Coaching culture is one of those concepts that everyone accepts is a good thing, but then struggles to describe what it looks like or why they need it. Here are 10 good reasons from the literature and our experience.
Over the decades, I have developed dozens of models and frameworks. One I am especially proud of is also one of the least well known – the diversity awareness ladder. Created in the early 1990s, it was an attempt to understand the relationship between our internal, silent conversations when we encounter someone different and the spoken or written conversations we have with or about them. The more instinctive and lacking in reflection/ self-awareness that the internal conversation is, the more guarded and politically over-correct the external conversation we will be.
The Japanese concept of Ikegai is based around four questions. In any discussion of career aspirations, starting with these questions is a very practical way of focussing on what’s important.
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Building the habit of reflection isn’t easy. Yet, some questions can give a much-needed prompt. Ask someone what they earned this week and they can usually remember something. Yet ask what they learned about themselves requires a much deeper level of introspection.
Manfred Kets de Vries, at INSEAD, the French business school, is a veteran of team coaching and an authority on the psychology of both coaching and group dynamics. His latest book, The Path to Individual and Organizational Transformation (Palgrave, 2025) contains many nuggets, but I was particularly struck by a list of 25 key benefits that executive teams perceive from team coaching. These range from identifying hidden conflict to clarifying roles and deeper understanding of team challenges, to aligning team norms with an accountability structure. It’s a valuable checklist to apply when engaging with a team, to answer the question: “What would you like team coaching to do for you as a team?”
AIs like Gemini or ChatGPT can be very helpful in speeding up research. I’ve always been careful to check out any references with another source, such as Google Scholar or Research Gate and where possible go beyond the abstract to evaluate the whole paper. Most of the time, I find that the work is genuine and that I can extract what I need from the article text. But not all the time.
In order to take up a challenge, we need agency (am I able to do this or make it happen) and will (do I want to do this or make it happen?)
The potential matrix is a simple way to illustrate any dilemma we may have.
Board directors have immense responsibility – the future of the company is in their hands and in the decisions they make. They also have responsibility to multiple stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, customers, investors and the environment. In theory, great responsibility should be accompanied by great accountability. In practice, the consequences when directors do a poor job, are minimal. While there are sanctions for dishonesty (such as disqualification or in extreme cases, such as fraud, prison), the bar for incompetence is set so high in many Western economies that the only sanction is losing their job.
Board directors have immense responsibility – the future of the company is in their hands and in the decisions they make. They also have responsibility to multiple stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, customers, investors and the environment. In theory, great responsibility should be accompanied by great accountability. In practice, the consequences when directors do a poor job, are minimal. While there are sanctions for dishonesty (such as disqualification or in extreme cases, such as fraud, prison), the bar for incompetence is set so high in many Western economies that the only sanction is losing their job.
“Stacking” is a term that refers to linking a habit you want to create with one that you already have. For example, if brushing your teeth is a well-established routine, then doing a stretch exercise afterwards becomes an extension of that routine. Washing the toothbrush under a tap becomes a reminder or trigger to stretch.