Association for Coaching 2010 Conference, London, UK, 11-12 March 2010

Article Type: Resources From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 9, Issue 4

“Going Global” was the theme of this year’s Association for Coaching 4th International Conference, in London on 11-12 March; very appropriate in a year when the world is coping with chaos and uncertainty.

Focus on proving the value of coaching was less evident this year although the association is nearly eight years old and the metrics now exist. The parlous states of corporate clients’ wallets after a difficult year surely demanded this.

It seemed that level of education is largely done. Rather than coaches speaking on the impact of coaching skills in organizations, the keynotes were delivered by clients. A self-confessed skeptic converted to coaching, one CEO showed his own company numbers with a dramatic uptick in company revenues and another connected major business expansion to her coach’s input.

Coaching demonstrates its value

The conference offered multi-choice sessions within five streams. They were executive coaching, organizational coaching, personal and business coaching,diversity and cross-cultural, global coaching and a category called beyond coaching.

Several breakout sessions were led by HR partners, although one head of talent met a senior internal coach from her own organization for the first time at a workshop. So there is still work to be done joining some organizations up. However, a global drinks company, feted at the conference for its powerful and integrated leadership development program, demonstrated true integration of HR,business partners and internal and external coaches.

There were other case studies showing how far coaching has penetrated directly into the mainstream of business strategy. Banks’ audit departments are not normally associated with encouraging breaks with the norm, but one department’s newly accredited internal coaches were keen to share their story at the conference – and then with the 150,000 employees at home. Staff retention and morale were two of the main reported benefits of this departmental program (which would please government-taxpayer bosses) along with greater executive engagement in people.

Keynote speaker Julio Olalla, founder of transformational learning company,Newfield Network, opened a major theme of the conference. This was challenging assumptions that helped create our stormy times and urging coaches to help clients articulate the deeper questions he said our society needs to answer– to enable different choices. Although coaching remains a domain of inquiry, at a time when few leaders have a sense of certainty about the future,the right questions prove invaluable.

Jane CampionDirector of Quest Coaching Ltd