Peer Coaching at Work: Principles and Practices

By Polly Parker, Douglas T. (Tim) Hall, Kathy E. Kram and Ilene C. Wasserman

When it comes to mentoring, peer coaching is an undervalued workhorse. It's effective, inexpensive, widely applicable, and relatively easy to implement. Many coaches consider it to be the next wave in professional development. Peer Coaching at Work draws on research and practice to deliver a hands-on guide to this powerful relational learning technique.

The authors—all leaders in the field—present a rigorously tested three-part model for facilitating peer coaching relationships in one-on-one settings and in larger groups. With lively case studies, they define peer coaching as a focused relationship between equals who supportively learn from, actively listen to, and judiciously question each other, which leads to breakthroughs that may otherwise lie dormant in one's career. A fundamental guide for anyone with an interest in mentoring and transformational learning, this book is a must-have for the talent management bookshelf.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stanford Business Books
• Release date: Apr 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781503605060

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Parker, Polly, author. | Hall, Douglas T., 1940–author. | Kram, Kathy E., 1950–author. | Wasserman, Ilene C., author.

Title: Peer coaching at work : principles and practices / Polly Parker, Douglas T. Hall, Kathy E. Kram, Ilene C. Wasserman.

Description: Stanford, California : Stanford Business Books, an imprint of Stanford University Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017026655 | ISBN 9780804797092 (cloth : alk. paper) |ISBN 9781503605060 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Employees—Coaching of. | Career development. | Personnel management.

Classification: LCC HF5549.5.C53 P38 2018 | DDC 658.3/124—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026655

Typeset by Newgen in 11.75/16 Baskerville

PEER COACHING AT WORK

Principles and Practices

Polly Parker, Douglas T. Hall, Kathy E. Kram, Ilene C. Wasserman

STANFORD BUSINESS BOOKS

An Imprint of Stanford University Press

Stanford, California

We dedicate this book to Michael Powell, Marcy Crary, Peter Yeager, and Mark Taylor, who enriched our understanding and appreciation of mutual learning and peer coaching through their unwavering support and love.

CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Learning in the VUCA Environment

2. Step 1: Build the Developmental Relationship

3. Step 2: Hone Relational Practices to Create Success

4. Step 3: Make Peer Coaching a Habit

5. Peer Coaching Groups

6. Peer Coaching for Deep Learning

7. Peer Coaching for Everyday Learning

8. Cautionary Tales in Peer Coaching

Conclusions and Going Forward

Notes

Index

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We came to the creation of this book with a shared belief in the untapped potential that can be unleashed when people help each other learn. That belief fueled our interest in the deeper exploration of a process that can easily be taken for granted: peer coaching.

As in all relationships, our similar interests and values provided the glue for our collaboration on peer coaching. At the same time, our differing perspectives enabled us to develop a new and complex understanding of this helping relationship. In our research, we discovered that to be most effective, learners engaging in peer coaching go through three important steps to truly solidify and integrate peer coaching into their learning practice. The purpose of this book is to present our 3-step model of peer coaching and to offer practical strategies and tactics that are relevant to individuals at every stage of life, from school age to working adults in early, middle, and late stages of their careers, and to organizations of all types.

To illuminate the underlying theoretical perspectives, values, and personal biases that have shaped our work, we begin by briefly reviewing how the four of us became a collaborative team. In 1998 Tim Hall and Polly Parker met at a conference on careers. During this conference, they had the opportunity to work together as peer coaches to share and draw learnings from their personal career stories. The activity, led by Judi Marshall, was quick, involving five minutes to tell your story and two minutes to provide feedback to your partner (for a total of fifteen minutes). Polly and Tim were amazed by how much they learned from each other in such a short time, and both were quite excited about their common interests. In retrospect, we are struck by the way our initial brief peer coaching experience led to an ongoing professional and social relationship.

Following this initial meeting, Polly and Tim stayed in touch and began to introduce learning dyads in their MBA classrooms. It is here that the potential of peer coaching became quite evident. With Tim’s understanding of career theory and his own work on identity, career learning, and, most recently, the protean career, it became quite clear that mutual helping in dyadic relationships was an underutilized tool for task and personal learning. Meanwhile, down under (Australia), Polly brought her deep knowledge of coaching in international gymnastics, executive coaching, and telephone counseling, as well as her current work on career communities and career values, to her work with MBA students. The two stayed in touch, reporting on their classroom experiments, often at annual meetings of the Academy of Management.

By 2005 Tim and Polly began collecting data in their MBA classrooms as they tried different ways to foster effective peer coaching. Before long, Tim saw the connection between their emerging work and Kathy Kram’s work on mentoring and relational learning. Tim and Kathy had already shared over twenty years of colleagueship and collaboration, and bringing the relational lens to this classroom work on peer coaching seemed like an excellent opportunity to deepen understanding of peer coaching and to explore Kathy’s interest in alternatives to hierarchical mentoring. During the next six years, this team of three collected data in their classrooms on the impact of peer coaching on students’ learning and their inclination to seek out opportunities for further learning in relationships with peers back at work.

The results of our surveys surprised us. We had anticipated the positive outcomes of peer coaching, but we were much less aware of the potential downsides that some of our students experienced when they encountered unmet expectations, poor communication, or a lack of mutual commitment to learning through the relationship. We recognized at this point that peer coaching is more than two people who help each other (sometimes called pair and share). There were complexities in building successful learning partnerships that had to be managed proactively. We learned that it wasn’t just a matter of doing peer coaching in class, but rather a matter of doing peer coaching correctly.

Thus, we began to document the necessary conditions for effective peer coaching to emerge in our classrooms. This led to an articulation of our 3-step model of peer coaching, in which expectations and ground rules are established in the first step and participants develop the relational skills and self-awareness to communicate effectively during the second step. In the third step of our model, participants are asked to practice their newfound understanding and skills related to peer coaching to other relationships back at work and elsewhere in their lives. We published three articles on the nature of peer coaching,¹ the risks of peer coaching,² and the untapped potential of peer coaching,³ and presented two conference papers that preceded the decision to consolidate our learning in this book.

Shortly after Kathy joined Tim and Polly on their first peer coaching project, she met with Ilene Wasserman at the Academy of Management annual meeting. They had met a number of years earlier regarding mutual interests in the ways mentoring relationships are shaped by diversity. Early in their dialogue, they discovered many shared interests (including the fact that their children all attended the same university). Most relevant was that Ilene was ensconced in the world of practice as an OD practitioner and was pursuing scholarly work after completing her doctoral degree. Kathy, fully engaged in the academy as a tenured full professor, had kept her consulting work to a minimum for many years in order to be successful on the academic track. In getting to know Ilene, the two found that they could enrich their respective work on relational learning, diversity, and leadership development through their collaboration in research, writing, and consulting. Their partnership gave voice to Kathy’s practitioner interests in bringing relational learning to work settings and gave Ilene the opportunity to collaborate with Kathy as she was pursuing her scholarly interests. After publishing two studies on the challenges of the scholar-practitioner role and working together on a consulting project, they were enthusiastic about continuing to collaborate on other projects.

Thus, the stage was set for the four of us to connect and to consolidate all that we have learned to date about peer coaching. We had our first face-to-face meeting in 2012 at the Academy of Management, where we began to explore our shared interests. Ilene brought new ideas to our group from the communications perspective in addition to her deep work on diversity and inclusion. Our first collaboration resulted in an article that highlighted how models grounded in relational theory add clarity to the process of peer coaching as a series of relational encounters.⁴ As we began to envision this book project, we realized the importance of examining peer coaching in a group context because many of the examples of peer coaching that we observed were occurring in small groups as part of leadership development programs or standalone employee resource groups in corporations, health care, and educational contexts.

Since we began working on this book, we have affirmed our shared theoretical grounding in mentoring, developmental theory, relational theory, human development, and positive organizational scholarship. We draw on scholarly work in these arenas to deepen our understanding of what we have experienced, observed, and created in our work with individuals and organizations. Thus, you will see references to fellow scholars including Ed Schein, Bob Kegan, Lisa Lahey, Jennifer Garvey Berger, Ken Gergen, Dan Levinson, Barnett Pearce, Jane Dutton, Belle Ragins, Sheila McNamee, Monica Higgins, Michael Arthur, and Urie Bronfenbrenner. This list is representative, rather than exhaustive, of those who have influenced our thinking and our work.

We attribute our collective learning about peer coaching to the quality of peer coaching relationships that we developed with one another. We have each benefited from the mutual respect, deep listening, and encouragement, and the combination of challenge and support that we gave to one another since first beginning our work together. Regular reflection on our own process as a collaborative team furthered our understanding of the necessary conditions for both task and personal learning to occur in peer coaching relationships. This project has been a true peer coaching and learning process for all of us, and as we encountered and managed our own relational challenges along the way, we refined the model presented in this book.

Over time we have come to realize that some people see peer coaching everywhere and that others don’t recognize it even when it is happening right before them. Thus, we see a critical need to name it and frame it. Our primary aim is to enable individuals, HR/OD practitioners, and organizations to see opportunities to foster peer coaching and then to take the necessary actions to bring this resource to life. We have drawn on our collective experiences in health care, education, the private sector, and the public sector to ensure that you can apply the practices we are advocating in a variety of settings. We invite you to apply the models and tools illustrated in the following pages to discover the great potential of effective peer coaching for you and for those you serve.

Many individuals and organizations have contributed to our deep understanding of peer coaching and the necessary conditions for realizing its potential as a developmental tool. Though we cannot possibly mention them all, we want to call attention to those closest to this effort. First, we thank our editor, Margo Beth Fleming, who has encouraged and supported us throughout our journey with this book. We also want to sincerely thank various scholars who have influenced our thinking about developmental relationships and engaged with us in our efforts to define strategies to foster relational learning at work: Dawn Chandland, Rick Cotton, Jane Dutton, Elana Feldman, Emily Heaphy, Belle Ragins, Monica Higgins, Bill Kahn, Yan Shen, Wendy Murphy, Andy Fleming, and Jeffrey Yip. In addition, we are most grateful for the many students (at Boston University Questrom School of Business, the University of Queensland Business School, and the Wharton School) and the many clients who made it possible for us to try out and refine our ideas about what makes peer coaching work. Thanks, also, to the organizations that through innovative practices have modeled effective peer coaching in their leading-edge efforts to foster employee development.

Finally, we acknowledge and appreciate our many colleagues and friends who provide great support and continue to be critical sounding boards as we developed the principles and practices that led to the articulation of our 3-step Peer Coaching model. In particular, we extend our thanks to Teresa Amabile, Lotte Bailyn, Lloyd Baird, Stacy Blake-Beard, Richard Boyatzis, Elayne Brigham, Bernardo Ferdman, Placida Gallegos, Andrew Griffiths, Bill Hodgetts, Lisa Prior, Ellen Van Oosten, Carol Yamartino, and Iain Watson. From all of the friends and colleagues that we have mentioned in these pages, not only have we acquired much wisdom about the theory and practice of peer coaching, but we have been blessed to be on the receiving end of huge amounts of this powerful learning process as well.

Polly Parker

Tim Hall

Kathy Kram

Ilene Wasserman

INTRODUCTION

Each year, a wide range of learners engage in a peer based program that supports school students in the greater Boston area to boost their academic learning outcomes. Breakthrough Greater Boston’s successful program inspires students from diverse backgrounds to learn more through building strong cross-generational learning relationships. Many subsequently aspire to be America’s future educators. Peers act mutually as learners and teachers, connected by core values that build a robust community environment.

PEER COACHING PROCESSES are central to the success stories embodied in the Breakthrough Greater Boston not-for-profit organization.¹ These relationships are essential to the well-being, learning, growth, and success that students from traditionally underrepresented communities experience. Success of the program extends well beyond school graduation, with 95 percent of these peer learners progressing to study at college. The value and attention paid to collaborative peer relationships has been increasing in both scholarly and practitioner circles. Whether in not-for-profit entities such as Breakthrough Greater Boston, in learning circles to support CEO development, or in health care, business, or government sectors, people are forming collaborative relationships to support their personal and professional development, and in turn promote organizational learning and change more effectively.

Scholars are observing these relationships in action and developing a body of knowledge now referred to as relational learning.² Relational learning occurs in many familiar contexts, such as teacher-student relationships; leading transformational change in organizations; collegial relationships; a range of business relationships including those with direct reports, peers, and supervisors; mentoring; and developmental networks. This growing body of knowledge about how to build and sustain relationships that foster learning underpins peer coaching.

This book is about the principles and practices of peer coaching, a unique type of relational learning. We define peer coaching as a focused relationship between individuals of equal status who support each other’s personal and professional development goals. Peer coaching is a helping relationship between individuals at similar life or career stages to accomplish specific tasks or achieve developmental goals. Helping is an attitude that indicates a readiness on the part of each peer to explore issues in depth in a safe environment. The term helping does not refer to being an expert or knowing the solution, but to a process model, a dynamic. It refers to an inquiring mind that promotes questions, which in turn lead one’s peer partner to develop insight. The primary purpose of peer coaching is to promote goal-directed mutual learning with clear boundaries. The process is most effective when participants are intentional and share a desire to provide and experience reciprocal support. Together peers strive to establish high-quality relationships characterized by trust and open communication.

Rather than an expert/learner model, the peer coaching process creates an alliance between the partners so that both can continuously learn more quickly and efficiently. In practice, this involves sharing a vision for the relationship that involves supportive learning, active listening, and challenging each other. In essence, peers move from individual learning to relational learning, a change in focus from you and me to we. Both individuals and their organizations’ benefit.

Let us begin with our 3-step Peer Coaching model:

FIGURE I.1   The 3-Step Peer Coaching Model

Source: Adapted from Parker et al., 2014, Peer Coaching: An Untapped Resource for Development, Organizational Dynamics (2014) 43, 122–129. Reprinted with permission.

Our model, first presented by Polly Parker, Tim Hall, and Kathy Kram in their article Peer Coaching: A Relational Process for Accelerating Career Learning, draws on our own practice and research, both of which are informed