Commitments
As a certified coach from the HEC Paris coaching school, I am committed to respecting the following principles, as set out by HEC Paris.
1. Business Experience
A coaching contract is primarily intended for the professional sphere. The coaching assignment generally concerns a company executive (director, manager) in the context of their duties and for the benefit of the client organisation. Understanding the client’s issues with insight and placing them in their professional context requires knowledge of the company from the inside. The coach must be able to demonstrate significant professional experience in a company, if possible in a managerial position.
2. Personal Work
Coaching is not psychotherapy. However, coaching involves a relationship (coach-coachee) that must be influenced as little as possible by the coach’s personal issues, whether unresolved or poorly understood. The coach must be aware of their main personal issues in order to assess their influence and limitations on their relationship with others. The coach must have undergone long-term analysis or personal development (at least two years) with a professional (psychoanalyst, psychotherapist) within the framework of a recognised practice.
3. Basic training in psychology and human factors
A significant part of coaching involves clarifying relationships with others and the environment (attitudes and behaviours). Unconscious mechanisms interfere during work with the client (e.g. transference, counter-transference, etc.). Failure to identify them can lead to counterproductive deviations from the client’s objective. Knowledge of the fundamentals of psychology and relationship mechanisms is essential. This training may have been acquired either through personal work (e.g. didactic psychotherapy), specific training courses (e.g. seminars) or academic study.
4. Knowledge of the fundamentals of coaching
The coach must demonstrate a structural and current ability to conduct coaching sessions. The main coaching techniques and tools will have been acquired either through training at a recognised coaching school or through validated coaching practice over several years of experience.
5. Supervision
All coaches must have a forum for analysing their own practice. Regular follow-up with an experienced supervisor (psychoanalyst, psychotherapist) is essential. The name of the supervisor must be provided. Where necessary, a therapeutic setting must be provided to enable the coach to deal with any personal issues that may be reactivated by the practice of coaching.
6. Evaluation of coaching Work
An evaluation of the coaching work may be requested at the end of each assignment. This should ensure the quality of the services provided and, where necessary, enable practices to be developed or additional training to be defined to enhance the professionalism of coaches trained at HEC Executive Education.
7. Compliance with professional ethics
All coaches have a duty to comply with the professional ethics of the coaching profession, namely:
• Verify the client’s willingness to participate.
• Validate the issue and the (mutual) possibility of working with the coachee during a preliminary, non-binding interview.
• Confidentiality of the work (selective feedback to the company under the control of the coachee).
• Independence of the coach from the company, the client and their hierarchy.
I am also a member of EMCC France (European Mentoring & Coaching Council), whose code of ethics is available here.