Codes of practice
Coaching has been described as the ‘Wild West of executive development’ (Sherman and Freas 2004).
Furthermore, Garvey, Stokes and Megginson (2014) described coaching as ‘depicted as being populated by quacks and charlatans making unlikely claims based on dubious research methods, inadequately researched.’ They also found in the early 1990s that ‘corporate purchasers of coaching were crying out for something to show them who were the sound coaches and who the fly-by-nights, among the dozens who were approaching each organisation every week, offering their wares.’
This is why codes of practice are important and why they were developed by the various coaching bodies; clients need to trust their coaches and mentors.
In 2008, the importance of robust codes of ethics were reinforced at the Global Convention on Coaching. The GCC covered ethics as one of the key subjects in its conference dialogue. This resulted in a summary document (GCC 2008) that confirmed:
- After twelve months of open discussions worldwide, it has become evident that a strong code of ethics is of paramount importance.
- The code underpins the emergence of coaching as a profession, its status, education and development and core competencies.
- A strong code will help sustain the profession. It is also evident that such a strong code needs accountability mechanisms.
On a micro level, codes of practice are vitally important as a tool to assist in the specific issues and challenges sometimes faced within the coaching and mentoring discipline. At the ICF international conference in 2006 those issues and challenges generating the most frequent enquiries were summarised. Four categories were identified: confidentiality, misrepresentation, conflict of interest and contracting.
Brock (2006) states that the expectation of confidentiality in coaching is to ‘Respect confidentiality of all client information (including company and/or client name) except as authorised by client or required by law.’ This addresses the risk that coaches may reveal confidential information about a client, without their permission, when discussing clients with other clients or coaches.
There is also a confidentiality risk within a client organisation, particularly where the executives and/or sponsors in the organisation require regular progress updates on the coaching programme or individuals within it. There is also the possibility that coaches and clients may become friends, in which case boundaries need to have been set and confidentiality guaranteed so that the coach is mindful of their responsibilities. Confidentiality clauses in codes of practice are therefore important to ensure the coach has a formal ethics framework to work within; one that can be shared with the client if necessary.
Similarly, misrepresentation headings are also vitally important in codes of practice as the desire to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace, perhaps by embellishing their credentials in the ‘About me’ page of their website, might be difficult for a coach to resist.
Coaches may also be tempted to extend their professional proposition by presenting themselves as trainers or business consultants, despite not having the appropriate training, skills, experience or credentials.
Another valuable application of the codes of practice is in the event of a possible conflict of interest. Brock (2006) describes the responsibility of the coach as follows: ‘Seek to avoid conflicts between my interests and the interests of my clients; whenever any actual conflict of interest or the potential for conflict of interest arises, I will openly disclose it and fully discuss with my client how to deal with it in whatever way best serves my client.’
An example of conflict of interest within my own experience as an IPG mentor is when I have been asked my mentees for advice on the best approach to selling their books to retailers, e.g. Waterstones. I have been conflicted here because of my previous role as Interim Director at a publishers’ sales agency, which could offer exactly the kind of solution the mentee requires. Accordingly, I have to be careful to dispassionately lay out all the sales solutions available to my mentee, not just ‘my’ agency’s, as well as clearly declaring my own connection to that agency.
Contracting
Contracting is also vitally important at a strategic and senior level of coaching and mentoring practice. It is crucial to design a robust contract between coach/mentor and client before any intervention and/or programme commences.
The key areas that should be covered by a contract are:
- Establishing the nature of the relationship, in particular, agreeing boundaries (personal/professional) and any ‘off limits’ areas.
- Which profiling methods will be used (e.g. Myers-Briggs, EI/EQ questionnaires, VIA Strengths testing, strength cards, etc.).
- How you will work; the process you use (in person, emails, Zoom etc.)
- Conditions: Venue for any in-person meetings, time, frequency, number of sessions, length of contract.
- Cost/fees of programme and payment terms (payment plans etc.).
- Three-way or two-way (e.g. contracts between coach, funding/sponsoring organisation and coachee, or between coach and coachee respectively).
- Note-taking, record keeping, reflective thought recording etc. (and crucially, the extent that those notes can/will be shared with the client, particularly in the light of GDPR legislation).
- Reviews (monthly? mid-programme?) and outcomes evaluation.
Typical contracting issues are around cost/fees particularly where the contract is ‘performance-related’ e.g. where a coach might require a percentage commission should the programme and/or coachee deliver a significant uplift in commercial performance post-programme. This arrangement is common within consulting but should be approached with extreme caution in a coaching scenario, as the tangible effects of an intervention will be so difficult to quantify, particularly if appropriate confidentiality has been maintained.
Also related to the danger of lack of clarity within the cost/fees sections of the contract. There should be, at the very least, the need for disclosure of other related interests. For example, where a coach might receive a fee or from an affiliate relationship and/or referral(s) to other services, programmes or products. As with the ‘commission’ arrangements described above, whist it might be lucrative for a coach to engage in such ‘kickback’ deals, there are questions to be asked as to their appropriateness within a coaching scenario and whether, in fact, they may be contravening one or more of the professional codes of practice, even in spirit if not in practice as such.
It is not uncommon for coaches to request payment in advance. What then happens when a client ends a coaching relationship early? Would a refund be applicable? It is the responsibility of coaches to ensure their Coaching Agreement is unambiguous on this matter.
Supervision
In order to ensure on-going support for coaches in what can, at times, be a stressful and emotionally challenging environment, as well as a physically gruelling one, supervision is also a vitally important aspect of coaching and mentoring practice.
Organisations such as the EMCC and ICF now expect their members to engage in supervision. There is also greater pressure from individual and corporate paying clients for coaches and mentors to be ‘quality assured’, with supervision having the potential to offer a way in which clients can be more confident that they are dealing with a competent professional and perhaps be reassured that another professional is monitoring their work.
Effective supervision also ensures a more extended learning experience and helps coaches make the necessary connections with their own thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
Caraccioli (1760) believed that a mentor needs a more experienced mentor to work with. More recent comments include Hawkins and Smith’s (2006) who describe supervision as ‘the process by which a coach/mentor/consultant, with the help of a supervisor, who is not working directly with the client, can attend to understanding better both the client system and themselves as part of the client-coach/mentor system, and transform their work.’
Gray and Jackson (2011) developed what they refer to as a ‘meta-model’ of supervision, which takes a more holistic view of the relationship between supervisor and supervisee, and has the following features:
- It involves facilitating the development of the supervisor in terms of confidence, motivation and knowledge.
- It is complex and includes paying attention to what is happening between the supervisor and the supervisee and the supervisee’s relationship with the client.
- Teaching is at the heart of the relationship for both supervisor and supervisee.
- The supervisee’s development is not necessarily linear and can involve progressing at different speeds for different processes and functions, and that it can involve regression.
- It is influenced by social and organisational contexts within which it occurs.
My two favourite definitions of supervision are the simplest, namely those of Thomson (2014) who talks about supervision as ‘maintaining and enhancing a high quality of practice’, and Brookes (2001), who states it is ‘naïve at best and dangerous at worst, if coaching is not supervised by another professional with some psychological expertise.’
If you’d like to schedule an exploratory call or video meeting to discuss my coaching approach, please get in touch.