Ever wonder about the history of coaching? The author provides the most authoritative account to date regarding the history of professional coaching that is based on an extensive literature review and in-depth interviews with 175 key contributors to the field of professional coaching. Vikki Brock’s well-researched doctoral dissertation is posted at the Library of Professional Coaching and you can access the full history there.
Over the course of the study, the inquiry shifted from documenting the roots of coaching for the purpose of reducing confusion of what constitutes coaching to: identifying the influences each of the relevant root disciplines have on coaching; documenting the impact the backgrounds of influencers had on the discipline and its practices; looking at what coaching can learn from the evolution of root disciplines that may be relevant to the evolution of coaching; and what supporting factors contributed to the emergence of coaching as a distinct discipline in the late 20th century. Factors explored include: the distinction between practice/tools and theories/models, the multidisciplinary influences on coaching’ root disciplines, the evolutionary nature of socioeconomic influences, the impact of connections between influencers, the concept of postmodernism as a backdrop to coaching’s emergence, and what the future holds for coaching.
