Related to our development as professionals and human beings, different postulates and movements have been orchestrated in recent years; Among them is coaching. This practice, with the double objective of improving effectiveness and quality of life, also has full harmony with the rest of the movements around people, in the companies of knowledge and innovation.
n effect, the awareness of the potential of human beings had brought to light, in the final century panorama, different movements that have been paying unequal attention. All of them, however, should form a kind of cardinal dodecalogue, without ruling out other possible commandments or movements:
1. Lifelong learning movement.
2. The information literacy movement.
3. The need to innovate (innovation movement).
4. The assumption of autonomy (empowerment movement).
5. Competency movement management.
6. Positive psychology movement.
7. The quality of life at work.
8. Critical thinking movement.
9. The knowledge management movement.
10. Emotional intelligence (emotional intelligence movement).
11. Online learning (e-learning movement).
12. Coaching (coaching movement).
All these postulates have constituted authentic buzzwords in the world of human resources in the last ten years. The reader will think that there have been many other buzzwords, but they will also accept the strength of these, and their convergence in the new profiles necessary for workers and managers. Surely today we need professionals who are more expert and willing to assume responsibility and power, and managers more "foreign ministers" and not so much "interior ministers". On the one hand, the knowledge worker profile that Drucker left us seems to be consolidating, and on the other, a new manager profile is required, although here we cannot agree with the model.
Let us turn to the dodecalogue. The individual must be very aware today of his need for permanent development and, in a hypothetical necessary case, a coach can help him perceive it this way, with a certain advantage over his boss or colleagues; the individual must also be aware of the complexity of translating the available information into solid knowledge applicable in decision-making, and the coach can sensitize them in this regard, if needed; the individual must also always be considering the possibility of doing things better and doing new things (innovate), and here the coach can play a role again… Remember that coaching, as a means, as a method, is ideal for purposes very diverse in the company -diverse and attractive-, but here I want to emphasize that it can alsoto reinforce the advance of other concurrent movements in the wide world of human resources, avoiding their adulteration, their fading.
Let's keep going. The assumption of autonomy (we speak of empowerment), of responsibility, may require an individual's psychic energy that a good coach can make emerge; in turn, the deployment of precise competencies in each professional profile can be complicated, and again the coach can be very useful to us… Let's go to the sixth movement: for, within the doctrine of positive psychology, better take advantage of the best of ourselves, there is the coach again. To the seventh: to find common, synergistic spaces between our effectiveness and professional satisfaction, for a better quality of life at work, once again, the coach…
Tall. Let's stop for a moment. But can an intermediate manager, or a knowledge worker, hire a coach and pay for it? To the extent that a relational commitment is consolidated, and the company has the means and wills to develop its personnel, coaching can be much more focused and effective than the traditional sequence of personal or managerial skills seminars, the effectiveness of which is often in question. Ask a manager who has experienced coaching: What is more effective, a coaching process, or twenty leadership seminars? I do not give you the answer, I ask you to ask if you have a chance.
The coach will encourage our critical thinking (other than criticality, skepticism, or controversy), systemic thinking (attentive to causes and consequences), abstractive (conclusive, synthesizing), reflective (inferencing), conceptual (attentive to the meanings of the signifiers), the integrator (in search of synergies and harmonies)… It will help us to know ourselves in our professional setting, and will give us feedback without reservation, from an independent position. It will tell us valuable truths, so that we do not feel like leaders of those who do not feel followers, nor do we feel infallible in the age of knowledge, nor do we allow ourselves to be blinded by the cult of the ego… boss, although naturally there are coaches and coaches, and bosses and bosses.
A digression
There are experts in business management who assimilate coaching to the exercise of leadership by the boss: “For me, leadership and coaching are almost synonymous terms. A good leader is, among other things, because he knows how to get the best from his collaborators, ”says Javier Fernández Aguado, a prestigious Spanish expert. The reader and Fernández Aguado himself will forgive me, but I must lack context to accept this idea. It's hard for me, because I find dissonances with the characteristics that I attribute to the emerging knowledge economy; Because I perceive that, if a professional does his job well, someone may mistakenly think that the merit belongs to his boss; because, above all, I perceive that the best coach does not have to be a leader, nor the best leader, a coach.
The reader has his own perceptions, but it is that one would have to ask himself if the best intermediate manager must be a leader, or simply a good intermediate manager. Although each organization is unique, I would bet more on partnership than on leadership, in the hierarchical relations of the knowledge era, and take me if you want to the stake as a heretic. I wonder if the relationship leaders-followers turns out to be the most suitable in the daily life of managers and workers in the right company of knowledge; I would ask myself this because I believe that everyone, managers and workers, should lead ourselves after sufficiently shared goals. This self-leadership that Drucker highlighted in the profile of the new knowledge workers, would perhaps be related to the personal domain of Fritz or Senge,the effectiveness of Covey, the intrapersonal intelligence of Gardner or Goleman, or the self-leadership of Manz and Sims.
Let me, broadening the digression and admitting a certain critical attitude, bring you a brief formulation by Miguel Ángel Alcalá, on a new leadership model in the market, the so-called Direction for Habits (DpH), created by Professor Fernández Aguado and which The consulting firm Élogos offers us: “The challenges of the DpH are two: to define which are the habits that are convenient for the person, and to show the paths to achieve them. Strictly speaking, work consists of the person conquering the truth of himself in his actions, and, in parallel, the full good for himself, with his conduct: living the truth about the good done in each act, and the realization of the good subordinated to the truth about his own being ”. I wonder, because at first glance I don't perceive it, what does this have to do with leadership in the company,and even with its possible synonym coaching, and I also wonder what Peter Drucker would say if he raised his head.
Definitively and in general, I am not sure that the boss, even being a magnificent professional, is always a good coach, neither in the leaders and followers model, nor in the managers and collaborators model, nor in the bosses and subordinates model, neither in that of foreman and operators, nor in that of supervisors and supervised, nor in that of management professionals and technical experts. You can be a good manager, a good manager, a good mentor, a good tutor…, but professional coaching would be, in my opinion, something else. The reader will agree or disagree, but if it is good to agree, it is also not to agree, so this could contribute to the always healthy exercise of self-questioning and the perception of a higher dose of reality.
Let's go back to the list of movements
Among other things we have spoken of "perceptions", which leads us back to the dodecalogue, and specifically to critical thinking and the perception of realities. In truth, it is difficult for us to perceive realities, including our own. On the one hand, because the brain tends to invent, to suppose, when it lacks information; on the other, because we have deep-rooted prejudices, beliefs, assumptions that condition our way of thinking; and also because our interests or desires contribute to distortion. I think that, when it comes to our endogenous filters, a good coach can help us in the search for objectivity, including here self-knowledge and without completely ruling out the help of a boss we trust, and who does not see us as a mere follower.
In the list we also mentioned emotional intelligence, and here there is again space for a good coach to help us in emotional maturation, if necessary. Our results, as Douglas McEncroe would say, derive from our performance, this from our emotions, and these from our perception of realities.
But in another, shorter, digression, I would like to divert the reader's attention to an aspect of intelligence, that of intuition, which, if it has not yet established itself as a movement, does seem to point to intentions. Intuition is a valuable resource - a kind of jewel in the crown of intelligence - that we are perhaps not making the best use of. The coach can help us communicate with ourselves, and that already implies an improvement in listening to inner voices, including that of intuition.
In no way do I propose a kind of management by intuition: in any way, no; But it does seem the time for genuine intuition to come out of hiding and, letting reason settle or consent, help us in communication, creativity, decision making or the detection of opportunities. If José Antonio Marina alerted us in a timely manner to the failures of intelligence, it may be possible to prevent or neutralize them with intuitive help. The expert coach can guide this progress in the use of the faculty, taking special care that we do not confuse authentic intuition with longings, conjectures, occurrences, prejudices, fears or apprehensions.
Finishing now, in the list of essential movements, I included coaching itself as well as the so-called e-learning. Indeed, we have witnessed a certain explosion of these methods or means of learning and development. E-learning is not generating the expected results, and surely it has to be improved in the preparation of content and attention to the training user; but coaching experiences do seem to encourage the advancement of this movement. Almost all of us could use a certain reengineering of ourselves with the help of a private coach, without ruling out group coaching that, more affordable, broadens our horizons and helps us to emerge from ourselves all the potential that our condition makes suppose.
