Ten years ago I was fortunate enough to be heavily involved in the implementation of a company wide coaching programme, both as an employee who had previously been to receive coaching in addition as a manager and coach who was expected to regular coach my reports and my peers so as to achieve their objectives. I say, fortunate enough, because I found that after i was coached effectively I came to be really motivated and focused, and when I finally became a proficient coach, I again found it motivational in that I had able to support and enable my direct reports to achieve more.
There were though many pitfalls along the technique to achieving total acceptance of your practice as a skill that not only motivated but also enabled employees to become a little more capable and productive. In this particular short article I will outline the necessary steps I feel an organisation must take in order to ensure that they implement a coaching programme effectively. Ten years ago I feel that although we made great progress we also made some mistakes which I would encourage organisations to be aware of when deciding to venture down the ‘coaching’ route.
1. Ensure coaching starts at the top and is supported by the ‘top article‘!
Many organisations are recognising that coaching is an art and craft that all managers of people and teams must feature. However, many organisations only concentrate on ensuring that 1st even 2nd line managers are trained as skill. Suddenly middle or junior managers become skilled in coaching but never experience the flexibility of coaching from quite senior management. In relation to making certain everyone who will be involved with the coaching programme ‘buys -in’ into the coaching philosophy they need to hear how the ‘top’ executives are committed to coaching in both terms of promoting the skill but to be seen to utilise the skill themselves in that they are coached which is they coach their own direct credit reports. In other words everybody has to ‘walk the talk’.
In my last organisation before going self-employed this was not the situation. A few senior members within the Board rrncluding a couple of key HR personnel promoted the skill of coaching well and ‘practiced what they preached’. Unfortunately some very senior managers did not and continued to use very directive behaviours towards their staff whilst communicating that coaching was a ‘fad’ that are going to soon flow! This caused confusion at middle management levels together with result certain number of managers did not take their coaching training very predominantly. Fortunately other managers did and their teams eventually experienced the benefit.
2. Will everybody exactly what coaching is and what it can do them?
This was one for this first hurdles that there was to overpowered. Simply, people did not understand why the organisation was implementing such a programme and also
people do not fully exactly what coaching was exactly. Some believed features training which is all it meant was that you told people what try out and showed them how to do the software. After all that was what their sports coach did! Others thought hints more about counselling and you only used coaching when there the deep problem causing under-performance.
All buying not everyone had an awesome understanding products coaching was and the way it differed from the likes of training, mentoring and psychotherapy. Also many people just because they had not been subjected to effective coaching had no training or involving why coaching could be considered a benefit for them; either as the coach or as someone being trained. Before employees can leave and take part in a coaching programme they must be 1005 aware of what alcohol coaching entails and is actually can do for these folks.
3. People that are going to act as coaches must be trained systematically.
Most companies will introduce the services of an exercise provider or consultant to help them to implement the coaching program. Beware. Make sure you do your homework! There are numerous coaching schools, training companies and consultancies who now offer ‘coach training’. Cut on interest rates be excellent; some not the case hot. We had some major problems while using group that most of us used in this particular not all their trainers/coaches had the necessary skill and experience however result that doesn’t everyone on the inside organisation received the same quality of coaching and study. I was extremely lucky in my partner and i had an excellent coach who has been also a fabulous trainer.