HOW TO BUILD A COACHING CULTURE IN YOUR ORGANIZATION?

By Qaiser Abbas - International Award-Winning Leadership Coach - Originator of DARE Coaching Model

?To me, coaching is not just a technique or a framework that you use once in a while in a one-on-one conversation with someone who works below you. Coaching, to me is a way of life, and coaching is something to live and breathe every moment of your interaction with other human beings.?

There was a time when coaching was aimed at derailing behaviours only, and it was used to correct people and performance. Today coaching is widely used in organizations to develop high potential employees, build future leaders, build their strengths, and maximize their ability to have meaningful conversations with employees, peers and even superiors.?

How would you know whether your organization has a coaching culture or not?

?Based on my decade long journey of studying organizations with powerful coaching cultures, I have identified three significant signs:

1. ?Your organization considers coaching as a serious leadership development tool.?
2. Coaching tools and frameworks are democratized in a way that everyone in the organization utilizes coaching techniques in their day-to-day interactions.?
3. Leaders prefer to embrace the coaching style of leadership as their preferred way of leading.?

?You cannot build a coaching culture by hiring an external coach to run a coaching assignment with one or two of your executives. A coaching culture is created when an organization crosses the boundaries of formal coaching and instils informal coaching as part of daily interactions.?

In our work with over 50 organizations worldwide, we have noticed that the organizations that build a coaching culture instil both the mindset and the skillset to embrace coaching. In such an organization, people fearlessly engage in conversations with others. These conversations are based on candidness and respect. Reporting relationships don’t obstacle these conversations. The focus is on improving the working relationship both individually and collectively.?

?Organizations that embed coaching in their culture make a conscious effort to produce Coach-Like Leaders. The leaders can think like a coach, feel like a coach, listen like a coach and talk like a coach. These leaders understand the power of feedback, and they use feedback exchange as the most influential learning tool.?

?Coach-Like Leaders produce a high-trust relationship with the people around them. The strength of this relationship allows them to connect with people at a different level. People feel the inner drive to give their very best. Accept more challenging roles. Take greater responsibility for the results and continuously improve performance.?

?Our research findings outline some of the most frequently witnessed features of a coaching culture:

1. ?Everyone in the organization speaks the common coaching language
2. Leaders role model the behaviours they want to instil in their teams?
3. People at all levels show openness to feedback.?
4. Coaching flows in all directions, up, down and sideways.?
5. Decisions are made and executed faster with complete ownership.?

?According to the Behaviour Coaching Institute, a coaching culture also guarantees reduced employee turnover, increased productivity, and greater employee happiness and satisfaction at work.?Another research conducted by Eldridge and Dmobowski reveals that a coaching culture promotes more open communication, builds trust and respect, and improves working relationships.?

?I have personally observed that in a coaching culture, employees begin to recognize their role in facilitating the development of others. They take pride in enabling others to take charge of their growth and producing more extraordinary results without being pushed, monitored or supervised.?

?When organizations engage us to build a coaching culture, generally, this discussion starts with one fundamental question: ‘where is our next generation of leaders coming from?’ organizations committed to strengthening their leadership pipeline are eager to find creative and strategic ways of building a sustained leadership pipeline.

?Coaching is making this possible for them – faster. Because fostering a coaching culture eventually means an organization is committed to accelerating the development of its leaders and other high-potential employees.?

?Before you start the journey of building a coaching culture in your organization, you need to focus on aligning coaching with your organization’s strategic business goals.?

?Without this alignment, coaching will fail to produce the desired impact. Coaching should not be aimed at correcting performance, and coaching is not for the people who have already been written off. We clarify that coaching culture cannot be created by viewing coaching as an intervention tool for poor performers. Sometimes coaching is offered to the employees who are at the risk of being fired from their jobs.?

?FIVE CRITICAL STEPS

?Here are the FIVE critical steps you need to take to build a coaching culture in your company.

1. ?IDENTIFY THE LEADERSHIP BEHAVIORS:

?Have you fully articulated the desired leadership behaviours you want to reinforce as part of your culture?

Some of the top behaviours our clients wanted us to reinforce through building a coaching culture were the following:

• ?Respectfully hold each other accountable for the behaviours and business results?
• Role model the behaviours leaders want to see across the organization?
• Demonstrate a greater sense of responsibility?
• Engage with people through an open exchange of dialogue?
• Play an active role in the learning and development of themselves and others?
• Using two fundamental coaching tools in every interaction, i.e. asking powerful questions and deep listening.?

?2.????CLARIFY YOUR VISION, VALUES & STRATEGY:

?Does your partner (external coaching body or coaching firm) fully understands your organization’s vision and strategy? Did they invest a significant amount of time knowing your company’s culture??

?You need to ensure that the coaching will fully be aligned with the strategy and vision and will support it.?

?Coaching interventions should also reinforce the values of the organization. It is also essential for the externally engaged coaching partners to know how your organization will measure and quantify the success of this initiative. It would be best to clarify your expectations around measuring the Return on Investment.?

?You should also deliberate to align coaching culture with your’ people strategy’. If aligned well, coaching culture will focus on coaching through feedback and continuous learning and accountability.?

?3.????ALIGN COACHING WITH YOUR LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK:

?Have you aligned the coaching program with your leadership framework or other leadership development initiatives your organization is working on?

?To this, your internal and external coaches should invest time in understanding your leadership pipeline. This might include course outlines of other offerings, leadership competencies, and assessments to spot and develop leaders.?

?Coaches need to know the skills and behaviours taught in those courses and see the relevance to building a coaching culture.?

?Coaches can also plan to leverage business meetings, group interactions, forums for high potentials and orientations, etc., to reinforce core concepts of creating a coaching culture.?

?4.????CREATE A FEEDBACK LOOP:

?The ultimate benefit of coaching culture would be when leaders start spotting coachable moments. Instead of telling people what they think they should do, they develop an eye for finding the opportunities to coach their teams.?

?Contrary to the traditional one-way command and control style of communication, coaching conversations produce a meaningful, two-way feedback loop.?

?When leaders act as coaches and build a proper feedback loop, it results in continuous learning and growth of their teams.?

This feedback loop ensures that the ideas are exchanged, truth is heard, and responsibility is accepted, not imposed.?

?5.????BUILD A POWERFUL COACHING TEAM:

?Building a team of internal coaches who share the same mindset and passion for coaching is critical in building a coaching culture.?

What is their process of selecting, training and facilitating qualified coaches? How will you identify them, train them, equip them with coaching skills and procedures, and evaluate their success?

?Once this team of coaches is built, it’s not over. You need to constantly keep these coaches informed and updated on the latest tools and trends available in coaching.?

?A coaching culture is much beyond simply using external coaches to run executive coaching assignments. Coaching culture lays the foundation of accepting coaching as a way of living, interacting with others and a way of being.?

?In all the assignments we have accepted in the last 14 years, we have always convinced the top leaders to role model the coaching behaviours. It means coaching culture starts at the top.?

Once leaders at the top are convinced to walk the talk, they begin to understand that coaching culture requires a strategic, comprehensive and systemic approach to developing future leaders.?

Coaching culture automatically becomes a reality when leaders at the top level exhibit courage, engage in open dialogue, show comfort in giving and receiving feedback, hold each other accountable, and demonstrate total commitment to their ongoing learning and development.?

In the end, the coaching style of leadership needs reinforcement. Leaders at all levels must be recognized and rewarded for using coaching as their preferred style of leading and interacting with their teams. Therefore, coaching behaviours should be aligned and reflected in the performance assessment processes of the organization.?

To make a coaching culture initiative, all the stakeholders must work collaboratively. The organization should engage an external coaching body as a delivery partner to provide ongoing feedback, ensuring a continuous cycle of continued growth and learning.?

At the day’s end, you don’t want to build a coaching culture that diminishes in a few months. Sticking the five-step outlined above will allow you to increase the likelihood that the newly created coaching culture will last and extend beyond the organization and to the external coaching partner.?

Organizations that invest in embedding a coaching culture enjoy the greater rewards of having happy and satisfied employees, achieving bottom-line results and retaining delighted customers for the long run.?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Qaiser Abbas is an Award-Winning Leadership Coach and bestselling author of three books on Leadership and Team Dynamics. Qaiser has worked with world’s #1 Leadership Coach, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, who also endorsed Qaiser’s DARE Coaching Model. His new book ‘‘Speed Coaching’ has also been foreworded by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. Qaiser’s Coach Network includes over 250 Professional Coaches across the globe.

In his 20 years journey as Leadership Coach, Qaiser has had the privilege to coach CEOs, business leaders, celebrities and superstars of sports, movies, and media.

Qaiser’s clients include many Fortune 500 companies like Toyota, GE, Nestle, Philips, Total, Schlumberger, Coca Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever, Abbott, and Reckitt-Benckiser.

Qaiser is the recipient of the 'Brian Tracy International Excellence Award 2017, held in London. He has also won 'Trainer of the Year - Asia' Award by the World HRD Congress, Singapore.

Qaiser shot to fame by his blockbuster book 'Tick Tick Dollar'. Qaiser is a living example of overcoming adversity and turning dreams into reality and has touched the lives of millions around the globe.

Apart from coaching and training leaders in the world's top MNCs, World Bank, WHO, and US Embassy; Qaiser is making a massive contribution to society through 'Possibilities Schools' and 'My First Bike'.

His 100% books proceeds support out-of-school children’s education. To know more about him you can visit www.qaiserabbas.org

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