How Coaching helps you attract and keep your best talent

Should I stay or should I go now?

I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics”, so I’m going to avoid the numbers here and just talk common sense.

I’m not even going to get into the percentages behind why most people leave their jobs. Usually it’s for a myriad of reasons and you often never find out what they really are. However, I’m willing to bet my mortgage that one of the reasons which is right up there is…you guessed it, their boss!

I’ve been working for about 30 years and it’s fair to say that during that time I have probably met the full spectrum of line-managers. I’ve been very lucky to have worked for 2 or 3 really good leaders. People who have inspired me to give my utmost and be the best I could be.  But I’ve also encountered the others – ranging from some who were very average, who I’ve not really had any sort of connection with, all the way through to the incompetent as far as people management is concerned. The others all had one thing in common though, they didn’t know how to coach.

How did he just seem to get it?

Strangely enough the best line manager I ever had was the one I probably liked least as a person, but he just knew instinctively how to get the very best from me. He had incredible enthusiasm, he led by example, he took the time to find out what made me tick and developed me. He had this capability to fill me with so much confidence I would have run through a brick wall for him. He seemed to know just how to ask the really incisive questions that mattered. Interestingly though, he helped me to find the answers myself. As a young man, what I didn’t fully appreciate at the time was that he was actually coaching me.

Be the best you can possibly be

Later in my career I worked as a coach to a number of senior executives in different European countries. It’s very motivating working in different cultures, seeing someone grow and realise their ambitions with your support. It’s an extremely unselfish job but incredibly rewarding. These people never forget you; such is the impact you can make on their lives. It’s a special feeling being a coach and being coached. If you’ve never experienced it, you should try it once. You only get one go at life, so you owe it to yourself to be the best version of YOU there can possibly be.

Why do some fail to take that step?

Most great business leaders have been coached at some point in their careers. It’s what has helped them take that final step to achieve their potential. They see development as a strength. However, it is fair to say that for a wide variety of reasons, some people shy away from it. The biggest reason I often find is complacency – being willing to settle for what you are, rather than what you could be. There’s no shame in this, it’s endemic across the planet. Aren’t you just a little bit curious though to find out what your potential really could be? It’s that curiosity which will usually lead you to finding a coach.

The Perfect 10

So, in a working lifetime of coaching and being coached, what conclusions have I drawn?

1.   Intellect has little bearing on coaching capability. I know some very clever people who just don’t get coaching at all and vice-versa.

2.   Sometimes it’s the stupid questions which people avoid asking which are the most relevant and effective.

3.   It’s not soft and fluffy – Coaching is tough love. You are essentially holding up the mirror to someone and showing them as it is – warts and all. It can hurt sometimes, but not in a way that makes you feel angry and resentful but in a way that motivates you to change for the better.

4.   Coaching is far better than training for growing your talent because people development becomes an integral part of line managers’ roles, not something separate. If planned correctly, this can lead to a coaching culture which means that learning & development is happening continuously and being directly applied to performance, as opposed to in isolation as with training.

5.   People don’t tend to leave coaching cultures in a hurry. Coaching cultures retain staff! Coaching can save an organisation a lot of money in the long-run – not only in developing people but also in reducing staff turnover and all the excessive costs that come with that.

6.   It’s a lot easier to measure the business impact and return on investment of coaching than traditional training methods.

7.   Coaching can make your emotional intelligence rocket and that’s another reason why people stay. When you are working in a “high emotional intelligence culture” the quality of the communication is far superior and inspirational to be a part of.

8.   Prospective employees can sense a coaching culture from a mile away and are attracted to it like moths to a flame.

9.   You only know if you’ve worked in one of these cultures. Believe me if you’re one of the lucky ones then you know what I mean and you’ll never want to leave it.

10. However technologically advanced the world becomes, the special human interaction of a coaching relationship can never be replaced. (The internet will never kill the reality star!)

So, let me ask you that incisive question to find out the real statistics – the one that really matters, the one to put on your bucket list, the one that relates to YOU:

“Have you ever experienced what it’s like to have a really great coach?”

Carl Gregory is Sales Manager for The OCM Group. He is an expert in leadership, behavioural change and organisational culture with a proven track record of helping companies increase their productivity and profitability.

?The OCM Group are coaching and mentoring specialists who use this expertise to support our clients achieve their strategic goals. We don’t offer generic leadership, innovation or change programmes but instead identify and build the leadership capabilities required to achieve strategic goals through innovative coaching and mentoring programmes.