Making the coaching culture process work
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"WE CAN try putting some of us on an academic coaching programme too, so that we have even more clout," says the sales director.
“Let them dirty their hands on coaching first before we ‘repair’ them according to the coaching standards required,” says the financial director.
The discussion among members of the Coaching Culture Executive Committee with the external coach is getting very interesting, as more and more ideas are being explored to find the most appropriate one for their organisation.
In Part 5, we shall delve into the details of the implementation plan to ensure that the coaching culture is successfully rooted in the organisation for continuous long-term gains. Here, we look at some of the systems and processes to drive the coaching culture exercise in the organisation.
Here are some tips that may be useful.
Firstly, establishing a definitive set of leadership competencies that embodies the business philosophy and needs of the organisation is the starting point for the coaching culture to grow.
There are so many of these leadership competencies. One that I find very powerful in an organisation I work with has the four leadership pillars of Think Entrepreneur, Execute Outcome, Role Model and People Leader, that they want every leader to acquire.
Another organisation that I work with has this one: Leadership Mindset, Leadership Outcome, People Leader, Self-Leader.
The next tip is to get the top leaders to be the first group of incumbents into this process of transformation before others. This will not only get them to have the coaching mindset and skills first, but also make them ‘coach champions’ of the coaching culture.
To ensure that learning really takes place, it is a worthwhile investment to put them on a 360-degree leadership survey first, based on the organisation’s leadership competency profile, to establish where they are before the coaching of them begins.
This will not only create the awareness as to where they are now, but make them positively receptive to the change they have to make in transiting from the traditional leadership to the new-age leadership ways of leading and managing people.
Not stopping there, this 360-degree leadership survey is carried out at the end of the coaching period, which should not be shorter than six months. This will measure both the return on investment as well as whether sufficient changes have taken place.
One other ingredient for success is the selection of an accountability team of eight to 10 members to support each of the incumbents. Usually they are made up of these members: the superior, the peers and subordinates.
They are the ‘checkpoints’ or the eyes and ears for the incumbent, giving feedback to them on how they are performing on a real-time basis.
These members will also provide the executive coach, who is working with them, with regular feedback on the incumbent’s coaching behaviour (perhaps every month), such as whether they are listening enough, giving room for others to speak, asking questions to stretch their people, making people feel comfortable when with them, and so forth.
The point here is that when there is a rich feedback environment, people tend to improve far better than when there is none.
Finally, put in an action learning project for the incumbent to work on – one where they can apply the coaching behaviours. This can be a succession planning, a talent development, workplace climate improvement, for example.
It will be most ideal if these accountability team members enlisted are also members of the project. This will be the best coach-learning alignment that can further improve the chances of success.
In Part 6, we shall go deeper into what actually happens inside the coaching room, hearing a dialogue between the executive coach and the incumbent.
