Is ‘deep work’ truly the gold standard of coaching?

I have managed to break almost all of my habitual social media scrolling with one exception: LinkedIn. I have a variety of excuses and rationales that I like to trot out when even mildly challenged on this (most often when someone else is raising their own familiar despair at the shackles from which our social channels hold us), which range from ‘I need it to share my thinking’, and ‘it’s a great place to find clients’, right through to ‘it’s good to keep abreast of what’s happening in the broader coaching field’. More accurately, my feed gives me a sense of what’s going on in the echo chamber that is the coaching field I subscribe to, and provides those who are curious about my work with semi-regular opportunities for connection and collaboration. Overall, and right now, I can reconcile this relationship as a net positive, but it does mean that the first caveat for this article is that whilst this may not be a ‘universal’ truth, there is certainly a worrying trend I’m experiencing on my own feed: a growing rhetoric that ‘deep work’ is the gold standard in coaching.

As a practitioner and researcher interested in creative and arts-based coaching techniques, I am equally struck (and concerned) by how often people tell me during workshops or conversations about my work that the appeal of such approaches is the ability to ‘go deeper, faster’. Whilst I am sure under a light interrogation that these same coaches and supervisors would elaborate that of course the foundation of trust, respect, and safe boundaries is a pre-requisite and that they would never go beyond their current skills and experience, I’m afraid to say that I don’t believe that this is necessarily the full truth. I know this from my own experience. I have worked outside of my own skill level and expertise, even outside my level of capability, during my time as a coach and supervisor. Some of this I knew at the time - feeling it in my gut and as a creeping sense of dread in the room that I worked hard to diminish, keeping my sense of being out of my depth in the shadows and away from the client’s awareness. Other times, I have been blissfully unaware in the dyadic coaching moment, these complex indiscretions only illuminated by the flashlight of future perspective. Looking back on work from a time of early enthusiasm and heightened optimism about my own capacity through the lens of experience has been eye-opening (and a little eye-watering at times) to say the least.

So where is this ‘obsession’ with deep work coming from, alongside the heavy implication that this is somehow the most necessary work for us to do as practitioners, and the best experience for our clients? And what do people even mean by ‘deep work’? It is often unqualified, and I don’t recall in any of my coach training this positioning or encouragement of working at depth as a coach - in fact, it was only ever referenced with caution and amidst ethical considerations. Within my personal echo chamber, it seems to be coming largely from practitioners as they share their current thinking, case studies, and coaching offers. There is definitely, for some, an element of deliberate provocation in these posts designed to get a response that might? both boost engagement and potentially lead to a client engagement - I am constantly navigating this tension of enjoying the critical debate that such provocations can deliver, and tiring of those who use it as an incessant engagement driver and sales technique.

Alongside my frustration about this enthusiasm for depth in our practice is the seeming exclusion (or perhaps deprioritisation) of client-centred work that is fundamentally safe for both practitioner and client. I have a slightly separate gripe here - whilst increasing motions for coaches to move towards a ‘brave’ (versus safe) space in order to enable this deep work seem mostly well-intentioned, for me it is somewhat wide of the mark. I don’t believe that it is the space that needs to be safe, but the people within it. Namely, the practitioner needs to be capable of safe practice to enable complex dyadic work - deep or shallow - to occur.

My second caveat comes here: I coach people about their working lives, and whilst of course the whole person and their complex inner and outer lives show up in the space, the primary focus of our work together is on increasing their enjoyment and experience of work. I am not therapeutically trained, nor do I have any desire to conflate the two disciplines in my own professional development (although I completely respect the practice of others who choose to work in this integrated way).

In my own practice, some of the hands down best coaching work I have ever experienced hasn’t required any real depth at all. Individuals who are stuck often find that having a regular, scheduled, supportive space, and saying some things out loud (and indeed hearing themselves say things out loud) can be enough. Recognition that actually, they don’t like their job, and that that’s ok, or that they are stuck roleplaying someone else’s idea of great leadership, can come quickly and without the use of tools or questioning techniques designed to rummage around in the roots and origins of our deeply held beliefs about ourselves. One client’s deepest desire was to be able to walk solo around their local supermarket, unburdened with the responsibility of childcare or a basket filled to fulfil someone else’s dietary requirements - to simply have space to be themself in a personal and professional life filled with roles in service of others.

That’s not to say that the beliefs underpinning any of the above examples don’t run deep, or that work I do doesn’t sometimes venture to such depths with my clients - as a coaching psychologist eagerly awaiting the outcome of my portfolio submission to become Chartered with the British Psychological Society, I believe I am operating at the highest standard of coaching psychology practice available for accreditation. In the course of my work I have supported clients through difficult and personal challenges, working with those who wish to explore their experience outside the boundaries of my capacity as a coach to find and utilise appropriate support, whether in place of, or in combination with, our coaching work. Additionally, working with mark-making, embodiment, and particularly music, have all surfaced things for clients that even they weren’t consciously aware were lurking - indeed our subconscious is a master of concealment as well as an expert in influencing our behaviour and choices.

Therefore I am not suggesting that deep work isn’t an important part of our practice - I do believe for some clients and contexts it is integral, essential even. Critically, I don’t believe that deep work is the gold standard we should be seeking in every interaction, as some posts and positioning would have you believe. I recognise that for some clients, working with what ‘is’ at the surface is enough in that engagement - some go on to work in therapeutic settings, or return for coaching at a future date. For many others, it is enough to work through their current block and to engage with their life feeling a little less stuck. I don’t believe that the presence or potential of more enlightenment is necessarily a good enough reason to plumb the depths, neither do I ever believe it is my right as coach to decide we will go there and to bring further insight to the surface - I position myself always as a companion on my client’s journey, never as guide.

You see, for me there is always a risk within coaching that our ego might get in the way of us working with the person in front of us as they are, seeking to push them further, to extract more information and context from them so we can achieve ‘real’ transformation in our work - we know it is possible as we have done it before (and often experienced it ourselves as a client - something which converts many of us into coaching practitioners). The feeling of someone trusting you enough to be completely vulnerable can be addictive: we hold power as coaches and supervisors that we must be so careful not to feed on in the course of our work, holding it lightly and openly and recognising where a question or ‘need’ in the room is ours and not the clients.

I look back on the times where I have navigated a client into the depths of their subconscious and I can absolutely identify the occasions where I was driving, my client a trusting and hopeful passenger rather than an informed co-pilot navigating their own route. To lead clients on their journey, or anticipate where we think their journey is going and then leap ahead to prepare the right tools for exploration, is an act of betrayal to the foundational beliefs I hold as a coach about my role, and yet I recognise in my own practice times where I have been eager to take my place one or two steps ahead of the client as both a comfort (that I know what I’m doing) and a badge of honour (that I'm right in my intuition and a highly skilled coach, thank you very much).

I hope that sharing these thoughts might allow for a nuanced and healthy professional discussion about the current messaging about our profession, specifically here in reference to 'deep work' but I'd be equally curious if this stirs something in you about adjacent issues or experiences. I am also stating my own intention to actively recognise this part of my core philosophy as a coach: that I meet the client where they are, and allow them to retain control of where we go in our work together. Leaving an engagement with untapped potential is something I can absolutely live with if it keeps the client safe and it is their choice to remain in the shallows. I believe in challenge in my work, and in sometimes gently surfacing what might be lurking in the subconscious in order to get closer to the truth of a situation - but whether we work with what’s surfaced remains firmly and entirely in the hands of the client.