Rethinking Coaching

Abstract

This book deliberately sets out to challenge the paradigms and mindsets that have dominated organizations in general and the banking sector in particular in the modern era. We seek to understand and offer some explanation for the recent, and still largely unresolved, crisis in the industry brought on by the spectacular credit bubble that had been allowed to accumulate, with grave consequences for the economies of all the world’s countries, whether developed or not. We do so by drawing on the history of a critical theoretical perspective that has given rise to scepticism; scepticism of the metanarratives that control the running of organizations, often without any concern as to how these might impact on the public weal. Organizations, as we shall go on to argue, can be very ‘petulant’ in this respect, thinking of the welfare of no one but themselves – and of late we have all suffered from the effects of that petulance as displayed by the financial industry. Hardly a day passes without some new revelation as to the depth and breadth of the rot that has permeated the banking sector and the realization that icons of the industry are found wanting. The vehicle we propose as best suited to challenge and question these ideologies is that of coaching, and we shall set out a new, more radical approach to the activity based heavily on scepticism – particularly as it has been developed from the later twentieth century onwards by key postmodern thinkers such as Jean-François Lyotard, with his deep distrust of the motives of metanarratives in general (as outlined most notably in his highly influential book, The Postmodern Condition¹)