaching behaviors, at what points in a coaching relationship, correlate positively with positive outcomes?

Of course, we are honored to have received this grant and look forward to contributing to our shared body of knowledge.