Use of Email for Career Coaching

By Amanda Harrington

I used to think that e-coaching was coaching by email, and back in 1999, I wrote about use of email for mentoring and coaching.¹ There was not much research then about this use of email, and not much has changed. However, there is an increased and increasing use of email in practice, as any Google search will evidence.

So what is e-coaching?

It is coaching delivered over an electronic medium,² any electronic medium, and any collection of media. Nearly 75% of distinguished practicing executive coaches indicate that they are coaching with a media other than face-to-face, using tools ranging from email to virtual simulations.³ In addition to email, media include:

• For synchronous communication: telephone, text messaging, WebEx, Skype, Twitter, Second Life
• For asynchronous communication: email, Facebook

Still on definitions, there appears to be some muddying of the water regarding the non-technological aspects of e-coaching. On the one hand, several businesses offering e-coaching provide factsheets, advice and directions about where to find further resources. On the other, some e-coaches mirror the practice of face-to-face coaches in not giving advice, instead working to develop the client’s own thinking. There is more evidence of the first in e-coaching services. Indeed, standard fact sheets are easily added to emails or provided on websites, thereby demonstrating one of the advantages of technology. E-coaching therefore refers to a wide range of approaches, both technological and in terms of coaching philosophy.

Relative to other technologies, email appears to be straightforward, and perhaps that’s the reason for the lack of research interest. What limited existing research there is predominantly focuses on email management, logistics and protocol, with occasional articles on such issues as motivational and volitional email messages,⁴ negotiation and cultural differences.⁵

What is clear is that many of us are already engaged in using email with our coaching clients. It is no longer an issue of whether or not to integrate technology into our work, but rather how. 

Clarity of purpose

There are three key elements in any approach to e-coaching:

• A coach-client relationship
• The utilization of technology
• The purpose of facilitating client growth

Insufficient thought is given as yet on how email can engage coach and client in different ways from other technologies in order to:

• Enhance the relationship
• Develop clear thinking and literacy as a text-based technology
• Facilitate client growth through reflection and reflexivity

Boyce and Clutterbuck list 30 benefits associated with e-coaching, across the three categories below.  Email achieves specific purposes within each category, and I list some here:

• Convenience: both coach and client can manage the logistics to suit their own schedule.
• Service: emails are personalized for each individual client, with the coach tailoring specific questions and reflections to meet the client’s needs as well as attaching relevant questionnaires or other material.
• Support: email exchanges can be stored for both coach and client to review, identify their own development successes and reflect on patterns and opportunities. Furthermore, email allows both coach and client to reflect and take the time to write before hitting the send button; it can encourage more mindfulness, if used appropriately. And lastly, use of email can support the development of the client’s and coach’s writing skills – key for increasing influence in business.

Prerequisites

Coaching by email is not for everyone.  There are considerations for the client and coach in using email.

Clients who are most likely to use email coaching well will be:

• More highly conscientious and motivated to use email
• Email-competent and have the necessary literacy skills
• Possibly interested in developing the way they incorporate use of email into their regular work
• Aware of how use of email can support or stretch their own learning style
• More often introverted, perceiving e-coaching in general as less risky,⁶ and demonstrate greater response patterns with higher achievement in virtual versus face-to-face communication⁷

It may not be appropriate to e-coach an individual whose developmental goals are incongruent with the medium, such as an introverted technology analyst with low interpersonal skills positioning to become a vice-president.

As coaches, we need to address particular questions⁸ as we consider further integration of email into our coaching relationships:

• How does email support my coaching philosophy?
• How will I communicate confidentiality for the client and ensure that emails are stored securely?
• Why am I coaching by email? What do I want to achieve by using email?
• Who am I coaching? And how relevant is coaching to their particular goals, personality and development needs?
• What kind of coach do I want to be?

Embeddedness

Email is unlikely to be the sole technology a coach uses. This is the moment for forethought, strategic thinking and holistic design⁹ for multi-interface approaches.

Rather than confronting your clients with a battery of different software and different means of connecting with you, there is value in considering how you communicate their interconnections, differences and purpose. And within all that:

• What is the particular role of email?
• How can you and your clients engage with its richness to differentiate the times you use email from the times you use other media?
• And how is email supportive of other media?

Your coaching presence can be augmented or fragmented by your use of technology. Your clients may be aware of you across different sites and technologies, and this is your opportunity to ensure coherence as you embed your online communication within your coaching philosophy, including, for example, your tone and attitude when writing such seemingly disconnected items as book reviews on Amazon.

Email requires more individualized attention than automated responses. It is therefore useful to clarify in our own minds when such individualized attention provides appropriately greater benefits than automated responses. Each has their benefits – from the perspectives of both the coach and the client. Automated feedback on questionnaires is fast and straightforward. Emails are sometimes neither.

Consider adopting a framework to clarify the purpose for using email in contrast to other technologies: when might email be more appropriate, given its encouragement of reflection and of taking more time. One possibility is the UK National Framework for Mentoring and Coaching.¹⁰ Each of the following elements might be incorporated within email:

1. Identifying learning goals and supporting progression
2. Developing increasing learners’ control over their learning
3. Active listening
4. Modeling, observing, articulating and discussing practice to raise awareness
5. Shared learning experiences
6. Providing guidance, feedback and, when necessary, direction
7. Review and action planning
8. Assessing, appraising and accrediting practice and
9. Brokering a range of support

 Questions to consider

• What impact do you notice email having? How is this different from other technologies? How can you capitalize on this?
• What is the impact of combining email with other technologies?
• What differences do you notice amongst your clients’ use of email? How might these be related to personal differences (personality, learning styles, age, computer literacy) and organizational differences (pace, commitment to reflection and thinking, competitiveness)?
• What is it you want your clients to say about you as a coach, and the benefits of how you use email?

Amanda Harrington, C.Psychol, FCIPD, MSc, is a psychologist, chartered with the British Psychological Society.  She is a coach and coach supervisor, and lectures part-time at Loughborough University School of Business and Economics in the UK.

 References

¹ Harrington, A. (1999) E-mentoring: The advantages and disadvantages of using e-mail to support distant mentoring. Hertfordshire TEC: Hertford, downloaded on 5.9.2012 from:http://www.coachingnetwork.org.uk/resourcecentre/articles/viewarticle.asp?artid=63

² Dwyer, J. (retrieved 2012) E-coaching, from http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/arossett/pie/Interventions/ecoaching_1.htm

³ Boyce, L. A. and Clutterbuck, D. (2010) E-Coaching: Accept it, It’s Here, and It’s Evolving!, inAdvancing Executive Coaching: Setting the Course for Successful Leadership Coaching (eds G. Hernez-Broome, L. A. Boyce and A. I. Kraut), Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, USA.

⁴ Kim, C.M. and Keller, J.M. (2011) Towards technology integration: the impact of motivational and volitional email messages, Educational Technology Research and Development, 59, 1, 91-111.

⁵ Rosette, A.S., Brett, J.M, Barsness, Z. and Lytle, A.L. (2012) When cultures clash electronically: the impact of email and social norms on negotiation behavior and outcomes, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43, 4, 628-643.

⁶ Hamilton and Scandura, 2003, cited by Boyce and Clutterbuck.  See footnote 3 for full reference

⁷ Hubschman, 1996, cited by Boyce and Clutterbuck – see above.

⁸ These questions are adapted from: Boyce, L.A. and Hernez-Broome, G. (2010)  E-coaching: consideration of leadership coaching in a virtual environment, in D. Clutterbuck and Z. Hussain (eds)Virtual coach, virtual mentor, Information Age Publishing

⁹ Pachler, N. and Redondo, A. (2012) E-mentoring and educational research capacity development: a conceptual perspective, In Fletcher S. and Mullen, C.A. (eds)  SAGE handbook of mentoring and coaching in education, London: SAGE

¹⁰ DFES (2005) Mentoring and coaching CPD Capacity Building Project: National Framework for Mentoring and Coaching.  London: DFES/ CUREE.  Downloaded from: www.curee-paccts.com/files/publication/1219925968/National-framework-for-mentoring-and-coaching.pdf