Coaching Theory
By Bronwyn Bowery-Ireland
(CEO)
One of the reasons that coaching is such an interesting field is that it draws from a wide range of theories, philosophies and disciplines to create a unique professional practice. If coaching were a plant, it would be an exotic, variegated hybrid! Coaching is more than just the sum of its parts, however. While coaching has a theoretical history in adult learning theory, psychology, management theory, sociology and spirituality, it has also operated as a unique field for over 30 years now. Throughout that time, has developed its own theoretical framework.
At ICA we believe that coaching is its own unique field and should be studied as such. We think that, while coaches may bring skills and ideas with them from former fields and professions, no one field or profession has any greater claim to expertise in coaching than another. Having said that, however, as part of your understanding of coaching, it is useful to know a bit about its history and the theories it shares with other fields and disciplines.
Over the next few weeks I will be highlighting the theories that we believe inform coaching. To begin lets look at Adult Learning Theory.
Coaching and Adult Learning Theory
Some of the first known life coaching sessions developed out of adult learning programs run in New York in the 1960’s. These occurred in the middle of a very exciting period of study about the way that adults learn. It seems strange now, but prior to the 1960’s the commonly held belief was that the bulk of learning occurred in childhood, with only a handful of people such as academics, continuing to learn in any significant way into adulthood. Little thought had been given to whether adult learning might differ in nature from childhood learning.
During the 1960’s and 70’s a range of researchers, most notably Dr Malcolm Knowles, began to explore the ways that adults learnt. In 1973, Knowles came up with a range of adult learning principles. These principles were initially designed to inform the way courses or classes for adults should be structured. However, each of these principles, as paraphrased below, have informed coaching as a field.
If you substitute the word, “teacher” for “coach”, they can easily be applied to the coaching experience.
Principle 1: “Adults are autonomous and self-directed. They need to be free to direct themselves. Their teachers must actively involve adult participants in the learning process and serve as facilitators ….guiding participants to their own knowledge rather than supplying them with facts.”
Principle 2: “Adults have accumulated a foundation of life experiences and knowledge that may include work-related activities, family responsibilities, and previous education. They need to connect learning to this knowledge/experience base. To help them do so, teachers and facilitators should draw out participants’ experience and knowledge, which is relevant to the topic. They must relate theories and concepts to the participants and recognize the value of experience in learning.”
Principle 3: “Adults are goal-oriented. Upon enrolling in a course, they usually know what goal they want to attain. They, therefore, appreciate an educational program that is organized and has clearly defined elements. Instructors must show participants how this class will help them attain their goals.”
Principle 4: “Adults are relevancy-oriented. They must see a reason for learning something. Learning has to be applicable to their work or other responsibilities to be of value to them.”
Principle 5: “Adults are practical, focusing on the aspects of a lesson most useful to them in their work. They may not be interested in knowledge for its own sake.”
Principle 6: “As do all learners, adults need to be shown respect. Instructors must acknowledge the wealth of experiences that adult participants bring to the classroom. These adults should be treated as equals in experience and knowledge and allowed to voice their opinions freely.”
As you can see, the principles that Knowles suggested needed to be present in a learning situation are almost all present in coaching. It is little wonder then that coaching is used so extensively in workplace learning programs throughout the world either on its own or following other training to ensure that sustainable change occurs.
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Excerpts from this article have been extracted from International Coach Academy’s training materials.
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