A close friend and colleague with one of the keenest business minds I know, warned me against discussing ideas around slow coaching. Therefore, because I respect my colleague, but am extremely wilful and eternally curious, I’m testing the waters with this post.
Being called a slow coach when I was a kid was not what you wanted to hear, particularly from your peers in the playground, from your siblings during a game of monopoly, from an adult when struggling to finish the dreaded pile of peas taunting you with their roundness, their greenness, their hard-softness.
And I won’t even begin with the medical, educational and societal tropes around the word ‘slow’. And what of the slew of apologetic language with which older people other themselves, before we do it for them.
Every one of us, given space and time, will use each concept in a unique way. We will stamp the same daily task, with our individual signature. We see the same problem from a view point entirely of and from ourselves. We gather information and transform it into knowledge, we enquire and we learn, and each is peculiar to us.
However, it is that one little word g-i-v-e-n, just five letters long, which causes a whole heap of trouble. Our organisations, our bosses, our teams, even we ourselves appear to regulate our professional lives with the alarm clock and stopwatch, and only occasionally, if we’re feeling very generous, we might indulge in a sliver of snooze. We work to the wire, we steal a little time to eat, we claw back, we maximise, we accelerate. The idea of being given or giving ourselves time is surely career hampering, team derailing, and only a move or two away from endangering the company’s bottom line. Going slow is just plain wrong, and it isn’t even sexy.
I’m aware the following statement may have hammer-wielding Luddite connotations attached to it - well, so be it. The commodification of time is one of the most pernicious moves of the first industrial revolution, and that move has gathered pace exponentially over the last 250 years.
The Industrial Revolutions 1.0 to 4.0 have seen our worlds mechanised, electrified, automated and digitalised, and with Industry 5.0 we are told it will be personalised.
Now if we’re to believe the EU, shareholder value has been replaced by stakeholder value. We are now, all stakeholders, our well-being is at the centre of industry and new technologies will provide prosperity beyond jobs - laudable sentiments as far as they go. However, well-being is now itself a $5.3 trillion global industry. If we’re talking stakeholders, are we also talking equity of voice and influence?
In 2016 before the advent of Industry 5.0, Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chair of the WEF wrote the following about what would happen in the aftermath of Industry 4.0.
“…the best parts of human nature – creativity, empathy, stewardship –can also lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness based on a shared sense of destiny. It is incumbent on us all to make sure the latter prevails.”
Klaus Schwab’s idea that the best parts of human nature – creativity, empathy, stewardship can lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness - is beautifully messianic. We can all acknowledge that no element of this Industry 5.0 vision is new. Creating is in our DNA, it’s just been siphoned off and into the service of a market economy based on the value of things. Empathy is often offered most readily by those with the least in material assets. Empathy, sometimes mistaken for sympathy or generosity, is difficult, because it demands time, your time and, as I’ve stated, the commodification of time is one of the most pernicious moves of the last 250 years.
We may have strayed a way from our slow coaching path, however sometimes a little straying is necessary. It’s all a matter of time. But now back to slow coaching and what I actually mean.
I mean a coaching relationship that doesn’t have a rigid time frame, and here the word relationship is key. Coaching is a conversation, and for that to bear fruit we need to relate one to another; unless we do that we can’t give or receive time.
Slow coaching is a conversation that takes as long as it takes. It demands a lot because each of us is responsible for the shape, flow and, Yes, drawing to a close of the coaching journey. However, if something isn’t time dependent doesn’t that mean it lacks energy and purpose?
Why should it? Well, because I love painting images to make a point, here’s one about energy and purpose.
It’s a chill misty morning in high summer. You’re walking through a park beside a river. You turn a corner. Through the early morning light, you see half a dozen shapes moving with deliberate slowness and utter focus. Body and mind present in the moment. You’ve stumbled across a tai chi session.
Slow coaching is about giving the individual the time and space to chart their own course, pause when necessary, and navigate their way through their challenges. In allowing this process of creation the company, the institution, the not-for-profit organisations gets the best from each individual while modelling empathy and stewardship, always the best way of engendering learning and change.
And by the way, slow coaching is sexy, because it takes time.
