The 7 steps of Effective Executive Coaching

This is a book written by practitioners, for practitioners, and is aimed at coaches, trainers and consultants, or anyone who's thinking of getting a coach and would like to get value for money.
It has a hard job to differentiate itself from the enormous range of coaching publications on the market - a quick search on Amazon in the UK revealed nearly 500 books on the subject. Like many of them, the book is full of practical pointers to more successful coaching, quick reminder lists and bullet-point lists. Unlike most of them, however, this one presents a new - and groundbreaking - model for the coaching process.

Over the course of two years, Dr. Dembkowski and Ms Eldridge conducted interviews, reviewed tapes and transcripts and considered the leading literature from Europe and North America, as well as interviewing other coaches and their clients to develop the Achieve Coaching Model?. The identification of this model, and the skills of truly exceptional coaches, form the key areas of strength in the book.
The chapters are generally short, clear and laid out in such a way that you could either dip in to one or two subjects or read the book from cover to cover. The book is divided into four sections - an overview of the content, the seven core capabilities of effective executive coaches, the Achieve Coaching Model? and using the model.

Some of the practical skills are illustrated by excellent short case studies and all this is supported by bullet-point lists and summaries, which must have been a pain to write, but enable the reader to navigate around the subjects very easily.
After a short introduction in which the authors lay out the aims of the book, chapter two looks at a definition of executive coaching. Executive coaching happens in the workplace, and has a number of tensions which are identified and expanded. Coaching, while a confidential process between client and coach, is still often paid for by the organisation and the requirements of the business must be taken into account. This dilemma makes for interesting reading and the authors suggest that only transparency of the process will enable coaching to be authentic and organisationally useful.

One of the most illuminating descriptions of coaching was that it served to 'increase choice for the client' in terms of behaviour. The authors also speculate on why there is an upsurge in demand for coaching, citing the increased complexity of working life, and the decline of the career for life, among others.
Chapter three is where we start to look at core skills, and where the authors begin to illustrate what makes an excellent coach. The seven skills are: Rapport building, deep listening, creative questioning, giving effective feedback, clear goal setting, intuition and presence, each with a chapter to illustrate them.
As might be expected, the most useful chapters are the first five. The chapter on deep listening is particularly excellent. Very few people listen well and the chapter illustrates how close the relationship is between physical withdrawal (tapping a pen, playing around with something on the desk, drifting off) and listening.
Creative questioning, the authors assert, lies at the heart of executive coaching as it helps the coach guide the client in identifying the real goals, and encourage behaviour change through ensuring clarity about the current behaviour and what this achieves. In addition, this chapter unlocks some of the generalisations dear to politicians, used to obscure the meaning of what they say - for example the phrase "Everybody does it". Through creative questioning, the authors ask "Do they? EVERYBODY?"
Chapter six, on giving effective feedback, includes a perceptive model of a feedback cycle which includes observation, statement of effect, shared insights, suggestions for action and questioning. Always the practitioners, they note that the process may not be as clear cut in practice as it is in theory.
Chapter seven covers clear goal setting and the authors identify six distinct qualities of a well-composed goal, which appear to cover most of the mnemonics (SMART, PURE and CLEAR.)

Chapters eight and nine, on intuition and presence, are thin in terms of practical help, which is perhaps not surprising. It is perhaps to the authors' credit that they have included the chapters at all, given the ephemeral nature of the topics. If something is just 'there' but can't be properly described, still less measured, but only observed out of the corner of the eye, describing skills to improve it is likely to be impossible. Some of the background on intuition is very interesting, and one suspects a whole book could be written on the subject, so in contrast to the other chapters, so full of helpful information, these are not the strongest.
The introduction to the next part of the book leads us to the model itself. Respectfully acknowledging the GROW model developed by Graham Alexander and Sir John Whitmore, the authors outline their own model - Assessing the current situation; Creative brainstorming of alternatives, Hone goals, Initiate options, Evaluate options, Valid action programme design and Encourage momentum. Chapters ten through sixteen give more details of each of the steps.
In chapter ten (Assessing the current situation), there is a host of ideas to help both client and coach get to grips with reality. The use of the Johari window to encourage the client to reflect on what they know about themselves is inspired. But for those with a more practical bent, the authors make suggestions of management audits, 360 degree feedback and psychometrics to give a starting point for the coaching. All of these chapters end with suggestions about key behaviours of experienced coaches and top tips, quick and useful reminders and calls to action. They also include a section which looks at this part of the coaching process from the client perspective - also a useful prompt about the real focus of attention - as well as an illustration from the authors' own coaching practice.
Chapter eleven describes the process of creative brainstorming of alternatives, and the tips here include using the 'miracle' question, taken from solution focused therapy. This asks the client to consider what would be different if his or her problems were miraculously solved, which often provides the trigger to consider new ways forward.
A shorter chapter - perhaps because so much of the content has already been covered - is chapter twelve, on honing goals. However, among the tips is the suggestion to visualise the achievement of the goal using all the senses - a classic technique of NLP, and one which gives real richness and clarity to the understanding of the goal.
Chapter thirteen is on Initiating options and here, the case study illustrates the tension inherent in the coaching relationship paid for by a company. Here, coaching helped one employee decide to leave the organisation - something that all organisations risk when initiating this sort of programme.
Evaluating options (chapter fourteen) takes us through a very sensible matrix against which to review potential action, but the authors also suggest force field analysis. This use of management tools from other areas of business makes the book an interesting and occasionally surprising read, as well as thoroughly 'grounding' it for those clients who consider coaching to be a cosy chat over coffee. The case study in this chapter is particularly illuminating.
Chapter fifteen discusses the production of an action plan. An interesting point here was that the actual development of the individual took place outside of the meetings - not with the coach. The responsibility of the client in their own development has been stressed all the way through the book, but not so keenly as here. The best coach in the world can not force someone to act - they have to want to do it. After all, the coach is a facilitator, not a miracle worker. The section on the client perspective in this chapter illustrates that clients can progress a very long way towards their goal in the course of a coaching programme - almost without knowing it.
Again, the case study used to illustrate chapter sixteen (Encouraging momentum) is a wonderful example of the stage of the model in action - where the coach is positioned almost as a professional cheerleader - encouraging, rallying, prompting.
The last part of the book puts the seven core capabilities and the Achieve Coaching Model? together. A clear diagram shows which skills are most relevant to the particular stages of the model, but the text gives anecdotal evidence from the coaching interviews to support both model and core capabilities.
Chapter eighteen tackles the tricky issue of measuring the effectiveness of executive coaching in terms of Return on Investment (ROI). While the pedantic could doubtless pick holes in the suggested calculation, it is increasingly becoming an issue for almost all HR-related services, and coaching no less so. Here at least is an entirely credible attempt to evaluate the bang for the buck.
The final chapter looks at the future of coaching, and the professionalisation of it as a performance development technique. With contributions from other thought leaders in coaching and the authors' own views, they believe that an increasing interest in coaching should lead to clear standards as befits a 'proper' profession. Given the number of people who offer coaching without professional qualifications and who indeed do offer just 'cosy chats', this direction is to be welcomed.
With increasing skill sets and demand for a greater breadth of techniques and skills drawn from areas ranging from psychology to the integrated thinking of Ken Wilber, there will also be an increasing move towards differentiation and specialisation. The authors also make the point that coaching is an 'all person' intervention - it supports not only work life, but personal life. Given the need for work life balance, this can only be a good thing.
This is a sensible, clever book, with ideas borrowed from all walks of business life, which will help practitioners enhance their skills and clients to ensure they are getting value for their money - and not just a friendly ear.
Authors - Dr. Sabine Dembkowski, Fiona Eldridge, Ian Hunter