Most Coaches tend to trot out the well-worn phrases about the terms of confidentiality without much thought, particularly if we have said them many times to a variety of clients. These are usually tied to the ethical guidelines espoused by the professional coaching body. The standard exemptions on confidentiality are often around harm to self and others, terrorism, treason, or money laundering – very big issues!
How many of us consider what we would do if one of these scary creatures crossed our path?
Here is my real-life experience of a potential money laundering issue, where my ethical bell started to sound alarmingly. The fact that this occurred when I had already been coaching twenty years perhaps tells us that developing ethical sensitivity is a lifelong journey.
How it began.
My coachee worked for a global company and was senior manager with huge potential. He had approached me initially after being recommended that coaching would take him to the next stage of his career. We had an initial chemistry session on the phone and arranged to meet for session 1.
I informed him of my fee, and he gained agreement from his line manager (LM).
At the end of session 1, his LM and the HR Manager arrived for what I expected to be a 3-way contracting meeting to ascertain the organisational objectives for the coaching work. I didn’t expect the HR Manager, Hazel, (not her real name) to be there, but was happy to hear from all parties about what they were looking for. I had some concern that they could only spare 20 minutes for something so important and noted that as something that maybe significant for later (my warning bell was already ringing gently but not in the way I was expecting!)
Me and my coachee had a second session a couple of weeks later to pull together what we had gleaned from the four-way conversation as well as his own goals.
I wrote to his line manager with an update and sent the contract for the advance payment of monies for the LM to sign.
By this time the LM went off sick but was working from home and there was a delay as he delegated the payment of the invoice to Hazel. She phoned me to ask if I took credit cards as that was how they wanted to pay for all seven sessions in advance. I was surprised by this as no one had ever asked this before, although she said many of their smaller suppliers did. I said no, so she suggested using Pay Pal. I investigated this, and it appeared I could use their “request payment facility” although Pay Pal would charge me for this service. There was an exchange of emails trying to work this out with her saying she could provide petty cash for the amount it would cost me. By now I was finding this very messy and odd for such a big company. However, I put the payment through and waited. There was a delay and when I chased Hazel, she said she couldn’t pay me yet as she was up to the limit of her credit card and would have to wait until she had paid that. When the payment came through, I could see that it was her own name and address on the transaction sheet. My alarm bell was ringing very loudly!
Why on earth were a multibillion-dollar company doing this?
The Scary Bit
My instinct was that this was probably illegal. I felt a deep unease in the pit of my stomach which signalled to me that I needed to tread slowly and carefully.
Was this such a small amount for them that they were avoiding some sort of tax? (I am not VAT registered so that played into my thoughts). I also considered whether anyone knew Hazel was doing it this way. Why was a HR Manager being involved like this, and was it significant that the LM was away? My coachee knew nothing of this.
As it was a financial predicament, I decided to ring my accountant. I was still doubting my own intuition on this and was fully expecting him to disabuse me of my suspicions. He did not.
I was even more stunned when he asked me to write it all down in a statement and save my email trail with Hazel and send to the money laundering officer at my accountants.
I was advised not to tell the company and that the matter now rested with them, and I had discharged any liability from my perspective of being complicit in something potentially fraudulent.
There was a swirl of emotion for me and myriad questions:
- How do I go into the company next time knowing that how I have been paid for the contract may be illegal?
- What perspective does that give me systemically on what it is like to work there?
- How do I sit alongside my coachee with this knowledge?
- Who am I now in service to and what if more coaching is required later? (What will happen with payments then?)
- Do I really want to work with them if this is normal business for them?
- How do I manage myself in another 3-4 sessions with my coachee, knowing what I know?
- What happens at the end when we all meet again for a four-way session that includes Hazel?
I needed to take these emotions to supervision as they would be live and large in the coaching room and act as huge interference for being my best coach self.
Before the session I prepared by looking at Turner and Passmore’s APPEAR model of ethical decision making, plus Carroll & Gilbert’s 5 Stages of Ethical Maturity.
I remembered how pleased I was to become the coach in this prestigious organisation and how easily, within our work, we can be swayed into saying yes to contracts because of ego as well as the high pay. I remembered with shame that I had originally not felt the company was a good value fit for me at the time but had sensed possibilities with my coachee who I wanted to help. This stage 1 was crucial learning about my own values and hooks and being alert to the pressures and stresses of work that might make me more vulnerable to unethical behaviour.
Using the APPEAR model helped me process, the type of organisational culture whereby this might be normal but did not fit my own moral framework. Previous dilemmas taken to supervision had honed my practise already.
Looking at stage 3, I considered how I would feel if my actions were widely known either in the coaching community or in general life. I also reflected on how this would feel if a coach brought this to supervision and had made a similar decision. Carroll & Gilbert say, “Would you blush with shame or beam with pride?” …………. it felt like neither of these two extremes at the time, but I was pleased I had erred on the safe side rather than take a greater risk for a few thousand pounds.
Considering previous ethical dilemmas, I had discussed with my supervisor I was confident that my ethical judgment was quite sound because of the feedback I had received from him in the past about the way I handled other dilemmas. He supported me in this one.
What happened Next?
Money Laundering issues are uniquely different than other dilemmas in that once official authorities have been alerted, the coach receives no feedback about whether their suspicions were justified.
This has impacted my meta learning from the episode because if I could have discovered it was purely innocent, then I could have explored what engaged my ethical bell from a different perspective and examined that in more detail against previous experiences and my value set. I still did this in supervision, but it was much harder not knowing.
The only other outcome was that I continued to work with the coachee until the end of the contract.
On the last session, Hazel came to collect me from Reception, and this is when I realised there were two Hazel’s involved! This Hazel was the line manager’s general assistant and had been the one liaising with me over payments, and not the HR manager as I thought.
This created another emotional “sideswipe” as I considered whether it was more acceptable for a general assistant to be given responsibility for small supplier payments via credit card. Did this feel different than imagining it was the HR Manager?
I was embarrassed and confused about what assumptions I had made and how that had led to my actions. My assumptions may have been a hindrance to making good ethical decisions. However, there was some relief that the four-way review meeting would be with Hazel the HR Manager and not Hazel the General assistant, who I may have inadvertently painted as a suspect character!
The four-way session and closure of the work has still not been completed due to the Pandemic and a lack of contact with the sponsor or the coachee. It’s not clear whether this will ever take place.
The final stage of ethical peace is living with a decision I made at the time and living with that ambiguity and lack of closure. My own supervision helped me to reflect on this further and that in the end it did not affect the quality of my individual work with the coachee. The model asks, “Can you accept the limitations involved in not having all the facts and live with hindsight?” I think I can and would probably do the same thing again if I had any doubts.
Developing ethical maturity and sensitivity is not easy and sometimes these dilemmas are not always obvious at face value. Most coaches believe they would know one if they saw one, but would you? Supervision is the number one place for some fine tuning of the ethical radar.
Contact Julia to discuss how regular supervision can keep both coach and clients safe.