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HEIDI MOLLER — KATRIN OELLERICH — DENISE HINN — SILJA KOTTE
The impression arises that some coaches have had poor experiences with
qualitatively questionable coaching research. This would correspond to the
accounts given by very experienced coaches who we encountered multiple
times during the course of personal conversation. These coaches in particular
are virtually flooded with coaching research requests relating to Bachelor and
Master theses. In the online survey, many participants expressed the wish (in a
surprisingly explicit manner) for “theoretical foundation”, “intelligent designs”
and “integrity on the part of those conducting the study”. There is indeed a need
here for action on the part of the researchers and it requires the willingness of
experienced researchers to enter into dialogue and cooperation with coaching
practitioners and to develop and implement systematic research programmes
instead of merely sending Bachelor and Master students to do the job.
We encountered however a contradiction: while practitioners at the workshop
wished for “hard facts” like field observations and written documentation or
video analysis, which would also be desirable from a scientific-methodological
point of view, many coaches in the online study explicitly mentioned these
methodical approaches as exclusion criteria for their own participation.
Together with the oft-mentioned concerns that the coaching process might
suffer interference, coaches seem keen to have such research but (to phrase it
somewhat provocatively) are unwilling to take part in it themselves. This leads
us to ask the critical question as to whether coaches — akin to what Vaughan
and colleagues** suspected about psychotherapy research — are concealing
their own discomfort and holding their cards close to their chest while using
concerns about client protection as a smokescreen.
As scientists, we want to challenge ourselves to develop high-quality research
concepts and at the same time encourage practitioners to engage themselves
more fully in coaching research.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALVESSON, M. — KARREMAN, D., Unraveling HRM: Identity, Ceremony, and
Consulting in a Management Consulting Firm, Organization Science, 18 (4)
(2007) 711-723.
4 Vaughan et al., Can we do psychoanalytic outcome research?
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