We are in April 2020, in the midst of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Social life is heavily disrupted. Businesses are as well.
We were in the middle of some coaching projects with newly promoted marketing leads and medical affairs leads. Since non-essential travel was not allowed and physical distancing was in place, we pivoted to Zoom sessions with our coachees.
It felt a bit awkward at first, and it came with some technical challenges, but quickly it became an effective method to continue the coaching interactions.
It would not have worked we think, in the absence of an existing rapport between the coach and coachee created in real live thanks to some earlier face-to-face meetings.
So, the future of coaching is definitely not 100% online. But it could play an important role to gain some efficiency halfway the coaching session (less travel, no office rental). Start and end, in our opinion, will require physical presence in the same room in order to be really effective.