By Malcolm Nicholson (United Kingdom)
Relationship coaching is an area traditionally associated with Life Coaching. Just as the family unit over the last few decades has become more complex than ever before, so have organisations. A two thousand year old command and control pyramid dating back to the Roman army is being swept aside with multi-dimensional, complex and often paradoxical working relationships. As each extended step family has to create its own rules, so organizations have to create their own rules and values.
If, as the saying goes, you can choose your friends but, you cannot choose your family, then it is even more difficult and complex to choose the relationships you have at work. Take one example. There is a truism that ‘People join companies but leave their managers’. The relationship with your boss can be one of the most important in your life, however it is skewed by an increasing range of variables.
We are having to learn to work with far more memberships of groups and feeling part of them, as work relationships have to take into account the ‘multi-cultural’ element in its broadest sense. We appear to be hard wired, to be tribal (if in any doubt about this go along to a football match one Saturday afternoon). The paradox in work is ‘which tribe do I belong to?’ or ‘with whom do I identify?’…
Source: iCN Issue 7 (Relationship Coaching); pages 56-57
About Malcolm Nicholson
iCN Journalist for United Kingdom. Malcolm Nicholson is the owner and Coaching Director for Aspecture, and has worked successfully with a wide range of senior business people for over 15 years, enabling them to improve business results through transformational changes. To find out how he can help your organisation, contact him at malcolmnicholson@aspecture.com or on +44 1932 267597.
