Coaching: an authentic instrument of change in schools

 

Mr Andrew Mowat Group 8 Education Victoria, Australia

 

‘There are more possible ways to connect the brain's neurons than there are atoms in the universe.'
(The Users Guide to the Brain, John Ratey, 2001)

 

One of the more surprising outcomes of recent neuroscience research, particularly with the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology, is how different and diverse individual brains are. Consistently and universally, no two brains are remotely alike at the level of how the neural maps and nets are connected:

‘there are more than 300 trillion constantly changing connections: there are unlimited different ways that brains can store information, unlimited options for how experience, learning and information might be encoded in the brain' ( Quiet Leadership, David Rock, 2006).

If this is the case, it is no great work to think through the implications to see that our existing and default systems of communication, development and management are seriously flawed: imposing learning, thinking and content externally is unlikely to integrate quickly with the construct of an individual's neural maps. Many of our existing interventions that seek change as an outcome are not created from within, and are characterised by low efficacy or failure.

The success and growth of authentic coaching as an intervention can be attributed to its ability to quickly facilitate the internal construction of awareness, insight, learning and growth for an individual.

Defining coaching

Defining coaching has become somewhat vexatious in recent times, but for me it is simply facilitating self-directed and solutions-focused change. It is an ‘ask' intervention, as opposed to ‘tell' methodologies, while the spotlight is clearly on a desired future state, rather than a problem-centric focus on the past.

It is easy to confuse seemingly similar modalities, and the boundaries between coaching and counselling, consulting, mentoring and traditional psychology can be blurry at best. One way of triggering some thinking around where each sits is to draw two axes, the vertical being ask-tell and the horizontal problem-solution. In my mind, the picture looks like this:

Quadrant 1: Ask-Problem = Counselling

Quadrant 2: Ask-Solution = Coaching and Positive Psychology

Quadrant 3: Tell Problem = Traditional Psychology

Quadrant 4: Tell-Solution = Consulting

Mentoring probably sits mostly in the solutions half, with an equal emphasis on ask and tell, according to style and context.

Coaching works at the thinking level, not the behavioural level, as is often the case with much professional development. Indeed, my view is that part of the problem of our historical approach to teacher development is its content and behaviour focus. A thinking approach to teacher professional development would see far more space for reflection, play (in the sandpit sense), collaboration and thinking awareness.

One way to provide analogy for this is to consider an iceberg, with its 10 per cent poking up above the waterline. At the peak of the iceberg, we have the results and outcomes that we see. Both above (visible) and just below (internal) the waterline, we have the behaviour that supports the result or outcome. Underwater we have the feeling that supports the behaviour, and at the base of the iceberg we have the thinking that drives the feeling.

In the iceberg model, outcomes or results are supported by behaviour, behaviour by feeling, and feeling by thinking. Hence, existing outcomes are driven ultimately by existing thinking. Transforming outcomes, creating ‘stretch' and growth is effected by working at the thinking level, and often by new thinking. A principal I have recently worked with described the following situation:

‘I came to the realisation that I was bringing a great deal of thinking baggage from school to home, and that this was impacting on the quality of my relationships at home. I decided to practice switching my school thinking off and my home thinking on every time I passed a particular service station, approximately half-way home. With some thinking attention to this, I have now ‘hard wired this' so that the switch is transparent and unconscious to me.'

To effect this example of self-coaching, this principal needed strong awareness of the underlying thinking, and was able to create a new thinking solution and practice this to embed the new neural circuitry. The new outcome was driven by internal thinking, not someone advising this principal to change his behaviour.

I decided to explore this further with the principal, and asked what happens if he went home a different way. The answer was:

‘You know, I've never thought through this, but last week after our conference, I drove home a different way and found myself stewing over stuff from school all night'.

What, then, are we seeking to trigger in a coachee that will facilitate and effect internal growth and learning? Given the attention economy state of the brain – there is a thinking resource limit that has to be distributed to all of the brain's operations - a good coach will maximise the level of inward-looking thinking. In this state of reflection, a coach should trigger:

• deep thinking awareness and observation;
• clarity around the thinking maps that are in play or conflict;
• resolution of dilemmas through connecting or bridging the maps that are in conflict through insight;
• an externalising of the new thinking into new observable behaviour;
• strong self-belief.

To create the space for the desired outcomes to be triggered in a coachee, a good coach will step away from default styles of problem-focused detail - needy conversations that provide the coach the tools to give the answers to the coachee. Instead, the coach needs to employ thinking and behaviour that:

• is passive, neutral but deeply engaged;
• creates trust and safety for the coachee to engage in the process through unconditional respect;
• signals an absolute and unconditional belief in the potential of the coachee to grow;
• assists the coachee to hear what they are saying;
• assists the coachee to build a more complete picture of the issues than normal individual thinking normally allows;
• provides the structure and opportunity for the coachee's thinking and action to move forward.

Consider the above dot points as characteristics of a leader. What sort of leader would you see if these characteristics were an integral part of their make-up? If a teacher had this set of traits, what sort of teacher would you see? What sort of organisation or school would you see that had these points as demonstrated qualities of its vision?

Clearly then, coaching has the ability to transform the coachee and the coach. Where organisations have leaders as coaches, organisational change is effected. While the mechanism of coaching provides the space for positive change, the act of coaching creates its own set of positive transformations.

Several questions arise out of this.

• What leadership growth is required to move from default manager-centric leadership styles to a distributive coach-centric leader?
• How is coaching linked to an authentic moral purpose and the vision of a school?
• How is coaching implemented in school environments where time and money deficits are the norm?

Transforming leadership practice and purpose through coaching

Studies into executive coaching efficacy in corporate settings indicate high returns on investment for coaching into organisational leadership. The flow down in the organisation of this coaching into leadership, however, is significantly reduced. The impact of coaching to the first management level under the executive being coached is generally much less than the impact on the executive. In most cases, there is no flow-through effect of coaching to the second tier of management under the executive.

To effect a deep transformation in an organisation, a more sophisticated approach is required for coaching implementation. In schools, this consists of external executive-style coaching to the principal, with part of the content being focused on becoming a coach, providing coach training and education to the school's leadership (principals and teacher leaders) and having the principal(s) coach the teacher leaders.

By being coached, learning what coaching is, and by coaching, the leadership team effect transformation within themselves, and in their school.

Linking coaching to purposeful transformation

Coaching methodologies, used within a school setting, have the capacity to transform a school and its professional staff. In its base and generic form, and of itself, coaching will provide both the mechanism to facilitate personal growth and the modality for leadership change. In this form, coaching addresses the front-of-mind issues that obscure the achievement of full potential capacity.

Where coaching becomes much more powerful is when it is linked to, and assists, the leverage of whole-school transformation.

The literature on school transformation is indicating that one particular focus is central to the successful ‘renovation' of a school into a high-performing organisation. This one focus is the unambiguous focus on the growth and development of each individual student. This focus provides native content for coaching intervention, and will provide purpose and drive to the coaching itself.

Within the vision of an unambiguous focus on the growth and development of each individual, student coaching provides the instrument for individuals to map meaning, future growth and ‘stretch' in multiple contexts: the individual, the team and the school.

Implementing coaching initiatives in a school setting

In comparison to corporate and business implementations, schools generally have far fewer opportunities for broad scale coaching initiatives, given the lack of ‘disposable' time and finances. Further, schools have far fewer leadership positions for the organisation when compared to corporate settings, further restricting top-down implementations.

To effect lasting and hard-wired change in skills, behaviour and thinking, a coaching series needs eight to ten sessions over three to four months to be completed. A quick check of the numbers will expose the impossibility of applying existing corporate coaching models to school settings.

Coaching in schools is still emerging as a key initiative and, in this emergent phase, schools are grappling with what coaching is, and how it might fit. Some current examples include:

• external coaching to principals, coach training to principals and teacher leaders, principals coach teacher leaders; teacher leaders coach teacher teams;
• designated specialist coaches who, with coach training, can assist teachers with specific content, such as information technology and literacy;
• external coaching for principals only.

For coaching to be truly admitted into the cauldron of activity present in any school, the recognition of its inherent and prospective value needs to be recognised. Schools are already assessing low ‘return-on-investment' activity in the creation of time and space for coaching to occur.

Teacher leaders as team coaches

School systems have the opportunity to bring stronger alignment of its middle level leadership to the moral or visionary purpose of the school. By both training teacher leaders as coaches, and by having principals coach teacher leaders, the middle level leadership group has the capacity to lead professional teacher teams as coaches. Using team-coaching methodologies, the teacher leaders are able to facilitate the ‘stretch' and growth of the team and its individuals using the universal coaching ethos of a self-directed, solutions focus.

The creation of coach-trained teacher leaders has noteworthy impact in that the purpose and activity of these leaders is more authentic than the work that tends to come with being a teacher leader. Too often, systems award increases in salary only if there is an increase in work, with this resulting in the creation of tasks and titles to attach to teacher leaders.

The strong EQ component of coaching builds teams powerfully, while the development of the teacher leader as a coach systematically creates leadership capacity as a future principal.

Thus far, I have not included students in the picture as possible coachees. There is significant scope to use coaching methodology to enhance existing programs in schools and create new student management options.

Coaching students

Some schools are using, or are considering using coaching with students in the areas of goal development, career development, thinking curricula (as is now included in the Victorian Essential Learning Standards), student welfare and counselling, and even student management.

Existing special staff (student welfare coordinators, career officers, secondary school nurses, and so on) can easily be trained as coaches, providing them with deep student-interaction skills.

Where coaching has real potential is in the arena where the current behavioural management systems have not been coping. Our schools systematically abandon students that do not conform or respond to behavioural management schema, often because resources cannot and do not meet the needs of these students.

A school, using the focus of an unambiguous focus on the growth of every individual child as its transformational moral purpose, cannot sustain the abandonment of students and, at the same time, truly transform. Using or re-assigning existing resources, students who are not responding to being told how to think or behave might better respond with a coaching series that sits outside of the normal custodial framework.

Imagine a year 8 male student who is finding himself ejected from many of his classes. An adult in the school (not necessarily a teacher), who is coach trained, would use the self-directed, solutions-focused approach to help this student become aware of his thinking, to help structure some goals, to provide positive feedback and impart a powerful dose of unconditional respect. It is appropriate here for the context of one of the goals to be set around behaviour, with the goal being thought through and articulated by the student. Subsequent sessions would focus on the major strategy points and the supporting actions and behaviour, using non-judgemental coaching conversations that bring learning and positive growth to the surface.

For this student, there is now the scaffolding of an absolute belief in his potential, unconditional respect (even if he has continued to attract normal disciplinary consequences), structured ‘stretch' and positive feedback.

A single adult in a medium to large secondary school would be able to work with 20 to 50 students in a two-week period. What would be the impact in your school of reducing the negative influence and subsequent abandonment of the core 20 to 50 miscreant students?

Conclusion

Coaching, now an established growth and transformation tool in the corporate setting, is beginning to weave its magic in the education world. The significant differences between the business and education worlds throw unique challenges at schools in accessing the potential of coaching. Two key questions remain for me.

• How is the quality of coaching assured, both in the coach training and the coaching itself?
• How do schools, and their supporting systems, shift global and school-level resources to allow entrée of coaching and its potential?

Coaching exposes its participants to deep engagement with self and others, and the resultant growth, ‘stretch' and alignment is difficult, if not impossible to achieve inside our default modes of communication and leadership.

We have here, at last, a vehicle that is as transformative as it is people-centric. Perhaps here is the path away from conformity-ridden pipelines, towards schools where students really do thrive.

 

Having extensive leadership experience in the Victorian government education system in Australia, as a secondary school leading teacher and as a primary school principal, Mr Andrew Mowat has since had hundreds of hours of coach training and coaching experience. A member of the International Coach Federation, Andrew's own coach education includes intensive and executive coach training, along with a postgraduate certificate in ‘The Precursors to Coaching' (New York University.) Delivering coaching and coach training to central, region and school-level leadership, Mr Mowat is now heavily involved with Group 8 Education (see: http://www.gr8education.com/) in assisting schools transform practice through coaching.

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