Ralph Coverdale (1918–1975) was a British soldier,

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

and

business consultant A business consultant (from Latin ''consultare'', "to discuss") is a professional who provides professional or expert advice or service in a particular area such as security ( electronic or physical), management, accountancy, law, human resource ...

. He established The Coverdale Organization and the Coverdale Training method. He has been credited as a founder of

coaching Coaching is a form of development in which an experienced person, called a ''coach'', supports a learner or client in achieving a specific personal or professional goal by providing training and guidance. The learner is sometimes called a ''coa ...

as a

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for ...

practice in

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

industry. Coverdale worked for years with

experimental psychologist Experimental psychology is the work done by those who apply Experiment, experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ Research participant, human participants and Animal testing, anim ...

Bernard Babington Smith Bernard Babington Smith, OBE (26 October 1905 – 23 September 1993) was a British academic, wartime intelligence officer and amateur athlete. Early life and education He was born on 26 October 1905 at 29 Hyde Park Gate, London, the son of S ...

to develop the Coverdale Training method, a method of learning through action—later termed 'action learning' or ' inductive learning'. Ralph Coverdale died in 1975 at 56 after being diagnosed with

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma, is a malignant tumor that begins in the lung. Lung cancer is caused by genetic damage to the DNA of cells in the airways, often caused by cigarette smoking or inhaling damaging chemicals. Damaged ...

Early life

Ralph Coverdale's remote

ancestor An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder, or a forebear, is a parent or ( recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from ...

Miles Coverdale Myles Coverdale, first name also spelt Miles ( – 20 January 1569), was an English ecclesiastical reformer chiefly known as a Bible translator, preacher, hymnist and, briefly, Bishop of Exeter (1551–1553). In 1535, Coverdale produced the fi ...

, was one of the first

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

translators Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

of the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

. Later on the family converted to

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, with family members joining various religious communities as

priests A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, ...

and

nuns A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service and contemplation, typically living under vows of Evangelical counsels, poverty, chastity, and obedience in the Enclosed religious orders, enclosure of a monastery or convent.' ...

. He was educated at Beaumont Jesuit College in

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. At age 18 he attended

Heythrop College Heythrop College, University of London, was a constituent college of the University of London between 1971 and 2018, last located in Kensington Square, London. It comprised the university's specialist faculties of philosophy and theology with soc ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

in order to become a

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

novice. In 1942, however, he decided to leave college and enlist in the army, serving until 1947. Coverdale then went to St Catherine's College,

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

where he read

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

under Bernard Babington Smith, who specialized in the nature of

human perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...

. Smith would later become his advisor and business colleague.

Career

Beginning in 1950, Coverdale spent the following five years working for various

organizations An organization or organisation ( Commonwealth English; see spelling differences) is an entity—such as a company, or corporation or an institution (formal organization), or an association—comprising one or more people and having a par ...

in the field of

opinion polling An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of que ...

and

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

research. In 1955 he joined the

Steel Company of Wales The Steel Company of Wales Ltd was a Welsh steel and tinplate producer. It was formed in 1947 and absorbed into British Steel Corporation in 1967, British Steel then merged with Hoogovens and became Corus UK Limited. The business now forms par ...

as an Executive Development Officer and started his work on what would later become the Coverdale Training method. In 1960 he moved to

Esso Esso () is a trading name for ExxonMobil. Originally, the name was primarily used by its predecessor Standard Oil of New Jersey after the breakup of the original Standard Oil company in 1911. The company adopted the name "Esso" (from the phon ...

as Head of Management Studies, a position he would hold for more than four years, before setting up his own company, The Coverdale Organisation, in 1965. Coverdale's

training Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, productivity and performance. I ...

went beyond the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. His final series of courses were held in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

After his return, he suffered from severe

headaches A headache, also known as cephalalgia, is the symptom of pain in the face, head, or neck. It can occur as a migraine, tension-type headache, or cluster headache. There is an increased risk of depression in those with severe headaches. Head ...

that was eventually diagnosed as being caused by lung cancer. He died in February 1975 at the age of 56.

John Harvey-Jones Sir John Harvey-Jones MBE (16 April 1924 – 9 January 2008) was an English businessman. He was the chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries from 1982 to 1987. He was best known by the public for his BBC television show, '' Troubleshooter' ...

, who took Coverdale Training method at the ICI, would later describe Coverdale as a "management

genius Genius is a characteristic of original and exceptional insight in the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations, sets new standards for the future, establishes better methods of operation, or remains outside the capabiliti ...

Views

Coverdale and Smith believed that business-minded

thinking In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, and delibe ...

and

management Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a Government agency, government bodies through business administration, Nonprofit studies, nonprofit management, or the political s ...

were skills that could be developed. This challenged the

orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pag ...

view at the time that believed that people had fixed

skill A skill is the learned or innate ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. Some examples of gen ...

sets and an unchangeable IQ. Coverdale also viewed that

cooperation Cooperation (written as co-operation in British English and, with a varied usage along time, coöperation) takes place when a group of organisms works or acts together for a collective benefit to the group as opposed to working in competition ...

and mutual benefit was more productive than conflict and

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indi ...

. He had a mistrust of prolonged

analysis Analysis (: analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (38 ...

, instead seeing it as a

tool A tool is an Physical object, object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many Tool use by animals, animals use simple tools, only human bei ...

to encourage

synthesis Synthesis or synthesize may refer to: Science Chemistry and biochemistry *Chemical synthesis, the execution of chemical reactions to form a more complex molecule from chemical precursors **Organic synthesis, the chemical synthesis of organi ...

and

action Action may refer to: * Action (philosophy), something which is done by a person * Action principles the heart of fundamental physics * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video gam ...

.Coverdale, Ralph. ''Risk Thinking''. TCO, 1977. His training approach reflected this, asserting that skills were not taught like

knowledge Knowledge is an Declarative knowledge, awareness of facts, a Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with individuals and situations, or a Procedural knowledge, practical skill. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is oft ...

but instead learned from

experience Experience refers to Consciousness, conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience i ...

Bibliography

*Risk Thinking – (

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

), The Coverdale Organization (Posthumously) ()

Early life

Career

Views

Bibliography

References

Further reading