Does Coaching Help Organizations Learn & Grow?

How do organisations grow? By learning. How do they learn? By growing. This cyclical interdependent process is as basic as the chicken and the egg riddle.?

One way to understand this riddle is through Peter Senge’s seminal work on learning organisations, which aligns with organisation development principles. Organisations employing coaching as a learning and development tool inculcate growth and high performance as natural consequences. From a coaching perspective the Learning Organisation aligns with coaching competencies.?

With a coaching mindset and approach, an individual or team contract to a?Shared Vision?that aligns with organisational or system requirements.??This vision has a purposeful and defined measurable outcomes as well as identified challenges with a commitment to ownership. As Google’s Project Aristotle study findings show the more structured, meaningful and impactful the outcomes are, the greater the probability of successful performance.?

Personal Mastery?and?Team Learning?are part of this commitment to the process of exploration of existing beliefs and aspirational values by applying?Mental Models?to reframe and align beliefs and values, in terms of desired needs. Personal Mastery is more than individual skills. It’s also about how collaborative and supportive we are to others, so that they learn and grow with us through Team learning. Emotional bonding in a partnered way in trust and safety and communication through holistic listening are essential skills in powerful learning.?

Systems Thinking?aligns individual aspirations with those of the team and the larger organisational system. It anchors collaboration, and helps an empowered team in a psychologically safe space moving in interdependence towards actioning the?Shared Vision.?

The Learning process, within each member and the team, creates awareness of the Self, the Situation and the pathway to the desired Solution. The 5A framework defines the journey of moving from Awareness to Anchored Shared Vision outcomes.?

Awareness: The learning process with a systemic coaching mindset creates insights through dialogue and reflection that lead to the Shared Vision?

Action: From Awareness the individuals and team move to designing actions, with specific timelines and measurable action outcomes?

Accountability: Individuals and team take ownership for the outcomes, evaluating possible barriers and needed supports, with an action plan that’s reviewed with the coach regularly for feedback and improvement action.

Appreciation: The entire process is done in appreciation, trust and safety ensuring team empowerment.

Anchoring: The process with the review, feedback and continuous improvement helps anchor new mindsets, skills, and behaviours to sustain learning, action and growth.?

A coaching mindset of moving towards a defined meaningful outcome through a partnered process of open, authentic and generative communication is essential for an organisation to learn and grow. This mindset is of greater significance now, with both social and technological changes rapidly limiting our capability to manage our environment. Our individual and collective ability to learn and grow is essential to lead change.??

Reflection

·??????Is your company a learning organisation??

·??????What may it need to become one??

·??????Or else, what?

Please share with your network. Please write in, resonant or dissonant. Let’s have a conversation.?Please share with others who may benefit.?

Ram is a co-founder and mentor at Coacharya?https://coacharya.com . Ram's focus is the integration of Eastern wisdom with modern science, spiritually, systemically and sustainably. Visit Coacharya.