Whether one looks at Google’s research called Project Oxygen (demonstrating great managers are good coaches), or Gallup’s latest research (people leave managers, not companies), there is increasingly compelling data to suggest that managers and leaders play a critical role in improving employee engagement, satisfaction, and productivity.
If someone could create a great management pill it would revolutionize the workplace and solve the worldwide need for great managers everywhere.
We all know it’s not in the pipeline. Here’s something that is!
QwikCoach is our high quality low cost online coaching tool. It helps managers to be great coaches and improves employee engagement. It does this by providing coaching insights, tips, techniques, practice ideas and much more, all designed to help managers coach themselves and others and thereby build high performance cultures.
Building a high performance workplace is not a simple task.
It takes:
- Time, commitment, and focus (there is no “magic wand”).
- An appreciation for how the world of coaching has changed.
- A deep commitment to “meet people where they are” and help them move to a better place.
Leaders Need to Act!
To move organizations to the next level and improve employee engagement, leaders and talent executives need to appreciate how new and innovative approaches to coaching can help. Online coaching integrated with traditional coaching efforts represents an exciting new way to provide coaching support to a wider segment of the workplace. In other words, low cost high quality solutions exist today and can help close the development and support gap that exists in most organizations. However, leaders must make the commitment to explore and use these new approaches so that great coaching can be ubiquitous.
As more and more organizations discover new ways to help managers and leaders at all levels become effective workplace coaches by leveraging innovative techniques and online programs, we see yet another way to move organizations forward even faster. It’s a parallel path and one that dramatically improves the chances of achieving the high performance workplace that every thoughtful leader wants. Help everyone become their own coach.
Self-service Coaching Can Play and Important Role
Even when/if every manager and leader becomes an effective workplace coach, the benefits of self-coaching will continue to keep workplace cultures thriving and contributing to individual work satisfaction. Research continues to demonstrate employees want to grow and develop but vary greatly in how they prefer doing this. Who better than oneself to understand how you love to learn and to achieve that pro-active lifelong learning state? Disturb your complacency and attack learning and development like your job depends on it — which by the way it does.
A solid minority in the workplace are self-starters and get that message and are frequently focused on improving their emotional intelligence skills (essential for the evolving workplace) and widening their technical or area of expertise knowledge by staying on top of trends and important research related to their work. But this group of self-starters needs to grow dramatically.
We recommend you make a commitment to improve your self-coaching skills right now. And do so easily by starting a “to learn” list that puts what you need to know front and center in terms of planning and execution. Keep it simple but focused on what you need to do to become better equipped to move up or across your organization.
If you don’t know where to start here’s a suggestion (notice we’re keeping it simple too).
- Decide (and choose) whether your most urgent self-improvement needs are on your interpersonal emotional intelligence skills OR keeping up with trends in your industry and field of expertise.
- Take a few moments to think about what’s getting in your way when it comes to everyone workplace success. What obstacle would you like to eliminate. What improvements would you like to make.
- Do a quick internet search. For example: search for “the most important business skills to develop to succeed in project management” and/or search for the “top trends in 2019 for marketing professionals”. And voila – you’re off to the races.
- Set an alarm for 15 minutes and browse quickly to see what catches your eye or peaks your curiosity. If even this sounds too complicated, search for “best books/podcasts for business professionals” and follow through reading or listening.
Remember, use this approach to help you ease into becoming a more focused self -coach. Of course you could buy a license to QwikCoach for less than a dollar a day and get buckets of ideas and resources, but that sounds way too self serving and that’s not the point of this blog.
The point of this blog is simply this . . .
If you are an individual worker:
If you are an individual worker:
- Don’t wait for your organization to provide better workplace coaching! Organizations are beginning to recognize the need for more workplace coaching but implementing large-scale coaching efforts take time.
- Instead, look in the mirror and meet your new best coach today.
- Get the help you need by searching and sorting resources yourself or get outside help to do that with coaching tools like QwikCoach.
- With discipline your learning and development will accelerate rapidly. Your expertise and skills will grow by practicing and using new approaches.
If you are manager or leader:
If you are manager or leader:
- Understand that the workplace is quickly adopting new expectations for what it takes to be successful.
- More and more organizations expect managers and leaders to be effective workplace coaches. Not because it’s a “nice to have” but because coaching is essential to achieving overall success in today’s complex, hectic, and quickly changing environment.
- Do whatever you have to do to learn how to be a workplace coach. Once you think you know how to coach, begin to coach others – that’s when the real learning and development will begin.
If you are leading an organization or responsible for Human Capital:
If you are leading an organization or responsible for Human Capital:
- Coaching works.
- It’s the new workplace imperative.
- Find ways to make it available to everyone!