Coaching cultures or growth cultures

Written by Stuart Haden on October 2, 2019

The concept of a coaching culture it still an evolving narrative for me. I read the other day that people don’t understand what a coaching culture is because they don’t understand what coaching is. But let’s overcome that first hurdle and focus on culture.

In a recent conference presentation I broke down the word culture. Cult/cure/culture

  • Cults are actually OK, coaching is taking place ‘underground’. Question is should/could you try and bring this more into the mainstream.
  • Coaching can be a cure, but not for everything and only if certain conditions are in place. The first of which is coachability.
  • Actually culture may not be a desired goal. It can mean so much more outside of a coaching context. National and corporate cultures tend to dominate, and rightly so.

So a coaching culture might not be the be all and end all. But coaching can be an ingredient in the mix. Furthermore coaching is an input not an output. So perhaps coaching needs to feature as part of a performance or growth culture. The CEO is far more likely to support and invest in the latter.