COLLABORATIVE COACHING
Connecting, Collaborating and Creating "With"

Harlene Anderson, Ph.D.
Access Success International

Collaborative coaching involves an authentic partnership between client and coach that values the possibilities inherent in collaboration relationships and generative dialogue. The role of the coach is to invite and facilitate-to create a space for-these kinds of relationships and dialogues through which new meanings and thus new possibilities emerge. Characterized by a process of mutual inquiry and critical reflection, collaborative coaching entails a process of doing "with" that enhances the client's effectiveness, satisfaction, and success whether the focus of coaching is on the client's personal or professional direction or on organizational issues such as leadership or team building.

It is an appreciative approach that recognizes and encourages the talents and expertise of each person. It also appreciates that each person has the potential to be creative, resourceful, and develop customized outcomes specific to him or her and their situation and circumstance.

My collaborative approach to coaching grew out of my years of experiences as a collaborative therapist and organizational consultant through which I learned to appreciate the talents, resourcefulness, capacities, and creativity that each person has. I learned that I could walk along side my clients, trusting that together we could create possibilities that often never even seemed to exist before.

Heart and Principles of Collaborative Coaching

Collaborative relationship and generative dialogue are the heart of collaborative coaching. Briefly, collaborative relationship refers to a particular way in which a coach orients him- or herself to be, connect, act, and respond with the client. The intent is to invite the client into a shared engagement or joint action in which the client has a sense of participation, belonging, and ownership. Generative dialogue refers to a particular kind or form of talk in which participants engage with each other (out loud) and with themselves (silently) in a mutual or shared inquiry about the issues at hand: jointly examining, questioning, wondering, reflecting, etc. Genuine dialogue is a social activity that is transforming for all participants.

Collaborative coaching is based in principles that are essential to inviting and sustaining the preferred kinds of relationships and dialogue. Put briefly,

• Client as Expert. The client is the expert on his or her personal and professional life. The coach respects the local knowledge and interpretations that the client brings.
  
  
• Coach as Learner. The coach is a learner who is genuinely curious. His or her curiosity acts to spontaneously invite thoughts into words and clarification and expansion. This begins a relational and conversational process through which new ways to talk about the familiar naturally evolve, leading to the co-development of newness in meaning and preferred outcome.
  
  
• Not-Knowing. As a learner, the coach is authentically in a not-knowing position. Not-knowing refers to the belief that one person cannot pre-know another person or his or her situation or what is best for them. It refers to the intent and manner with which the coach thinks about and introduces his or her believed knowledge and expertise (what they think they might know). Knowledge and expertise (e.g., whether from research, experience, or theory) are tentatively offered as food for thought and dialogue and remain open to challenge and change.
  
  
• Cooperative language. The coach chooses cooperative (opening) rather than uncooperative (closing) language (words and actions). Questions, opinions, speculations, or suggestions are offered in a manner that conveys genuine respect, interest, and appreciation for the client's expertise.
  
  
• Conversational Partners. The client and coach are conversational partners who connect and engage in an in-there-together, two-way, back-and-forth, and give-and-take process in which they act and talk with each rather than to each other about the issues at hand and the desired outcomes.
  
  
• Shared Inquiry. Combined, the above spontaneously invite the client into a shared or mutual inquiry, an interactive and fluid process in which therapist and client co-explore the familiar and co-develop the new. In this inquiry, the client's story is told in a way that clarifies, expands, and shifts it. What is created is co-constructed from within the conversation in contrast to the newness being imported from outside it.
  
  
• Uncertainty. A collaborative approach invites and entails uncertainty. When a coach accompanies a client on a journey and walks along side them, the newness (e.g. solutions, resolutions, and outcomes) that develops from within the local conversation, is mutually created, and is uniquely tailored to the person or persons involved. How transformation occurs and what it looks like will vary from client to client, from coach to coach, and from situation to situation. Put simply, there is no way to know for sure the direction in which coaching will unfold or the outcome when involved in a collaborative relationship and dialogical conversation.
  
  
• Mutual Transformation. The coach is not an expert agent who has the power to change another person. Rather, when participants are involved in a collaborative relationship and dialogue, both are shaped and reshaped-transformed--as they work and create together.
  
  
• Egalitarian relationships and systems. When a coach genuinely values the inclusion of all voices and the richness inherent in differences, he or she invites less hierarchical and dualistic relationships and less technical and instrumental processes. Coaching becomes more an "insider" than "outsider" endeavor as it avoids promoting expert-nonexpert dichotomies. Consequently, clients report a sense of ownership, belonging, and shared responsibility. Coaches report a newfound sense of appreciation for their clients, a renewed sense of enthusiasm, and an increased sense of competency and hopefulness for their work. They also report a reduction in burnout.

When a coach acts from these preferred principles, he or she assumes a particular stance for thinking about, experiencing, being in relationship with, talking with, acting with, and responding with the people they meet in coaching. In action, the stance takes multiple shapes, varying the relationship and conversational process from coach to coach, client to client, and situation to situation. The continual newness and often surprises that come from collaborative coaching is revitalizing and energizing for coaches. It generates continual excitement and enthusiasm for coaches and clients as well.

References*

Anderson, H. (1997) Conversation, Language and Possibilities: A Postmodern Approach to Therapy. New York: Basic Books.

Anderson, H. & Burney, P. (1996) Collaborative inquiry: A postmodern approach to organizational consultation. Human Systems: The Journal of Systemic Consultation and Management.

*For a complete list of publications and training and coaching services offered by Dr. Anderson, please refer to: www.harlene.org and www.access-success.com.