Tài liệu The wisdom of coaching: Essential papers in consulting psychology for a world of change pot

Title:

The wisdom of coaching: Essential papers in consulting psychology for a world of

change.Find More Like This

Author(s):

Kilburg, Richard R., (Ed), Office of Human Services, Johns Hopkins University,

Baltimore, MD, US

Diedrich, Richard C., (Ed), Private Practice, US

Source:

Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association. xi, 436 pp.

ISBN:

1-59147-787-5 (hardcover)

978-1-59147-787-7 (hardcover)

Digital Object Identifier:

10.1037/11570-000

Language:

English

Keywords:

coaching; consulting psychology; executive coaching

Abstract:

This book is organized into four sections. My coeditor, Richard C. Diedrich, has

written brief introductions and summaries for each that introduce the articles. The first

section contains articles that focus on definitions, history, and research on executive

coaching and the commentaries that accompanied each of the issues of the journal.

The second section pulls together the articles that emphasize conceptual approaches to

executive coaching and contains the thinking of many of the finest practitioners in the

field. The third section encompasses the articles that focus on specific challenges

facing coaches, methods that can be and are used in coaching engagements, and the

issue of standards of practice in the field. The final section provides all of the major

case studies that have appeared in the Consulting Psychology Journal (CPJ) over the

last decade or so. On the surface, it would appear that there are three major ways that

any reader could approach this material. First, you could simply read it from cover to

cover and address the material in each article as it appears. Second, you could browse

your way through the volume, selecting articles that appeal to your curiosity or

interest. Finally, you could strategically identify particular issues or problems in

executive coaching that you are facing at any particular time and dive into the relevant

material. Regardless of how you choose to work your way through the book, I think

you will agree with me by the end that you have greatly expanded your knowledge of

the field, appreciation for the depth and scope of thinking and practice that appear in

these articles, and gratitude that the authors took the time to collect and express their

thoughts on paper. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)

(from the introduction)

Subjects:

*Coaches; *Professional Consultation; *Top Level Managers

Classification:

Industrial & Organizational Psychology (3600)

Population:

Human (10)

Intended Audience:

Psychology: Professional & Research (PS)

Publication Type:

Book, Edited Book; Print

Release Date:

20080310

Accession Number:

2007-00039-000

Cover Image:

Table of Contents of:

The wisdom of coaching: Essential papers in consulting

psychology for a world of change.

Contributors

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The historical and conceptual roots of executive coaching [by] Richard R.

Kilburg

Part I. Coaching definitions, history, research, and commentaries

Toward a conceptual understanding and definition of executive coaching

Richard R. Kilburg / 21-30

Executive coaching: A working definition

Lewis R. Stern / 31-38

Executive coaching: A comprehensive review of the literature

Sheila Kampa-Kokesch and Mary Z. Anderson / 39-59

Executive coaching as an emerging competency in the practice of consultation

Richard R. Kilburg / 61-62

Further consideration of executive coaching as an emerging competency

Richard C. Diedrich and Richard R. Kilhurg / 63-64

Trudging toward Dodoville: Conceptual approaches and case studies in executive coaching

Richard R. Kilburg / 65-72

Executive coaching: The road to Dodoville needs paving with more than good assumptions

Rodney L. Lowman / 73-78

Executive coaching: An outcome study

Karol M. Wasylyshyn / 79-89

Part II. Coaching approaches

Executive coaching

Harry Levinson / 95-102

Executive coaching: A continuum of roles

Robert Witherspoon and Randall P. White / 103-111

Coaching at the top

Fred Kiel, Eric Rimmer, Kathryn Williams, and Marilyn Doyle / 113-122

Executive coaching at work: The art of one-on-one change

David B. Peterson / 123-131

Coaching executives

Lester L. Tobias / 133-141

An iterative approach to executive coaching

Richard C. Diedrich / 143-148

Business-linked executive development: Coaching senior executives

Thomas J. Saporito / 149-155

The cognitive-behavioral approach to executive coaching

Mary Jo Ducharme / 157-165

Rational-emotive behavior therapy: A behavioral change model for executive coaching?

Jessica Sherin and Leigh Caiger / 167-173

Action frame theory as a practical framework for the executive coaching process

Tracy Cocivera and Steven Cronshaw / 175-183

When shadows fall: Using psychodynamic approaches in executive coaching

Richard R. Kilburg / 185-205

The emerging role of the internal coach

Michael H. Frisch / 207-216

An integrated model of developmental coaching

Otto E. Laske / 217-235

Part III. Coaching challenges, methods, and standards

Facilitating intervention adherence in executive coaching: A model and methods

Richard R. Kilburg / 241-255

Coaching leaders through culture change

Judith H. Katz and Frederick A. Miller / 257-266

Coaching versus therapy: A perspective

Vicki Hart, John Blattner, and Staci Leipsic / 267-274

Multimodal therapy: A useful model for the executive coach

James T. Richard / 275-281

Executive growth along the adult development curve

Steven D. Axelrod / 283-289

Leadership dynamics: Character and character structure in executives

Len Sperry / 291-302

Ideas on fostering creative problem solving in executive coaching

James T. Richard / 303-309

Behind the mask: Coaching through deep interpersonal communication

James Campbell Quick and Marilyn Macik-Frey / 311-317

Media perceptions of executive coaching and the formal preparation of coaches

Andrew N. Garman, Deborah L. Whiston, and Kenneth W. Zlatoper / 319-322

Executive coaching: The need for standards of competence

Lloyd E. Brotman, William P. Liberi, and Karol M. Wasylyshyn / 323-328

Lessons Learned in--and Guidelines for--Coaching Executive Teams

Richard C. Diedrich / 329-330

Part IV. Case studies

Coaching: The successful adventure of a downwardly mobile executive

John Blattner / 333-342

A case study of executive coaching as a support mechanism during organizational growth

and evolution

Eugene R. Schnell / 343-356

The alchemy of coaching:

David B. Peterson and Jennifer Millier / 357-376

The reluctant president

Karol M. Wasylyshyn / 377-388

Developing the effectiveness of a high-potential African American executive: The anatomy

of a coaching engagement

Paul C. Winum / 389-405

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: Four case studies of a new tool for

executive coaching and restoring employee performance after setbacks

Sandra Foster and Jennifer Lendl / 407-412

Executive coaching from the executive's perspective

John H. Stevens Jr. / 413-425

Index

About the editors

Chapte r 1

TOWAR D A CONCEPTUA L

UNDERSTANDIN G AN D

DEFINITIO N O F

EXECUTIV E COACHIN G

Richard R. Kilburg

During the past decade, consultation activities that

focus on managers and senior leaders in organiza￾tions have increasingly been referred to as executive

coaching. This term has begun to take on a technical

meaning within the field of organization develop￾ment, yet the area of practice has suffered signifi￾cantly from a relative lack of specific attention to it

in the professional literature. The purposes of this

chapter are to provide a succinct overview of some

of the literature available on the topic, to summa￾rize a way of conceptually understanding the prac￾tice of executive coaching, to introduce a prelimi￾nary definition of the term as a way of beginning to

clarify this practice within the field of consultation,

and to encourage additional empirical research on

the subject.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Accessing the current psychological literature on

the topic of coaching yields literally hundreds of ar￾ticles. The majority of the material focuses on the

topic of coaching activities and techniques as

applied to various types and levels of athletic per￾formance. Douge (1993) provided a review of the

recent literature on coaching effectiveness in athlet￾ics, and Howe (1993) specifically focused on the

application of psychological techniques in sports.

Pratt and Eitzen's (1989) review of the leadership

styles and effectiveness of high school athletic

coaches and Lacy's (1994) empirical study of vari￾ous coaching behaviors in collegiate women's bas￾ketball are examples of the diverse array of articles

in this field.

A second and surprisingly large number of arti￾cles covers the application of coaching techniques

to change the problem behaviors of various popula￾tions. R. L. Morgan (1994) applied peer coaching

methods with low-performing, young, preservice

teacher trainees and demonstrated improved in￾struction effectiveness. Murphy (1994) reported on

a study in which socially rejected fifth graders were

successfully coached on improving skills to in￾crease their ability to be liked by peers. Goldberg

(1994) applied coaching techniques to help im￾prove schizophrenics' abilities to do card-sorting

tests. Hekelman (1994) summarized an effort to

use peer coaching to improve the performance of

residents in family medicine. A final example of

this type of literature was seen in Darling's (1994)

article describing the use of coaching methods by

human resources professionals to help employees

with difficult, work-related problems. Scanning

through these articles was reassuring in that they

demonstrate that if these concepts and methods

can be successful with socially rejected early ado￾lescents, schizophrenics, high school and college

athletes, and a variety of other troubled and normal

Reprinted from the Consulting Psychology journal: Practice and Research, 48, 134-144. Copyright 1996 by the American Psychological Association

and the Society of Consulting Psychology.

21

Richard R. Kilburg

people who aspire to improve their performance,

they can be equally successful with managers and

senior executives in for-profit and nonprofit

enterprises.

The recent literature on coaching in the field of

management and consultation can be clustered in

three related areas: research studies; articles em￾phasizing methods, techniques, or applications in

specific situations; and efforts to modify or expand

the role repertoire of managers to include coaching

activities. A thorough review of this material is well

beyond the scope of this chapter, but a succinct

summary will be provided to the reader as a gate￾way to the growing body of knowledge in this field.

Most of the formal research being published on

coaching in management comes in the form of

graduate dissertations on various aspects of the

subject. One series of studies focused on managers

or leaders as coaches (Coggins, 1991; Dougherty,

1993; Hein, 1990; Spinner, 1988; Stowell, 1987).

Duffy (1984), Peterson (1993), and Thompson

(1987) conducted research demonstrating manage￾ment skill improvements as a function of specific

coaching programs. D.J. Miller (1990) and

Sawczuk (1991) reported on coaching studies that

enhance transfer of management and skills training

into the work environment.

A variety of nondissertation research studies of

coaching in organizations have also been pub￾lished. R. B. Morgan (1989) published a factor ana￾lytic study of leadership behavior incorporating a

scale of coaching and mentoring others. Graham,

Wedman, and Garvin-Kester (1993) reported on a

program that successfully improved the perfor￾mance of sales representatives whose bosses be￾came better coaches. Acosta-Amad (1992) demon￾strated improved note taking and chart completion

by hospital staff members who had been coached

effectively. Decker (1982) showed that supervisors

who were trained in coaching and handling em￾ployee complaints improved employee retention in

formal programs. And Scandura (1992) demon￾strated from a survey of managers that career

coaching was positively related to promotional rate.

Although none of these empirical studies re￾ported on the effects of consultants working di￾rectly with managers, they are broadly suggestive

that coaching of various types is successful in im￾proving various aspects of the performance of indi￾viduals in administrative positions. The research

available and reviewed also points to a significant,

ongoing problem of a lack of empirical research on

the actual work of senior practitioners in the field.

By far the largest body of literature available

consists of articles devoted to exhorting managers

to exert themselves to add coaching to their roles to

empower subordinates, solve organizational prob￾lems, and push their enterprises toward peak per￾formance. Brown (1990); Evered and Selman

(1989); Good (1993); Keeys (1994); Kiechel

(1991); W. C. Miller (1984); Orth, Wilkinson, and

Benfari (1987); Smith (1993); Stowell (1988);

Tyson (1983); Wolff (1993); and the Woodlands

Group (1980) all provided ideas, advice, encour￾agement, and warnings that strongly suggest that

the executive who does not know how to coach

effectively will suffer from poor organizational

performance and stunted career opportunities.

Cunningham (1991) and Knippen and Green

(1990) described the use of coaching methods in

the accounting and utility industries. Himes (1984)

provided a case study focusing on coaching a group

toward being an effective team. Barratt (1985);

Leibowitz, Kaye, and Farren (1986); and Shore and

Bloom (1986) specifically defined the manager's

role in career development with subordinates as

involving coaching them toward increased

effectiveness.

A related series of articles in a variety of journals

and magazines all focus on the subject of coaching

subordinates for high performance. Allenbaugh

(1983), Aurelio and Kennedy (1991), Bell (1987),

Bielous (1994), Chiaramonte and Higgins (1993),

Cohen and Jaffee (1982), Herring (1989), Lucas

(1994), Rancourt (1995), and Wallach (1983) all

explicitly identified one of the key roles of leaders

as being people who help their subordinates to

modify their behavior to improve productivity,

contribute more to the growth of a company, and

become what by now is the well-known "peak per￾formers" in their organizations. These articles offer

a combination of how-to tips, conceptual ap￾proaches, mini-case studies, exhortations, and ra￾tionalizations for the emphasis on coaching. Tichy

22

Toward a Conceptual Understanding oj Executive Coaching

and Charan (1995) interviewed the CEO of a major

corporation and provided a firsthand example of

how ideas about coaching have increasingly be￾come part of the foundation of the way senior lead￾ers are now thinking about their roles.

A series of books on the subject of executive

coaching has also appeared very recently. Deeprose

(1995), Maxwell (1995), J. B. Miller and Brown

(1993), Peterson and Hicks (1995), Shula and

Blanchard (1995), and Whitmore (1994) have all

provided in-depth coverage on the topic of manag￾ers in their roles as coaches. Keep in mind that all

of this literature is based on a little over a dozen re￾cent empirical studies that just explore the role of

managers as coaches.

An even smaller number of articles has appeared

that discuss executive coaching from the vantage

point of a consultant working with client managers.

Popper and Lipshitz (1992) described coaching as

containing two components, improving perfor￾mance at the skill level and establishing a relation￾ship that enhances executives' psychological devel￾opment. They also provided summaries of several

different types of coaching techniques. Levinson

(1991) explored some of the issues and nuances of

coaching and counseling top leaders in corpora￾tions. Sperry (1993) explored the relationship

among consulting, counseling, and coaching with

executives, pointing out the increased stresses with

which these individuals live and the need for

practitioners to be in tune with the inner psycho￾logical worlds of their clients. Kelly (1985) and

Lukaszewski (1988) both provided some concrete

examples and specific problems that consultants

may face in coaching assignments with managers.

O'Connell (1990) emphasized the use of process

consultation with senior managers on corporate

strategy using Socratic techniques in four types of

interventions, including coaching. And Ferguson

(1986) covered 10 types of problems that occur in

organizations that organization development tech￾niques such as coaching help resolve.

This brief review of the literature on coaching

demonstrates that there is an extensive history and

broad empirical base available on the general topic,

especially in athletics and dealing with the prob￾lems of special needs populations. The application

of coaching as a concept and set of techniques to

the art and practice of management has been grow￾ing rapidly through the 1980s and 1990s. How￾ever, the scientific basis for these applications is ex￾tremely limited at this time. This is even more true

for the practice of coaching in the context of con￾sultation. Only two of the research studies covered

by this review can be said to be even tangentially

related to what is now being extensively marketed

and practiced in the field. This lack of an empirical

foundation has not inhibited practitioners or au￾thors from advocating their approaches or publish￾ing their views. This review also raises the question

as to whether executive coaching is simply the

newest label practitioners are putting on a specific

focus of consultation and set of techniques that

they use in their work with executives.

A CONCEPTUAL APPROACH TO

EXECUTIVE COACHING

Figure 1.1 presents a 17-factor model of systems

and psychodynamics introduced by Kilburg

(1995). In the model, 6 system factors (input,

throughput, output, structure, process, and con￾tent), 4 psychological structures (conscience, ideal￾ized self, instinctual self, and rational self), 4 inter￾nal components of individual function (emotion,

cognition, defense, and conflict), and 3 types of re￾lationships (past, present, and focal) are presented

and shown to interact with the various behavioral

elements of an organization from individuals

through groups, subsystems, and the entire

organization.

Using this model, it becomes possible to navi￾gate through the complex world that confronts in￾dividuals who do executive coaching. It demon￾strates that a consultant working with an individual

manager can focus on any of the 17 factors, their

subcomponents, or their interactions and still ratio￾nally call what he or she is doing executive coach￾ing. The financial expert helping a client bring a

new company forward to a public stock offering,

the systems engineer assisting a manager to choose

or install a new software product, and the organiza￾tional psychologist working with an executive to

redesign the competitive structure of an enterprise

23

Richard R. Kilburg

Defense

System Structure l _ Past Relationship(s)

Emotion

Present

Relationship(s)

Focal

Relationship(s)

Instinctual

Self

System

Process

Idealized Self

System Content

Output Conflict

FIGURE 1.1. A 17-dimensional model of psychodynamics and organization systems. Org. = organizational;

Inds. = individuals.

are all providing consultation, that is, helping ser￾vices to a client manager. The focus of the effort

may be radically different and the processes widely

divergent, but the goals are usually to assist the

person with authority and responsibility in a given

organization to improve his or her performance

and that of the enterprise. Within this very broad

approach, it seems almost impossible to differenti￾ate executive coaching from other forms of consul￾tation, training, and organization development.

Figure 1.2 presents a modified version of the

17-factor model that helps to clarify this complex￾ity and perhaps differentiate executive coaching

from these other types of consultation strategies. In

this figure, the 17 dimensions of the model are ex￾tended and organized into three loci: the individual

executive (executive focus), the organizational sys￾tems (system focus), and the relationship and be￾havioral factors that mediate all interactions and

activities between the manager and his or her orga￾nization (mediated focus). A consultant working

with a client executive can provide assistance to an

individual inside of or crossing over any of the loci.

However, I would like to suggest that a more rigor￾FIGURE 1.2. The foci for executive coaching.

ous conceptual approach to executive coaching as a

specific consultation service would choose the ex￾ecutive focus presented in the figure as the primary

target of the consultation. These coaching activities

would flow over into the other foci primarily as a

way of helping the individual learn how to better

function as a person and as a leader in a given

organization.

24

Toward a Conceptual Understanding oj Executive Coaching

TABL E 1. 1

Components of Executive Coaching Interventions

1. Developing an intervention agreement.

Establishing a focus and goals for the coaching effort.

Making a commitment of time.

Committing other resources.

Identifying and agreeing on methods.

Setting confidentiality constraints and agreement.

Establishing amounts and methods of payment, if appropriate.

2. Building a coaching relationship.

Establishing the working alliance.

Identifying and managing transferences.

Initiating and preserving containment.

3. Creating and managing expectations of coaching success.

4. Providing an experience of behavioral mastery or cognitive control over the problems and issues.

Assessing, confronting, and solving problems and issues.

Identifying and working with emotions.

Identifying and managing resistance, defenses, and operating problems.

Identifying and managing conflicts in the organization, in the working relationship, and in the unconscious life of the client.

Using techniques and methods flexibly and effectively.

Make the unsaid said and the unknown known; get the issues on the table.

Use feedback, disclosure, and other communication techniques to maximum effect.

Emphasize the reality principle—what will work most effectively with the best long-term outcomes.

Be prepared to confront acting out, moral issues, or ethical lapses in a tactful way.

Try to use and engage in yourself and your client the highest level defensive operations—sublimation, learning and problem

solving, communication, curiosity, humor, creativity.

5. Evaluation and attribution of coaching success or failure—assess each of your coaching sessions together; periodically look

back over what has been accomplished.

Note. From "Common Factors Aren't So Common: The Common Factors Dilemma," byj. Weinberger, 1995, Clinical

Psychology: Science and Practice, 2(1), pp. 45-69. Adapted with permission. Copyright 1995 by Oxford University

Press.

Table 1.1, adapted from Weinberger (1995),

outlines five major components of executive coach￾ing interventions. Weinberger has tried to identify

the common factors in approaches to psychother￾apy, and most of these, I believe, apply equally well

to most relationships in which someone is playing a

helping role with an individual identified as a cli￾ent. These five components—establishing an inter￾vention agreement, building a coaching relation￾ship, creating and maintaining expectations of

success, providing experiences of mastery and

cognitive control, and evaluating and attributing

coaching successes and failures—provide a road

map of the process and content of executive coach￾ing relationships. Exploring the details of these

components in operation is also beyond the scope

of this chapter, but it is in and through the imple￾mentation of these five processes that the true work

of coaching takes place.

The first of these components can be further

elaborated by an examination of Table 1.2, which

presents a summary of many of the typical goals

built into coaching contracts. These goal statements

follow the emphasis of Figure 1.2 in that the first

six are targeted on improving the functioning of the

individual executive both as a person and as a man￾ager. The goals use the 17 dimensions of the sys￾tems and psychodynamics model as a base from

which to operate in a coaching relationship, simul￾taneously acknowledging and using the organiza￾tional environment in which the manager operates,

selecting various aspects of the individual's behav￾ior for tutorials, and always pushing the individual

to improved levels of professional performance.

Table 1.3 presents an abbreviated listing of vari￾ous coaching methods and techniques. The consul￾tant will use these techniques during the imple￾mentation of each of the five components of a

25

Richard R. Kilburg

TABL E 1 .2

Typical Goals of Executive Coaching

1. Increase the range, flexibility, and effectiveness of the client's behavioral repertoire.

2. Increase the client's capacity to manage an organization—planning, organizing, staffing, leading, controlling, cognitive

complexity, decision making, tasks, jobs, roles, etc.

3. Improve client's psychological and social competencies.

Increase psychological and social awareness and understanding (see the 17 dimensions of Figure 1.1).

Increase tolerance of ambiguity.

Increase tolerance and range of emotional responses.

Increase flexibility in and ability to develop and maintain effective interpersonal relationships within a diverse workforce.

Increase the client's awareness and knowledge of motivation, learning, group dynamics, organizational behavior, and other

components of the psychosocial and organizational domains of human behavior.

Decrease acting out of emotions, unconscious conflicts, and other psychodynamic patterns.

Improve the client's capacity to learn and grow.

Improve the client's stress management skills and stress hardiness.

4. Increase the client's ability to manage self and others in conditions of environmental and organizational turbulence, crisis, and

conflict.

5. Improve the client's ability to manage his or her career and to advance professionally.

6. Improve the client's ability to manage the tensions between organizational, family, community, industry, and personal needs

and demands.

7. Improve the effectiveness of the organization or team.

coaching intervention. A consultant working in a

coaching relationship has a wide array of methods

available to assist the executive. Traditional "test￾and-tell" approaches help the manager become

familiar with various dimensions of his or her be￾havior and provide the coach and the client with a

language and a set of concepts within which to

conduct their sessions. Education, training, role

modeling, simulations, and several other methods

identified in Table 1.3 foster the growth of knowl￾edge and stimulate the client to try new behaviors

in the context of the coaching relationship. Tradi￾tional clinical methods of communication, clarifi￾cation, confrontations, interpretations, and recon￾structions can be extremely helpful when clients

are struggling with significant emotional responses

to their learning, jobs, relationships, or personal

lives. Care and caution must be exercised when us￾ing these clinical techniques. The client must know

and agree that such methods may be used and that

such emotional issues may be addressed. The coach

must also have the appropriate levels of training

and experience to use the techniques wisely and

professionally. Finally, methods such as crisis man￾agement, behavioral analysis, group process inter￾ventions, and relationship interventions with key

subordinates or superiors may also be used to assist

the manager in surmounting real problems encoun￾tered on the job. Choosing from this diverse array

of techniques is one of the constant challenges of

the coaching consultant.

In most coaching situations, at a minimum, the

client gains some knowledge about himself or her￾self. Some experimentation with new behaviors

may be attempted or resistance to change worked

through. Still, in other cases, the client may im￾prove working relationships, marital or family ad￾aptation, or career satisfaction. In many situations,

the coach provides significant assistance in helping

the manager change his or her organization and

improve its performance.

The final component of coaching interventions

calls for the client and the coach to conduct an

evaluation of the process and to assess the dimen￾sions of success or failure. In my experience, the at￾tributions of success by the client usually focus on

the degree to which the coach provided a support￾ive relationship; stimulated the client to think, feel,

and explore new ideas and behaviors; and assisted

the individual in working through resistance to

change. Recognition of the catalytic role of the

coaching relationship is common. Most often,

clients suggest that one of the most helpful compo￾nents of coaching is that it forces the manager to

26

Toward a Conceptual Understanding oj Executive Coaching

TABL E L.3

An Abbreviated List of Coaching Methods and Techniques

Assessment and feedback (intelligence, leadership style, personality dimensions, interpersonal style and preferences, conflict

management and crisis management approaches, knowledge, ability, skills)

Education

Training

Skill development: description, modeling, demonstration, rehearsal, practice, evaluation of life experience

Stimulations

Role playing

Organizational assessment and diagnosis

Brainstorming (strategies, methods, approaches, diagnostics, problem solving, intervention plans, evaluation approaches,

hypothesis testing, worst case analysis)

Conflict and crisis management

Communications (active-empathic listening/silence, free association, open and closed questions, memory, translation,

interpretation, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation questions)

Clarifications: restatements of client's communications; explanations of coaching communications

12. Confrontations (verbal interventions to direct the client's attention to issues, behaviors, problems, thoughts, or emotions that

are evident to both the client and the coach)

13. Interpretations (verbal interventions to direct the client's attention in a meaningful way to issues, behaviors, problems,

thoughts, or emotions that are evident to the coach but are out of the client's conscious awareness)

14. Reconstructions (attempts based on what is present in and missing from the client's communications, memories, etc., to fill

in an apparently important gap in recollection of some life event along with its actual emotional and reality repercussions)

15. Empathy and encouragement

16. Tact

17. Helping to set limits

18. Helping to maintain boundaries

19. Depreciating and devaluing maladaptive behaviors, defenses, attitudes, values, emotions, fantasies

20. Punishment and extinction of maladaptive behaviors

21. Establishing consequences for behaviors

22. Behavioral analysis: gathering and assessing information

Group process interventions

Working relationship interventions (usually with key subordinates or superiors)

Project- and/or process-focused work on structure, process, and content issues in the organization or on input, throughput,

or output problems or issues

Journaling, reading assignments, conferences, and workshops

Other interventions, using organization development or training technologies

23

24

25

26

27

take time to reflect on aspects of his or her perfor￾mance and the performance of the organization.

The value of pushing a busy manager to be more

reflective on a regular basis should not be underes￾timated. Still, in some coaching relationships, the

client, the coach, or both will judge that the inter￾ventions had little or no positive impact.

Table 1.4 presents a series of hypothesized

factors in both the client and the coach that

may contribute to negative coaching outcomes.

These factors are adapted from Mohr (1995),

who provided a succinct summary of the litera￾ture on negative outcomes in psychotherapy. I

would like to suggest that executive coaching

shares some but not all of the characteristics of

psychotherapuetic interventions and, conse￾quently, that some of the factors that have been

demonstrated to contribute to negative outcomes

in psychotherapy may cross over and generalize

to coaching situations. As one can see, these

factors range from severe psychopathology and

resistance to change in the client to poor tech￾nique, lack of empathy, and lack of ability to

clarify the coaching contract in the consultant;

individuals who wish to do executive coaching

would be wise to keep these suggested factors

in mind as interventions are planned and, in par￾ticular, to consult the lists when and if coaching

sessions do not appear to be accomplishing much

for the individual or the organization.

27

Richard R. Kilburg

TABL E 1.4

Hypothesized Factors Contributing to Negative Coaching Outcomes

In Clients

1. Severe psychopathology (psychotic symptoms, major character problelms, obsessive-compulsive disorder, etc., with client

refusal to obtain treatment).

2. Severe interpersonal problems (client unwilling or unable to develop or maintain working relationships; significant or

protracted negative transference).

3. Lack of motivation (client experiences little pressure to change from self or others).

4. Unrealistic expectations of the coach or coaching process (client expects coach or the process itself to substitute for or

actually do the work of the executive; major or repeated violations of the coaching agreement).

5. Lack of follow-through on homework or intervention suggestions.

In Coaches

1. Insufficient empathy for the client (coach does not truly care about the client's well-being or future).

2. Lack of interest or expertise in the client's problems or issues.

3. Underestimating the severity of the client's problems or overestimating the coach's ability to influence the client.

4. Significant or protracted negative countertransference (coach overreacts to the client emotionally; has echoes of past

significant, problematic relationships that cannot be managed appropriately).

5. Poor technique—inaccurate assessment, lack of clarity on coaching contract, poor choice or poor implementation of

methods.

6. Major or prolonged disagreements with the client about the coaching process (coach believes that client's views of the

agreement, problems, methods, implementation, or evaluation of the coaching efforts are flawed in major ways that become

unmanageable).

Note. From "Negative Outcome in Psychotherapy: A Critical Review," by D. C. Mohr, 1995, Clinical Psychology: Sci￾ence and Practice, 2(1), pp. 1-27. Adapted with permission. Copyright 1995 by Oxford University Press.

A WORKING DEFINITION OF

EXECUTIVE COACHING

Having reviewed some basic concepts integral to

the process of conducting coaching intervention

with a client, I believe we can use this material to

propose a working definition of executive coaching

in the field of consultation. Such a definition may

be helpful for practitioners and scholars alike as the

field continues to evolve, clarify theory and tech￾nique, and encourage the conduct of research on

these types of interventions. In the context of the

concepts provided earlier, executive coaching is de￾fined as a helping relationship formed between a

client who has managerial authority and responsi￾bility in an organization and a consultant who uses

a wide variety of behavioral techniques and meth￾ods to help the client achieve a mutually identified

set of goals to improve his or her professional per￾formance and personal satisfaction and, conse￾quently, to improve the effectiveness of the client's

organization within a formally defined coaching

agreement.

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