Conflict Coaching: ADR For One
by Cinnie Noble: ACResolution, The Quarterly Magazine of the Association for Conflict Resolution Perspectives on Practice, summer 2008

Since the early 1990s, there has been an exponential growth of the field of coaching and its range of categories, including organizational, leadership, life, and business coaching. There also has been an increase in coaching specialties ranging from career coaching to weight loss coaching to parent coaching, and so on. In the field of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), conflict coaching is fast emerging as a specialized technique, and this article provides a perspective on its growth.

The Definition of Conflict Coaching
Conflict coaching is a one-on-one process for helping individuals improve their conflict understanding and skills to manage conflict and disputes more effectively. This definition and variations of it are used to describe a technique with the fundamental objective of coaching people to better engage in interpersonal conflict, in their personal and professional lives.

Assisting individuals with their interpersonal conflicts is not a new concept. Indeed, one of the many roles of organizational ombudsmen is to assist staff members on a one-on-one basis. In various ways, others, such as union representatives, counselors from employee assistance programs, managers, supervisors, and HR professionals, routinely assist individuals with conflict situations in the workplace, as well. However, the term “conflict coaching” is commonly used to describe many forms of assistance, the bases of which are not necessarily consistent with the premise contained in the following general definition of coaching, according to one of the major international coaching associations, the International Coach Federation (ICF, www.coachfederation.org):

 

Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. Coaching is an ongoing relationship which focuses on clients taking action toward the realization of their visions, goals or desires Coaching uses a process of inquiry and personal discovery to build the client’s level of awareness and responsibility and provides the client with structure, support and feedback. The coaching process helps clients both define and achieve professional and personal goals faster and with more ease than would be possible otherwise.

 

It is anticipated that as conflict coaching increasingly develops as a distinct mechanism in the ADR field, one of the challenges will include clarifying what constitutes conflict coaching and related matters regarding its definition, premise, and scope.

Why Conflict Coaching Is Emerging as a Distinct ADR Mechanism
One reason for the growth of conflict coaching is that mediation is not always a suitable forum for addressing interpersonal disputes. Not everyone wants to participate in third party processes and in some cases, disputants do not appear for scheduled meetings, or one or more disputants is not satisfied with the outcome. Conflict coaching provides a different type of assistance that considers this and the different reasons people may prefer individualized help. For instance, objectives may include: venting concerns to a non-judgmental person and considering whether to do anything about the situation; preparing for a challenging conversation; or working toward shifting destructive responses to certain “hot buttons,” and so on. The types of goals are limitless and often reflect the desire to find ways to prevent or manage conflict situations on their own, by gaining confidence and competence to do so.

A related reason inspiring the growth of conflict coaching is the need for more processes to address the high cost, whether financial or otherwise, of conflict in organizations. Even when effective conflict management is a competency, there appears to be a paucity of ways for leaders and others to develop the related skills. Therefore, conflict coaching is being used increasingly to develop those skills. Relatively few organizations have internal conflict management systems. Where there are systems, however, including where they are statutorily required (e.g. Canada’s federal government), conflict coaching has become one of the options that provides a one-on-one service. With or without a system, ADR practitioners have come to realize and fill the existing gap for an individualized process where there are no ombuds or others to assist.

Another reason for the emergence of conflict coaching relates to the aforementioned growth of the field of coaching and its wide usage in organizations and other contexts. The ICF and the International Association of Coaching (IAC, www.certifiedcoach.org), the other international coaching organization, work to advance, support, and preserve the integrity of the coaching profession. They do so by, among other things, promulgating standards and competencies that lend visibility and credibility to coaching. These efforts and the continuing expansion of the field of coaching help to lend legitimacy to the concept of conflict coaching.

Applications of Conflict Coaching
In addition to helping individuals improve their conflict management skills in any context, another application of conflict coaching is as a pre-mediation process to help individuals prepare to effectively participate in the process. Preparing parties to participate in collaborative law meetings is a similar application. Conflict coaching also may be used as a post-mediation process to help individuals with the aftermath of unresolved matters and feelings. It even may help them focus on the conflict conduct requiring improvement as identified in the mediation. In addition, conflict coaching may be used as an integral part of conflict management training to provide ongoing assistance with the application of participants’ learning.

Creative ADR practitioners will undoubtedly develop more and more applications of a process that fits into any context in which individuals want one-on-one assistance to improve confidence and competence for managing conflict.

Challenges Regarding the Growth of Conflict Coaching
It is interesting and exciting to be part of the growth of conflict coaching and, from the author’s perspective, there are a number of possible challenges ahead to be able to successfully integrate “ADR for one” into the range of conflict management skills and options. Conflict coaching has increasingly become a subject of articles and presentations at ACR and has led to discussions about the need to communicate more and find ways to establish and legitimize conflict coaching as an ADR technique. On the one hand, it is fortunate that the conflict resolution field continues to expand and provide a broader range of service. On the other hand, the credibility of the process will be questioned if we do not address the following considerations.

With the emergence of the concept of coaching, a significant number of people are now attaching the term conflict coaching to their one-on-one interventions. Indeed, some practitioners report they have been providing individual assistance to people in conflict for many years. What has become increasingly evident is that it appears that many things are being called coaching that may not comply with the coaching field’s definition and may actually be more consistent with mentoring or consulting. In addition to signaling a need to clarify semantics, the terminology also indicates that there are differing perspectives on what actually constitutes ‘conflict coaching.’ A further challenge in this regard, as with mediation, is the development of various models of conflict coaching. Although ‘one size does not fit all,’ there are likely to be some disparate, but not insurmountable, views to reconcile, as the ADR field embarks on dialogue about standards of practice.

Looking again at the coaching world, the International Coach Federation established a rigorous accreditation process for coaching schools, practitioners, and trainers, who are all required to meet extensive requirements and competencies. While there are similarities between some ADR processes and principles and those of coaching, differences exist as well. Hopefully, our community will soon take a page from the field of coaching to develop standards of practice and competencies, which will help ensure that conflict coaching finds its place within the ADR spectrum in a way that also provides integrity and legitimacy for practitioners and consumers alike.
The idea of “ADR for one” has been around in our field in various forms for many years. As conflict coaching models develop and more and more people become or call themselves coaches, it is expected that there will be a number of challenges and competing interests to consider. In summary, there are times that the above considerations may not matter, since the intention of those providing individualized assistance is undoubtedly to help people gain increased skill and ability to engage more effectively in conflict. Most times though, it really matters that our community pulls together to more formally address the various challenges and to work toward building a solid and credible foundation for conflict coaching as a process, one that we in the field will stand behind, with confidence. I look forward to and welcome this dialogue.

Cinnie Noble, ACC, CM, LL.M. (ADR), is a lawyer-mediator and ICF certified coach who created the CINERGY® model of conflict coaching. She chairs the ACR Workplace Section’s new Conflict Coaching Subcommittee and is co-chair of the ICF’s Special Interest Group on Conflict Coaching.