Best Practices and Trends in Coaching: An Interview with Ross Roxburgh and Sandra Oliver

In this briefing, two leading coaching practitioners—Sandra Oliver of Impact Coaching and Ross Roxburgh of The Niagara Institute—discuss executive coaching trends. They observe that coaching is no longer used solely to fix problems or to correct poor behaviour; more and more organizations are building coaching into their development processes to improve skills related to decision-making, delegation, focus, and stress reduction. However, Oliver and Roxburgh argue, coaching can develop an even broader range of business skills and competencies, from financial acumen to strategic thinking. They discuss the advantages of an organizational “coaching culture,” and the use of a variety of internal and external coaches. They also examine the reasons that coaching is underutilized in many organizations. Finally, they provide guidance on choosing the right coach, examples of innovative uses of coaching and predictions for the future of coaching.