It seems to be an ongoing topic within the agile coaching community.
Can an Agile Coach provide advice or consult with a client? The predominant answer seems to be no. Or something like—if you’re giving advice, then you’re NOT coaching. So, do you want to be a Coach? Or do you want to be a Consultant or Advisor? But you certainly can’t be both!
I’ve always wondered where this position comes from. If I’m advertising myself as an Agile Coach serving my clients…
Is it simply wrong to mix the two? Am I doing my client a disservice if I give them advice?
Or is it a skills challenge where many coaches find themselves under-skilled or uncomfortable delivering consulting advice?
Or, is it easier or less risky to coach professionally versus providing consulting advice?
Or is it something else altogether?
My initial reaction is that it might confuse Professional Coaching and Agile Coaching. Thinking that they are the same. As I explored in my Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching book, they are not.
Suppose you reference any agile coaching models (Agile Coaching Competency Framework), variations of the ACCF by Jonathan Kessel-Fell, Erin Randall, and the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel. In that case, Professional Coaching is a subset of Agile Coaching or a singular competency or stance.
Around 2010, Lyssa Adkins and Michael Spayd introduced the Agile Coaching Competency Framework to the world in her book and their joint efforts with the Agile Coaching Institute. There were four primary coaching competencies or stances associated with the model include:
Facilitating
Mentoring
Professional Coaching
Teaching
That is…coach as Facilitator, coach as a Mentor, coach as a Coach (professional, ICF-aligned coach), and coach as a Teacher.
In the ~12 years since the ACCF introduction, iCAgile has standardized its coaching certifications on the model, as have the Scrum Alliance with their CTC and CEC certifications. Both have served to solidify the model in the minds and behaviors of agile coaches.
Since ~2016, the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel has gained momentum as a subtle but important extension of the ACCF. The ACGW extends the model in the following powerful ways—
It combines Training & Mentoring competencies into one Guided Learning.
It adds Advising and Leading as competencies.
It defines a central base of Self Mastery as the “root” of all competencies. Think of it as mindset.
It establishes 5-levels of mastery per competency to assist in creating personal growth plans and to better understand what good looks like.
There are two primary reasons I centered on the ACGW over the ACCF in my book. First, was the extension of the two new competencies (Advising and Leading) and Self-Mastery as a foundation. In particular, I felt that it was long overdue to acknowledge that the Advising stance was important in agile coaching. And, pun intended, I felt that these created a much more pragmatic and well-rounded view to agile coaching.
The second was emphasizing maturation and development via guidance at each level. This level of guidance was long overdue for our coaching community.
Influential articles
The following are a few articles that strongly influenced this one. I’d share them in detail to complement my thought process.
Recently Jess Brock wrote a very short piece on LinkedIn that, whether knowing it or not, hits the point of this article head-on—
Peeve: The non-committal Aaron Burr-style coach. That is, an Agile coach who responds to coaching needs with vague advice like "It depends." or "What do you think?"
Shallow advice is worse than wrong advice. Shallow advice snuffs out the opportunity for learning. I'll take a passionately inaccurate viewpoint over a pompous shallow one any day of the week!
What’s most interesting are the comments.
In 2019, Jonathan Kessel-Fell made minor extension suggestions for the ACCF that you should read. I appreciated Jonathan’s thinking around the model and included his extensions as a reference in my book.
An interesting aspect is that he didn’t extend the core stances. At the time and still today, I wonder why?
Erin Randall – recently pondered the evolution of the ACCF and suggested some changes or extensions to the model, much as Jonathan had done.
One interesting thing is the separation of coaching to contain Professional Coaching and Professional Team Coaching. But the most interesting point to me is what Erin didn’t consider. That is—an addition to the four core competencies, such as Advising or Consulting stance. Again, she and Jonathan both steered clear of it.
Brock Argue – recently published an article on, of all things, Troika Consulting, which is one of the Liberating Structures. The article was entitled Hey Coaches! Sometimes You Just Need to Consult!
Here’s a snippet from Brock’s article
In the Agile coaching world, we put a lot of emphasis on gaining professional coaching skills - and for good reason. It’s more than just teaching people how to fish. Providing the space and opportunity for people to learn that they are resourceful, creative and have what it takes to overcome challenges is invaluable. When a coach shows up in this way, people gain confidence in their own abilities and become ready to tackle the next challenge without their coach. Coaching is a very powerful modality when working with clients. However, sometimes you just need to provide the answers and you need an effective tool to do that.
My favorite tool for consulting with our clients is Troika Consulting from Liberating Structures. I was first introduced to Troika Consulting by Alex Sloley during his workshop at Agile2019 on Liberating Structures. It seemed gimmicky at first, especially when I had to turn my back to my “consultants” and just listen. The benefits of this technique became apparent very shortly after that moment, however. The whole premise behind Troika Consulting is: by simply listening in while others discuss our challenges based on their ideas and experience, we come away with new insights to tackle our challenge. Additionally, intentional silence also gives the client valuable space to reflect on their problem. I have experienced this working many times since that first introduction by Alex.
The first paragraph of Brock’s quote explains why so many agile coaches are so enamored with coaching. It is indeed powerful and focuses on the client’s evolving themselves. But I love the point he shares at the end of the paragraph –
However, sometimes you just need to provide the answers and you need an effective tool to do that.
And I heartily agree. Where I disagree is needing a “tool” for it. Yes, Troika Consulting can be incredibly powerful. But so can simply having a consultative or advising conversation with your client where you share your insights and provide some options for their consideration. No frills and no fancy Liberating Structures tooling. Simply a consultative conversation.
Benjamin Cooke - recently published an article entitled What Agile Coaches Can Learn from the Other ‘C’-Word. To be clear, the ‘C’ represents consulting or consultant. And there was also a lively discussion on LinkedIn around the post.
I first have to applaud Benjamin. I believe he’s the first agile coach I’ve read that referenced a concept or model from Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting. Myself included. Bravo, Benjamin. Before poopooing consulting as a competency, I wish every agile coach would read Block’s book and Gerry Weinberg’s Secrets and More Secrets books on consulting. It would give them additional insights, skills, and confidence in providing advice.
And secondly, I appreciate his sharing the above model. You could convert Pair of Hands Mode to Professional Coach Mode – Coach asks many questions, and the Client might gain insight or frustration.
The key to this model is Collaborator Mode, where the client and consultant work together to explore needs, challenges, and problems, then co-creating solutions that serve the client.
Skin in the Game
One of the things that I like about the ACGW’s Advising and Leading competencies is that they encourage or demand that the agile coach has more skin in the game. The mentor stance also approaches it, depending on the coach’s views towards mentoring and mentorship.
As a teacher, facilitator, and professional coach, there is intentionally little partnership with the client. That is with the client’s challenges, context, and situation. Yes, there can and should be empathy, but the connection to the client is much more loosely held.
That’s not inherently bad.
But I think it’s more powerful to occasionally switch into a stance where we look more strongly through our client's eyes. And beyond that, where we have some shared responsibility in the outcomes. We’re in it together, we’re partners, and we’re peer-level participants.
In other words, where the agile coach is a part of the outcome. Not in entirety and not alone, but where we have some skin in the game. When the client owns the outcomes, we’re “off the hook” as professional coaches. Yes, we provide incredible value and can help our clients immensely, but we lack some skin in the game.
Wrapping Up
As I said earlier, regarding Professional Coaching versus Advising,
Is it simply wrong to mix the two? Am I doing my client a disservice if I give them advice?
Or is it a skills challenge where many coaches find themselves under-skilled or uncomfortable delivering consulting advice?
Or, is it easier or less risky to coach professionally versus providing consulting advice?
Or is it something else altogether?
As I come to the end of this article, I think it combines #2 and #3. I also think that the ACCF never directly included advising, AND how widely adopted it was in the agile coaching community was a clear gap over time. That is, something else in #4.
But to be clear, what am I saying?
That an agile coach needs to be adept at adopting all of the stances of the ACGW when necessary to serve their clients; while Professional Coaching is indeed incredibly valuable, so are the others. And we need to develop our Self-Mastery to sense which ones to adopt when serving our clients.
To be a Badass Agile Coach, you must stop avoiding the Leader and Advising stances defined by the agile Coaching Growth Wheel. I’m not saying that from a theoretical point of view. I’m saying it because there are times, in agile contexts, when your coaching clients need you to show up this way to serve and support their agenda.
It’s not about you, your skill, or your comfort but about serving your clients.
Stay agile my friends,
Bob.