An evolution in thinking about coaching has clearly increased receptivity to coaching and the demand for it. Today leaders, managers, team members and individual contributors all recognize the benefits that come from coaching and now expect more workplace coaching dialogue, interactions, opportunities for feedback, and support. To meet this demand a revolution in coaching is needed.
What was once considered a “nice to have” has today become a “must-have” and so the question today is this: What can be done to provide coaching support to all who need it, effectively and efficiently, where ever they are and whenever they need it?
Historically, the need for coaching has been filled by “live coaches” working one-on-one and in-person – same time/same place, but today there are simply too many in need of coaching support and not enough effective coaches to go around.
Over the past ten years, some coaches have begun to leverage technology by working with clients in the “same time” but from different places using the telephone as well as online conferencing and collaboration tools. For coaches seeking to make the coaching process more efficient without affecting the quality of coaching interactions, leveraging the latest in technology has proven helpful. But the challenge of providing coaching support to everyone who wants and needs it remains. In the U.S. for example, with 153 million in the workforce overall (RI Department of Labor and Training) and an estimated 60 million knowledge workers (Quora) and there simply not are enough coaches.
QwikCoach addresses this pressing predicament in a thoughtful, deliberate, and innovative way by being an effective online workplace performance coach. It is not meant to replace live coaches – they are and will continue to be the “gold standard” when it comes to coaching. Rather it is designed to help coaches to extend their reach at the same time it can provide a new way to access affordable coaching support for those who do not have access to their own ‘live’ coach. We created QwikCoach with these interests in mind.
Here’s how QwikCoach was created and why it represents a revolution in workplace coaching.
Phase 1:
We identified the areas of common need based on our years of coaching, consulting, and management experience. Initially, we pinpointed eight.
Phase 2:
Based on all of the coaching interactions we had with clients, associates, and peers over the years, we built our virtual coaching model. We:
Identified the typical workplace competencies associated with the eight areas initially identified.
Inventoried the types of questions related to these competencies that we typically heard from those we coached, and created Fast Answers to respond to them.
Reviewed the types of coaching interactions we had engaged in and considered what was discussed; assessed the take-aways; and studied the next steps those we had coached committed to take as a result of their coaching experience.
Captured the advice we had provided and the suggestions we had made to help people take action, change behaviors, and work in different and better ways. The advice we provided and what people told us they had “discovered” was presented in two sections of QwikCoach — Tips and Techniques or Practice Ideas.
Phase 3:
We created a web-based coaching solution as a prototype, and tested it at dozens of companies in the United States, Canada, Europe, and South America. We made changes and improvements based on the feedback we received, and we also added six more coaching modules – bringing the total to fourteen.
Phase 4:
To broaden the value of QwikCoach, we added still another feature called “The Resource Center.” This feature makes it possible to quickly and directly access a variety of outstanding resources from a wide variety of independent sources.
Phase 5:
Most recently we created a new state-of-the-art responsive version of QwikCoach. The newest version of QwikCoach incorporates all of the advice and insights that we have successfully provided over the years helping literally thousands of people to unleash their potential and achieve new levels of success.
And here’s the really exciting part. Because we have found a way to replicate what we had for decades done one-to-one by putting our coaching advice online – the same advice we had successfully given to people at all levels of experience and expertise – now everyone has access to world-class coaching support. We’ve found a way to change coaching fundamentally with QwikCoach — a revolution in coaching.