By Michele Armstrong & Graham Walkinshaw (United Kingdom)
Part 3 of 3
This paper was written by Michele Armstrong & Graham Walkinshaw (Directors of Acorn Principle Plus) to describe how action learning is being used to enhance the delivery of group supervision for coaches. In Parts 1 and 2 we focused on the journey leading to our decision to use the action learning approach to coach supervision and set this within the context of supervision development within the coaching industry as an emerging profession whilst describing how we applied the principles and structure of action learning within a group supervision context. We now conclude by outlining the learning we have taken from this method of supervision for coaches.
Shared Learning from Action Learning
To further consider the use of this approach in supervision for coaches we can compare it with an already existing model which itself draws from comparative models developed for use in counselling and psychotherapeutic relationships: The ’seven-eyed process model’ is described in Peter Hawkins and Nick Smith’s ‘Coaching, Mentoring and Organisational Consultancy: Supervision and Development’ and describes seven distinct areas on which supervision can focus as in the following graphic from their work;
- The CoacheeSystem
- The Coach’s Interventions
- The Relationship between the Coach and Coachee
- The Coach
- The Parallel Process
- The Coaching Supervisor’s Self-reflection
- The Wider Context: The focus is on the wider organisational, social, cultural, ethical, and contractual context within which the supervision is taking place.
