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TOPICS
1. Responding to Misinformation about Coaching
2. Major Organization Seeks Coaching Expert
3. What's New from the Coaching Literature
RESPONDING TO MISINFORMATION ABOUT COACHING
The rapid advancement of coaching has led to considerable media attention. For the most part this attention has been positive as well as educational. As the coaching field grows, there are also bound to be an increasing number of critiques. Every discipline can expect such criticism and for the most part benefit from understanding a critic's perceptions and beliefs.
But what happens when the critique is based on misinformation, inaccurate data, or even a hidden agenda? What happens when editors of well-known publications fail to check facts and allow distorted or uneducated views to pass as scientific data? And worse, what happens when this misinformation is passed from one publication to another when authors quote each others' opinions as facts?
Recently an article about coaching appeared in a distinguished journal that was riddled with distortions of the facts. The author of this article was later quoted in highly popular magazine extending the misinformation to an even larger audience. (Details about both of these articles as well as a published response to them are available from Rey Carr at rcarr@peer.ca.)
There are a number of actions coaches can take to counter such misinformation. One option is to respond by preparing and sending a "letter to the editor." Most magazines, newspapers, and journals welcome such feedback. However, letters must typically be short in order to increase the likelihood of publication. Squeezing an adequate response into a brief letter can sometimes be frustrating and fail to fully correct the original misinformation. In addition letters seldom receive the same attention and space as allotted to the original article.
Another option is for the coach to write his or her own article and send it to the publication asking for the work to be published as an article. Typically the publication will only publish such articles from persons who are experts in the field or representatives of relevant organizations. But sometimes the article will attract a reporter or interviewer from the publication to do a story about the work of the author.
A third option is to issue a press release. This could be advantageous to a coach who wants to demonstrate leadership in the field. The press release can focus on a "new" method developed by the coach to counteract misinformation or faulty beliefs. In many cases the "new" method can be a thorough description of coaching that appears on the coach's website. Coaches who maintain a mailing list of colleagues can alert other coaches to possible responses through their own newsletter or briefing notes.
Keeping up with current literature, let alone responding to it can almost be a full-time job for most coaches. Another option, then, is to subscribe to a service that does identify and track all published resources about coaching. Monitoring today's media requires much more than access to the Internet. Sophisticated search techniques, access to abstracting services, and monitoring key industry publications are all required to stay current.
Peer Resources has established such a "clipping" service and monitors, tracks, and identifies virtually every published source about coaching. The results of their computerized search methods and their media savvy result in a variety of up-to-date summaries that are posted on their website, added to their searchable annotated bibliography, or are sent to members of the Peer Resources Network as part of their paid subscription to the Peer Bulletin. Samples are also included in the Coaching News, which is a free, non-commercial newsletter distributed by Peer Resources.
MAJOR ORGANIZATION SEEKS COACHING EXPERT
The Lyndhurst New Jersey office of Ernst & Young LLP is seeking a full-time Organizational Development Consultant to provide expertise in facilitation, change management, executive coaching, organizational listening, and other organizational effectiveness consulting and support for the New York area.
The OD Consultant would act as lead on a variety of initiatives, provide expertise for critical people initiatives, programs and processes, coordinate with other HR staff, articulate the learning needs of clients, manage the scheduling and overall learning activities for the Education Center in NJ, provide expert input into and participate in program design/development teams, serve as the lead executive coach in a geographic area, provide executive and team coaching/training in areas such as counselor support/training, mentoring, and team effectiveness, provide career coaching support for employees turned down for transfers or exiting employees, and be responsible for managing, coaching and developing lower-level consultants.
For requirements and an online application, visit the Job Seeker section of Career Builder.com. (No deadline or salary information is provided.)
WHAT'S NEW FROM COACHING LITERATURE
Peer Resources continually scans the professional and popular published literature to find articles of interest to coaches. A recent addition to the searchable, <www.peer.ca/SearchB.html>annotated bibliography includes:
Perina, K. (Nov/Dec 2002). Coaching the coaches. Psychology Today. Retrieved online from www.psychologytoday.com/htdocs/prod/PTOArticle/PTO-20021102-000002.ASP
The author argues that coaches are ill-prepared to deal with deep-seated psychological problems. She quotes two psychologists and perpetuates the myth held by psychologists about coaches that they will confuse symptoms with problems, lack knowledge of interpersonal relations, know little about developmental psychology, and are deficient in business skills. Psychologists, the author asserts, are more prepared because they can administer complicated personality tests and diagnose deeper problems. The International Coach Federation (ICF) is either completely misquoted in the article with regards to the qualifications of most coaches or is misinformed when they say that the largest number of coaches are "sports psychologists, athletic trainers, academics, lawyers and self-help gurus. In addition the ICF is quoted as saying that 40 percent of the 10,000 coaches in America have training in clinical psychology. (RAC)
Creane, V.E. (2003). An exploratory study of personal coaching from the client's perspective. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, California Institute of Integral Studies.
