https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-manifesto-to-end-boring-meetings-1482249683, accessed 15 March 2023.
We have all sat through them. Multiple power point slides, hours of uninterrupted expert talk, a glossy booklet with suggested but unaddressed strategies, stale and tepid coffee at far too few intervals, and the sense of relief when you are freed at the end of the day. The regret that you will not get those hours back again is tangible and, during the journey home, nothing of much importance can be recalled and rarely will you be moved to change your attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and habits that have served you so well before. From another perspective, how frustrated have you been as the purchaser of the professional development initiative when you reflect on the long hours sourcing it, and the thousands of dollars expended, eventually amounting to little or imperceptible change.
While this may be an all-too-common experience of institutionally sought professional development initiatives, there is much more to why this kind of experience does not induce the individual and organisational change desired by the those who commissioned it. In fact, it was already doomed to failure due to the ingrained learning frameworks of many attendees. You might also be surprised by the suggestion that the more successful the attendee believes themselves to be the more likely they are to dismiss what they are being introduced to. Teachers, holders and disseminators of knowledge, calcified through years of being its font, are believed to be an even harder case to crack.
Chris Argyris, in his article ‘Teaching Smart People How to Learn’, discusses how adults experience of a certain level of success in achieving their current status at work blinds them to opportunities for further improvement and growth. The obsession towards minimising failure and succeeding in achieving goals with their tried and tested methodology develops a master program which is inflexible towards other methodologies that might achieve even greater outcomes.
The process that leads to the master program is known as single loop learning, which is positively fed back to solidify an individual's personal narrative, self-conceptualisation and desire for control over the environment. Constructionist theory holds that adults construct their own world that is riven with biases but allows them to reconcile with their current existence. This is fine until challenges arise which attempt to disrupt its fabric (Argyris, 1991 p.103; Becker et al., 2021, p.8; Whitmore, 2017 p.26). This causes the challenges to be dismissed as being incongruent with the rules of the master program and the individual continues to apply the same behaviours and habits that has brought them to where they are.
When it is most entrenched, they arrive at a phase known as defensive reasoning where they hostilely reject the new information, and quite skilfully convince themselves that they are already perfect in their present guise, thank you very much (Argyris, 1991 p.100)! Thus, we can see how single-loop learning, the master program and defensive reasoning will work to reject any new and expensive professional development that has been externally sought.
So, how can coaching-based professional development succeed where other professional development fails? The answer is the self-reflection required of a coaching counterpart during the coaching process. Current adult learning theories deem it essential that opportunities for self-reflection are integral for people to move beyond their perceived internal and external interferences so their potential manifests in performance. Anthony M. Grant in his work on integrating goals for transformation points out that “people are often not skilled in the self-reflective process and are frequently unaware of their behaviour or the impact their behaviour has on other people” (Grant, 2006, p.154).
A trained and skilled coach can work with people to internally reflect on their master program in a deliberately positive manner and distinguish how it influences their values, attitudes, habits, and behaviours. Chris Argyris refers to this as double-loop learning, as opposed to single-loop. He states that double-loop learning enables individuals to “reflect critically on their own behaviour, identify the ways they inadvertently contribute to the organisation’s problems, and then change how they act” (Argyris, 1991, p. 100). This transformation fosters productive reasoning in people, as opposed to defensive reasoning. Logically and rationally, the person being coached realises that embracing change, and possible failure, will help them recalibrate the values, attitudes and beliefs of the master program that are holding them back from progression, whatever form that may take (Whitmore, 2017, p.26).
When I consider the return on investment that quality coaching programs can deliver compared to many alternative forms of professional development I am often reminded of Heineken's promotional slogan, coaching just refreshes the parts other development programs cannot reach!
Come and join us at KCM 80-20 for further conversations about how our approach to coaching can you help you as an individual and an organisation.
Keith Briggs, Accredited Coach and Educational Leader
References
Argyris, C. (1991, May/June). Teaching Smart People How to Learn. Harvard Business Review, 99-109.
Becker, C, Butler, T, Geddes, M, Holder, R, Porter, J, & Raymond, J. (2022). Creating a Crucible for Change – Organisational Coaching Essentials. Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership, 1-14.
Grant, A. M. (2006). An Integrative Goal-focused Approach to Executive coaching. In Evidence Based Coaching Handbook: Putting Best Practices to Work for Your Clients (pp. 153-192). Macquarie Park, Australia: Wiley.
Whitmore, J. (2017). Coaching for Performance: the Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership (5th ed.). London, United Kingdom: Penguin.
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