Pair-Coaching: A Non-Definitive Guide (Part 1)
Introduction
I have basically been doing some form of pair-coaching ever since I started working as a Scrum Master. However, it hasn’t always been something that I approached in a conscious or structured way, nor did I always have a name for it. It just happened. While that can totally work out in the end, there are a few questions or learnings that often arise for people doing pair-coaching.
For me, 2018 was for the most part coaching as an individual. At the same time, there was some collaboration with other coaches and some pair-coaching. And those moments showed me again how impactful collaborating with other coaches can be. This prompted me to reflect on the topic of pair-coaching a bit further.
Doing some (internet) research showed that quite a few coaches have already put some serious thought into pair-coaching. There are a lot of sources on different aspects and ideas. But there doesn’t appear to be a single resource for this topic. I hope that this piece helps you in getting a broader overview of pair-coaching. While I discuss pair-coaching specifically for Agile Coaches, others outside the Agile world will hopefully benefit as well.
This article is as much based on my own thinking, experience, and discussions with others, as it is a collection and tribute to all the people cited here that have contributed to the subject.
Definition of Pair-Coaching
Some people have misunderstood pair-coaching in the past, equating it with a one-on-one coaching setting (one coach and one coachee).
Rather, pair-coaching is about cooperating and collaborating with another coach when working for a client or clients.
Though „pair“ suggests two people, I have found that you can very well use it with more than two coaches. Drawing from history, we might have to establish pair-coaching before we can officially push for mob-coaching ;)
Defining pair-coaching was also part of the session „the joy of pair coaching“ from Kerri Sutey at Agile2018. Participants named „peers“ and „title agnostic“ — amongst other things — as something they associated with it. I will come back to the question of whom to pair with again below.
Why Should I Care About Pair-Coaching?
“I find it very intriguing to see that people find it normal that you always have 2 parents for one child, but only one manager or coach for a bunch of people. It is hard to think about everything when you program, as a coach it is even harder.” Yves Hanoulle [5]
It is perhaps unconsciously that people think certain jobs are for an individual. A job where one person can be the hero of a story. While we have accepted that complex technical work is better done in teams, and within them even in pairs, the idea of “one-man-jobs” seems to prevail in some areas of work*.
As Victor Bonacci [2] points out
„Agile coaching demands many skills of the practitioner […] agile processes, […] teacher, facilitator, mentor, counselor, negotiator, and leader. Of course, this is a partial list; there may be no limit to the skills identified as valuable to our coaching profession“.
It seems a bit odd that we’ve accepted that technical knowledge work often requires more than one mind, while persisting in the belief that no-less-complex knowledge work in the domain of processes, humans, and organizations, can be dealt with by a single person.
This argument does of course require you to accept that collaboration of different minds — as the foundation for pair programming and teamwork — is the most effective way for dealing with complexity.
There is, however, also a long list of concrete benefits that come with pair-coaching, both for client and coaches. While some might at first glance look like benefits for either coach or client, they often benefit both.
*There are examples of organizations who try out a different path: take idealo, where we seen an increasing number of “management pairs” since 2014.
Risk Management
Risk management might not be the dominating factor when it comes coaching. Still, there is much that pairing can do to decrease the chances for unwanted outcomes.
Avoid Risks That Come With Having Only one Coach
“When I say “lowering risk”, I refer to the coachee and client when there are two coaches engaged. We all have down days and make mistakes, but with another coach on hand (even one with much less experience) the feedback loops / review process lowers the possibility of errant approaches.” Victor Bonacci [3]
In other words: Coaches are people, too. While I would claim that it is part of our professionalism to do our best at showing up, there is no way to ensure that this works every day.
Coaching carries a great deal of potential value for everyone involved, but things can of course go wrong. This might be more true for single coaches, as they will generally have a narrower perspective, only one set of eyes, and there is no automatic fall-back mechanism in place:
“A single coach, especially in a situation where there is a large group of people to help, could miss individual behaviours or signals of dissatisfaction […] When coaching alone, one needs to alternate between the specific content level and its meaning and significance while also keeping control over time and the agreed rules of engagement. With two coaches, these roles can be alternated and you can be sure that both coaches will be much more effective at both observing and supporting activities and conversations with a group of people.” Andrea Tomasini and Geoff Watts [10]
It is somehow implicit, but I’d like to add that a pair of coaches is likely to be more resilient than a single coach. Introducing new ways of working that challenge the status quo can be a demanding job, and having someone with the same goals on your side can help get through those tough days.
And while coaches are not therapists, we do work with people and their struggles and emotions. Compassion fatigue is one of the risks we coaches face that can be mitigated through pairing up.
Avoid Having Coaches That are Out of Sync
Similar to the risks of solo coaching, having several coaches with no or little alignment in the same organization can yield risks as well. Robert Galen [6] emphasizes the importance of speaking with „one voice“. While he doesn’t call for doing the exact same thing, he calls for „overarching consistency to the coaching stances, experience, and skills. […] some sort of philosophical alignment“.
Just to be clear: having more than one perspective is good, and is very much part of the power of pair-coaching. I will come back on how to use that further below. Agreeing on fundamentals is key, though, when working together in the same organization. Constantly taking a different approach to situations can be frustrating for a pair, and it can confuse the client.
Being Able to do What is Necessary — Quality and Quantity
Every coaching engagement is different. When you start, you don’t yet know what is required. And requirements are likely to change over time anyway. The broader your set of skills and experiences, the more likely it is that you can match what is needed. One very quick way of expanding skills and experiences is by pairing up with another coach.
Another reason to bring in more than one coach is the sheer amount of work to be done. More often than not, there are multiple teams and/or organizational units that will require some coaching to truly make an impact. The vast majority of us is limited to 24 hours a day, some even require time for food, rest, and life. So in order to provide the required coaching, you will often need more than one coach. This only gives us multiple coaches, who could possibly work parallel with no collaboration. Given the potential of pair-coaching, this seems like a waste. I would go so far to say that a well-synchronised pair of coaches will get considerably more work done and at higher quality than two single coaches. Also, having no alignment between the coaches you employ carries risks, as discussed above.
Modeling Behavior and Interactions
One of the possible stances of an Agile Coach is that of a role model. Providing a real-life example of how one can go about something can be a powerful inspiration for others to adapt their behavior. A single coach can, however, only model a single set of behaviors, not the behavior of two in an interaction.
Modeling behaviors with multiple people can be a very useful intervention. This is something that is e.g. also used by conflict mediators: you model an appreciative communication style that can inspire the conflicting parties to change their behavior as well.
This might not be the biggest argument for pair-coaching; however, modeling interactions that way is something you can only get as a client if you hire more than one coach. (Unless your coach can find an employee to train to take on the other part, which of course takes time, too.)
Learning
There are probably countless ways in which having a peer on your side comes in handy for you as a coach. The breadth of benefits is in a way also reflected in the pair-coaching patterns, which I will describe below. Here, I want to go into detail on two general benefits.
Peer Feedback
I welcome feedback from all people I work with. Still, I am convinced that peer feedback has by far the highest potential. The reason is that a fellow coach knows my craft, she e.g. knows the principles, concepts, and different stances. She is trained in observing and verbalizing feedback. And she is likely to have some helpful ideas on how to do things differently next time around.
Andrea Tomasini and Geoff Watts of agile42 [10] speak of „built in supervision [allowing] for real-time observation and feedback on coaching style, presence, technique and effectiveness“. While I agree on these points, I prefer the term peer feedback. Also, I am going to use „supervision“ for a different setting below.
Declan Whelan adds another dimension to peer feedback: safety.
„I think as an individual, I have been really challenged with my own assumptions and my own weaknesses if you will, so having other coaches come up and say “Declan, let’s debrief that. Here’s some things I’ve noticed, did you think about this?” Its really raised the bar on my game having someone else, because a client won’t do that for you, or most won’t, right? But if you are paired up with another coach and you can have that safety then you can have those conversations, so I feel like it’s really improved my game.“ Declan Whelan [11]
Safe to Fail Environments for Coaches
This is, in a way, the other side of the „reducing risk coin“. When another coach stands by in case something goes wrong, it not only increases the chance of your client getting effective coaching — it also means that you, as a coach, can be braver. You might be more likely to try something new if you know that your colleague is there and has your back. This can either be by suggesting a helpful idea, or coming in as an expert on the matter that you are taking your first steps with.
This is also very much the idea of Liberating Structures Labs, where facilitators — and aspiring ones — can practice something new in an environment where it is safe to do this.
It’s Great, but it’s not for Free
Do the benefits of pair-coaching sound too good to be true? Well, it is quite a powerful way of coaching, but it does come with it’s price — and its constraints.
No, pair-coaching is not for free. Just like other constellations of people — say, a development team — need time to gel, pairs of coaches need that as well. It is an investment of time and energy to have two individual coaches transform into a performing pair.
There are of course also possible risks involved when pairing. There are things that can go wrong that wouldn’t happen when coaching solo, e.g. no up-front alignment between coaches on their approach, or a co-facilitation gone wrong because one coach wants to act on her observations of a dynamic, while the other missed to pick up on it and wants to continue following the plan [8].
While pair-coaching is a great means to avoid “tunnel vision” by a single coach, it can go the other direction as well. Having that second pair of eyes might create the illusion of objectivity, lowering the perceived need for additional feedback. Then you have two coaches acting forcefully as a pair, driven by an incomplete view. This can be avoided by e.g. installing supervision mechanisms, as explained below.
There are other things that are perhaps not as easy to manage as aligning before a job, or finding ways of dealing with observations in a meeting. You can argue that they are either downsides or risks of pair-coaching, or the „secret sauce“ [8]. These are things like your willingness to expose yourself, not having the need for single recognition of coaching successes, and being up for starting work that you have less control over than you might be used to [10]. In the end, there is no guarantee that a given pair of coaches will function well as a unit. I will come back to those points later.
In this section I talked about the benefits and risks of pair-coaching. I think there are a lot of benefits that speak for it. In essence, pair-coaching is about increasing your impact. You increase the impact of your immediate actions, as you have built-in feedback mechanisms in your work, and you more to offer as a pair. You also increase the impact of your future activities as you develop yourself as a coach. Or as Robert Galen put it:
“In the end, I find that my work is of higher quality, the impact is greater, and my “fun factor” is through the roof.” [6]
In part 2 of this guide, I will get into the how of pair-coaching. I will talk about ways to pair up, as well as things you can do to increase your chances of success as a pair. Last not least, I will talk about how to sell pair-coaching to bosses and clients.
Sources (Part 1 & 2)
[1] astarteny (2016). One From the Toolbox: Pair Coaching. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@astarteny/one-from-the-toolbox-pair-coaching-530a55651125
[2] Victor Bonacci (2015). Patterns in Pair-Coaching. Retrieved from http://agilecoffee.com/patterns-in-pair-coaching/
[3] Victor Bonacci (date unknown). Pair-Coaching. Retrieved from http://agilecoffee.com/paircoaching/
[4] Victor Bonacci (2015). The Pair-Coaching Domino Game. Retrieved from http://agilecoffee.com/pair-coaching-domino-game/
[5] Cunningham & Cunningham Inc. Wiki (last edit May 21, 2007). Pair Coaching. Retrieved from http://wiki.c2.com/?PairCoaching
[6] Robert Galen (2017). Pair-Coaching. Retrived from http://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2017/5/7/pair-coaching
[7] Grokshare Podcast (2015). Episode #1: Agile Pair Coaching with Victor Bonacci & Dr. Dave https://grokshare.com/agile-pair-coaching-with-victor-bonacci-dr-dave/
[8] Kerri Sutey (2018). The Joy and Reach of Pair Coaching [conference talk]. https://agile2018.sched.com/event/EU8t/the-joy-and-reach-of-pair-coaching-kerri-sutey-marcelo-camozzato
[9] Gerrit Lutter (2018). How we use Pair Coaching at idealo. Retrieved from https://medium.com/idealo-tech-blog/how-we-use-pair-coaching-at-idealo-9438e0859c6f
[10] Andrea Tomasini and Geoff Watts (2016). The Value of Pair-Coaching… What’s in It for You? Retrieved from https://www.agile42.com/en/blog/2016/03/18/pair-coaching/
[11] Declan Whelan (2012). Declan Whelan on Agile Coaching, Lean Startups and the Agile Alliance. Retrieved from https://www.infoq.com/interviews/whelan-agile-coaching-lean-startup
