[teampractices] What does "coach" mean?

Thu May 7 15:13:35 UTC 2015

During the recent Agile Coaching meetup I attended, an interesting issue
came up: There are (at least) two very different popular definitions of the
word "coach".

When I hear the word coach, I immediately think of sports coaches. These
are people with expertise, who are teachers and motivators, but whose
greatest gift is often the ability to put people in positions to achieve
greatness on their own.

Another attendee, however, immediately thinks of the word coach as it is
used in the fields of Life Coach, Professional Coach, etc. At least from
this person's perspective, that style of coaching is very much to be a
neutral facilitator, and not to give specific advice based on expertise.
The coach's expertise is used to guide the facilitation, but not to propose
possible solutions.

As Agile Coaches, I think our role falls in between those extremes. We
bring expertise to the table, and it is valuable to share that with our
teams and the people we work with. Suggesting improvements and proposing
solutions are part of the job, as I see it. However, it is also important
to allow teams to be (or become) self-organizing, and we should not force
them to do things they are strongly resisting (unlike a sporting coach, who
often uses the power of authority to push people to or beyond discomfort).

The other person at the meeting was clearly closer to the neutral side of
the spectrum than me. It was an interesting moment where a common word was
interpreted fairly differently by two people who both have it in their job
title.

Kevin Smith
Agile Coach
Wikimedia Foundation

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