The secret is out. Did you hear? With a rich history dating to ancient times, coaching continues to evolve rapidly, both as a role and as a (currently unregulated) profession. Let’s take a serious look at how we, in veterinary medicine, might benefit from thoughtfully and intentionally engaging with coaching and coaches. Here are some key points that might be helpful.
A High-Level Overview
Coaching is said to have started with the probing questions asked by the Greek philosopher Socrates — later coined “The Socratic method.” Over the centuries, coaching methods were reportedly used to ready soldiers for battle mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.
More familiar to us today is the persona of “the coach” in athletics — someone engaged to encourage, support and drive excellence and success. Upon review, books like The Power of Positive Thinking (Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, 1952) and The Inner Game of Tennis (Tim Gallwey, 1974) were important pieces that paved the way for Sir John Whitmore’s Coaching for Performance in 1992. That latter book put business and leadership coaching on the map.
In these varied examples, we see the diverse ways coaching has appeared over time and the powerful potential for two things:
- The internal influence of the individual on both their Self and their internal landscape, and the way that individual relates to their external world.
- How one individual can influence a group of people in different ways.
Coaching in Veterinary Medicine
Pick any industry or topic and you’ll probably find a coach for it. The difference is in the perception of the promise and the perception of whether the goal is to coach the outcome (what they do), coach the problem (fix what is wrong) or coach the person to find out who they aspire to be.
Most of us want to be better at what we do, and we understand the concept of engaging with someone who can help us achieve our goals. We think we want someone to tell us what we must do and how we must do it to get where we want to go. Even better is when that person is an expert in our field and has achieved the very thing we are trying to do. Right? Not so fast. The person I described is likely playing the role of a teacher, trainer, consultant or mentor and is not a true-blue coach.
Historically, the veterinary profession has had a non-coaching culture. Our systems, including education and continuing education, are almost entirely set up as teaching, training, consulting and, more recently, mentoring. Largely, any coaching shows up under the category “Coaching for Performance,” which includes coaching a person or group to use technical and non-technical skills to effectively and efficiently achieve a successful outcome, whatever it might be.
The past several years have seen a keen interest and uptick in team coaching. So much so that in 2020, the International Coaching Federation released team coaching competencies, confirming the need for standards that recognize the team as a unique entity and acknowledge the advanced competency of a coach working with the team.
In veterinary medicine, we have worked toward focusing on our workplaces (healthy, toxic or otherwise) and have strategized about the need for psychological safety.
We would be wise to pause now and consider what taking a quantum leap toward a coaching culture might mean. It’s essentially a workplace where coaching becomes a team sport.
What Is a Coaching Culture?
I propose we engage with the concept of culture from achievers.com: “The set of values, beliefs, attitudes, systems and rules that outline and influence employee behavior within an organization.” Then, we can translate the coaching world’s beliefs, attitudes, mindsets, behaviors and competencies to define a coaching culture. It is:
- Everyone adopts and maintains a coaching mindset, believing that all team members are capable, resourceful and full of potential and are willing and able to find their own solutions.
- Everyone believes in and adopts radical curiosity — being willing to ask and be asked powerful questions.
- Everyone is trained and uses coaching skills (competencies), especially active listening, to evoke awareness, direct communication, establish and maintain agreements, demonstrate ethical practice, cultivate trust and safety, and maintain a coaching presence.
Maintaining a coaching presence means being fully conscious and self-aware, open to not knowing, taking risks, experimenting with possibilities, and being flexible and able to shift perspective.
A coaching culture would include all team members, regardless of their role. They would help each other be their best selves by creating a safe space for everyone to learn, practice new skills and grow. This would create an environment where people give and receive feedback, are challenged with support, and engage in personal and professional development. A coaching culture provides relationships that are values-based and mutually transformational, not transactional.
I will share that ever since I started coaching, I have wondered: “What might happen if we embraced the power of coaching and turned our curiosity toward the people of veterinary medicine rather than the problems we encounter or the specific outcomes we strive for, like efficiency and optimization of our time and resources?”
Turns out, I am not alone. The International Coaching Federation and other organizations wonder the same thing.
The answer is clear: Coaching pays off in multiple ways. While we have no reported evidence in veterinary medicine (yet), the evidence is growing as more people measure and quantify coaching’s return on investment.
- Based on studies and reports, here are some key points from the International Coaching Federation.
- Quantitative measurements report an average return on investment of seven times the cost of employing a coach.
- Qualitatively, 87% of respondents agreed that executive coaching has a high ROI.
- A strong correlation exists between coaching and increased employee engagement, commitment and leadership development.
- Workers at every level appreciate coaching (78% of senior executives and 73% of other employees).
- Coaching generally increases psychological safety within the team.
- Among physicians, coaching increased well-being, resilience, job satisfaction, engagement and meaning at work.
Hmmm, improved well-being, psychological safety and engagement, along with a significant ROI. My dreams make sense. Creating a coaching culture in veterinary settings might make sense, too.
Before you jump in, here are important things to consider.
- Do your homework and remember that coaching is an unregulated profession. A growing number of ICF-certified veterinary professional coaches do this work.
- Change does not happen overnight.
- What makes sense for your team? Is it transactional baby steps or a transformational quantum leap into a positive future state?
LEARN MORE
- The Veterinary Coaches Collective, vetmedcoaches.com
- “ICF Team Coaching Competencies: Moving Beyond One-to-One Coaching,” bit.ly/3DwKWWX
- “Coaching as a Catalyst for Change at Intel,” bit.ly/3Dl3UQu