Here are some partial notes from a situation that a coach has brought to supervision. What went wrong? What are the main areas to enquire into, to help ensure a good outcome this time and prevent something similar on another occasion?

The background:

The coach has a long and happy association with a mid size management services company. The coach traditionally provided training, team development and consultancy type services internally for this company, on a contract basis.
Then, an influential company director with whom the coach has a good relationship, proposed that each senior manager in his department receive 5 one-hour sessions from this coach. This was to be a trial period, based on the director knowing that the coach thought one-to-one coaching would add value and would be interested to provide it. The senior director has not been coached, nor has coaching been available in the company before. A price was agreed and the deal was done!

A specific situation within this:
Stuart is one of the senior managers. Introduced to the coach, he was overjoyed to be receiving some exclusive one-to-one coaching, something that he had been requesting for over a year since his promotion.
Session 1 - The coach understands that Stuart is clearly under a lot of pressure in terms of accountabilities and achieving his performance targets, something that is causing him real anxiety. However, the session goes well.
After the first session, the company director calls the coach in for an update. The coach gave a positive view, without going into detail. But the coach left wondering if there was perhaps some history about his coachee that was not being shared.
Session 2 - While the coach felt that the session with Stuart went well, he was again pulled in to give an account of progress. The director made clear his view that Stuart was failing consistently in achieving his targets and that if he was not ‘fixed’ he would be out of a job.
Session 3 - This session did not go well and was cut short.
This is the point at which the coach brought the issue to supervision.

Some considerations:

• At what point in this story did you spot a warning sign?
• What would you have done differently and why?
• Who are the clients in this story? Stepping in to their shoes, what has each ‘signed up’ to?
• Who has influence over who in this story? Of what type? What are the consequences?
• Who in this story knows what coaching might involve or lead to?
• What hasn’t been said that needs to be said? To who? From who?

Thanks to Derek Ross for this example. It is a provocation for reflective practice and does not constitute advice. Derek co-ordinates the peer practice groups and is actively involved in exploring how considering ethical dilemmas helps develop professional practice.

Note: You can discuss this with peers by putting across your own ideas and hearing others ideas at the interactive ethics forums. If you have not used the interactive forums before you will be required to create a profile, which takes just a few minutes.