• Home |
• About Us |
• Our Clients |
• Our Team |
• Contact Us |
• Testimonials

What is the right environment for successful coaching?

Where is it possible to coach someone effectively? Must it be at their place of work or is it best done away from their usual work environment? There are some strongly held views about this which I will examine.

 You Cannot Coach Someone in Their Office

Because they may be interrupted, observed by others and be conscious of this, be distracted by others or be thinking about their current work.
In their Office or normal work environment they may not be able to:- switch off, stand back, focus and concentrate, think creatively out of the box, think clearly and feel intuitively, act emotionally. In short they may feel inhibited and unable to think clearly and talk freely and honestly about the important but sometimes painful things that they want to express.
I much prefer to take people out of their normal environment, to a different location from their workplace where they can be relaxed, energised and feel liberated. To a place where they will feel able to express their ideas freely, to laugh, cry, be angry, frustrated or jubilant without feeling constrained or nervous about being overheard or overlooked.
However some coachees prefer to or want to be coached in their office and although I don’t encourage this I agree to it if the following environment exists:-

a) It is not an “open” office
b) They are unlikely to be disturbed
c) Their telephone is switched through to a PA, secretary or someone else
d) They are not within sight of their P.C.
e) They aren’t doing other work simultaneously
f) They are not sitting behind their desk and using it as a barrier between me and them.
In reality it is usually only the senior people in organisations who have the luxury of their own protected office space where these conditions can apply. Sometimes I have experienced the feeling that the executive who I have been coaching only feels safe and comfortable when they are on their “home turf” and that if they were to venture too far out of this zone of comfort somehow they might feel less powerful and more vulnerable. Where this has been the case we have talked about it and the broader implications for them personally and for their role and relationships in the organisation. This has sometimes led to some powerful learning for them about their power and status and often been accompanied by us going off site to another more neutral place for some of our coaching sessions.
Ultimately it is up the coachee not for you as the coach to choose the environment that allows them to be comfortable and confident, to think and feel freely, where they will not be disturbed , overheard or overlooked.