Coaching has reached a crucial point in its evolution. It has sufficiently penetrated the corporate landscape and collective corporate mind for us to witness its demise. The reason? It has widely become considered ‘good.” Things considered “good” become panaceas, panaceas become fads, and fads have a predictable life cycle. Coaching, despite its revolutionary potential, is not the answer to all problems but for reason of it being misunderstood and badly implemented, it is vulnerable to dying out and its impact lost too.

The contemporary business landscape is strewn with the wreckage of discarded corporate hula-hoops—promising initiatives once seen and enthusiastically hailed as silver bullets. Unfortunately, panaceas turn out to have unforeseen consequences, or simply fail to deliver on their promise.

Coaching as one more fad

Business is increasingly driven by a People Magazine mentality of superstars and show biz—of what’s in and what’s not, what’s hot and what’s not, and the fear of being left behind. The resulting succession of buzzwords, gimmicks, snake oil, and ultimate truths (only later seen as myths) renders even potentially valuable initiatives vulnerable to the same monkey-see, monkey-do fad process as things that are only gimmicks.

Business fads consisting of unadulterated cockamamie (fill in your favorite example) fortunately die out relatively quickly, albeit not without a loss of time and resources. But whatever is in vogue in business at any moment, even if potentially valuable, is usually headed for a certain exit.   The reason is simple: early adopters tout the new "thing."  Then when something it reaches a level of seeming familiarity and currency, lemming like followers glom onto to it, not wanting to be left out.  The sense of familiarity—what they have read, or heard, or seen modeled—makes them feel that they understand, and, rightly or wrongly, they want to gain the benefit of the latest good thing.

Such could be the case with coaching. The sizzle of coaching’s early success has generated imitative adoptions in which accurately appraising its revolutionary potential has been left out.  As such coaching is in danger of an unceremonious death—a death fostered by a lack of comprehension of its best purpose and by a lack of appropriate action taken by its adherents, including, perhaps most tellingly in these cases, coaches themselves.

Not seeing coaching for its true potential

Coaching is not “good” in and of itself, no matter what coaches and coaching fans say. The goodness or effectiveness of coaching crucially depends on the context in which it is used, its stated purpose and how universally it is available. If a business adopts coaching for its executives, it must be integrated into the structure of that business, or it will not be “good”—not be a potent tool.

The problem for coaching does not arise from a lack of a certification process for coaches. Far from it. The clamor in certain circles for the certification of coaches is a glaring example of a fundamental misunderstanding of what coaching is and of its potentially revolutionary role. The problem is, rather, that coaching is not in and of itself “good" without considerations for its implementation.

Coaching is coaching, a potentially revolutionary business tool. But all things powerful are double-edged: fire is a good thing, fire is a dangerous thing; a hammer is a useful thing, a hammer is a destructive thing. When and where coaching produces good outcomes within organizations, it is not only used judiciously, but it is also openly integrated into the ongoing conduct of the business like any other business tool. And coaching furthermore functions best when it is tailored to specific circumstances and objectives, to the talents and abilities of the person coached as well as the coach, not invoked as a cure-all for problems.

•  Case in point: Corporation X wants to introduce coaching, but, expecting resistance, borrows a page from psychotherapy and decides to offer it as a confidential option to executives. Bad choice. At X, where no existing cultural norm supports coaching, there are no clear, existing, supportive assumptions regarding it. In this situation, executives are forced to do their own interpreting and they become wary.  A sense of shame became associated with it.

Because at X coaching had been made a confidential matter, interested executives were not able to know whether anyone else, especially key influential personnel, were actually participating. Remember, IBM only began to overcome the notorious funk associated with its restructuring and cultural shifts when it became clear that Lou Gerstner, himself, was overtly behaving in accord with the new initiatives.

Furthermore since coaching, as introduced at X, most resembled psychotherapy, no one was sure what stepping forward to participate would imply. And finally, the insistence on secrecy constricted how coaching could be implemented. Valuable adjuncts to mere talking sessions such as shadowing, attending meetings, and interviewing and getting suggestions from fellow workers were ruled out.

While the content of coaching sessions should always be kept confidential by the coach, coaching recipients should be encouraged to talk openly about their being involved.  The combined emphasis on coaching as an option and on its confidentiality sent a mixed message at X. At Corporation X, a new norm needed to be created and modeled in order for coaching to become integrated into the mainstream of business processes. Without that, the coaching initiative could not get off the ground. With the best of intentions, a poison pill had been administered to the new coaching initiative before it began.

Putting new wine into old wineskins has a notorious history for spoiling potentially good wines and the skins they go into. The seemingly reasonable choice of treating participation in coaching as confidential implicitly attaches shame to it. Do corporations “offer” performance reviews? Do they “suggest” the adoption of new technology or other new initiatives? Coaching needs to be embraced and normalized.

Making coaching, or anything else that is challenging, operate in secret reduces its utilization. For coaching to truly be good it must be allowed to be flexibly, imaginatively, and compatibly combined with other tools and processes.  The best application would be for everyone to be coached all the time.  That is what serious athletes get the benefit of from the beginning through the highest stages of their careers.

Just appending coaching to any system without considering its implications, the context and its fit, is like deciding to remodel your house by having lumber delivered and imagining you will work out the design later. Access, use, and compatibility issues must be considered first.

Is coaching really a good idea? If so, when and in what way? Existing business systems and cultures do not always easily accommodate the possibilities coaching presents, and when they don’t, they reduce it to that basement rec room with wet bar that no one uses.

Coaching as revolutionary force

Coaching, properly understood, is one part of a revolution—one element of a sea change—that has already been transforming the way forward-thinking businesses conduct themselves. It is now moving to another level. This shift involves a logical but formidable extension of processes by now long underway in business—processes related to maximizing the potential of existing personnel.

Where commitment to continually supporting solid progress in interpersonal processes and relationships—the stuff that constitutes the daily conduct of business—is not seen as fad or frill, but as a necessary ingredient to accomplish the business of business, revolutionary improvements are realized.

Optimum performance in business, just as in athletics, performing arts, or crafts, involves rehearsing and honing skills. If your business involves people interacting with other people, improving those skills is requisite. We have milked technology to increase productivity. It is now ethically irresponsible not to continuously support optimal interpersonal skills of personnel in order to gain the further improvements in creativity, productivity, and morale that provide an edge over the competition.

Unfettered, full-strength coaching results in increases in improvements that cannot be otherwise attained in just these areas. When and where coaching, rather than being seen as a “good” thing, is seen as but one more part of this necessary emphasis, coaching can make its revolutionary impact.