I met a friend of mine this week, who shared with me that he wanted to do an MBA. I asked him why. He thought that he would be able to get leadership training from the MBA. I asked what was the purpose of the leadership training? He said that he had a staff of about 38 and wanted the skills to manage his team successfully.
I explained to him that coaching can be an option that he can explore. I further explained that coaching will teach him to focus on helping his staff to learn in ways that will keep them growing afterward.
It is based on asking rather than telling, on provoking thought rather than giving directions, and on holding a person accountable for his or her goals. The purpose is to increase effectiveness, broaden thinking, identify strengths and development needs, and achieve challenging goals.
Candice Frankovelgia (senior faculty and coaching practice leader who has been with the Center for Creative Leadership since 1996) indicated that business coaching is now fundamental to the success of any business and that organisations have come to realise that it is valuable and are now adding "the ability to coach and develop others" to the list of skills they now require in all their managers.
She indicates that research has boiled down the skills managers need to coach others into five categories:
Building the relationship
It's easier to learn from someone you trust. Coaches must effectively establish boundaries and build trust by being clear about the learning and development objectives they set, showing good judgment, being patient, and following through on any promises and agreements they make.
Providing assessment
Where are you now and where do you want to go? Helping others to gain self-awareness and insight is a key job for a coach. A coach provides timely feedback and help to clarify the behaviours that an employee would like to change. Assessment often focuses on gaps or inconsistencies, on current performance vs desired performance, words vs actions, and intention vs impact.
Challenging thinkingand assumptions
Challenging someone's thinking and assumptions is an important part of the coaching process. Coaches ask open-ended questions, push for alternative solutions to problems, and encourage reasonable risk-taking.
Supporting and encouraging
As partners in learning, coaches listen carefully, are open to the perspectives of others, and allow employees to vent emotions without judgment. They encourage employees to make progress toward their goals, and they recognise their success.
Driving results
What can you show for it? Effective coaching is about achieving goals. The coach helps the employee set meaningful ones and identify specific behaviours or steps for meeting them. The coach helps to clarify milestones or measures of success and holds the employee accountable for them.
All managers need some guidance on the hows and whys of coaching, but most organisations can't afford to train them on a large scale, so the least they can do is make an effort to create a culture of coaching. The key is to create a pool of manager-coaches who can be role models, supporters and sustainers of a coaching mindset.
When the organisation selects the right people and invest in their development and position them as coaching advocates, the seeds are planted for expanding coaching well beyond the individual manager–direct report relationship. The organisation's role models demonstrate effective coaching both formally and informally, and they help motivate others to use and improve their own coaching capabilities. Time is needed for the seeds to grow.
Even if the organisation makes learning and coaching explicit priorities, time is tight for everyone. But as the coaching processes and goals become more consistent and more highly valued, in-house coaching will take root. Managers will have a new way to develop and motivate their direct reports. Individuals and groups will strive to build new skills and achieve goals. And the business will be on track to a more efficient, comprehensive system of developing people.
?For info on how to add coaching as a skill set and be accredited, please send me an e-mail: janice@coaching4ideallife.org or Janice Learmond-Criqui, PO Box 5145, St James.