Valuable selves: Potentiality and temporality in work-related coaching

This article contributes to the discussions concerning immaterial labour and temporality in post-Fordism by examining how accounts of individuality intertwine with accounts of potential in the newly emerged field of work-related coaching. In producing potential individuals, coaching responds to the needs of the anticipatory economy that produces value in terms of future expectations and potentialities. In this sense, coaching is an example of immaterial production that merges subjectivity and individuality with economic value production and transforms subjects into a flexible workforce. However, examining the temporalities inherent in the production of potential in coaching also shows that orientation towards the future is not the only aspect of temporality in this kind of production. It is thus suggested that taking into account the time spent in coaching means that contrary to what is often claimed, questions concerning the measuring of time are not irrelevant to immaterial labour.