Is your coaching program on track?

I’ve been doing a lot of research recently into the concept of Coaching Supervision, and thought it would be useful to share with you what I’ve learned.  This is a concept that’s of great value to any company which is looking to put together a program which includes coaching services, either internal or external.

The fundamental idea is that Coaching Supervision is the way that you maintain the connection between what’s going on with Coach-Client engagements, and the larger goals of your program.

The field of Coaching Supervision is relatively new, with the most progress thus far having been made in the UK.  I’ve seen some excellent reports there, and one more recent in Australia.  It leverages from the ideas of supervision in other people-related practices, including psychotherapy and even management.

In the US we tend to have a resistance to this word “Supervision,” some see it as a bit Big-Brother-ish or perhaps insulting one’s professionalism.  I’d ask you to get beyond your feelings the term, because the concept is very important.  And I needed to introduce you to the term, because it’s what is expanding across the industry – like it or not.

When you put a program in place which includes coaching services, you have some larger goals and objectives.  This might include things such as:

• Leadership skill development
• Self-awareness, translating into better communication and decision-making
• Implementation of a particular change initiative

When you first start your individual coaching engagements, of course, you’ll be feeding information to the clients (program participants), and to coaches, which relates to these goals.  But here are the crucial questions:

• As the program progresses, how do you know whether the coach-client discussions actually stay aligned with these larger goals?
• How do you even know if those discussions are happening and yielding any value?
• What help do the coaches have when they run into a challenging situation with a particular client?
• How do you know if other parts of your program (training, perhaps) are causing the coach-client discussions to go off the rails?
• Are you losing opportunities to get even more value out of the coaching relationships?

This is where Coaching Supervision can give you a great deal of value.  What is it?  Quite simply, it’s a periodic group or 1-1 discussion with the coaches participating in your program, facilitated either by a mentor coach, or by someone who can act as an intermediary between the program goals and the information and issues that the coaches have.

To be most productive, these discussions are:

• Within an environment of trust and openness
• Strongly linked to the particular program goals
• Developed on coach-like behaviors

Typical discussion points in a meeting will be:

• How well are we staying aligned with the program goals?
• Are there any issues we’re running into with clients where we would value advice or coaching?
• Are we doing our best to grow as a community of coaches?
• What trends and opportunities are we noticing which might help us to deliver even more value to the program?

If you’re thinking about a program for your organization which includes coaching services, consider how this very useful concept will help you deliver much greater value for your investment.  I’ve been working with several organizations that are excited about the possibilities that exist.

Footnote:  This description is fairly specific to Coaching Supervision as applied to coaching programs.  Other applications exist, such as Supervision as a part of developing coaching skills – say, in connection with a coach training school.  I haven’t covered that here.

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