Rethink: Growth and Learning through Coaching and Organisational Development

The aim of this book is to be a bridge between a practical how to book and academic rigour, so that the reader can walk away with some techniques and applications equally grounded in academic research. The bias has been that in order to understand the applications, it is important to understand the philosophy and thinking that underpins the theory. This bias might be that many of the authors have close links to academia having recently completed research or alternatively working in a University setting or perhaps it is just a learning preference.

Each chapter to some extent provides the following information (with the exception of the first chapter which provides context):

• Why the approach is useful?;
• The history of the approach as well as the philosophical underpinnings - providing the Raison d’etre – the reason why this process or theory exists;
• Characteristics of the theory are explained and techniques shared.
• Case studies or practical examples are used to illustrate the theoretical concepts.
Each chapter is written with the unique voice of the contributing author.
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Chapter One is on Positive Psychology and is written by Lynda Gouveia. It is about provoking thought in leaders, Organisational Development practitioners and coaches so that they can explore how to embed a positive psychology coaching process into their workplace interactions.
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Chapter Two is written by Eileen Thayser and leads us through Narrative Approaches focusing on Narrative Coaching.
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Chapter Three is written by Chantelle Wyley in collaboration with her associates is on The Gestalt approach to Organisational Development and Change. The approach focusses on heightening awareness in clients (individuals, teams, whole organisations), and supporting the client’s choice to hence work differently.
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Chapter four is written by Natalie Cunningham on Neuroscience and the link to leadership; it is about understanding how the brain works so that we can facilitate change in behaviour individually and collectively (in groups and organisations) fully aware of the enablers and equally of the constraints of brain functioning.
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Chapter Five is written by Alison Reid on Learning in Social System and focusses on re-thinking the fulcrum of learning/coaching.
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Chapter six is written by Tanya Stevens on Integral Theory. She describes Integral theory as an overarching theory which integrates all and is quite useful to read at the end as you will be able to see how the approaches all fit into the Integral model and framework.

About the Author

Natalie Cunningham is currently a Professional Associate of GIBS. She also runs her own consultancy – Origo – specialising in Leadership Development, Organisational Development and People Development. During 2013, she worked with Knowledge Resources to conduct a Leadership Development Survey of 150 companies/organisations in South Africa and their Leadership Development Practices.

Natalie was previously Director of the Leadership Development Centre at Wits Business School. She developed and designed the curriculum for a Masters in Management in Business and Executive Coaching. Furthermore, she set up a Coaching Supervision Certificate and Business Executive Coaching Certificate. Natalie also headed up all the coaching in support of Leadership Development Programmes at Wits. She holds a BA (SW) Hons and an MBA from Wits. She is currently conducting her PhD research on “Developing theory on the coaching process based on the lived coaching experiences of executives”.