ABSTRACT

The coaching industry has grown to become a multi-billion dollar business, yet there remain few barriers to entry and an absence of national governing bodies. Wide variation in quality of practice undermines the credibility of a field that has been found to be effective (Grover, S., & Furnham, A. (2016). Coaching as a developmental intervention in organisations: A systematic review of its effectiveness and the mechanisms underlying it. PLoS One, 11(7), e0159137. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0159137; Theeboom, T., Beersma, B., & van Vianen, A. E. (2014). Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual level outcomes in an organizational context. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2013.837499). Coaching stakeholders should therefore be motivated to understand what ‘good coaching’ looks like. However, it remains unclear what it means to be an outstanding, or expert, practitioner, or even whether the construct of expertise applies to the field of coaching. Within this paper, I critique literature that discusses coach expertise, and suggest the philosophical constraints embedded within current thinking imply the need for an alternative conceptualisation of expertise; adaptive expertise. Adaptive expertise is compatible with the complexity that characterises coaching, and prioritises coach decision-making (judgment and reasoning) over coaching outcomes. Many coaching texts largely ignore the construct of decision-making, with the exception of intuitive decision-making. Further research that seeks to understand coach judgment and decision-making will help coaches’ develop their practice, and may be a key to demystifying the central role of intuition in coaching.

摘要

教练行业已经发展成为一个价值数十亿美元的行业，但进入门槛仍然很低，而且缺乏国家管理机构。实践质量的广泛差异削弱了已被证明有效的领域的可信度（Grover, S., & Furnham, A. (2016)。作为组织发展干预的教练：对其有效性和其背后的机制。PLoS One , 11 (7), e0159137. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0159137; Theeboom, T., Beersma, B., & van Vianen, AE (2014).教练工作？关于教练对组织环境中个人水平结果影响的元分析。积极心理学杂志，9(1), 1-18。https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2013.837499）。因此，教练利益相关者应该有动力去理解“好的教练”是什么样子的。然而，成为一名杰出的、专家、从业者意味着什么，甚至专业知识的构建是否适用于教练领域，仍然不清楚。在这篇论文中，我批评了讨论教练专业知识的文献，并建议当前思维中嵌入的哲学约束意味着需要对专业知识进行替代概念化；适应性专业知识。适应性专业知识与教练的复杂性相适应，并将教练决策（判断和推理）置于教练结果之上。除了直觉决策之外，许多教练文本在很大程度上忽略了决策的构建。旨在了解教练判断和决策制定的进一步研究将有助于教练发展他们的实践，并且可能是揭开直觉在教练中的核心作用的关键。