Integral Coaching, Life Coaching, Career Coaching, Executive Coaching, Creativity Coaching, and the Question of Scope

For reasons beyond my understanding, I have run into conversations about coaching in all its various forms (integral, life, business, executive, creativity, etc.) at every turn. I’m sitting with a friend over dinner, and he asks me about my coaching practice. I turn on the radio, I hear magician Penn Gillette talk about his Showtime series “Bull Sh*t” exposé of the charlatans in the coaching business. I sit down with one colleague (then another, then another) and, in nearly every such conversation, the topic of “coaching” shows up.

So, I guess that’s today’s topic. What occurred to me today about this emergent profession is not the usual inquiry into which model is better, or a diatribe decrying the lack of universally accepted professional standards or certification, or what minimum standards should be for a coach. I don’t feel like writing about how to select a coach out of the Yellow Pages, or Life Pages, or professional publications, or the internet.

The problem with coaching that I’d like to muse aloud about is scope. I have watched, with growing amazement as this profession emerged, the scope of the claims of some coaches. Here are a few from my not-so-random sample off the web:

“Coaching offers a means for more balance, joy, intimacy, energy, financial abundance, focus, and action in every area of your life.”

”Coaching is a way to help people make the best use of their own resources. It is a way to bring out the best of people's capabilities. Coaching helps people set goals and then reach those goals. Coaching is goal and results oriented and can focus on virtually any area of life: business, career, family, health, personal growth, spirituality, intimacy, simple living, and financial development.”

”Life coaching is a personal, inner growth process that manifests in a higher quality life for you. As your life coach, I ask you probing questions that spark you to think in new ways, offer insights and feedback to give you new perspectives, support you as you take on new challenges and growth, and hold a vision of you as your highest and best potential”

Some (note – not all) coaches take on so much scope it seems as though they seek to be counselor, cheerleader, spiritual guide, fitness trainer, nag, and more. It’s no wonder that some coaching clients come away disappointed – who among us would not disappoint if we sought to fulfill all these roles and more?

I’m developing an appreciation for coaches that narrow their scope to something more attainable and, I’m thinking, more useful. Scope-narrowing comes in many forms, but I’ve thought of three off the top of my head (and that’s without any coffee!):

Domain: The most highly publicized examples of coaches who rein in their scope by making the subject-matter of their coaching relationship domain-specific are in sports – “offensive line coach”, “putting coach”, or “batting coach”. But in the area of coaching I’m thinking of today, this might look more like “ADHD coach” or “small business coach”.

Situation: A situationally-specific coach might not limit the engagement to one dimension, but, rather, to a particular situation or time-limited need, one that calls for a particular methodology in which that coach is expert. An example of this might be the Creative Emergence coaching offered by Michelle James of the Center for Creative Emergence (http://www.creativeemergence.com/). Michelle’s extraordinary short-term (usually 4 sessions) emergence coaching engagements focus on discovering, designing, and developing what’s next in the client’s work life.

Methodology: While most coaches have a particular methodology they employ, limiting one’s coaching practice to a particular methodology does not necessarily limit the scope of that practice. A coach can use a specific methodology to solve all your problems!

However, methodology can be a scope delimiter. For example, the particular methodology I employ under the over-used term “Integral Coaching” limits the role of the coach by assuming that the client will benefit from diverse resources, not just the coach. Informed by the writings of Ken Wilber and the work of my colleagues at the Integral Institute, this model sees the coach not as the be-all and end-all advisor to the client, but a resource who, informed by an integral worldview and an expertise in resources, might, as a part of the coaching relationship, refer one client to a workshop, a spiritual counselor, and even another coach, and another client to a professional development class, a medical professional, and a fitness instructor. This type of scope-limited coach sees his or her role as one of helping the client see the whole picture and find those resources in the Kosmos appropriate to the idiosyncratic needs/desires of the client.

One side-note on the term “Integral Coaching” is probably worth mentioning. Because integral literally means, in one of my dictionaries, “possessing everything essential; entire”, some coaches have used the term to describe a kitchen-sink approach to coaching. This is, of course, not how I use it here.

OK, enough about coaching for this day. My blog on the beauties of limited scope is bordering on limitless scope itself, so I’d better wrap up before I find myself accused of witless irony or just plain witlessness.

So, what do you think about coaching, coaches, and scope of practice?