The latest issue of Coaching at Work, the professional magazine for executive coaches, includes a feature by Philip and Neela. They argue that leading individuals in learning and development should challenge a business model that reduces people to mere ‘resources’, and that the basic tenets of coaching are incompatible with the operating assumptions of the standard MBA business model.
An excerpt of the article follows:
“As weaknesses in the 20th Century MBA, and the economic theories that underpinned it, become more evident following unexpected banking and market collapses, it is worth re-examining this disconnect between the personal and the strategic, and whether coaches and their more enlightened clients should be helping to shape a renewed business model, fit for the 21st Century.
Specifically, can a model assuming the human to be a ‘resource’, the primary property of which is the price of hire, really be compatible with all or even any of the theories one learns as a coach? Can any coaching theory, no matter how rich and informed on some of the most intricate aspects of human nature, hope to flourish in an environment where the operating assumption is that we are not really dealing with human beings at all?
It is expected that coaching and personal leadership qualities have to fit in with the mechanistic metaphors that are employed to design the structures and arrangements for governance and strategic leadership. We would argue that there is a fundamental battle of ideologies here that has to be won – by our side, naturally.”
The full article, available to subscribers, is here: http://www.coaching-at-work.com/category/articles/
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