Coaching Supervision:Latest Developments and Future Challenges

Professor Peter HawkinsProfessor of Leadership, Henley Business School

Founder and Emeritus Chairman, Bath Consultancy Group

Coaching supervision

Raise your hands up if:

1. You believe it is important that coaches, mentors and consultants should have regular ongoing supervision of their coaching.

2. You receive regular ongoing supervision.

3. You receive supervision that consistently TRANSFORMS your practice and DEVELOPS BOTH YOU and YOUR CRAFT.

Coaching supervision in 2006

Was just beginning, widely advocated BUT poorly or rarely carried out• According to the surveys, 88% of organisers of coaching and 86% of

coaches believe that coaches should have regular ongoing supervision of their coaching

• 44% of coaches receive regular ongoing supervision and 23% of organizations provide regular ongoing coaching supervision

• 58% of the coaches receiving supervision started within the last 2 years• First training course started in 2003• First book and first research on the subject 2006

Henley Business School Corporate Learning Survey 2014

Organizational challenges: next 3 years

Major re-organisation

International competition

Accessing new ideas

Domestic competition

Technological advances

Achieving cultural change

Managing growth

Speed of change

Managing costs

Effectiveness of management teams

Overall leadership capability

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

35%

36%

38%

40%

42%

51%

51%

52%

57%

62%

71%

Henley Business School Corporate Learning Survey 2014

2014 planned activities

Other

Open executive education programmes

Interactive online learning

Externally accredited programmes

Individual online learning

Customised executive education

Peer to peer activities

Team coaching

Individual coaching

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

4%

37%

39%

43%

47%

47%

53%

55%

83%

Henley Business School Corporate Learning Survey 2014

The Rhetoric & Reality of Coaching in Organizations

0%

20%

40%

60%62% 62% 61% 59%

39%29%

46%

20%

Which of the following do you think are essential to support coaching in your organization? And which do you have in place already?

EssentialIn place already

Other recent research

• Zoe Jepson 2013 study of 100 coaches mainly in UK

• Anthony Grant 2012 study of 174 coaches in Australia

• Whyte & Co 2013 Australia and New Zealand

• Ridler Report 2013

• Sherpa Report 2014

• Work being done on Supervisor Qualities by EMCC and AC in Europe and ICF

Australia

2014 Eve Turner and Peter Hawkins research on multi-stakeholder contracting

Key objectives:

1. Highlight any challenges in setting coaching outcomes when the organization is involved along with the individual client and coach.

2. Gain participants’ views on whether multi-stakeholder contracting has an impact on the coaching and its outcomes and if so what.

3. Discover best practice from participants as to how can multi-stakeholder contracting meetings can be carried out most effectively for the individual client, the organization and the coach.

4. Discover what the latest practice is in Coaching Supervision including how Multi-Stakeholder contracting is or is not addressed in supervision updating the research done by Peter Hawkins and Gil Schwenk for the CIPD in 2006.

5. Consider whether there are any differences based on geography or other demographics.

2014 project – research methodology

On-line surveys

• Coaches’ survey: 717 responses(569 completed some parts, 428 completed the supervision section)*

• organizations’ survey: 76 responses (of whom 52 completed some parts, 63 completed the supervision section)*

• Individual clients’ survey: 61 responses (of whom 30 completed some parts and 29 the section on supervision)*

Within the online surveys there were several points for participants to write in qualitative responses and there were several hundred.

*(Completion rates, in brackets, were lower, in part because some people began the wrong survey and not all respondents completed all questions.)

Percentage of coaches who reported having supervision

Globally 356/428 (83.18%)

UK 216/234 (92.31%)

Africa 9/10 (90.00%)

Latin America 8/9 (88.89%)

Europe 75/93 (80.65%)

Australia/New Zealand 16/22 (72.73%)

Asia 11/17 (64.71%)

USA and Canada 20/42 (47.64%)

This indicates a massive increase in coaches having coaching supervision since 2006, and that North America is about where the UK was in 2006.

Where coaches did have supervision, the top two reasons given were intrinsically motivated

It is part of my personal commitment to good practice 92.6%

It contributes to my CPD 51.6%

It is a requirement of a professional body of which I am a member 33.9%

It is a requirement for accreditation by a professional body 26.5%

It is a requirement of organizations using me as an external coach 19.2%

It is a requirement of organizations using me as an internal coach 14.7%

Blocks to supervision

• “Don’t like the term”• Lack of clarity on the benefits• Lack of trained coaching supervisors• “Don’t think I need it”• Cost

Coaching supervision

Lessons from 2008

What were the coaches doing while

the banks were burning?

Definition of ‘coaching supervision’

“A structured formal process for coaches, with the help of a coaching supervisor, to attend to improving the quality of their coaching, grow their coaching capacity and support

themselves and their practice. Supervision should also be a source of organizational learning.”

(Hawkins and Schwenk, CIPD research 2006)

Aspects of supervision

Kardushin

ManagerialEducative

Supportive

Proctor

NormativeFormative

Restorative

Hawkins & Smith

QualitativeDevelopmental

Resourcing

Supervision functions

• Helps keep the coach honest and courageous, attending to what they are not seeing, not hearing, not allowing themselves to feel, or not saying

• Looks at where and how the coach may need to refer the client on for more specialised help

• Helps the coach to develop their internal supervisor and become a better reflective practitioner

• Key part of continuous professional development and action learning of the coach

• Provides a supportive space for the coach to process what they have absorbed from their clients and their clients’ system

Q

Q

D

D

R

What coaches value about supervision with Hawkins’ definition of ‘functions of supervision’

What coaches value about supervision and CPD Hawkins’s definition of functions of supervision

Ranking

Ensure continual growth and development of my practice

Developmental 93% very important7% quite important

Assure quality in my coaching Qualitative 80% very important19% quite important

Become aware of my reactions to the client 

Resourcing 80% very important

Operate ethically as a coach Qualitative 69% very important 20% quite important

To provide a safe place and restorative function Resourcing 57% very important39% quite important

To demonstrate professional standards Qualitative 53% very important37% quite important

To understand the client better Developmental 52% very important41% quite important

Clarity over desired outcomes from this session

Help develop their understanding of situation

Choose a way forward and rehearse first steps

Review actions and get feedback

Contract

Listen

Explore

Action

Review

Feelings and factsWhat they have already done?What else they might try, more options?

The Paradigm Shift – stepping up now to meet future needs

Stand shoulder to shoulderas partners facing what the coachee or

supervisee’s stakeholders need.

Transformational coaching supervision

How does it work?

• Working in partnership in service of the world beyond the direct client

• Attending to four levels of engagement

• Listening beyond the story to the frame, patterns and assumptions

• Moving beyond insight and good intention to an embodied shift in being – using fast forward rehearsals

• Unlearning as well as learning

• Working systemically – realising the shift needs to start in the relationship in the room.’

Transformational coaching supervision

Personal Embodied Learning – Getting coaching into the bones

Move from

THINKING the CHANGE

To

BEING the CHANGE

Transformational coaching supervision

Habitual Patterns of Behaviour

Reactive Personal Feelings

Assumptions, Values,Stories I tell myself, Motivational Roots

Facts

Four Levels of Engagement

Seven modes of supervision

1

4

6

7

SupervisorySystem

Coaching System

Supervisor

Coach

Client

2

5

3

1. The client situation

2. The coach’s interventions

3. The coaching relationship

4. The coach

5. The supervisory relationship and parallel process

6. The supervisor

7. The wider context

Thank you for listeningIf you want to follow up with a conversation or discover more about the BCG training in Coaching Supervision then please contact me.

peter.hawkins@bathconsultancygroup.com

www.linkedin.com Tel: +44 7802 887418