Collaboration for Survival and Success: Organizational Coaching Strategies to Meet Unique Opportunities and Challenges
W Bergquist International Journal of Coaching in Organizations 2006
Organizational boundaries as we knew them in the 20th Century are becoming sources of “troubling ambiguity.”1 Boundaries that once steadfastly defined economies, societies, industries, companies, and employees are being redrawn, reconceived and redesigned. Boundaries were once drawn by others; now we speak about boundaries as arbitrary “social constructions” that can be reconstructed once we know what we want to achieve. This blurring of boundaries parlays with another trend in recent organizational life: the gradual erosion of hierarchies. While the basic pyramid of power--albeit in a flatter, more fluid form--is unlikely to erode, leaders are creating new structures that are more collaborative, more egalitarian, and more flexible in nature—and organizations coaches can help them understand this new perspective and create these new structures. The author identifies ways in which coaches might assist in these collaborative ventures and relates these modes of coaching to the case study (Pelchat) and case study commentary (Taylor) just presented in this issue of IJCO.