We are pleased to share an article entitled “The Five Maturities ~ A new paradigm for developing yourself as a coach“ written by David Drake.
I’ve worked in the coaching space for more than 25 years. During that time, coaching has become recognized as an essential skillset; many more people now call themselves a coach; and the demands on coaches have grown significantly.
At the same time, there is an increased sense that neither our approach to developing and assessing coaches nor coaching itself have kept pace. To address this issue, I’d like to share a few key thoughts from a longer report I published this year to inspire your thinking about what is next for you.
It starts with a need for new approaches to mastery and a greater emphasis on maturity – on who the coach is, not just what the coach does. It also calls for clearer distinctions about the meanings of the terms “coach” and “coaching,” as well as what is beyond coaching, so that practitioners can progress with more clarity and confidence.
The report also advocates for prioritizing the growth of clients, given the decades of research demonstrating that factors related to the client and the client relationship are by far the greatest determinants of outcomes.
I invite coaches, coach educators and coaching bodies to address the need to:
- properly induct novices and ensure duty of care in an era of diminishing coherence in the industry;
- provide continuous development for practitioners who work across disciplines and networks; and
- determine suitable ethics and standards in light of multiple stakeholders and technologies and a need for greater alignment with the evidence and experience.
Collectively, one of the key steps we need to take is to move beyond the dependence on competency models in assessing and developing coaches and conceptualizing coaching itself.
The core issue is that competencies are useful markers for novices, but they tend to promote conformity rather than foster the maturity required for better decisions in practice. This is, in part, because competencies orient coaches to focus on the task in front of them rather than developing the critical thinking necessary for reflection and improvisation.
In addition, competency frameworks oversimplify the coaching process, discount earned wisdom, and stifle the innovation and improvisation required to adapt to clients’ needs. They are also often based in questionable assumptions, such as:
- competencies are a sufficient measure across all skill levels;
- they can be universally applied;
- they are suitable indicators of mastery or efficacy; and
- we can easily differentiate between coaches on the basis of compliance with standardized competencies.
Competency models tend to decrease authenticity and adapt- ability – and limit the growth of practitioners and the evolution of their practices as a result. This often leads to greater risk aversion at a time when new thinking about coaching is vital.
Coaches should be able to perform as their most conscious and informed selves while they are being assessed, rather than having to tick pre-determined boxes. While it is possible to deconstruct excellence into its components, it is less possible to reconstruct excellence from these components.
Coaching is an adaptive process in which both parties are working with a range of variables, so a fixed set of competencies seems counter-productive. Becoming a master chef or a master coach both call for deeper instincts and greater maturity, to enable others to have a great meal or develop themselves. In the end, coaching’s whole is no more equal to the sum of its parts than a pantry of great ingredients and a recipe equals a great dinner.
The journey from new coach to good coach depends on sufficient competency. The further a coach goes beyond that stage, the less useful competency frameworks become in supporting growth or performance.
The journey from a good coach to a great coach depends on sufficient maturity and more. This calls for approaches based in studying masters, rather than continuing with attempts to scale novices. It is a journey of deeper integration, not greater accumulation.
While more advanced practitioners are more proficient in the core skills, their increasing mastery is more a function of their maturity (e.g., reading contexts, shifting perspectives, managing energy, adapting practices, etc.). As you mature, you can more readily and effectively self-regulate, remain fully present, discern what is called for in the moment, and use your knowledge wisely.
More broadly, you are more able to develop the new forms of practice that feel called for in these times. This means focusing less on tools and more on consciousness, in order to help you and your clients navigate an increasingly complex world and show up for the work to be done in the moment.
Mature coaches and clients are more agile in sessions, which leads to better outcomes. As a student of mine asked, “Now that I know I am good enough to be certified, how do I develop my own style, my own depth to be with my clients … and a pathway to mastery that is both collectively acknowledged and personally aligned?” I developed The Five Maturities and The Five Masteries in part to support this quest.
I am hoping this introduction will help us reflect on the question: “What do clients and the world need most from us now?” For example, how can we free ourselves to work upstream closer to the sources of our clients’ issues and downstream closer to their efforts to implement what was important to them?
This calls for an integrative approach to coaching that addresses the environments and narratives from which our clients come and to which they will return.
In turn, this leads to a second question: “What assumptions about coaching do we need to revisit as a result?” For example: What if we focused more on coaching as a verb than as a noun? What new roles and forms are needed now – and how would we prepare differently for them?
There is much to learn here for the growing number of practitioners who are already working beyond coaching as we know it. This frees them to draw from more of what they know and who they are to engage their clients at deeper human levels. In doing so, both parties evolve.
AN INVITATION
Where can you create spaces in your coaching community to collectively challenge expectations, discuss unspeakable subjects, tip over sacred cows and test new roles? The changes we need will emerge from the conversations we are willing to have.
The vision is to develop and apply ourselves in ways that are recognizable by others as masterful coaching, and recognizable by ourselves as the mature expression of who we are. In so doing, I am inspired by Freud’s vision: “I want to protect analysis from physicians … and from priests. I want to trust it to a profession that doesn’t yet exist, a profession of secular ministers of souls.”
Let’s continue the conversation by connecting with your colleagues on our Facebook page
