| What is Developmental
Coaching?
There is no doubt that all coaching is developmental. All coaching makes a contribution to a client’s adult development. But the way coaching is typically done at present does not always meet the client where the client is developmentally, because a notion of the "where" of development (developmental level) is absent in the coach. The coach may also not be aware of his or her own present developmental level. For coaching to be consciously "developmental," a particular mental model of the client needs to be fashioned, one that accounts for where the client is developmentally, in his or her journey across the life span. This notion of development still leaves open two very different approaches to adult development. The first one, phasic, centers around the (age-related) "phase" of development a client may be said to be in (e.g., early vs. middle adulthood). The second one, constructivist, focuses on the age-related but not age-determined meaning-making a client habitually engages in. Meaning-making regards a client’s central tendency of making sense of experiences, not only in thinking, but in feeling and acting as well. This central tendency is often called a "stage," not only of meaning-making, but also of being in the world. The developmental sciences have elaborated our intuitive knowledge about how adults move across the life span in terms of research-based theories and assessment methods that can help us as coaches to have a better grasp on "where the client is developmentally." Developmental coaching is assessment based or "instrumented" coaching. The goal of developmental coaching is to work on the basis of deeper insight into the place from where clients make meaning of their personal or organizational experiences. In contrast to the phasic view of development, which sees a client’s issues as determined by life style, present social conditions, and "renewal phase" (F. Hudson, 1999), the constructivist view aims to understand and surface, and then improve, a client’s mental models. To speak with P. Senge, mental models are "deeply held images of how the world works, images that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting" (1999, p.174). How does developmental coaching in the constructivist sense proceed in order to assist clients? The overall idea is to establish a "developmental baseline" initially, before coaching proper begins, and to make a follow-up assessment of developmental level one year or more thereafter. The delay between the two assessments corresponds to the time period that is typically required to change developmental level or "stage." While one can bring about behavioral change without bringing about a developmental advance, one cannot achieve a stage change in less than a year. Typically, behavioral change that is not rooted in a developmental advance, often called "learning," is transitory and superficial, thus unreliable. Therefore, a developmentally working coach typically does not contract for periods of less than a year, because in a shorter time no developmental advance can be produced. There are several methodologies for establishing a developmental baseline and follow-up measure. All of them aim for assessing coaching effectiveness. When the developmental level of the coach is considered, issues of developmental compatibility of coach and client can be dealt with. What is more, entire coaching programs and corporate development programs can be assessed and monitored company-wide. One of the available methodologies is the author’s Developmental Structure/Process Tool (DSPT™). This patent-pending methodology is based on research into transformative effects of coaching on executives’ professional agenda (Laske 1999b). It assesses developmental level from two complementary perspectives, of (1) level of mental growth, and of (2) process profile. The methodology distinguishes 16 different levels of mental growth in a client’s life span from 25 to 100. Each of these levels is linked to an individual "process profile." The latter is a profile of the mental processes a client habitually engages in. The profile speaks to what P. Senge has called systems thinking, for him the "fifth discipline," and a corner stone of creating and maintaining learning organizations (Senge, 1990; Senge et al., 1999). In light of this, the DSPT™ can be seen as a tool for "mapping mental models to their molecular base, of elements of systems thinking." In this way, the tool surfaces tacit mental models that exist below the level of awareness which, for Senge, is "a breakthrough for building learning organizations" (Senge, 1990, p. 174). To sum up, developmental coaching is "instrumented" for the purpose of assisting clients in reaching a subsequent level of mental growth and a more balanced process profile in periods not shorter than a year. Such coaching is based on assessments that lead to customized coaching strategies (fitted to the needs of the particular client). The coaching aims to assess effectiveness in assisting clients reach a higher developmental level. It is based on a methodology geared to producing outcome research on the effectiveness of entire coaching and development programs.
Selected Bibliography
Copyright © Otto Laske, 2000. Otto Laske, Principal of Personnel Development Consultation, Inc., coach and OD consultant, holds doctoral degrees from the Institute of Social Research, Frankfurt, Germany and from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology where he did his thesis on coaching. Otto worked at Arthur D. Little, Inc., Cambridge, MA, and has been an independent knowledge management consultant with an international multi-lingual practice. In 1998-99, he conducted the first executive coaching study from a developmental perspective, establishing the Developmental Structure/Process Tool (DSPT™) as the focus of coaching methodology. He presently works with private coaching clients and with Allaire Corp., and is aiming to establish the Developmental Coaching Institute. © 2000 OnTrack Coaching & Consulting, Inc. All rights reserved. |