Building A Coaching Culture

Dear all,

Welcome to the 2nd edition of the “Life Amplifier” newsletter which features stimulating and engaging topics around leadership, coaching, business, and life. Please chime in, comment, raise questions, and let’s altogether enjoy thought-provoking discussions.

In this edition, I’d love to exchange with you on coaching and how to establish a systematic coaching approach and culture at work. It’ll be great to hear your respective insights and experiences.

By the way, please don’t miss my "present" for you at the end of today’s newsletter. Hope you’ll like and enjoy it!

So, what is “Coaching”?

We all have our own definition of coaching. Depending on our experience, 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 business coaches do). For example, when I asked on LinkedIN the other day, if there is a difference between coaching and mentoring that’s what respondents answered:

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). My definition is that "Coaching is 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."

What do you think about these definitions of coaching and how do they relate to your own experience?

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.

Research shows that coaching at work has great potential to enhance performance, productivity, and well-being of both individuals and organizations. Especially well-structured and implemented internal workplace coaching programs are 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 in-house 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 change or improve. The effectiveness of such a 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.

Building A Coaching Culture

As I explain more in my latest book “Building A Coaching Culture ”, there are seven success factors which need to be fulfilled to successfully create an in-house coaching model in the workplace and to eventually establish an all-encompassing coaching culture: (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 an essential 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.

A Gift For You - A FREE Copy Of My Latest Book

As many of you might know, I love to share and make my knowledge accessible to everyone. Additionally, I’d like to express my gratitude to you for having joined our “Life Amplifier” community and being part of our amazing group of people who want to make a difference by amplifying learning, leading, and coaching. For a better and more fulfilled life.

As a special thanks, and in the spirit of giving back, you’ll be able to get my latest book “Building A Coaching Culture ” for free as an ebook on Amazon from Monday December 13 until end of day Tuesday December 14 (based on Pacific Standard Time). Once you’ll have read the book, I'd be very grateful if you could publish a short review on Amazon, etc. Please feel free to share this unique offer and the Life Amplify newsletter also with your colleagues and friends if you think they might benefit from them. The book is available on all Amazon Marketplaces (on Wednesday the price will go back to $9.95 for the ebook).

Wishing you a wonderful week and looking very much forward to your comments,

Andreas

https://andreasvonderheydt.com

My new Twitter account: @avonderheydt