In chapter 13, Florian Schulz investigates a particular form of HRM intervention, namely individual-centered management coaching which is organized and paid for by the hiring organization of a coachee. By investigating the dynamics and potential effects of coaching practices, the author seeks to expand the critical-reflexive understanding of how employees are managed through these practices. Empirically, the chapter is based on the in-depth analysis of three first-session coaching conversations which took place between one particular coach and three of her coachees, all working in different managerial positions in the financial services sector. The conversations were framed as ‘Emotional Intelligence Coaching’ which aims at increasing people’s self-awareness, self-regulation and relationship management skills.
Based on a discursive psychology framework, the analysis was conducted in two steps. First, three interpretive repertoires were identified through which agents discursively constructed the problem that was to be addressed in the coaching session, thereby defining the aim of the intervention. Second, the relational process was analyzed through which the coach and the managers negotiated the use of the three repertoires – ‘unconscious psychic dynamics’, ‘organizational politics’ and ‘personal entanglements’ – for either situating the problem as an internal, external or inter-relational matter. Interestingly, while the managers showed variations in their interpretations of problems, the coach persistently promoted the psychic dynamics repertoire, thereby enacting a classical psychotherapeutic framework.
This observation suggests that the coach partly ignored the variety of concerns initially presented, and instead, conducted the conversation in a routinized form in which problems were internalized and emotionalized while contextual variables were rather neglected. Schulz problematizes this single focus on one interpretive repertoire, as it limits interpretations and attributes the problem/ responsibility for change exclusively to the individual. While management coaching has mostly been framed as a space for reflection, this study highlights how HRM interventions such as coaching may also be understood as new forms of management which help to shape and control people’s emotions and thereby produce more intense regimes of the self.
