David Clutterbuck describes himself as a provocateur in our coaching and supervision space. And that’s how he showed up in this podcast with Steve and Clare, with provocations about politics in organisations. How does this relate to coaching? Much more than we might ever imagine. Every relationship is political in some shape or form, for the benefit or for the detriment of the parties.
Think of the system as a body that is suffering pain: what are the headaches in that system, what are people running away from, what blood (communications) is not flowing etc.
There is a silent conspiracy to ignore, and we must open our eyes as well as those of the people with whom we work. What do they not want to look at? What are they ignoring? What do they not want to say?
Organisational politics and culture are the focus of the discussion, but as ever we drift into all sorts of interesting spaces... for example, what are your beliefs, as a coach, about politics? How are you building political astuteness?
Useful stuff. And if you want to learn more, you can read David and his colleagues’ 2023 book "Coaching, Mentoring and Organisational Politics", published by our sponsor Open University Press. David Clutterbuck, Tim Bright, Lise Lewis and Riddhika Khoosal.