Effective Modern Coaching: The principles and art of successful business coaching

By Myles Downey

Written by one of the world’s leading business coaches, the new and updated edition of this book provides authoritative and proven guidance and techniques for any manager, executive or indeed coach who wants to bring out the full potential of their employees and clients through coaching. Individual performance is a cornerstone of corporate performance and the need to achieve more–be that productivity or innovation–from fewer is becoming increasingly vital. Coaching is a demonstrably successful approach to helping individuals to perform to higher levels. This classic and inspiring book aims o develop managers and executives into great coaches, who can transform the performance of individuals and teams in their organizations. The author looks at the art of coaching from different perspectives and provides practical tips and models (such as the "Spectrum of Coaching Skills" and “GROW”).

• Language: English
• Publisher: LID Publishing
• Release date: Apr 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9781915951175

Book preview

PREFACE

Has coaching failed or have we failed coaching? The latter I think: as a profession we have been lax, as I will explain later. Either way there’s a problem: coaching has lost its ‘shine’. Specifically executive coaching; it’s just not nearly as effective as it should be. And this at a time when coaching could be making a real difference to many more people and organizations than is the case This is why I believe that this book, now in its fourth edition, is more important and relevant than ever.

The first edition was written and published in 1999 with great enthusiasm and optimism as the world of executive coaching opened up. Since then, I have coached at the top level in almost every business sector and trained and taught hundreds of coaches on almost every continent. So, while the core of the book remains much the same as that first edition, my thinking has evolved and progressed with each passing year, resulting in an even more comprehensive fourth edition, which I am pleased to put before you.

Jobs, roles, and entire professions are either changing or disappearing. The advent of AI and the continuing roll-out of automation has changed the world of work and will continue to do so. What is left is those things, those attributes, that are distinctly human: creativity, intuition, imagination, empathy and wisdom. The last hundred years of work describes the rise of efficiency as a primary business driver and with it came a culture, a contagion, of compliance. Re-creating work and finding new solutions does not call for greater efficiency or more compliance, it calls for all that is human: for enabled genius.

One way of realizing human genius is through coaching: with effective coaching, much more is possible.

But for coaches, particularly those plying their trade in the business world, to have the impact and add the value that is possible and arguably required, we need to fix the problem.

I have heard too many senior leaders say something like, ‘I had a coach ten years ago, lovely person. Not sure what I got from it, though.’ It seems they had had interesting conversations but no hike in performance. If coaching is not valued, we coaches will not get to play our part in making workplaces higher performing, more productive and more profitable. Because that’s the job, isn’t it?

In the 2000s executive coaching was seen as the answer to every senior executive’s development needs. That’s development, not performance. And yet, despite all the work done by governing bodies and training organizations, and despite a clear rationale for it, we as a profession have failed to normalize coaching for high achievers in business. Whereas, in other worlds where high performance is essential, coaching is ubiquitous. What has gone wrong?

One cause of this is the poor quality of most coaching. Coaching is first and foremost a skill. Or better, a skill set. It’s not a psychology, a philosophy, nor a branch of neuroscience, although these may well inform and guide the coach. Here’s one component of this cause: the foundational skill is the ability to facilitate the player’s (aka the coachee) thinking, commonly called non-directive coaching. Most coaches have not been properly trained in this and so progress is not made. Conversations lose shape and focus and the coach resorts to suggesting and guiding, or worse, presenting their ideas as questions. This frustrates the player, diminishes the opportunity for their development and, critically, limits what they might achieve for themselves and the organizations in which they work.

The second cause rests with the people in organizations who manage coaching, who assess and hire the coaches, recommend them and oversee the process. Very few organizations make a good job of this. Many coaching managers are not sufficiently well-versed in coaching, so it’s genuinely difficult for them to sort out those coaches who know what they are doing from those that don’t. It results in unskilled coaches being put in front of managers and leaders, to do what is often the wrong job.

The third cause is that almost all coaching in organizations is focused on development. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, development is clearly vital, it’s just that it puts the cart before the horse. Performance coaching that is focused on business results is simply more effective: leaders and managers engage more fully, with greater commitment and energy, and follow through when there’s a tangible benefit. Performance-focused coaching pulls development with it. You simply ask the question: ‘To achieve these business objectives, what do you need to learn or develop?’ An additional benefit is that the return on investment is evident.

I once asked a well-respected leader in the world of coaching why there was so little performance-focused coaching. His response? ‘We are too afraid to pin our colours to that mast.’ I get it. And it’s not good enough. The people we coach deserve better.

If, as a coach in training, the idea of coaching for performance occurs as somewhat unappealing or even threatening, let me say that being skilled in a non-directive approach should allow you to be effective in any coaching conversation: it’s not your job to do the thinking, solve the problem, or come up with the new idea. That’s the player’s job. Your job is to facilitate their thinking (the process is described later in this book). Get that right and the business outcomes will follow. For many, performance coaching is exciting and fulfilling – it’s a joy to see others thrive and achieve meaningful goals. That said, if what you enjoy is development coaching, go for it. Done well, it can make a great difference. The Effective Coaching Model absolutely supports development coaching.

There are some things that can put the shine back on coaching and buff it up.

Firstly, improve the quality of coaching. I’m hoping to show the way with the Effective Coaching Model. I have tried to strip coaching back to a simple set of skills and to provide a clear description and rationale for the approach, an approach that is both practical and transformative, and which delivers results. As I said earlier, coaching is a skill. A skill is performed. Elite performers – sports people, athletes, musicians – practise their skills, usually under some form of scrutiny, and get feedback. Aristotle Onassis, the Greek shipping magnate and ace salesperson, used to practise selling skills with his team. To be a great coach, on-going practice is required.

Secondly, ensure that coaching programmes are driven by clear, valuable business objectives. These should be shared with a third party in the client organization, so the coach and player are held to account. Clearly there will be exceptions to this ‘rule’, but the majority should conform.

Thirdly, coaching managers should not accept a coaching qualification at face value. Very few, if any, accrediting bodies properly observe and assess trainee coaches while they’re learning coaching or during the accreditation process. In my former business, The School of Coaching, the class leader in coaching training at the time, would not recommend for accreditation anyone who had not demonstrated, in front of a faculty member, each core skill on at least three occasions. A high but essential bar. On top of the lack of oversight, and to make matters worse, the skills are not clearly defined, so it’s difficult to know what is being assessed or measured. If you’re thinking of appointing a coach, arrange an observation and assessment of their skills.

Many people outside of executive coaches have found previous editions of this book useful, which is a good test of the material. It has been in print for over twenty-five years, with more than 333,000 copies sold. I know of sports coaches, performance coaches in the arts, leaders and managers, people in professional service firms, and teachers, who have taken these ideas on board. I worked with the elite coaches in New Zealand Rugby in 2016 and coaches to the England Rugby Men’s National Squad (2017/8). So, while this preface concerns executive coaching and the intended audience is people interested in executive coaching, the content is highly relevant to people outside of the profession and is written with them in mind, too.

I retain my enthusiasm and optimism because I have seen many great coaches and great coaching and heard the stories of individuals and organizations where real, positive difference has been made. I fundamentally believe that the desired state of the human being is to be fully expressed and uninhibited, without doubt or fear. To be able to perform, learn and enjoy. A state in which there is access to all the innate resources born to us.

I believe that such actualization is seldom (if ever) achieved alone, but made possible in community or with the guidance of another – someone who has the capacity and courage to hold a different kind of conversation, a conversation that lets thinking unfold, lets imagination, intuition and creativity loose, and in so doing allows people to come to their own understanding rather than imposing one’s beliefs upon them.

For ease of reading and reference the book is divided into four parts:

1 The Effective Coaching Approach

2 The Effective Coaching Models and Skills

3 Applying the Skills

4 Excellence in Coaching

You may have noticed that I use the word ‘player’ in place of the word ‘coachee.’ This is because I don’t like the sound of the word ‘coachee,’ but more importantly because it has the suffix ‘-ee’ at the end, which denotes someone who has something done unto them— think ‘divorcee.’ Player, on the other hand, suggests that she or he is the primary person, the one doing the thinking, the one who will have to act or perform. And that they might enjoy it.

I hope you enjoy this book. More than that I hope your coaching shines and your clients and players thrive.

CHAPTER ONE

THE ESSENCE OF COACHING

I am standing about 12 feet away from Peter, a volunteer from a small group learning about coaching. We are engaged in an exercise that throws light on a fundamental principle of coaching – it’s an enjoyable way to start a workshop. I say:

‘Thanks Peter. To start with, let’s just see how your catching is now. OK?’

Peter nods but does not say anything. I throw a tennis ball to him. Peter holds out both hands stiffly in front of himself, his face screwing up with fear and anticipation. The ball passes just over the top of his hands, thumps into his chest and falls to the floor. Embarrassed, Peter grows even more tense.

I throw another ball. Peter reaches out, as before, and misses completely. I throw another with the same result.

‘Is that