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Philosophy of Coaching: An International Journal
Vol. 5, No. 1, May 2020, 9-30.
http://dx.doi.org/10.22316/poc/05.1.03
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) License which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
KEYNOTE PAPER
Beautiful ideas that can make us ill: Implications for coaching
Tatiana Bachkirova
International Centre for Coaching and Mentoring Studies
Oxford Brookes University
Oxford, UK
Simon Borrington
International Centre for Coaching and Mentoring Studies
Oxford Brookes University
Oxford, UK
Abstract
A moral conundrum for philosophy of coaching is the noticeable parallel between
the growth of the coaching industry and the unprecedented growth of mental health
issues in western societies. Even if wellbeing of employees is not the only purpose
of coaching interventions, they should at least not in any way be responsible for its
undermining. Unfortunately, a number of ‘beautiful ideas’ which have become
thematic in the coaching industry may be playing a detrimental role at both the
personal level and for wellbeing of society as a whole. In this paper we focus on
three: ‘Positive Psychology’, ‘Mindfulness’, and ‘Transformational Coaching’. On
the face of it these ‘beautiful ideas’ appear to be unquestionably beneficial.
However, they have been largely accepted into the mainstream thinking of coaches
without too much critical consideration. The aim of this paper is to explore the
shadow side of these beautiful ideas for the wellbeing of people in organisations
and the role of coaching in relation to them. Our intention is to start a challenging
conversation about a paradoxical situation in which that which is meant to scaffold
our wellbeing initiatives may be making significant contributions to a lack of
wellbeing.
Key words: ‘beautiful ideas’, coaching, wellbeing, auto-exploitation, aspirations
Introduction
Coaching, alongside other practices aimed at helping people to live a
better life and to be more fulfilled at work, is a growing industry. However, the
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lack of personal wellbeing and accompanying mental health issues in
economically developed societies also appear to be growing commensurably
(CIPD, 2019; Ritchie & Roser, 2019; Follmer & Jones, 2018). This situation is
clearly problematic and indicates a potential disparity between intended and
actual outcomes. As such, it requires practitioners, such as coaches, to explore
if what we are doing could be causing harm to our clients. It would be ethically
negligent not to consider the possibility that some of our efforts might turn out
to be counterproductive and actually conducive to the reduction of wellbeing.
To initiate this inquiry, we aim to take a closer look at major ideas in coaching
discourses that influence current practice. In our intention of being primarily
relevant to work-oriented coaching, we focus on the issues connected to
employment and organisational contexts.
The coaching discipline and industry are known for actively expanding
skills and knowledge base by taking on board a wide variety of ideas (Cox, et
al., 2014; Bachkirova, 2017). Some of these ideas are the outcome of recent
theoretical advances, and some have a much longer history but have been
reintroduced into current modes of thinking and have, thus, gained a new lease
of life (Farias & Wikholm, 2015). These ideas can be useful but not necessarily
in all situations. It is also possible that some of them may not always be
appropriately applied. That this application would have been done with the best
of intentions is not in doubt. Yet the possibility exists that coaches have been
dazzled by the claims of these beautiful ideas, which may have resulted in the
obscuring of the further possibility that there is, perhaps, a ‘darker side’ to them
that only becomes visible in the longer run. In such cases the clients whom we
had intended to support might find themselves to be even more troubled than
they were initially.
Some of the ‘beautiful ideas’ that we are suggesting should be treated
with caution are amongst the hot topics to be found in multiple self-help
articles, HR staff advice packs and training days, and the vast number of
popular psychology and coaching books that are currently flooding the market.
Amongst them we count positive thinking, Positive Psychology, mindfulness,
personal wellbeing, and transformation. The more ‘beautiful’ these ideas appear
(as in the more difficulties they claim to solve), the more power they have over
us and so may blind us to their ‘darker sides’. In order to see both the beauty
and the shadows, we need to take a few steps back and examine some of the
wider cultural and historic contexts in which these beautiful ideas are
embedded. It is important to scrutinise some of the debates that surround these
ideas (e.g. Miller, 2008; Hackman, 2009; Farias & Wikholm, 2015; Luthans &
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Avolio, 2009; Lazarus, 2003; Chamorro-Premuzic, 2016) with particular
reference to their implications for coaching.
The main purpose of this paper is to explore potential issues arising from
three beautiful ideas: Positive Psychology, mindfulness and transformational
coaching. We start, however, with a brief consideration of the socio-economic
context and debates that offer potential explanations for the mismatch between
the growth of helping industries and the apparent increase of issues related to
stress, mental health problems and the growing rate of suicide (Han, 2015;
Illouz, 2008). Next, we offer our interpretation of this problem in the context of
coaching that provides some foundation to our critique of beautiful ideas.
Following the discussion of these three beautiful ideas we offer our position on
the implications for coaching and propose some ways of mitigating unwanted
influences.
The problem and the debates
It would appear to be the case, on the surface at least, that there is a
considerable amount of effort being made by organisations, and society in
general, to encourage individuals (employees and citizens) to invest time and
effort in the pursuit of their personal wellbeing and happiness (e.g. Middleton,
2017; Fujitsu, 2019). If one uses an established search engine to explore both
academic and popular literature, with the search term “wellbeing initiatives in
UK”, as many as 16,800,000 matches are returned (as of 29/1/20). A brief look
at the first few pages of these returns is sufficient to gain a general feel for the
main themes. For the purpose of this paper we have identified the following
three themes.
Improving employee wellbeing for the productive good
The first theme concerns the relevance and merit of investing in
wellbeing. It demonstrates how important it is at a number of levels to promote
personal wellbeing as an effective cost-saving and performance-enhancing
strategy, beneficial to both employers and government. The logic is that citizens
who are being well are in work and, therefore, reducing the financial burdens of
sick-pay, benefits, etc. This means that productivity is maintained, doctor’s
waiting rooms are de-cluttered, and given that the vast majority of people also
prefer to be well, this is clearly a win-win situation. As the research from
RAND Europe suggests:
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“Health and wellbeing at work can have a profound impact on
individuals, organisations and societies. Emerging research
indicates that a healthier workforce is a more productive
workforce, with fewer sick days taken and higher productivity
when at work. As a result of this, more and more organisations are
introducing initiatives to help protect and promote staff health and
wellbeing” (RAND Europe, 2019).
This suggests that concerns about wellbeing are not based on an
employer's altruistic commitment but more a means to an end for which a cost-
benefit analysis is entirely appropriate, reducing wellbeing to a quantitative
rather than a qualitative project (Middleton, 2017). We identify this as
‘improving employee wellbeing for the productive good’.
Negative impact of contemporary working life on personal wellbeing
This second theme indicates that although there are welcome signs of
organisations taking a proactive approach to the issue of employee wellbeing,
there are still plenty of concerns to be raised regarding the burdens affecting
individual wellbeing in contemporary work culture. For example, a Chartered
Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) infographic that accompanies
their 2019 report shows that although “..absence is at an all-time low, …83% of
respondents say people work when unwell… 63% say people use their holidays
to work, or work when off sick [and] 37% report an increase in stress-related
absence…”. Heading the list of main contenders for why employees have to
take long-term absence we find ‘mental ill health’ and ‘stress’, which is not,
according to the CIPD, a manifestation of psychological difficulty (CIPD,
2019).
On the whole this theme suggests that there appear to be a number of
difficult issues around the wellbeing of a significant proportion of the
workforce. This leads to debilitating experiences involving stress and a lack of
mental wellbeing which can often lead to difficulties associated with mental
illness (Follmer & Jones, 2018). For advanced civilizations, supposedly
concerned with promoting and pursuing the general happiness of their citizenry
(upon whom the continued civilized advancement of society seems to depend),
this suggests that all is not as it should be and that, collectively, we should be
taking a closer look at the finer details. These concerns are further emphasised
by regular articles in the popular press (Pym, 2018; Wilson, 2018; Behar, 2020;
Philosophy of Coaching: An International Journal
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Campbell, 2019; Rice-Oxley, 2019) pointing to the fact that workplace stress
and mental health is a hot topic demanding considerable attention.
It is worth noting at this point that where the impact of working life is
recognised as contributing to a wellbeing deficit, there is some confusion as to
where the responsibility for the alleviation of this difficulty lies. For example,
the Wellbeing section of the ‘Fujitsu in UK and Ireland website’ includes the
more general heading ‘Corporate Responsibility’, within which it is stated that
they aim “to foster a Positive Health Culture at Fujitsu, an approach which
supports a whole person, whole organization approach to Wellbeing…”, the
main aim of which is to “[empower] colleagues to take personal accountability
for their Wellbeing… [as this is] important and we support colleagues by
providing access to a number of Wellbeing resources and initiatives throughout
the year” (Fujitsu, 2019). This seems to indicate that for Fujitsu, the
responsibility for dealing with workplace stress is a matter for which the onus
of responsibility lies with the individual employee. The employer will ‘nobly’
support them whilst not admitting that perhaps it is their workload practices that
are in any way responsible. We will come back to this approach later in this
paper.
Searching for the cause of deficiency in wellbeing
This third theme emerging in the literature concerns how we
conceptualise the difficulties associated with ‘being well’ in contemporary
society. This is particularly important in light of the fact that post-
Enlightenment modernity has understood itself in terms of being a project that
seeks to improve the lot of the individual citizen (Fishman, 1999). For example,
identifying the cause of decline in wellbeing, it would be difficult to argue that
the conditions of work are the sole cause of this problem. There is plenty of
evidence in the history of work to suggest that there have been times when
conditions of employment were considerably worse than they are now and that
work-related contexts have always consisted of multiple stressors (Dickens
1854/2003; Thompson, 1963/1980). The existence of such historical facts
makes laying the blame solely at the feet of current working practices an
insufficient explanation. It requires asking what other factors may be causally
contributing to the debilitating impact of modern life for our sense of wellbeing.
Depending upon how the response to this is framed from a political
perspective, there are various explanations as to where the finger of blame can
be pointed. Amongst these we find: the breakdown of traditional patterns of
working relationships (Chernyak-Hai & Rabenu, 2018); the deregulation of the
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neo-liberal economy with its notions of ‘trickle-down’ benefits for all (Steward,
2012); or the inherent dialectical contradictions of historical materialism (Grant
& Woods, 1995). They may all have some explanatory merit but, for us as
coaches, a recent contribution to this debate suggests an interesting, and
somewhat startling, possibility as an origin for our lack of wellbeing and high
levels of stress and burnout – ourselves. We are, as suggested by the German
philosopher Byung-Chul Han, in the grip of what he describes as “auto-
exploitation” (Han, 2015, p.10).
Although Han’s (2015) book could be seen as something of a speculative
polemic, containing a number of unsubstantiated claims that should be read
with caution, his observations offer interesting insights as to why the
contemporary culture of work may be contributing to the lack of mental
wellbeing. The key point it makes is that the norms and expectations that
comprise our cultural affiliation to late-modern capitalism feed our tendency for
‘auto-exploitation’. We just follow the inherent demands of an economic model
that enforces maximum efficiency for both production and consumption. As
such, we are exposed to a relentless cycle of aspiration: we no longer work
simply to stay alive in a reasonably comfortable manner. We are now
encouraged to work in order to function as effective consumers to maintain the
economic environment that we inhabit. The idea that we are expressing our
preferences and choices as consumers fuels our sense of autonomy and agency.
However, this freedom is illusory as we are giving ourselves up to voluntary
self-exploitation according to the implicit expectations of the socio-economic
culture.
Whilst what Han (2015) claims (utilising something of a neo-Foucauldian
approach) is only one possible explanation, his analysis appears to have some
validity. He has identified a genuine worry about the changing face of late-
modern capitalism that takes us from a ‘discipline society’ into an ‘achievement
society’, where we exist as “achievement-subjects” (Han, 2015, pp.8-15). He
proposes that this is a consequence of the ‘positivation of the world’ for which
the dominant modal verb applicable to the normative expectations moves from
‘I should’ to ‘I can’. At work, this creates a situation when people exploit
themselves without any need for management structures to motivate and
compensate them for their effort. There is no longer any need for ‘you should’
because it is ‘I can’ that does the same work.
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Making sense of the situation with relevance to coaching
One possible consequence of being an achievement-subject participating
in an achievement-society is what we refer to as the double burden of
continuous aspiration. Of course, we are not going to be claiming that
aspiration, in and of itself, is something bad and of no benefit to either
individual or society. Targets and projects seem to be a fundamental
requirement for human thriving and give meaning to one’s existence (Sartre,
1999). To undertake an activity of any significance without a strong sense of
aspiration would seem to render that activity meaningless and inauthentic.
However, this is not the same as when aspiration is culturally instilled and
relentlessly drives a person in such a way as to permeate all major aspects of
their life. It is not hard to imagine how such an endless perpetuation of the need
to achieve, and to be seen as achieving, might easily lead to an increase in
mental health difficulties and a serious lack of individual wellbeing (Dunkley,
et al., 2003).
The above suggests how motivational ideas, such as ‘aspiration’ and the
‘pursuit of achievement’, which are clearly important to our individual and
intersubjective thriving and wellbeing, can turn sour given a particular context
and setting. This may leave us open to implicit manipulation for ends other than
those that these concepts were originally best meant for, making them examples
of ‘beautiful ideas’ that can make us ill.
From a coaching perspective, as professionals engaged in the facilitation
of individuals maximizing their full potential, such debates indicate the
importance of careful consideration of what objectives we side up with as
‘ends-in-view’. It also requires consideration of what contribution these
objectives have for a longer-term future of the clients and society as a whole.
Most importantly we need to consider what claims we tend to make, and what
should be the expected influence of such claims. It is possible that in spite of
our best intentions to make the world of work as good a place as it can be for
our clients, perhaps we have too easily and uncritically bought into some
‘beautiful ideas’. These ideas might turn out to be doing more to exacerbate the
clients’ burdens than to alleviate them.
How did it happen then that professions concerned with caring for
individual wellbeing and which aim to provide appropriate support may have
become entangled by these ‘beautiful ideas’? The socio-economic analysis
provided by Han (2015) and the sociological analysis that can be found in the
work of Illouz (2008) provide useful clues. Both of them and the interpretation
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of these ideas by Mercaldi (2018) help to facilitate the formulation of our
hypothesis about the possible unwitting role played by coaches in adding to the
crisis of mental wellbeing.
Becoming a successful achiever/consumer through the process of auto-
exploitation, as suggested by Han (2015), is connected with notions around the
pursuit of happiness that have come to permeate western thinking – a pursuit
that, according to John Locke, constitutes the “foundation of liberty” (Locke,
1975). This pursuit, identified with personal freedom at the origins of social
liberalism, has given rise to a mode of discourse that has had significant
cultural influence. Following Illouz (2008), we will refer to this as the
‘therapeutic discourse’. She deconstructs this as a manifestation of our
contemporary institutionalisation of individualism in which the self withdraws
from social engagement “… inside its own empty shell… emptied… of its
communal and political content, replacing this content with a narcissistic self-
concern” (2008, p.2). Illouz sees this turn of events, the normalisation of
therapeutic discourse, as the expression of atomistic individuality that
encourages us “… to put our needs and preferences above our commitments to
others” (Illouz, 2008, p.2).
Although Illouz’s and Han’s analyses and interpretations can be
challenged as lacking empirical data to substantiate their arguments, their
central message seen in the wider context of mental health and wellbeing
statistics is important. We might feel moved to agree that there may be
something to their arguments. If individualistic aspirations and impoverished
relationships, both in and out of the workplace, have made significant
contributions to a decline of mental wellbeing it might it be that our efforts to
help clients to achieve their goals are contributing to increased detrimental
effects to their own lives and to wider society as a whole.
Such worrying trends are not only visible in the workplace across
multiple levels but are also identifiable in young people at adolescence and
even earlier (Mental Health Foundation, 2020). This would seem to be a far
from satisfactory situation for a cultural project, such as liberal democracy, that
has always had as one of its key themes the maximization of happiness (e.g.
American Declaration of Independence, 1776; Bentham, 1988, p.26). It is with
this concern that we can begin to provide a clearer identification of some of the
‘beautiful ideas’ that can make us ill, consider why this might be, and think
about what we might be able to do to protect both ourselves and our clients
against becoming victims of their negative effect.
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‘Beautiful ideas’ as a source of harms
All that glisters is not gold”
(Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice: Act 2 Sc.7).
The ‘beautiful ideas’ that we have in mind as not always being as
benevolent and beneficial as they might appear includes self-help concepts such
as positive thinking, self-realisation, and various activities encouraging people
to take personal responsibility for their own well-being. These ideas regularly
feature in self-help literature, leaflets and posters distributed in the workplace,
in doctor’s waiting rooms, and via various digital outlets. Practitioners,
including coaches, take them on board and implement them in their approaches
to improve the quality of their clients’ lives and to help them to reach their
goals (e.g. comprehensive reviews by Kemp, 2017; Francis & Zarecky, 2017;
Lawton-Smith, 2017). Some approaches offer incremental steps for achieving
change (e.g. Burke & Linley, 2007) whilst others sometimes make bigger
claims promising dramatic changes to the clients’ self with multiple benefits to
both their working life and their interpersonal relationships (e.g. Seligman,
2007; Brown, et al, 2007).
We need to make it clear that we are not claiming that any of these ideas
are simply nonsense and of no practical merit at all – far from it. Both as
professionals and as ‘ordinary citizens’, we draw on and adapt strategies from
many contributions into our practice. Our critical attitude is aimed at the
becoming-too-common tendency amongst some practitioners to accept these
concepts uncritically and in a wholesale manner as being a ‘one-stop’ answer to
every difficulty faced.
Furthermore, it is our feeling that these concepts and interventions are
being manipulated in ways that remove the responsibility for managing the
negative consequences and disquietudes of modern life from their true origins
and shifting that responsibility solely onto the shoulders of the struggling
individual. As a consequence of this, when they are applied unthinkingly and
inappropriately, these beautiful ideas can, we suggest, contribute more to a lack
of wellbeing rather than alleviating distress and unease as they are intended to
do. Out of the list of possible ‘beautiful ideas’ that we feel might benefit from
having a more critical stance applied to them, we focus on the following three
as being most in need of immediate re-evaluation by coaches.
Positive Psychology as a ‘beautiful idea’
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There is considerable practical research supporting how important it can
be for individuals to develop positive attitudes to life (e.g. Boniwell, 2008).
This research explores how developing one’s positive qualities and attitudes
enhances one’s state of wellbeing in the world. The Positive Psychology field
has done much to provide evidence that can be seen to promote this idea (e.g.
Gable & Haidt, 2005). However, in the hands of some practitioners the power
of the positive psychology approach becomes an ideology and as the answer to
all ills (e.g. Seligman, 2007; Driver, 2011); almost a contemporary analogy of
the ‘snake-oil’ of the travelling Medicine Shows of the Old West!
Amongst some current practitioners, Positive Psychology is often
promoted as the main theoretical foundation of coaching (Linley & Joseph,
2004; Linley & Harrington, 2005). The obvious concern in this case is that
human nature appears to be one-dimensional. The second concern is that very
little critique of the Positive Psychology approach is encouraged within the
coaching field (Western, 2012). Such critical discussions take place more freely
in other associated disciplines, such as education and management in which
very strong concerns have been voiced about ‘positivity traps’ (Alvessson, et al.
2017) and the evidence produced from some positive psychology research
(Miller, 2008; Hackman, 2009; Luthans & Avolio, 2009; Lazarus, 2003). For
example, it has been argued that the science of Positive Psychology is founded
on a whole series of fallacious arguments, involving circular reasoning,
tautology, and failures to clearly define or appropriately apply terms (Miller,
2008; Held, 2008). The concerns include the identification of causal relations
where none exist and unjustified generalisations with arguments that positive
psychology “merely associates mental health with a particular personality type:
a cheerful, outgoing, goal-driven, status-seeking extravert” (Miller, 2008).
This later concern, in our view and in the context of the focus of this
paper, is particularly worrying for coaching practitioners. It might imply that an
uncritical ‘strength-based’ coaching approach may be helping to shape the
client into a perfect auto-exploiting, achievement-obsessed employee and
exemplary consumer of the capitalist economy who could eventually end up
with a severe mental health issue. Some milder, but still important, concerns
may include the danger of labelling clients such that they feel inadequate if they
do not respond to explicit positive psychology interventions when they already
suffer too much from the pressure of society’s constant ‘cheer-up’ and be more
resilient expectation.
We also believe that the domination of models advocating personal
responsibility for cultivating positive attitudes and emotions can lead to a
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paradigmatic expectation that all responsibility for not being positive and happy
falls solely on to the shoulders of the struggling individual. This normative
bestowal of personal responsibility may not be an explicitly intended outcome
of taking a ‘positive psychology’ approach. However, for an individual who
may be battling various levels of negative self-appraisal, the implicit message
presented on multiple HR self-help posters may easily reinforce their feelings
of failure and lack of self-worth even when it is clearly much larger socio-
economic structures contributing to the risk of the individual becoming
emotionally overburdened. It seems to us not unreasonable to postulate this as a
contributory factor for significant recent increases in mental health issues in
Western societies, where Positive Psychology has become the default best
approach to take for multiple levels of difficulty.
Mindfulness as a ‘beautiful idea’
According to those who promote mindfulness as a wellbeing strategy or
therapeutic intervention, there are no reasons to question such an
overwhelmingly beneficent practice. Some mindfulness supporters
evangelically claim numerous advantages to be gained, many of which are
backed-up by an empirical evidence-base provided by neuroscientific research
and statistical analyses of well-structured investigations (e.g. McKenzie &
Hassed, 2012; Mascaro, et al., 2013). They quote numerous well-researched
papers evaluating clinical outcomes related to stress, depression, and anxiety
(e.g. Shapiro, et al., 2008). Amongst the personal improvements that advocates
of mindfulness indicate we can find the following:
• enhanced physical and emotional wellbeing;
• stress-reduction;
• improved capability for greater self-regulation and self-awareness;
• facilitation of increased productivity and personal effectiveness (Kemp,
2017; Brown, et al., 2007).
Along with these, there are claims that a mindful employee can become
“more efficient in their practice and goal achievement” with the provision of the
opportunity to become a “more highly-tuned, focused, and capable human
being” (e.g. see an overview in Cavanagh & Spence, 2013). However, this
picture may not be as rosy as it appears to be. Despite the overwhelming
approval, an increased scepticism in regard to extent of the claims being made
on behalf of mindfulness is beginning to be expressed more loudly (e.g. Farias
& Wikholm, 2015; Hickey, 2010; Purser & Loy, 2013). The concerns are being
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aired as to the possibility that anything that can make a positive contribution to
wellbeing of many may also have the potential to be detrimental for some
(Yorston, 2001; Farias & Wikholm, 2015).
Our position on mindfulness is that its practices are essential for anything
with a developmental purpose. It does not have to be used only for this
purpose, but the way it is often packaged and commodified does reduce it to
being merely a coping strategy for dealing with stress by promoting self-
pacification. We are not suggesting that people undergoing difficulties to do
with experiencing a lack of wellbeing should not seek out whatever suits them
best as a means of getting through these difficult periods. What we do dispute is
the current tendency to sell the idea of mindfulness as an almost-universal
panacea in which mindfulness as a state of being-in-the world is conflated with
the practising of meditative moments, and that this is all that is sufficient for the
acquisition of mindful awareness.
We would also raise a sceptical eyebrow at the idea of ‘mindfulness’
being anything much more than the detached decentring of the individual that
encourages placid acceptance of conditions that might benefit from being
thoroughly and critically questioned. Some of these conditions may need to be
actively resisted, when looking to achieve any real progress in improving both
individual and collective wellbeing. The self-pacification techniques that
masquerade as ‘mindfulness’ under these circumstances, we suggest, become a
framework for the perpetuation of auto-exploitation, as we have referred to
above. In light of this, we feel it is not unreasonable to include ‘mindfulness’,
especially in what has come to be referred to as its ‘McMindfulness’ form
(Purser & Loy, 2013), as a beautiful idea that could contribute to making one
ill.
Transformational coaching as a ‘beautiful idea’
The idea of coaching as a process involving ‘transformation’ or being
‘transformational’ has been highly popular within coaching circles (e.g.
Hawkins & Smith, 2014). Given that coaching is looking to help a client to
change in order to overcome barriers and increase capabilities suggests that
transformation can only be a good thing. After all, any change is transformation
at some level. But our concerns with this notion are several.
Our first concern is with the concept itself. Apart from becoming a vastly
overused cliché, when it is held up to close scrutiny it is not clear what it is that
a transformational coach is hoping to achieve. Secondly, even the desire for a
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significant transformation of clients by means of coaching might be seen as
controversial. Coaching as an intervention is traditionally promoted as suitable
for people who are reasonably productive and content with major areas of their
life (e.g. Peltier, 2001). This is how coaching is typically differentiated from
counselling (e.g. Price, 2009; Summerfield, 2002; Williams, 2003). Therefore,
it would be logical to assume that only minor adjustments need to be made to
move them forward. This sounds less like the large-scale qualitative shift meant
by ‘transformation’ (Hawkins & Smith, 2014) and more like development,
learning how to grow and adapt to one’s changing environment in order to
make the most of new situations as they arise (Bachkirova, 2011).
Our next concern is that transformation, if it is understood as a significant
shift in the way a person sees the world (Hawkins & Smith, 2014), might also
occasionally happen as a developmental by-product rather than as an intended
and prioritised outcome. For such a paradigm shift to take place many
contributory factors are usually involved (Kegan, 1982; Berger, 2006;
Bachkirova, 2011) and need to be in place for transformation to occur.
Therefore, for coaches to promise a transformation by calling their coaching
transformational is a tall order and, strictly speaking, may not even be ethical.
Alongside of the issue of overselling, we are also concerned with the
notional aim of setting out to transform a person as a matter of principle in that
the intention to transform clients implies that these clients are somehow
currently incomplete or unworthy and that there is something substantively
wrong with their way of seeing the world. We would strongly suggest that this
intention adds to the kind of pressure that we are concerned with in this paper –
the kind of ‘auto-exploitative’ practices that contemporary ‘achievement-
societies’ demand their citizens to participate in, by becoming more of
everything. More successful, more authentic, more positive, more fully
transformed. The implications of these aims not being achieved might be, in the
least harmful scenarios, the individual falling into self-deception, or
experiencing an intense sense of disappointment or failure. However,
depending on individual resilience, temperamental dispositions, and numerous
other contributory conditions, this mismatch of aspiration could be a significant
factor in the triggering of mental health difficulties, suggesting that what is at
risk here is not trivial.
We have a final, strong objection to the coaching intention ‘to transform
clients’. That is, it implies that the coach supposedly knows the ways in which
their clients need to be transformed and can deliberately and willfully perform
this ‘magic’ on them. This, we would suggest, has more to do with being an
Philosophy of Coaching: An International Journal
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expression of a coach’s self-delusion of grandiosity. However, in relation to the
focus of this paper, we are concerned that the belief in the magic of
transformation by a client, that by definition is not a regular event, can only
lead to disappointments and a loss of belief in one’s own capacity to act thus
aggravating psychological issues.
Implications and conclusions
Whilst the main implications of this paper are directed to coaches and by
extension to coaching supervisors, we believe that these implications are also
relevant and important for educators of coaches and organisations in general.
Starting with coaches and supervisors we highlight three main points: (i) the
need to revisit their personal philosophy of coaching; (ii) the importance of
developing a more discerning and critical approach to beautiful ideas; and (iii)
some ideas for counteracting auto-exploitation in both clients and in ourselves.
Revisiting personal philosophy of coaching
This implication may sound quite dramatic, but we believe it is a healthy
exercise for us as coaches and useful to undertake on a regular basis in order
not to become complacent. It requires checking what it is that we wish to
achieve in our practice and why this is important. Just saying ‘I want to achieve
what my client wants to achieve’ is not good enough. Both parties might be
jointly deluded about what is the best thing to do, and even to want, without
considering the wider economic and socio-political forces at play and/or, more
simply, the individual circumstances of the client’s life.
For example, should we unquestioningly assume that aspiration and
success are the most meaningful things in a person’s life? Is it possible that
aspirations and positive thinking may be well suited psychological strategies for
some individuals and in some circumstances but not for everyone? We would
argue that in some circumstances and contexts coping might be the most
appropriate aim and should not be underestimated or overlooked as a
fundamental aspect of the human condition, particularly with current challenges
in the state of the world. Promoting our ability to cope with adversity prompts
the development of new capacities and makes substantive contributions to
building the levels of confidence and adaptability to deal with those difficulties
that present themselves in both our working and our personal lives.
Thinking about our philosophy of coaching may require us to consider
what is the intended end-in-itself of our practice. Is it to achieve success and
Philosophy of Coaching: An International Journal
23
happiness, or to be motivated to learning and development as a never-ending
project, as advocated for example by John Dewey (1916, 1920)? We have
argued elsewhere that individual development (rather than transformation)
creates the increased capacity of the individual to deal with whatever life brings
and to face adversity with greater equanimity (Bachkirova & Borrington, 2019).
If learning and development are considered more important than success
and happiness, coaching may take different forms of joint and active inquiry
with an increased opportunity for experimentation. A coach working within this
conceptualization becomes a thinking partner, a facilitator of reflection, a
provider of different perspectives and an anchor to the wider community. The
task of the coach, and any other supporting professional, becomes not
motivating people to pursue further achievements but enhancing their learning
through experience and supporting their active engagement with the world.
Mental health, happiness and well-being may appear to be by-products of such
an attitude.
The above is only an example of a different philosophy of coaching that a
coach might arrive at through their own process of inquiry. As part of this
inquiry there would be the need to ask oneself what long-term purpose our
interventions serve and how these fit with our personal philosophy. It is quite
possible that coaches and supervisors have chosen to build their life around
certain values but assume different ones when working with clients.
Importance of developing a more discerning and critical approach to
beautiful ideas
There is no doubt that coaches have their clients’ best interests in heart,
and this is why they are on the lookout for new ideas that can add more value to
the coaching process. However, this well-intentioned motivation should not
dazzle them to the extent that it could undermine their critical capacities and
discerning attitude towards such ideas.
For example, if learning and development are considered longer-term
aims of coaching then it is important to remember that learning can be painful
but still worthwhile – far from being positive and focusing only on strengths. In
fact, recent research (Yin, et al., 2019) shows that we learn more from failure.
Learning often requires some degree of disequilibrium – a state of mind in the
client generated by confrontation with a complex situation and accompanied by
the doubt that current beliefs and habits are sufficient for future actions
Philosophy of Coaching: An International Journal
24
(Bachkirova & Borrington, 2019). Excessive focus on positivity, mindfulness,
and the quest for transformation can prevent the experience of ‘disequilibrium’.
Similarly, negative emotions (to the extent that emotions are either
wholly negative or positive) are an intelligent response of the whole organism
to difficult situations when our usual ways to fix them do not work or our own
interests and intentions are in conflict. It would be a shame if coaching
interventions were used only for shaping clients’ emotions to fit particular
cultural or organisational expectations or worse still, because of the inability of
the coach to stay with ‘negative’ emotions. In all situations, and especially in
times of crisis, all kinds of emotions are useful indicators of how the process is
going and in coaching we should learn from them rather than set out to tame
them or only promote so-called positive varieties.
Some ideas of counteracting auto-exploitation in clients and ourselves
Consideration of potential auto-exploitation might be interpreted as a
need for discussing this topic in coaching sessions, which might not be what the
clients want to explore. We do not advocate such an approach. Topics beyond
their current concerns do not need to be imposed on clients. Even though some
clients might be ready to take a broader view on the situation, it is their
prerogative as to what to bring or not bring into their sessions. However, it is
possible for the coach to do something that might appropriately stimulate such
an exploratory process. With the idea of multiple self in mind (Bachkirova,
2011; Lawrence, 2018) the coach can invite different mini-selves of the client
into the conversation and not side immediately with their ‘single-minded
achiever’ mini-self. They could ask clients to look at their issue/goal for today
from all angles that are personally meaningful.
In conclusion, we would like to extend these implications to educators of
coaches and organisations in general. It is critical for educators to pay attention
to how their programmes develop reflexivity and criticality in students, so they
can be discerning in regards to how they are influenced by, and apply, these
(and other) ‘beautiful ideas’. In the same way, the learning and development
strategies of organisations need to be focused on the individual development of
their employees, not only in terms of their skills and leadership capabilities but
also their general skills of reflexivity and criticality. This would serve them in
being ready for both successful and difficult work practices and potentially for
being ready to challenge them.
Acknowledgment
Philosophy of Coaching: An International Journal
25
We are grateful to Gisella Mercaldi (2018) for stimulating our thinking on
these issues and pointing us in the direction of Han (2015) and Illouz (2008).
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Author Contact
Professor Tatiana Bachkirova
Director, International Centre for Coaching and Mentoring Studies
Oxford Brookes University
Headington Campus
Oxford, OX3 0BP
England, UK
E: tbachkirova@brookes.ac.uk
