Tools for internal coaches

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Can you expect to hand over an instruction manual and create a coach? Key figures in coaching development have their doubts. As more organisations build cadres of internal coaches to deliver coaching, so the commercial market has responded with various books and programmes aimed at demystifying the process. One of the latest is a ready-made personal folder known as People-ASSiST – the coaching toolkit. The kit, from a company called Proactive Style, sells for £140 to £165 and is intended to supply the full range of 'helping skills' to coaches with different levels of experience. It covers areas such as how to engage with empathy, and how to anticipate and handle objections. But can the use of a folder, book or DVD really turn someone into a coach? Only if it is backed up with solid training and development, say coaching experts. Professor Robert Garvey, of Sheffield Hallam University's Coaching and Mentoring Research Unit, urges caution. "The use of the term 'toolkit' is a problem for me, because it taps into the management fantasy that people in the workplace are like machines that need a bit of maintenance, or worse, fixing, because there is something wrong with them," he says. Garvey says the metaphor of a 'tool' is the wrong one for the coaching relationship, because it suggests an implement of power or leverage. "It is a mechanical image from an industrial age, and perhaps we need new images fit for a knowledge economy" he says. "I am also reminded that it was Maslow [influential behavioural psychologist Abraham Maslow] who said: 'If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail'." Personal qualities Garvey recommends that organisations examine the personal qualities of a potential internal coach, rather than imagine that any manager can be trained to act as a coach. At training materials provider Scott Bradbury, director Hugh Murray agrees. He says that any organisation looking to develop internal coaching should ensure that search and selection of the right types of people is a priority. "A lot of managers are focused on getting an outcome," says Murray. "But in their hearts they must want to help people. Coaching is defined as helping people to get the best