Abstract
This article addresses the lack of empirical research on how patterns arising from the coach's childhood and their original family of origin may impact on them, both positively and negatively, when they are team coaching. This qualitative study was conducted using a single case study approach, comprising semistructured interviews with experienced team coaches, enhanced by the inclusion of focus groups. This process enabled shared learning, expanded thinking, and knowledge development among participants over a 9-month period. The study sheds light on the elements of family of origin that have the biggest influence on the coach and their team coaching. The findings have considerable potential to inform practice, and the coaching profession, by providing insight as well as a practical techniques and practices for the team coach to minimize “interference.”
Introduction
Practitioners of family-system theory in psychotherapy have long encouraged clients to explore patterns going back to childhood and their original family system, or family of origin, to facilitate insight and through that change in themselves. While this approach is well-established when it comes to personal behaviors and relationships it has not, until recently, been used widely in the context of organizational and leadership development (Ancona & Perkins, 2022; Schlüter, 2021). Kantor (2012) argues that such childhood or “identity forming stories” determine much of how we communicate, read the communications of others and how we relate to others, inside and outside of work. He posits that, by helping clients understand their personal childhood stories, coaches can play an important role in facilitating improved communication and team performance at work.
However, there is little research on the relevance of family-systems theories and patterns arising from childhood for coaches, in particular, team coaches. This gap in knowledge is important since team coaching, as a distinct form of coaching, has received increased attention in the past 20 years with a growing number of organizations seeking team coaching. Practicing dyadic coaches are adapting their approaches to meet this demand and the array of team coaching courses and accreditations is increasing (O’Connor & Cavanagh, 2017). There is a consensus that working with teams is significantly more complex than working with individuals (Brown & Grant, 2010; Edmondson, 1999; Hackman & Wageman, 2005; Kets de Vries, 2011; Thornton, 2010). Teams are complex adaptive systems with each team member able to adapt their behavior according to their own goals, desires, personal characteristics, and prejudices stemming from their personal histories (Cavanagh & Lane, 2012). There is a growing understanding that part of the dynamic complexity of working with teams relates to roles that the team coach may unconsciously be drawn to. These roles may arise from “group contagion,” with the team coach gradually losing a sense of distance and objectivity, and effectively turning into a team member, as well as those emerging from transference and countertransference (Graves, 2021; Thornton, 2019). Thornton (2019) draws attention to “Who or what am I invited to be?” referring to the roles the coach may unwittingly be drawn into as well as the importance of countertransference—“What feelings do you have in the room/are you left with afterwards?” Key findings from Graves’ (2021) study emphasize the importance of self-care and specialized supervision and appreciation of projection, transference, and countertransference. The study concluded that insight into these roles is in its infancy and an area in need of significantly more focus and understanding with coaches often only aware of being drawn into a role in hindsight.
Knowledge of the team coach's own triggers, patterns, and personal childhood experiences is particularly pertinent since team coaches have arguably learned how to behave in a team through membership of their first team, their family. However, there is a paucity of understanding of what happens relationally when the coach comes into a group and how patterns and roles played in their family system manifest themselves when they are team coaching. A greater understanding of family of origin elements, how these in turn have shaped coaches and continue to have an impact on their work would provide useful insight for practitioners as well as informing and enhancing specialized team coaching supervision.
Literature Review
In keeping with the emergent and evolving understanding of family of origin and its importance in team coaching, the review of the salient literature was conducted by adopting a broadly thematical approach. The literature review commences with some of the original and significant research on family of origin in psychotherapy prior to exploring the practitioner-led literature on family of origin in organizations. Some of the literature relating to dyadic coaching and coaching leaders in organizations is then reviewed, concluding with the literature relating to team coaching. A decision was taken to focus on family of origin literature and not broaden the review to include other related literature, for example, attachment theory, since the former was of particular interest to the researcher and been highlighted as an area warranting a deeper exploration in their previous research.
Family of Origin in Psychotherapy
The concept of family of origin can be traced back to clinical psychology and practitioners of family-systems theory including Bowen (1977), Minuchin (1974), and Satir (1964). Bown (1977) formulated family systems theory, positing that any individual can only be understood as part of their family. He defined nuclear families as emotional units and systems of interconnected and interdependent individuals, none of whom can be understood in isolation from the whole family system. Other key principles in Bowen's work are differentiation of self, an individual's ability to maintain a clear sense of self while still being in a relationship with others versus emotional cutoff which is a reactive distancing from others as a coping mechanism and the concept of relationship triangles. Bowen, like other psychologists practicing family-systems theory, encouraged clients to consider the nature of their original family system.
Bert Hellinger (1999) further evolved family systems theory through his practice of creating constellations as a means for clients to discover “entanglements” in the past arguing that “when it's out in the open, they can find a resolution of the entanglement more easily” (p. 1). Hellinger (1999) identified what he labeled “orders of love,” the ordering forces he repeatedly noticed when working with families, arguing that when our family of origin systems are out of alignment with one or more of these natural forces, the effects will be experienced by us.
Family of Origin in Organizations
Jones (2016) takes some of the elements of family of origin and applies these to the organizational context, through the lens of the dyadic coach working with “C-suite leaders” in organizations. Rogers posits that families are our first enterprise and our parents and siblings our first management team and that early family life affects how leaders respond to pressure and react when team members compete for their attention—do they have close or distant relationships with their team members, communicate directly or indirectly, micromanage or empower, encourage debates or shut them down?” Ancona and Perkins concur (2022) arguing that in early life family dynamics shape many fundamental attitudes and behavior toward authority, mastery, and identity and, when similar dynamics emerge at work, people often revert to their childhood patterns. These childhood patterns are “ghosts from the past” traveling with us into the present, creating hungers that demand to be fed and actively steering us through the world (p. 5). Ancona and Perkins (2022) identify six elements of family dynamics that commonly play out in the workplace.
Values and beliefs: A shared framework of values and beliefs, unique to this family, which determines the “shoulds,” guides individual behavior and defines the core identity of the family. Roles: All members in the family tend to play a role determined in part by their individual personality and in part by their family system's need for dynamic equilibrium. The role you play in your family is often the one that you fall into easily at work. Secrets: Most families have secrets. Secrets affect how family members communicate and act. Boundaries: Families differ significantly in the way in which they think about structure and boundaries. In some families anything goes. In other families, rules are rigid, and boundaries never crossed. Triangles: Triangles are important in determining the dynamics of a family system. Children are masters at the triangle game, often playing one parent expertly off the other to get what they want. Expectations and mastery: All parents have expectations of their children. Some children work hard to live up to them and in so doing develop a sense of mastery that helps define them as adults. Others try but fail to meet family expectations and seek out mastery in other ways.
Ancona and Perkins (2022) argue that these elements are useful for team leaders to reflect upon and, doing so, can provide “a mode of self-analysis and reflection that can help you develop as a leader.”
Family of Origin and Dyadic Coaching
Influenced by the work of Hellinger, Whittington (2020) argues that our family of origin is our deepest “patternmaker.” It is “our first system” and “creates and contains many patterns, which we all bring, often just out of conscious awareness, into our work” (p. 7). Whittington (2020) describes the family system as being made up of explicit elements, including people, but also invisible dynamics, unspoken rules, hidden loyalties and allegiances, and the “aftershocks of difficult events of the past” (p. 10). It is also the place where we first learn about leadership authority, hidden dynamics, psychological safety and recognition, and finding our place. Whittington argues that, in the same way as therapists explore their own background and how this might impact on their work, there is a similar need for coaches to engage in such work rather than limiting their learning to tools and techniques. As with therapists who have really done their own work and who remain committed to lifelong learning and growth, coaching informed by ongoing inner work is likely to be respectful, effective and liberating. When the ‘helping through coaching’ is done purely from a tools and techniques perspective, where the deeper patterns remain in the unconscious, it can lead to entangled helping, coaches who are trying hard to support clients, often in a way they wish they could have been themselves. (p. 280)
Whittington suggests that, if we want to understand what remains unresolved in our personal life as a coach, then we can look at who and what we attract in our client work. “It is there that you will often find a reflection of your own material and unresolved patterns around belonging in a relational system” (p. 282).
There are, however, few empirical studies on the relationship between family of origin and the work of the coach. Cremona's (2010) study of how coaches use emotions in their work included an investigation of the main influences on the coach's approach to emotions. The coach's own life experiences in dealing with emotions emerged as the main influence followed by professional training and work, then therapy experiences with ethics and coaching qualifications in fourth place. Likewise in their study Campone and Awal (2012) argue that coaches do not come to their coaching practice as a blank slate, but have been exposed to numerous past life events. The study is quantitative, describing 10 categories of life events, and then rating the impact they have on coaching practice. Significantly personal events including experiences in an individual's life apart from work or school, which took place in family social or personal contexts, emerged as the number one life event (21%) followed by formal coach training (17%) and work experience (16%). In addition, the findings indicate that just having the life experience is not enough and that learning is enhanced when these experiences are processed sufficiently and integrated into one's life going forward.
Schlüter (2021) comments on the growing interest of researchers and practitioners to apply findings from the therapeutic field to organizational and leadership development contexts alongside the absence of research on the impact of these dynamics on executive coaches and their effectiveness when working with clients. Schlüter's (2021) qualitative study explores how intergenerational family patterns influence the effectiveness of executive coaches including how behavior patterns and experiences with family members in the past influence countertransference reactions of the coach, as well as their future growth and development. The study examines coaching effectiveness from a psychodynamic perspective where the focus is on exploring underlying drivers and root causes for the behavior and the emotional reaction of the client, which is often masked by protective defence mechanisms. Defence mechanisms include denial, intellectualization, rationalization, and humor. Schlüter (2021) cites Kets de Vries and Korotov (2016) who posit that such defence mechanisms are like painkillers, they provide temporary relief but, if the underlying cause remains untreated, the pain will return. Schlüter (2021) argues that, while it is essential that executive coaches recognize the defence mechanisms of their clients, they similarly need to be aware of their own defence mechanisms and how to deal with these effectively. A key recommendation from the study is the importance of integrating the reflection of intergenerational patterns and related countertransference risks into the training and supervision of coaches.
Family of Origin and Team Coaching
While there is some literature on family of origin from the perspective of dyadic coaching—both the coach understanding themselves as a coach and helping their executive coaching clients understand themselves—there is very little focussing specifically on team coaching. There is acknowledgement that team coaching is more complex and demanding than dyadic coaching and that there are roles that the team coach may be drawn into playing including those relating to group contagion and those stemming from transference and countertransference (Graves, 2021; Hodge & Clutterbuck, 2019; Jacox, 2019; Lawrence, 2019; Thornton, 2019). Equally authors have argued that the complexities of team coaching suggest that team coaches have greater need of supervision and from a supervisor who understands the dynamic complexity of groups, how the team coach's own background may influence their coaching and that insight and learning can be gained from the practice of group psychotherapy. However, there is a paucity of research for team coaches to access on this topic (Clutterbuck & Graves, 2023; Graves, 2021; Hodge & Clutterbuck, 2019).
For practicing team coaches this gap in knowledge raises some important considerations including what happens dynamically and relationally when a coach joins a team, albeit temporarily and in the capacity of a team coach and not a member or leader of that team. How might associations and triggers from their family of origin emerge and influence the coach when they are working with a team and what is the impact of these influences? The following research question was formulated to address this gap in knowledge. How does the coach's family of origin impact on the coach and their work when they are team coaching? The study set out to uncover information pertaining to the impact of family of origin in the team coaching setting and, additionally, provides valuable insight into understanding and minimizing this “interference.”
The next section describes the methodology adopted for the study. This is followed by the main findings and a discussion of the significance of these. The article ends with conclusions, highlighting the study's contribution to knowledge and practice as well as suggestions for further research.
Methodology
Research Design
The research design is based on the philosophical assumption that meaning and knowledge is developed through interaction between individuals and that these meanings are varied and multiple (Willig, 2007). This social constructionist world view is reflected in the qualitative research design: a case study, aimed at discovering coaches’ experiences of their family of origin and subsequently exploring how these lived experiences manifest themselves when they are working with teams. Willig (2007) argues that the use of a case study is not a research method but rather an approach to the study of singular entities. A case can be a group of people, an intervention, a situation, or an experience and the approach may involve the use of diverse methods of data collection and analysis. In addition, the researcher may set out to compare several cases with one another, to arrive at a general understanding of a phenomenon, or alternatively choose to focus on a particular case because it is interesting in its own right and they wish to explore it in as much depth as possible.
The decision to choose a single case study design was influenced by Yin's (1994) three reasons:
The case may constitute a critical test for a well-formulated theory; It may represent a unique or extreme case that is of intrinsic interest to the researcher; The case in question may be revelatory in the sense that it was previously inaccessible.
Firstly, a single case study design provided an opportunity to test the applicability of family-system theory in a team coaching setting, working with real-world data. Additionally, focussing on family of origin theory and its impact on team coaching would provide fresh insight as this perspective has not been explored in any depth in the literature. Finally, links between family-system theory and team coaching were of intrinsic interest to the researcher with a wish to explore them as much depth as possible.
Data Gathering
Participation was sought from experienced and practicing team coaches, interested in exploring their own family of origin and the impact of this on their team coaching work. Purposive sampling (Robson, 2011) was used to select participants using social media, professional coaching and supervision networks and forums and the snowball sampling approach (Bryman, 2004). This process yielded a total of 17 participants from the United Kingdom, Ireland, North America, and Southeast Asia. Participants were in the age range of 44 to 67 and all worked as independent coaches, having previously held roles in the corporate world or consulting.
Willig (2007) cautions that case studies are concerned with individual participants’ life events and that researchers need to be particularly sensitive around confidentiality and anonymity. Informed consent was ensured by providing comprehensive participant information sheets to all participants and obtaining signed consent forms. A possible concern for participants taking part in the study was that they might experience negative emotions as a result of discussing their experiences, particularly when asked to recall more challenging situations. This concern was mitigated by informing participants that they could withdraw from the study at any time, without needing to provide reasons. Concerns around confidentiality and anonymity were mitigated by the participants providing pseudonyms for themselves and brief biographies which are displayed in Table 1.
Pseudonyms and Brief Biographies of Participants.
Having consented to take part in the study, participants were sent a copy of Ancona and Perkins’ (2022) article, invited to read the article and reflect on its relevance to team coaching, their own family of origin and recall examples of how this had/may manifest itself when they were team coaching ready to explore at their interview.
Interviews were semistructured and conducted using Zoom technology. The interviews explored the participant's own family of origin, their reactions and reflections on the previously shared article, specific examples of the participant being aware of elements from their family of origin impacting on their team coaching as well as strategies and practices they employed to minimize such “interference.” Interviews were conducted over a 3-month period, recorded and transcribed.
Data Analysis
Data analysis began at the same time as data collection and formed an iterative process whereby interview questions evolved to enable the development of categories. The data was analyzed using NVivo software with text coded to existing and new codes as the interviews progressed.
Having completed the initial data analysis, participants were invited to take part in a focus group. Two focus groups took place, one using Zoom technology and one face-to-face. The first part of the focus groups was used to share and discuss the findings with participants. The second part was used to explore implications for coaching practice. The resulting Practices and Techniques for Minimising “Interference” From Family of Origin was co-created and details a range of methods for practicing team coaches to employ to explore and manage issues of family of origin in their future team coaching work.
Findings
As the study progressed two elements of family of origin emerged as key—roles and values. Other elements, namely triangles, secrets, boundaries, and expectations, emerged as of secondary importance or of particular importance to some team coaches.
Roles
When asked about the roles that they had played within their family of origin, participants typically answered the question from two different perspectives—their place within their family and roles that they had adopted/been assigned within their family.
Place Within the Family
Some of the roles identified by participants could be described as “obvious” ones, including whether the coach had been the eldest, youngest, or middle child in their family of origin. However, other less obvious roles emerged, all of which had specific distinguishing features. The list of roles and a brief description of the role is provided below:
▪ Eldest child: A role model or quasi parent taking care of younger, sometimes sick, siblings. An adult from a young age. ▪ Middle child: At least one older and one younger sibling. ▪ Younger child: Sometimes the “miracle” or “golden” child or last attempt at a boy. ▪ Only child and single parent: No siblings or a quasi only child with much younger or older siblings. Brought up by one parent. ▪ Only girl: At least one other male sibling. Treated differently to sibling(s). ▪ Adopted child: Adopted child with knowledge of adoption unknown for a long time.
Roles Assigned or Adopted
While the above roles were determined by events, including order of birth, participants also identified roles which had either been assigned to them within their family of origin and/or they had adopted. These roles, and descriptions of them, are provided in Table 2.
Assigned or Adopted Roles.
In all cases participants recognized the assigned/adopted roles, identified their positive attributes and the benefits of playing them. Similarly, participants could also identify how this role presented itself when they were team coaching and the danger of over-playing the role.
The most cited role was that of the responsible one with several participants recognizing that this was a role they had played in their family, continued to play and one which could spill over into their team coaching work. Sarah shared her pattern: There was something about taking a lot of responsibility and ability for over responsibility for the climate and the environment in the house so and I think that links to some of the other things around you know needing to be perfect. I know, if I have a tendency toward anything, it will be over responsibility, but I’ve done a lot of work on that … (pauses and laughs) …“But there's clearly much more of it still in my system because my son and husband call me ‘Hermione’”.
When describing the conflict avoider/peacekeeper role Mary described how conflict was avoided in her family and how she could not remember her parents losing their temper or getting cross and how “to this day I find conflict quite tricky, so I am the world's greatest smoother of relationships”. Musing on her team coaching work she volunteered: If there is conflict in the room rather than tackle it head-on, I might think “I’ll just see how this goes” … but then by lunch time I can see it bubbling and think “maybe we need to tackle that”. I have had feedback in the past that I haven’t brought conflict back into the room quickly enough. I still do it! I have a belief that, “maybe if we leave it alone things will just get better”, but that is not always the case and is not always helpful in the team context where surfacing the conflict is really important. (Mary)
Participants all identified their place in their family origin as well as any roles they typically played in the family. As the study progressed a number of patterns emerged with links between various roles: including the eldest child and assuming the responsible one and/or self-sufficient independent roles and the middle child adopting mediator or conflict avoider/smoother roles.
Values
When describing the importance of various factors relating to the family of origin, participants’ first responses were invariably, roles or values with these two elements emerging as of equal importance and closely intertwined. Values were described by participants as being things which were of importance within their family of origin and included key principles such as how to behave, how to treat others and how to do things. Often these were imperatives, including a “must,” “should,” “always,” or “have to,” either explicit or implicit. Examples included: “respect elders/adults,” “be polite and considerate,” and “put others first.” Other values related to qualities and behavior which were considered important in the family unit and imprinted in the participant's memory. These included: “fairness,” “honesty,” and “excellence.”
In all cases participants viewed the values derived from their family of origin as helpful. They had provided some structure in the family, a sense of what was right or wrong and often continued to provide a moral compass in their lives. However, all recognized that any of these values, if over-played, could be unhelpful in their role as team coach and were able to provide examples of too much of a value in action. Table 3 displays the most frequently cited values and examples from participants of these values being over-played, particularly in a team coaching setting.
Descriptions of Values and Overplayed Values.
Triangles, Alliances, and Cliques
The triangle, or a three-person relationship system is a key concept in family systems, it being the smallest stable relationship system where tension can be managed by shifting focus between the three relationships. As such a triangle can contain much more tension without involving another person because the tension can shift around three relationships (Bowen, 1977). In the interviews participants’ experiences of triangles in their own family system were explored, as well as how the dynamics of triangles might manifest themselves in team coaching.
Sky recalled a sibling triangle comprising herself her sister and her brother, the girls being the “noisy, silly ones” and her big brother “the irritable one who could be a bit scary.” Bernard recalled a triangle forming between himself and his parents once his elder brother had left home with him now being “the indulged golden child.” However, while several similar examples were provided, participants struggled to provide examples of how a particular family experience had impacted on their team coaching work and when they did, by their own admission, the connection felt forced. There was, however, a strong recognition of the power of triangles when working with teams. All the participants in the study were familiar with transactional analysis and the Karpman Drama Triangle and it was, therefore, not surprising that there were a significant number of references to being “hooked” or “triggered” into different roles.
For Gigi it was the Rescuer I feel like the drama triangle is very much speaking to me in team coaching; just the whole idea of maybe there's conflict on the team; there always seems to be some type of persecutor, some kind of potential victim and the coach is trying not to get into that role, but I think being seen as the big saviour that's going to fix everything, and it's like, “no!”
By contrast Sky saw the danger of being drawn into Persecutor. “The rescuer” is not my natural position, I’m probably more the “persecutor”, if I get pulled into it. I’d be more inclined to challenge “hold on a second, that's not right” – maybe from that role as a child … “why is someone doing something there in the background and no-one is calling him out, great I’m going to have to do it!”
As someone who invariably worked as an associate Kay saw how she could spiral into victim. It's quite easy to go into victim when it's not your client and you have less of the conversation, and that goes on quite a lot because it's never as perfect as when you do it, and then you have the whole thing around “what am I being contacted for?” and “what am I being paid for?” I can get into drama quite easily with that because value is really important to me, and I might feel that I’m being taken for granted. Being taken for granted is another one I’ve got from mum – “Oh you’ll get taken for granted like I do” and that triggers something for me that sense of “OK, so watch out”. So, there's definitely a drama triangle for me within the work.
The Drama Triangle resonated with the majority of participants, they had experience of being drawn into a role and a game, although most felt any links between their present experience and their experience within their family of origin were quite tenuous. Participants were, however, in agreement that triangles are a powerful force in team coaching with alliances and cliques forming between various players. Key players cited as making up the sides of the triangles were the team coach, team leader, HR as well as other dominant members of the team. Table 4 shows a number of examples provided by participants of them experiencing triangles while team coaching.
Triangles, Alliances, and Cliques in Action.
Secrets
The concept of harboring secrets or there being taboo subjects within the family is core to family systems (Bowen, 1977; Satir, 1964). An important theme emerging from the study was, if a participant had been the subject of a significant family secret, they recognized the enduring impact of this, both personally and in their coaching work. For Gigi her adoption was a “big secret,” whereas for Joy it was “No-one ever talks about my father, who I don’t know, and I don’t know who he is! I don’t think I ever want to know!” For Tia her very existence was a secret. I myself was a secret. My father was married, and he'd been married for a long time, and my mum and he had a fantastic love affair, and I was born as a result of that love affair and his wife went to her grave not knowing about me. His family didn't know about me at all until 2009 - they found out about me. He never said a word.
While all three had being the subject of family secrets in common, they described quite different ways in which they reacted to and dealt with secrets when these became apparent in team coaching.
Gigi described how she pushed back when she was invited into confidences or asked to keep a secret. I’ve really pushed against all that. I have a strong value of “we should not keep secrets!”. So, with teams, when people want to have side conversations, I’m just like “no!” If they insist on that then I often find that I just don’t do that work, it's a deal-breaker for me. I have it showing up in teams all the time. There are situations where it just unfolds, and you don’t have control over it.
Joy described her internal dialogue and her sense of being pulled in two ways I tend to address things. I notice things about myself, even just in daily life, and I go, “oh don’t have a conversation about that!”, and I’ll not have it but then I’ll actively go, “no you need to have it!” So, there is that little bit of self-talk; the pattern is “don’t”, but the sensible head knows that I should, and I will do it, but I do always call it out in teams. I think it's because I’m not part of the system. So, I will talk about what's been hidden, or what's not been said, and it will usually come out as, “what patterns do you recognise … where do they come from?
Tia's response was more nuanced, expressing empathy for leaders when they have information that they cannot share with the team and how she had found herself supporting leaders in telling the team as much as they can without breaking confidentiality. As a systemic coach Tia described the practice she adopted. I put a marker for the secret, saying OK there's this secret which I'm privy to and that person's privy to, it's in the room, and I just psychologically, mentally I put the marker there and just park it, so that's the secret. So, am I colluding? It's kind of a difficult line isn't it?
Other participants had quite different perspectives on the topic of secrets. There was some reaction to the word “secrets” seeing this as too strong, maybe even a pejorative term and one which was not a natural fit for the business world. However, further discussion, particularly in the two focus groups, uncovered other subtle ways, in which “secrets” can manifest themselves in teams. These included being “the keeper of secrets” whereby information is shared, often in a one-to-one session, which the coach is told cannot be shared with the rest of the team; “undiscussables” where previous experiences are elephants in the room and may need to be named and addressed and “unsaids.” Musing on the latter Pam shared In terms of secrets, it always amazes me what people have and haven’t told each other about each other, hobbies etc, people saying “God I didn’t know that about you?”. It’s a huge part of them. It’s not a secret but it hasn’t been brought into the group.
What emerged from the study is that if the team coach has themselves been part of a family secret, they are likely to be highly sensitized to the topic of secrets and have strategies for addressing them. In addition, “secrets” are present in various forms in team coaching and coaches need to be both aware of this and have strategies for dealing with them when they become apparent.
Boundaries
While all the participants were qualified and highly experienced coaches and team coaches, as the study progressed, it became apparent that their families of origin were very different and that there were contrasting modes of operandi which they had experienced. The theme of Boundaries comprises of two subthemes: having clear rules and established practices and a preference for a structured or unstructured environment.
Clear Rules and Established Practices
Sky described her family where there were clear rules and established practices including the family sitting down together for all their meals and attending church every Sunday. She reflected how this set of rules crossed over into her team coaching. This is my soapbox! For me, boundaries enable greater growth, development and freedom. Where there aren’t any boundaries, there is fear and anxiety. For me, working as a team coach, the first priority is establishing trust, provide safety, reduce the anxiety and give special attention and time, to put boundaries into place. Time boundaries, physical boundaries, date boundaries, all the practical side of things, confidentiality boundaries, understanding all the people in the room that we can’t see, just naming relationships, bringing clarity in as many spaces as possible, and continuing to do that throughout the work. I guess that is how that has shaped me.
Dafydd likewise experienced clear rules and established practices in his family of origin but the relationship between his experience and how he now worked was, for him, more nuanced, attributing some factors to nature and his personality preferences, as well as to the nurturing he had received.
In my family there were very clear boundaries, clear expectations from my mum and dad. Expectations that when we are together this is how we are and so I'm quite comfortable working with those and always have been, and that's been an explicit thing and a positive thing. It fits my own psychological preferences. I’m an INTJ so I get internal structure like this without clarity of external structure, so I think, on the whole, again that's kind of helpful.
Experience of a Structured or Chaotic Environment
The amount of structure participants experienced in their family system and the nature of this emerged as quite polarized. Lucy related how there was a lot of structure in her upbringing and recognized a link between how she had experienced structure and how she now created boundaries in her team coaching.
I mean definitely for me as a coach boundaries are really recognising what's my role in this, where are the boundaries of my responsibility? I can't fix it for other people, in fact I'm doing them damage, I’m stunting their growth if I don’t hold those boundaries. So, I think probably the structured environment I grew up in helps me understand, it's easier for me to hold boundaries because it's just a new form of structure isn't it? … sometimes maybe I'm a little bit too firm on it but I think coming from a structure helps, it's a new structure for me to work with.
By contrast Tia described the environment she had grown up in where “the authority was just mum, and mum was quite chaotic so that leaks into boundaries.” Reflecting on the impact of this environment on her Tia described how she is now “very fluid with boundaries, it's like, you know, whatever.”
What emerged from the study is that the boundaries participants had experienced in their own family of origin had shaped them and had some influence on how they created and maintained boundaries in their team coaching. However, other factors, emerged as important too including psychological differences particularly related to preferences for favoring a planned or more fluid approach.
Expectations to Succeed in Life
The participants in the study were qualified coaches who had been practicing for many years. All were educated to at least first-degree level, had postgraduate qualifications and had held responsible corporate/consulting roles prior to establishing themselves as independent coaches. As such they could all be described as highly successful individuals. However, the messages they received from their family of origin relating to their education and career, and how they reacted to these messages, were quite polarized.
Mary described how she had experienced expectations in her family of origin where her father was a House Master at a boys’ boarding school.
The school structure was all about the start of term goals, end of term celebrations and praise for achieving. I was the oldest child of two, my brother is two years younger. My brother went to the prep school and then on to boarding school. I went to state school. I was told by the school that I wouldn’t get into Cambridge, that I wasn’t bright enough and I worked my backside off and got in. My brother didn’t go to Cambridge. It wasn’t a competition, but I was out to prove that they didn’t need to send me to boarding school to be amazing…
Reflecting on how her own experience influenced her today when she is team coaching Mary identified was what was, for her, an obvious link. How that shows up in team coaching is that I’m very keen that something's changed at the end of the session, that we’ve moved onto something, there are goals set at the start and so I think that gets in the way because sometimes people actually just need to let things soak, but I can feel this frustration in me as a coach if we’re not making progress. I always focus on what are the actions we’re taking away.
Others, by contrast, shared very different experiences or growing up with low or no real expectations of “doing well” in life. Bernard, as the “golden child” always seemed to exceed his parents’ expectations and “to be honest I think I could have got away with almost anything” whereas Tia recalled being repeatedly told that education was for other people and how going on to complete her masters as a mature student was “one of the things I am really, really proud of.” As an adopted child Gigi was clear that she had followed her own path, rather than focusing on the expectations of others.
I’ve had very high expectations of myself, much higher than my family's, probably. Who knows exactly the underlying mechanism there? I’ve definitely got my own idea of what needs to happen or what would be helpful for a team. I think I’m very clear on trying to understand what their expectations are, but I also have a very clear sense of what my expectations are and whether I even take on the work at all. So, I guess, I don’t tend to take things at a surface level as far as expectations.
What emerged from the study is that all participants could describe in detail the messages they received, or did not receive, in their family of origin to “do well,” academically and/or professionally. However, in most cases participants had not automatically followed these injunctions—some had rebelled and chosen a different career path whereas others had far exceeded any external expectations, instead describing the drive to succeed as coming from within themselves. Expectations therefore emerged as a distinct script with the words still very familiar and present today but definitely not as influential as other elements, in particular values and roles.
Discussion and Conclusion
There are a number of important findings from the study which provide a theoretical contribution to understanding links between family of origin and team coaching. These findings add to existing knowledge by contributing empirical insight as well as opening up new areas for debate and detail of practices and techniques for team coaches to use to minimize “interference” from family of origin.
At a summary level the study highlights that the team coach understanding their own family of origin and the dynamics arising out of this is important because, without this knowledge, it is difficult for the coach to anticipate, react or avoid any “interference” they may encounter when working with a team. Participants were able to readily describe their own family of origin and explore links between this and how they worked as a team coach, including specific examples of being “triggered” by events. These descriptions contained some similarities as well as elements where there were distinct differences. Participants’ opinions all converged on the importance of instilled family values and the roles we play, either through our place in the family or assigned/adopted roles. These two elements emerged as the vital elements to understand and at the heart of everything else.
There was, however, significance divergence on other elements of family of origin. In particular, the concepts of triangles and secrets were not considered to be significant if participants had not had personal experience of these in their family of origin. Conversely, when participants had direct experience of these, for example they themselves being part of a big family secret, they recognized how this had a profound impact on them as individuals and subsequently their work with teams and were able to provide examples and describe patterns of responses. The relationship between the six elements is represented in Figure 1. Here values and roles are shown at the heart of the circle, symbolizing how these two are interconnected. The four remaining elements lie on the outer circle, signifying that these elements are not as significant, or as significant for all, but may still contribute to “interference,” particularly if the team coach has vivid personal experience from their childhood.
Elements of family of origin.
The study highlighted that the language arising out of clinical psychology and associated with family of origin did not always resonate with participants and readily translate to their work with corporate clients. The idea of “secrets” was often described as feeling quite alien but, having discussed the principle, participants would invariably identify more relatable concepts in the corporate world including “privileged information,” “unsaids,” and “disclosure.” Equally, some participants did not always relate to the concept of a triangle but did relate to that of “competing forces,” “cliques,” and “alliances.” All of which suggests that simply taking terminology from the world of clinical psychology and applying it to coaching is not always appropriate and there needs to be some refining of language to make these elements accessible to the coaching profession.
During the interviews participants provided detailed explanations of knowledge they had acquired, practices they engaged in and strategies they employed to develop their self-awareness and actively manage “interference” when team coaching. During subsequent discussions at the focus groups participants identified a need for a synthesis of strategies employed by team coaches to benefit less experienced team coaches or coaches looking to pivot into team coaching. Displayed in Table 5 is a consolidation of ideas shared in the focus groups which includes a combination of behaviors, knowledge, and practices. While it could be argued that the synthesis does not include anything particularly original, it does underline the importance of certain practices, for example working with a co-coach and accessing specialized supervision, which are increasingly cited as best practice, although not universally followed by team coaches (Clutterbuck & Graves, 2023). In addition, the synthesis highlights the importance of ongoing self and professional development with the majority of participants identifying the training they undertook as a supervisor as having a significant influence on their ability to notice and react to information arising while they are practicing team coaching.
Practices and Techniques for Minimizing Family of Origin “Interference.”
The study set out to provide an understanding of how family of origin influences the coach when they are working with a team—knowledge that was lacking in the existing literature. The study goes some way toward providing this missing perspective by providing rich insight from the various voices of the participants as well as through the author's interpretative process and conceptualization of findings.
There are a number of stakeholders who can benefit from the study. The practices and techniques described in Table 5 provides a practical resource for coach practitioners, both those already practicing team coaching as well as those currently engaging in dyadic coaching to use as a bridge into team coaching. The findings also provide a contribution to the coaching professional bodies and those engaged in educating and training team coaches by providing insight into what needs to be on the curriculum for coaching development programs and accreditation. This insight is also useful for coach supervisors whose focus is currently on dyadic coaching practice and who may need to review their practice and/or undertake additional CPD in order to provide effective supervisory support to team coaches.
Limitations and Future Research
A limitation of this study is that all the participants were highly experienced and knowledgeable coaches. All had many years’ experience of dyadic coaching and were practicing team coaches. In addition, while emailing pre-reading to participants to read in advance resulted in participants who were well-prepared for the interview with rich examples to share, this may also have narrowed their thinking. Working with less experienced coaches and not sending out pre reading may have created different findings.
Team coaching research is still very much in its infancy and there is, therefore, plenty of fertile ground for future researchers to take the knowledge generated from this study and build on it. The study focused on family of origin from the perspective of team coaches. Studying the experiences of team coaching supervisors and how family of origin problems present themselves in their supervision work would provide a more complete picture. In addition, the study focused solely on family of origin and how this might influence the coach when they are working with teams. Further insight into what else shapes us as a coach including previous professional and work experiences, the philosophical/theoretical perspective of the coach as well as psychological preferences would be beneficia for the coaching profession.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.