So, You Want to Be a Coach?
What the…? Why is everyone and their mother becoming a coach? Are we so desperate for guidance that we need a cheering section for every aspect of our life? Yes, yes we do.
Because coaching today is applicable to almost every part of our existence, and is actively practiced as a form of curiosity-led discovery (more on that later). There are psychedelic coaches, birthing coaches, breathing coaches, marketing coaches, nutrition coaches, dating coaches, and of course, the unofficial luminaries of the coaching industry: life coaches.
A Jobs on the Rise report shows that hiring for coaches has grown more than 51 percent since 2019. It seems that people need and want guidance post pandemic, post great resignation, and post realizing that life and work were never meant to be navigated on our own. Take a look around: companies are understaffed and overstretched; resignation letters are piling up. But where did everyone go? Did they all become coaches? And if so, who are they coaching?
What if all the isolation, self-reflection, and darkness of those deep pandemic nights made us want to… wait for it… help each other out? What’s so wrong with a global trend that preaches an honest form of reflection and resolution?
Yes, the realm of coaching is still a little murky. Some certifications are still in the “not so sure this is legit” phase, and there are some gaping holes in terms of regulations and licensing requirements (a life-coaching certificate can potentially be obtained in just a few weeks).
Some say life coaching has emerged as “an unregulated industry at a time when the demand for mental health services is outpacing supply.” And this increased demand has changed the public perception of therapy, removing some of the stigma as it becomes more commonplace. This attitudinal shift has made way for an openness to coaching, because the intention of both practices is similar—these are selfless practices, ones that are steeped in benevolence and a desire for more widespread wellness.
The grounds for skepticism toward coaching may also arise from the fact that it’s often seen as a substitute for therapy. But it’s not. A marketing coach probably wouldn’t want to dive into the dark corners of your childhood and analyze your upbringing—but might instead investigate your work behavior and your relationships with teammates and clients in order to get a snapshot of your life, and help you devise concrete strategies and goals. Coaching and therapy are meant to complement each other. Echoing “organized reflection” within the work environment is a step toward building workplaces where people are better understood, and it can also help introduce self-reflection as a habit, and make it operational and recurring.
“Therapists and coaches have specific and defined educational and experience backgrounds,” says Dr. Chantal Thorn, director of program development at Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps organizations go from advice-driven to curiosity-led, “I think ‘formally’ educated therapists and coaches would argue that while the experience of great coaching might feel therapeutic, coaching is, in fact, not therapy. True therapeutic approaches tend to focus on the past and healing emotionally from past experiences using a variety of evidence-based therapeutic techniques. True coaching tends to focus on gaining clarity on the present and future, and actioning next steps using a variety of coaching techniques. Therapy involves my ability to support you being strengthened by my expertise and understanding of your challenges, so that I can choose the appropriate therapeutic approach e.g., CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), or psychoanalysis, etc. With coaching, I don’t need to understand your challenges to choose an appropriate coaching approach.”
The business of coaching business
A fear of appearing weak when turning to coaching—especially for business leaders attached to the need to be perceived as experts—is very much a thing. But “being willing to have a coach means you’re willing to look inward and to be curious about yourself, how you interact with others, and the effect you have on them,” say Ann Crady Weiss and Madeline Kolbe Saltzman of True Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on early stage technology startups. “The road to building a successful company is not a straight-up-and-to-the-right journey. Asking for help is a superpower, not an indication of failure.”
It gets better: a business leader that introduces good coaching into the workplace can make a lasting impact on company culture. According to Dr. Thorn, positive effects include “leveraging the brilliance of those you’ve hired, increased voice-share and employee engagement, better problem solving, and reduced overwhelm and workload for managers (or others) who think it’s their job to solve everyone’s challenges.”
How would this go?
OK, all of this sounds great. But what happens when you really get down to it? How does the conversation between a coach and a coachee go?
In an article co-written with London Business school professor Dan Cable, Francesca Gino, a Harvard Business School professor and expert on the psychology of organizations, quotes a study on the value of asking the right questions. She lays out the following conversation between a coach and a manager in charge of completing employee performance evaluation forms.
Coach: Why does completing these forms matter?
Manager: I want to let my people know where they stand.
Coach: Why does it matter that people know where they stand?
Manager: So that people can know how they can reach their career goals.
Coach: Why does it matter if people know how to reach their career goals?
Manager: They may focus their energy at work differently.
Coach: Why does it matter whether people focus their energy at work in a different way?
Manager: So that people feel like they are thriving while helping the company thrive.
This practice resembles the Five Whys technique developed by Sakichi Toyoda, founder of Toyota Industries, in the 1930s. Dr. Chantal Thorn, director of program development at Box of Crayons, says the question their coaches use instead is: “And what else?” “We ask this ‘best coaching question in the world’ because of what we know about most humans,” Chantal says, “Their first answer is rarely their only or even their best and most root answer.”
Asking “And what else?” also allows the coachee to describe the broader picture. “In this case, it's broad and coach-like,” adds Chantal, “allowing the person answering to go where they want to go next. This means it may or may not build exactly on what has come before. But it will be directed and led by the person answering either way.”
So in the spirit of asking questions, and wanting to dive deeper into the ethos of modern coaching, we reached out to Dr. Chantal Thorn. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Hello Chantal! Let’s start with broad strokes: Why do you think there are so many coaches now? Why has coaching become so trendy?
The “suspect” part of me thinks it’s because many see it as an “easy” way to make money or demonstrate “impact” (and probably spend way too much time consulting and giving advice rather than truly coaching). The “look on the bright side” part of me believes it’s because when done well the impact on various organizational outcomes, like employee engagement, innovation, psychological safety, etc. has been profound. It works. So why wouldn't everybody jump on the bandwagon?
What makes a good coach? What does a coach do in a company? Resolve conflicts? Advise staff and management?
A good coach is human-centered, empathetic, kind, caring, a great listener, and encouraging. They ask questions that keep them in the coach-like curiosity (curiosity that serves others) versus the selfish curiosity (curiosity that serves themselves) lane. They respond to a variety of challenges by believing that the person with the challenge has and can come up with their own answers, solutions, and action plans. They rush to action and advice-giving more slowly than most. They respond to people’s challenges with coach-like curiosity. They are engaged and energized by having their impact be by doing the above for others rather than by having and giving answers and advice.
What is the “correct behavior” for a coach, and does it exist? How do you detect a “bullshitty” coach?
A bullshitty (love that by the way) coach spends too much time giving advice or telling you what to do rather than supporting you to find your own way forward. To be clear, that doesn’t make someone a bullshitty human! There is always a place for mentoring, advice, etc. In my opinion though, it makes you a bullshitty coach. A bullshitty coach doesn’t actually care about the person in front of them. A bullshitty coach sneakily gives advice via questions. A bullshitty coach gets too much personally out of having the answers and saving the day rather than in supporting someone else’s voice.
Is anyone uncoachable?
I don’t think so. Not ultimately. Might it take a while? Might the coach need to have a lot of patience and curiosity? Might the safety and relationship between the coach and the coachee need to be nurtured for some time? Yes. But I’m of the mindset that any challenges that might make someone seem uncoachable are “figureoutable.”
Can coaching be a practice run in organizations rather than a solo practice? Can you see it being a seamless function at some point? Why isn’t it already?
Absolutely! In fact, rather than a practice or function to be run in organizations, I see it as a capability that can be built in each and every human. There are typically three ways coaching shows up in organizations. First, as a profession, when executive, external coaches come in, typically only for senior leaders. Second, as a service, for example when folks in HR provide coaching to people who are struggling—and this is typically seen as punitive (do you remember how you were “coached” out of your last job?). And third, as a capability, when every person in an organization has managed to make coach-like curiosity a habit and the default way they show up to support their team and colleagues. In other words, they drive organizational innovation and resilience by helping to create a culture driven by curiosity.
Researchers like Francesca Gino have looked at why “coaching as a capability” is both much more impactful and harder to accomplish within organizations—because you’re not simply bringing in a surgical skill; you’re developing a capability and culture across the organization for the best results.
What would next-level coaching be like? (AI coaches, a microdosing coach, coaches for other coaches, etc.)
Honestly? As the use of technology increases, I see the value of what only a human can bring to be “next-level” coaching: honing in on the curiosity, spirit, and care that only humans can offer. It will become increasingly unique to stay in the “human-first” lane while everyone around us will be “scaling” via AI and technology. I think “next level” will also involve supporting coach-like curiosity where it naturally begins—in our children—so that the future of coaching is less “functions” and “practices” to be taught or nurtured, and more simply a way of being that comes much more naturally to us. This will require us to begin in childhood so that messages or necessities of proving our worth via “having the answer” can be shifted, or at least added to, via having an impact with our coach-like curiosity and the power of holding space for others to lead the way of their own challenges.
