Executive Coaching and Competitive Advantage
Organisations typically will engage coaching to impact their competitive advantage.
For example, I once coached a senior executive who told me they had no competition in their market space. This belief not only formed the organisations underlying competitive advantage by evangelising its employees with a strong belief system. It also formed an organisational gestalt that while advantageous overall had negative outcomes in the coachee. These outputs displayed as a reduction in the coachees innovation and an increasing inertia to change.
The fundamental positive proposition of the brands belief system was;
We will always be the leader.
We will be first with innovation.
We will work tirelessly to be a brand without peer.
I revisited these in their positive form within the sessions between the coachee and I. And over the sessions the coachees behaviour moved to fulfil the 3 tenements positively and shifted actions around them that had perhaps fallen into sub-conscious stupor back into conscious mastery.
Through my coaching I was able to catalyse a change in the executive much like hitting a reset between macro purpose and individual utility. This subsequently brought a growth mindset back to the executive who moved from negative manifestations of the corporate belief system to positive manifestations of the belief system. Through detailed goal setting and revisiting skills, outcomes were greatly improved that aligned to the positive aspects of the brands belief system.
This example of the strategic implementation of coaching shows how coaching can have a direct impact to the organisations competitive advantage.
In ‘The Theory of Business by Peter Drucker (1994)’ he describes how what a business believes about itself may impact its performance relevant to the market place they operate within. The environmental factors of the changed market described by Drucker may drive an organisation to enlist coaching to adapt to the new market conditions.
For example, Drucker writes; ‘Every big, successful company throughout history, when confronted with such a surprise, has refused to accept it.
“It’s a stupid fad and will be gone in three years,” said the CEO of Zeiss upon seeing the new Kodak brownie in 1888, when the German company was as dominant in the photographic market as IBM would be in the computer market a century later’.
Many modern organisations have learned from the mistakes of Zeiss. However, the same willingness to cling to beliefs that are no longer supportive of success can be seen in the modern era. Perhaps a more modern take on Drucker would be the tale of the introduction of iPhone v Nokia, where Nokia who were the dominant force in mobile phone innovation lost vast market share to Apples iPhone due in part to Nokia's inability to close the gap between their products consumer desirability and Apples.
Executive Coaching and coaching generally when conducted by a qualified professional coach can help groups reinvent their set beliefs and theories. Coaching cultures are often implemented to allow increased innovation and general nimbleness in individuals which has a group effect of assisting the organisation to remain competitive in the markets the organisation operate within. This is direct beneficial impact to bottom line performance over time with longevity.
Executive Coaching then is enlisted to be a catalyst for change, often by companies experiencing at least one element of a VUCA environment.
A qualified professional coach can also assist the organisation and the individuals in it to assess, innovate and act toward moving from a VUCA state to a more settled state of performance and form competitive advantage from the chaos.
Within the sphere of strategy, it is wise to review how organisations should arrange themselves to facilitate an environment where coaching can function and flourish.
Mark Casey, Executive Director
[email protected] - www.thewaytosuccess.co.uk