Making sense through coaching

Abstract

Purpose -The paper sets out to consider the value of coaching to the sensemaking process. It aims to demonstrate how coaching enhances sensemaking and seeks to describe coaching as a sensemaking activity. Design/methodology/approach -The objectives are achieved by exploring the literature of both coaching and sensemaking with the purpose of demonstrating the mutually supportive nature of coaching and sensemaking. Findings -By analysing sensemaking and coaching activities, the paper aims to demonstrate that coaching greatly supports and enhances the quality of the sensemaking activities of the individual. Research limitations/implications -Coaching as an academic discipline is still in its infancy and lacking in sound empirical research. It would be value for future research activities to focus on the sensemaking the individual engages with during the coaching process. Practical implications -As mentioned above, sound academic research is necessary in order to understand the nature of coaching. This paper goes some way in exploring both coaching as a sensemaking process and also how coaching fundamentally supports the sensemaking process the individual engages in. Originality/value -Coaching has not been explored in relation to sensemaking nor the value that coaching brings to sensemaking. Exploring coaching from a sensemaking perspective helps create a deeper understanding of what takes place within the coaching relationship.

‘Everything revolves around gymnastics’: athletes and parents make sense of elite youth sport

“…These meanings were always retrospective, based on the past. The elite women's gymnastics frame informed the vocabulary that was used and subsequently the sense that this was 'normal' (Du Toit 2007). Although a few cues shifted, little change occurred in the contextual frame.…”

“…The goal of sense-making process is 'to give clarity, order and a sense of rationality to the ambiguity with which one is surrounded ' (Du Toit 2007). It is more about plausibility than it is about factual truth.…”

“…Our social constructionist approach therefore is based on the assumption that organizational culture consists of frames. A frame provides cues or tangible outcomes so that an individual can act without much forethought (Du Toit 2007;Weick 1995). Weick describes it as follows:…”

Trust in leadership: A multi-level review and integration

“…The role of leaders in the development and coaching of team members and the influence of this development on individual, team, and organizational performance has been receiving increasing attention in the literature (DuToit, 2007;Hackman, 2002;Hackman & Wageman, 2005;Kozlowski et al, 1996;Morgan, Harkins, & Goldsmith, 2005). While a variety of coaching approaches have emerged, DuToit (2007) argues that common among all is an assumption of responsibility for nurturing and leveraging the talent within organizational members. The focus on nurturing argues for its place within the benevolence category.…”

Leading Again for the First Time

“…Du Toit [78] stresses that coaching conversations are powerful, underleveraged tools leaders can use to help people make sense of the ever changing environment and invent a high performance future. The language of coaching conversations is of a specific type because it has to be creative and future-based rather than descriptive or comparative.…”