Leaders’ Log

Organisational Development and Building a Coaching Culture

I recommend Building the case for coaching in the workplace, from the podcast series Brain-Based Coaching and Leadership by Results Coaching Systems. It provides details and case studies on the productivity and organisational development benefits of building a coaching culture in the organisation and training internal coaches in addition to external coaching for the top executives.

Leave a comment on how a coaching culture is being built in your organisation.

Posted by Cameron Price on Sunday 29 June 2008 | Coaching, Organisational Development, Productivity | No comments
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Coach and be Coached

It is important as a leader not only to be a coach for those in your team, but to seek out those competent to coach you in your role. The coaching relationship is about facilitating change, not simply the transfer of information; so whether you are playing the role of the coach or coachee, it is important to be clear about what you want or need to change.

Coaching is about enhancing performance. When you are coaching members of your team, rather than simply teaching them what you think they need to know, use questions to facilititate their own learning and deeper understanding of the focus of that session. Facts and techniques alone do not improve performance unless there is personal meaning attributed to them by the coachee. Only when information and activity is linked to what is important to the coachee will knowledge be applied and skills used.

The three basic questions that underpin the coaching process are:

What do I want to do with my life?
What is stopping me from doing it?
What am I going to do about it? (Ref 1)

While these are simple questions, it can take a great deal of introspection for the answers to become clear. It can be useful to have a person who understands this process to ask the questions that draw out those answers unique to each individual.

Coaching uses strategies and techniques to:

Clarify what you want from life
Set yourself effective goals
Monitor your progress on your journey of change
Stay focused and challenged
Stick to your commitments
Continually reassess and re-examine your ideas, plans and strategies
Identify your life values (Ref 1)

In the 1960s the business world started to apply some of the practices of sports coaching to improve the performance of employees. Since then the discipline of coaching has evolved and incorporated elements of psychology, psychotherapy, counselling, training, mentoring and consulting. There are a number of different types of coaching, including life coaching, business coaching and executive coaching.

Coaching can help people with issues such as:

Work / life balance
Dealing with conflict
Increasing productivity
Effective leadership
Working as part of a team
Communication skills
Relationships
Parenting skills (Ref 1)

Can you imagine a sportsperson achieving much if they didn’t have a coach? They require someone to steer them towards being the best they can be. If a student doing athletics was one of the best in their school, would it make sense for them to say that they are good enough and don’t need a coach anymore? What if they were the best in their State and wanted to win the Nationals; or the best in their country and wanted to win the Olympics? While it is obvious that beginners can benefit from having a coach, the higher the level of performance, even greater is the need to have the close support of a competent coach. This goes equally for the first year graduate and corporate high-achievers.

The theme to coach and be coached will be a frequent refrain in the Leaders’ Log, as it is both one of the central responsibilities of the leader and required for that leader to take themselves to higher levels of performance in their role.

References

Anthony Grant and Jane Green. 2001. It’s your life. What you going to do with it? Coach yourself; make real change in your life. Pearson Education Limited. London.

Posted by Cameron Price on Wednesday 11 June 2008 | Coaching, Leadership | No comments
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