She arrived in a Porsche and wore her status with comfort and celebrity swag.
That was how he described the moment he first noticed her as his small, matchbox-like rental pulled up next to her. To his surprise, he next saw her striding across the conference stage to own the podium.
‘She was a coach!’ he exclaimed. At this point the professor lifted his eyebrows close to his hair line and dropped his mouth so deep he almost swallowed his chin. I have become used to that sequence of facial expressions when it comes to coaching and Psychologists. It’s controversial but I am not that interested in the petty turf wars.
It seems the Prof was most affronted by the idea that coaches speak so openly about their ROI – evidently the topic of Porsche lady’s conference key note. As a Clinical and Organisational Psychology Professor, he was challenged by the ease with which some coaches even believe they could ascribe their efficacy to themselves. And then the pearls came.
According to his understanding of the research, the personal attributes of an individual counselor, therapist or coach in defining the outcomes of a process are have less impact than the context, environment, life stage, clarity of need, desire, motivation levels and quality of rapport and and and. With that in mind, how could a coach or therapist claim an ROI that links directly to their inputs and efforts? Especially because it seems more external variables are to be considered. As a result sometimes poor coaches achieve success and great coaches seem to fail. So let’s focus on one aspect of the coaching relationship – Rapport.
I call it ‘Temporary Accelerated Trust’, and here are the facts. When time is invested in genuine rapport building (note it says ‘Genuine’) confessions and admissions of culpability among suspected terrorists were four times more likely than in low or no rapport engagements. Criminal detainees were also 14 times more likely to disclose information earlier in an interview, with 50% providing some self-incriminating statements and approximately one quarter of the detainees fully disclosing their guilt. From the realm of Terrorists and Criminals, rapport is basically the essential ingredient. It could be that the ability of a coach to build rapport, drives success more than anything else, and that without any training, an individual who can build rapport might out perform a qualified coach who can’t. Could it be that the ability to listen, match and mirror, to be warm and quickly find common ground matters most?
That type of research should build humility, and I think it is all important – the training, the attributes, the context etc. The more we understand all these influences the more skilfully we can navigate the engagement.
In time, I believe the fields of Psychology and Coaching will converge, and those that can provide support towards sustainable and observable behaviour change will claim their relevance in organisations. We may also extend our definition of ROI and focus it on human to human engagements that supports functionality and effectiveness, care and kindness and all those inherently human qualities that we see too little of in today’s world.
If that is what coaching can offer the world, then each coach deserves to drive a Porsche and own center stage.