In today’s blog article I’d love to talk about coaching and how to establish a systematic coaching approach and culture at work. It’ll be great to hear about your experiences with coaching.
So, what is “Coaching”?
We all have our own definition of coaching. Depending on our background, experiences, education, trainings, exposure, etc. The challenge with the name “coaching” is that there is no universal definition. People often confuse it with mentoring, consulting, counseling, or perceive it more like sports coaching (even some coaches do).
The International Coaching Federation, the world’s largest organization of professionally trained coaches, defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential” (“ICF Definition of Coaching,” 2020).
I consider “coaching as both a personal development & leadership approach and technique to assist coachees in finding their own solutions; mainly by asking them thought-provoking questions and by following a well-structured and goal-oriented process facilitated by the coach.” As such, coaching is not mentoring, advising, consulting, or telling the coachee what to do. Rather the coachee is guided with the help of a clear framework and sophisticated techniques to find their own solutions and to take over accountability for them.
What do you think about these definitions of coaching and how do they relate to your own understanding of and experiences with it?
Coaching at Work
Although in the past coaching has been predominantly viewed as a means of facilitating individual change, particularly at the leadership or high potential employee level, attention is now turning to how coaching can have an impact in organizational dimensions. The idea behind such initiatives is that developing individual managers’ coaching skills can help foster and support organizational change. Workplace coaching can occur internally; with managers and leaders engaging employees in either formal coaching sessions (e.g. via properly scheduled meeting) or informal coaching sessions (over lunch, etc.). It can also occur externally when an outside coach is brought in to work with leaders or teams.
Research shows that coaching has great potential to enhance performance, productivity, and well-being of both individuals and organizations. Especially well-structured and implemented internal workplace coaching is able to deliver a wide range of positive outcomes including increased workplace engagement, decreased stress/depression/anxiety, increased resilience, a higher level of well-being, better goal attainment, and a more positive learning behavior of both employees and inhouse coaches.
One very effective approach of in-house coaching is the “manager as coach (MAC) role” which is an organizational development strategy that aims at altering the relationship between manager and employee. This is distinct from using one’s status as a manager and instructing or telling team members what they must do to improve. The effectiveness of the new process relies on the MAC to assist with, and not dictate, employee development. The purpose of working with staff in the MAC role is to help employees consider and discover how they might work and behave differently with more effective behaviors that produce better outcomes.
As I explain more about in my latest book “Building A Coaching Culture”, there are seven success factors which would need to be fulfilled to successfully create and transfer an in-house coaching model into the workplace: (i) Joint agreement on what coaching means for the respective organization and when it should be applied (definition of use and non-use cases), (ii) Clarification of expectations and objectives, (iii) Project ownership: Obtaining senior project sponsorship and nominating a project manager (coaching and change management expert), (iv) Creation of processes and operational parameters (duration, activities, standards of coaching engagements), (v) Continuous quality management: Success measurement, internal communication, alignment with other training & development initiatives, (vi) Comprehensive and pragmatic coaching training program, (vii) Learning transfer.
What are your thoughts on these success factors?
Summary
Coaching, which is different from mentoring or consulting, should become part of an organization’s overall learning strategy to cope with major internal and external shifts and challenges. Especially when delivered by qualified and properly trained in-house managers, coaching will result in higher job satisfaction (for both coach and coachee), better work and business results, and superior retention levels; a long-term win for both the organization and its employees. Additionally, establishing a coaching culture will assist in enlarging the focus of how individuals learn and grow in organizations to how organizations learn and evolve as social systems.
Keep rockin’ and enjoy!
Andreas
https://andreasvonderheydt.com
Twitter: @avonderheydt