I was at Insight HRC’s super ‘Disrupt-HR’ gathering last September where someone asked me this question.
I hesitated, what sort of coach am I? Mild panic set in, as even after almost twenty years as a coach, gaining my diplomas and CPD, varied conversations and supervision, I still didn’t have a swift answer.
It felt like a cop-out to say ‘Executive Coach’ (which I am, but it doesn’t feel like a complete or helpful answer). At the time I was rescued by someone answering for me – ‘well I always feel much better after I’ve been talking to Alison’. That short response has stayed with me and helped my confidence when it has wavered, but six months on from the question I am still mulling it over.
So here’s the thing: coaching is never just linear. The best facilitative conversations feel like an art as my client and I move between places to discover causes, effects and solutions. We keep a common thread and follow our themes, but we are adaptable and I have to be attentive so I can pick up small cues and expand on them at the appropriate moment. 
At times this feels like being a ‘jack of all trades, but master of none’. I can draw on all kinds of tools – a touch of narrative conversation, a drop of timeline, a morsel of
Mindfulness. How about a little personal SWOT, or perceptual positioning; a helping of Socratic challenge maybe? There are many more – maybe this is why I don’t want to be constrained by a title.
I know that there is a place for an expert who can use any of these coaching techniques in depth, but what happens if it just doesn’t get the right responses in the conversation? What happens if it just blocks creative thought?
In the real world, what happens if we are exploring why someone is overwhelmed? If I am a business coach, what happens if the real cause of the overwhelm stems from problems at home? Do I then bring in a Life Coach?
Suppose we go for laser coaching because things need re-defining. What happens if the real issue is emotionally based and requires time, empathy and a space for just talking?
In the end, I am just more convinced that good coaching is context-dependent. Any one of us might have all the necessary skills, but we might need to work with other coaches too – just so that our clients can get the artful coaching that they deserve.
I feel more comfortable that I can work in a non-linear, un-prescribed fashion and that I can react to the needs of the moment. I’m OK with that.
There is a post script to this little blog; I have just been listening to a podcast on Eclectic and Integrative coaching. Now this has really helped to gel my ideas, though I’m afraid, once again, that Coaching schools might be trying to make a rigid framework out of something that needs to be apposite and bespoke – in the moment. So, I still think that there is an art to coaching which cannot be prescribed.
