Blended recovery and burnout coaching for small-business copreneurs.

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present and evaluate a blended couple coaching for smallbusiness owners and their spouses (copreneurs) to help them psychologically detach from work, which is a particularly powerful recovery experience, and ameliorate emotional exhaustion, which is the core dimension of burnout. Blended couple coaching was chosen because of the high workload of small-business owners, the frequent involvement of their spouses in their entrepreneurial venture, and the influence of spouses on behavior change, recovery, and wellbeing. The coaching was based on the neuroscientific Zurich Resource Model (ZRM). We combined realist evaluation with a quasi-experimental design and process evaluation using mixed methods. Copreneurs of small craft businesses (N = 32) were approached through trade guilds in their regional networks. Compared to the control group and after controlling for pretest scores, ANCOVAs showed an effect on detachment of h 2 = .28 (p = .004) 3 weeks after the final coaching session, and effects of h 2 = .13 on detachment (p = .061) and h 2 = .12 on exhaustion (p = .072) 4 months later among the intervention participants. Spousal social support during coaching was the mechanism of change that predicted both coaching satisfaction 3 weeks after the final coaching session (p = .004) and goal attainment 4 months later (p = .007). Somatic markers also predicted goal attainment (p = .004). Working alliance between the coach and client did not play the expected role in this coaching format. What's It Mean? Implications for Consulting PsychologyGiven the growing attention to entrepreneurs' well-being in both research and practice, this paper presents an innovative coaching intervention to foster recovery and ameliorate burnout, and it identifies some elements likely to contribute

Blended Health Coaching for Work-linked Couples: Coaches’ Intervention Fidelity and Empathy Matter!

“…When researching interventions, scholars ideally investigate context, mechanisms, outcomes, as it is outlined in the realist evaluation approach (Pawson and Tilley 1997), and implementation processes (Busch et al 2021;Nielsen and Randall 2013). The implementation process model for organizational health interventions by Nielsen and Randall (2013) distinguishes between design and implementation, e.g., coaches' intervention fidelity (Murphy and Gutman 2012) and coaches' empathy (Will et al 2016), and participants' mental models, e.g., clients' affinity for technology interaction in the implementation of a digital intervention (Schueller et al 2017).…”

“…Empathy in coaching is focused on the cognitive aspect of understanding the client's perspective and the behavioral ability to communicate this understanding to the client (Nicolai et al 2007;Will and Kauffeld 2018;Will et al 2016). Initial findings from a recent study evaluating the couple coaching stressed that the working alliance between coach and clients is not success-predictive (Busch et al 2021). Thus, we did not have a hypothesis about coaches' empathy in this couple coaching intervention but wanted to investigate its role as a coaching success factor:…”

“…Our blended coaching mixes face-to-face elements with digital offers, such as tele-coaching and online courses. Therefore, we see clients' affinity for technology interaction (ATI) as the crucial clients' mental model (Busch et al 2021). It is a person's propensity to naturally interact with technical systems (Franke et al 2019).…”

“…In a recent evaluation study of this coaching format, SBOs and coaches reported in interviews that when the SBOs experienced increasing workload, the online courses were the first part of the coaching that they skipped or postponed. Furthermore, some of the participants had problems connecting to the internet or problems with the interface (Busch et al 2021). However, participants with a higher ATI or a generally more positive attitude toward technology, are more likely to succeed in online intervention formats and to be able to solve possible technical problems (e.g., Backhaus et al 2019).…”

“…Spousal support during coaching was the main mechanism of change. Beyond that, the working alliance between coach and client did not play a success-predictive role (Busch et al 2021).…”