On Monday afternoon, a small, hooked audience of professional coaches, executives and Penn students listened to coaching professional Mike van Oudtshoorn's take on coaching at the Sheraton University City Hotel.
Van Oudtshoorn is a professor at the international I-Coach Academy.
Comparing the coaching practices of the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa, Van Oudtshoorn spoke about what coaching entails.
He extended the definition of coach beyond the sports realm, defining it as "a helpful relationship between a client who has managerial authority ... and a consultant who uses a wide variety of behavioral techniques."
Expounding upon the importance of a coach, he spoke about three relay runners who were too competitive to wait for the preceding athlete to hand them the torch, running away before the torchbearer could reach them.
Van Oudtshoorn believes a coach can knock off the square edges in his team and build it into a fighting unit.
The latter part of his talk dealt with the professional institutions that offer courses in coaching. A significant number of U.K. universities offer courses in coaching, but there are few institutions in the United States that offer such programs.
"The United States is hopelessly behind in its master and doctoral [coaching] programs," he said.
Van Oudtshoorn said that the lack of universally accredited coaches is a real problem.
"One university's accreditation is another university's anathema," he said.
This part of his talk did not go well with the audience. As Peter Hamilton, a 2004 graduate of the University's Center for Organizational Dynamics, put it, "This description is going to scare a lot of people away."
Donna Lumbo, a first-year graduate student in the Center for Organizational Dynamics, was more enthusiastic.
"I really liked the talk. I think it will be very useful when I plan my further studies," she said.
One audience member asked van Oudtshoorn about his opinion regarding the viability of a Penn coaching program being offered by the Center for Organizational Dynamics.
Van Oudtshoorn said that "Penn, being an Ivy League school, will have a tough time justifying this course. ... Hopefully, however, they will be able to develop a challenging program."
