Lew Stern Interview: Research on Professional Coaching

Then, regarding coaching outcomes, how are those measured and what outcomes are being followed, and what do clients care about when it comes to outcomes?  Are their outcomes sustainable, and are they outcomes of well-being and outcomes of lifestyle and outcomes of organizational effectiveness and business results, depending upon the kind of coaching?

Coaching in organizations specifically: who’s doing it, which organizations are doing it, why are they doing it?  Who’s getting it within the organizations, how are they structuring it, how are they managing it?

Then specifically about the coach, what competencies are needed, are developed, and what are the characteristics and practices of coaches?  Regarding certain characteristics and competencies and practices and compassion–what makes a great coach versus a good coach versus an incompetent coach, when it comes to actually having the kinds of results that clients are looking for?

How about the coaching process?  Is there any pattern around how people actually do a flow of what goes on from the initial contact between a potential coach and coachee to the ending of the coaching?  We need to find out.  Is there best practice around coaching processes, or are there best practices in different situations?

How about research methods in coaching?  Do any research methods work better than others?  What is being done and what isn’t being done, and where is it being done and how is it being done? By whom?

How about supervision?  It’s a critical area, because you can’t expect to go to a certificate program and be ready to handle any complex coaching situation without supervision, just like you couldn’t if you were a teacher or a physician or an occupational therapist or anything else.  You need supervision, so is there supervision going on, and if so, what goes on in that supervision?  What does a supervisor need to have to be competent, and what is the process of supervision?

The business of coaching:  how has coaching been professionalized with policy, ethics, governance, identification of business trends, pricing, et cetera.

How about the difference between coaching and what’s done in therapy, versus counseling and versus mentoring?  That’s another category.

How about how coaching differs by geographic area, internationally?  The models, the theories, the activities, the assumptions, the processes?

And then there’s a lot of work being done in peer coaching.  Is peer coaching going on, where has it been going on, where is it going on?  It’s happening a great deal in academia, we know that.  It is happening a lot in organizations; it’s happening a lot in religious organizations, so is peer coaching happening in coaching?  Where is it happening, how is it happening?

The contracting process is very important.  The agreement between an individual and their coach or an organization and an individual and their coach: what is included in that contracting, and what makes for better coaching where there are less conflicts that could get in the way of the result?