Chris Dalton's Personal Development Blog

This week I received in the post an invitation from CIPD to take part in a conference in London. The title of the event is “Coaching for Performance and Business Change”. This may be proof that either coaching has begun to have an impact on the mindset of those who are responsible for the well-being of others in an organisation, or, in a desperate attempt to seem fashionable, the term has been press-ganged and forced into service as the latest “buzzword” and synonym for what amounts to “same-old, same-old”.

Having looked through the conference program, I’m inclined to the latter, which is very disappointing. The brochure starts by stating that “Coaching is a powerful tool for enhancing the performance of your people and adding real value to your organisation.” Well, maybe. But what is the definition of coaching being used here? The organisers don’t supply one. What follows, however, he is a list of organisational clichés. For example, it goes on “at a time of relentless change, the need for sustainable organisational performance is a key priority. Businesses need employees to take ownership of their performance, strive to meet business objectives and demonstrate resilience and confidence when managing change.”

I reckon you could easily substitute half a dozen buzzwords other than ‘coaching’ at the beginning and still come across with the same message. The sound of creaking wheels of a large bandwagon echo through the whole agenda of the conference. Coaching is presented as a driver for performance, for innovation and (one presumes) profit –  there is even a session on the holy grail of any management training, namely “evaluating and providing ROI”. Coaching is supposed to be about the agenda of the coachee, and expecting something like coaching to do what most training has failed to do in the last 20 or 30 years seems at best unrealistic and confusing and at worst actually damaging for everyone involved.

Who knows, perhaps the event will be thoroughly worthwhile, if only to netowrk. But I can’t help but feel that the agenda as offered twists the concept of coaching and tries to shove it into the ears of those responsible for learning and development in businesses in a way that the CIPD thinks will sound palatable, and which can be sold further up the organisation eager to know how HR spend can be justified in measurable ways.

A sign of our times, I suppose, is the inclusion of a session entitled “the 10 minute Coach: tools and techniques for the time-strapped manager”. I’m not sure why we have this relentless march towards everything being done in the quickest time possible. Certainly, there are times when the quick application of good coaching principles such as positive intent, genuine curiosity and insightful questioning can be just the right thing, but surely the idea that an organisation could adopt ‘ tools and techniques’ to use when “managers do not have the time to do it” is missing the point.  Next we’ll be invited to attend a workshop which will let us know how effective the “coaching tweet” can be for targeted and sustainable performance innovation potential maximisation.

Am I being too purist? What do others think? To see what the fuss is about, check out this link: www.cipd.co.uk/coachconf