The Future of Coaching Lies in Broadening our Reach (and other lessons from SIOP’s LEC 2017)

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of the new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” ~ John Cage as cited by David Peterson

I recently had the pleasure to join SIOP’s 2017 Leading Edge Consortium (LEC). Themed Innovations in Executive Coaching, the event drew out the full spectrum of people in and around the coaching profession -- from real pioneers, thought leaders, and prognosticators to buyers, deliverers, and managers of coaching in organizations.

My biggest takeaway was that the coaching industry is undergoing a period of major disruption. This was clear from opening keynotes by Anthony Abbatiello (from Deloitte) and David Peterson (from Google). A poll question to the +500 attendees surfaced technology, scalability, and artificial intelligence as some of the top forces disrupting the coaching industry today.

The presentations and surrounding dialogue revealed a mixture of optimism and fear about this next era.

I heard significant conversations on the side of hope and optimism, including that scalability and new technologies will:

• Allow us to advance the science of coaching efficacy and ROI.
• Increase transparency around the quality and standards for coaching.
• Automate many of the tasks that coaches do not like, such as scheduling and searching for resources, so that they can focus on value-added activities for their clients.
• Support new communities of practice and foster increased connectedness.

At the same time, I heard highly respected professionals in our field:

• Admit that they do not believe that technology will enhance the capacity for developing coaching relationships.
• Argue that providers cannot solve for technology AND coaching but will need to choose one or the other.
• Characterize the scalability and quality of coaching as inherently at odds.
• Ponder how nanobots will soon inhabit our neocortexes to improve our memory and cognitive functioning.

Admittedly, I was scared of this last one, too. But in all seriousness, I was far more alarmed by the near exclusion of one very important group from our discussion and awareness: those who do not (and have not) had access to coaching.

It’s difficult to get an accurate estimate on just how exclusive executive coaching services have been over the decades*, but I would wager that if we considered this group as a percentage of the total US workforce, we would approximate between 90 and 95 percent, probably closer to the latter if we focused on sustained coaching with a professional, and probably well above that if we looked outside the US.

Pause and think about that for a moment. Does this help to explain why no one at Thanksgiving dinner knows what we do?

In our practice, we find that (shocker) many people within that 95% want and benefit tremendously from professional coaching, including:

• High-potential individual contributors (HiPos)
• First-time managers and team leaders
• People who are in periods of transition like changing roles or becoming a parent for the first time
• People with diverse backgrounds who find it harder, on average, to gain inside access to precious developmental resources

The increased capacity to support those who were previously excluded from coaching should be one form of disruption that is welcomed. It will be by the 95%.

As a professional group, we should take tremendous pride in the impact we’ve had to date and the momentum we’ve built. But at the same time, we should approach the next era with an intense focus on broadening our reach and impact.

Fortunately, there was plenty of inspiration to go around. Karol Kaufmann reminded us that a core purpose of coaching is to help our clients assert choice in their lives. We, too, have important choices to make.

And Richard Boyatzis reminded us that if our goal is adaptation, the latest neuroscience research shows the most productive orientation will need to be at least 3 parts hope-and-optimism to every 1 part fear. Our compassion can reach further.

Levi Nieminen, PhD, is a Senior Behavioral Scientist with BetterUp