“Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.”
… Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Spanish painter and sculptor
The term ‘coaching’ seems to have become a catch-all for any process of helping others improve their performance and achieve success. So ubiquitous has the term become that you will find hundreds of advertisements for jobs referencing coach as part of the title or coaching as a key ingredient of the role. It seems that coaching is a persistent trend and the expectation is people in organisations will be able to coach others with little more than a short training course, if that.
Having worked as a professional coach for more than two decades, I have been an interested observer of how this increasing use of the term ‘coaching’ is used. This trend has also brought with it a simplification of what it means to coach others. Hence the idea that a short course about the coaching process is all that is required.
In my work, I have a more expansive definition of coaching encompassing ‘transactional coaching’ and ‘transformational coaching’. Although these terms may well be defined differently by others, I would like to share my way of distinguishing them.
‘Transactional coaching’ relates to the achievement of desired goals and improved performance. It largely involves working with a client to develop clearly self-set goals, which are then pursued to success. The development of the skills required to achieve those goals may also form part of these interactions. In the ontological approach, transactional coaching is based on ‘first order learning‘. This appears to be how most people see coaching in an organisational setting. As a result, many organisations establish coaching relationships, whether with an internal or external coach, that have a fairly short life. This makes sense in the context of managing people and helping them become more effective in a specific domain of their work. After all, the vast majority of organisations have a strong focus on financially driven success factors and coaching is seen as a tool to drive that success.
‘Transformational coaching’ transcends yet includes transactional coaching. It includes similar techniques, but it relates to personal growth, another term that is well worn and open to interpretation. In my work, personal growth relates to our psychological development. Generally speaking, this means an increasing shift from egocentrism to an ethno-centric then world-centric and integral world view. The idea of stages of development is well researched by people such as Clare W. Graves, Jean Piaget, Jane Loevinger and Ken Wilber. This process of development is based on what is known as ‘second order learning‘ in the ontological approach. What underpins second order learning is a simple question, “why do I observe it this way?” With it comes a growing capacity to explore and understand ourselves and others’ worldviews thereby building an ability to deal with greater complexity. In other words, as we move through stages of development, we develop a means to see and deal with more shades of grey. We become less black and white and the result is we can make better decisions in life.
The fundamental difference between the two approaches lies in how the client is focused. Transactional coaching starts from the premise that the coachee knows, or will uncover, what they want to achieve based on their existing ways of being. The role of the coach is to help the client develop clarity about their goals and then put the strategies in place to achieve them. This can be seen as a process of narrowing focus.
Transformational coaching begins with a different premise. This approach initially seeks to expand the client’s focus and view the world as a means of developing goals to address greater complexity before focusing on achieving those goals.
This distinction means transactional coaching has a short-term and narrower focus, whereas transformational coaching is embraces a longer term view with a dynamic focus that expands and narrows as required.
Related Concepts
Adult Human Development
Orders of Learning
Ontological Coaching