Coaching is now recognized as a key to creating healthy workplaces and transformed organizations. Therefore:
It is time for more practical and effective efforts designed to combine the ability of leaders to coach themselves and others with the imperative to use coaching to create modern healthy high performance workplace cultures. The two must go hand in hand.
With all that’s going on with respect to coaching:
- The expanding need for it.
- Coaching skills for managers now considered as an absolute necessity.
- Outside coaching companies providing the ability to scale certain aspects of coaching to more people more easily, and
- A recognition that without coaching, workplace performance and well-being stumble . . .
It seems hard to believe that workplace coaching is not further along in adaption, evolution of approaches, and integration with workplace culture change.
It is concerning to note that while the need to help managers become more effective coaches has long been recognized, much additional progress is needed and efforts to accomplish this goal need to be focused and on-going. While coaching has been proven to improve performance and increase personal well-being, the understanding that coaching and culture change must be integrated has been often lost.
Today, dealing with post-pandemic shifts in employee engagement and continuing economic headwinds, make it imperative that great coaching and practical organizational culture change happen frequently and in mutually supportive ways.
Bottom line:
The need for organizational innovation and fundamental culture change have made:
- Training managers and leaders to be effective coaches AND
- Creating robust, productive, and healthy cultures . . .
More important than ever and in need of practical and easily implemented solutions.
What’s happened with developing and using coaching competence?
In preparing for this post, we were impressed and informed by an article written by Dr. Anthony Grant in 2016. He presents in The third generation of workplace coaching: creating a culture of quality conversations the idea that workplace coaching has evolved through three major phases.
- Starting in the 1990s, Phase 1 focused on performance management.
- A second phase began around 2000 and focused on training managers to be coaches.
- A third phase, still evolving since the 2010s, seeks to build on lessons learned during phase two and combine helping managers become effective coaches with creating healthier workplace cultures through a synchronized and necessary focus on performance and well-being.
Phase 1: A Focus on Performance Management
Let’s start with a quick look at phase one – coaching in the workplace. During this phase, training managers to coach focused on the traditional performance management process and helping managers “get through” the annual performance review. Managers were expected to conduct one-to-one performance conversations that evaluated the extent to which annual goals were met – or not.
The cultures of companies at that time were still largely if not exclusively focused on command and control. Organizations set goals and managers and leaders made certain that employees performed at high enough levels to achieve goals and grow the organization. While the human potential movement of the 1960s had entered the workplace, it did not create a fundamentally different approach to the core processes of goal setting and goal attainment. Coach/managers were working with employees in a transactional and structured way. Issues of healthy cultures or the well-being of employees were yet to be recognized as pressing needs and concerns.
Phase 2: A Growing Recognition About the Need for Coaching
The second phase of workplace coaching coincided with organizations becoming a bit more sophisticated about the need for increased communication and more support for managers and leaders. While not concerned yet with establishing an entirely new paradigm of management, there was a shared belief that the role of managers/leaders had changed. It was now considered critical for people in these positions to drive change. It was also common for companies to use proprietary Leader as Coach programs from consulting companies. Some of these efforts used programs that were not properly aligned with either the realities of work or culture.
More than a few efforts to develop managers and leaders to be effective coaches were also hurt by organizations not ready to support more flexible and agile ways of working or a willingness to move the needle towards a more open and healthy culture.
Phase 3: Leveraging Coaching to Create Healthy Cultures
By the 2010’s it was becoming clearer and more self-evident that the workplace was fundamentally changing. Managers still needed to be trained as coaches but with a new focus that went beyond improving performance. They also needed to:
- Focus on creating and sustaining the well-being of employees and
- Take responsibility and be accountable for creating more agile and flexible organizations and cultures.
By the 2020’s the evolved roles (of the manager/leader) were also seen as ways to transform organizations fundamentally. New roles could be used to:
- Better respond to harsher economic conditions and
- Engage employees who were fundamentally changed by events related to the pandemic and the evolving use of digital technology that enabled new ways to work and achieve success.
New Realities in Coaching and Culture Change
This third generation of coaching has continued to evolve. There is a broader understanding that workplace coaching isn’t just about 1:1 thirty minute discussions. It is more than a means for improving poor performance or maintaining control.
People want and need to be understood, inspired, encouraged, and supported. They need to not just meet and exceed workplace performance goals but develop more personal goals too and continue to grow and be contributors to healthy/viable organizations.
Manager/Leader Coaches need to focus on both well-being and performance to support a move to less hierarchical and more innovative cultures that value collaboration and shared accountability.
Managers and leaders need to be part of a cultural shift that supports both individual and organizational transformation and results in healthier work and workplace cultures.
Thankfully coaching itself is evolving. It is no longer just focused on improving the 1:1 in-person conversations around performance improvement. And, coaching doesn’t always require an expensive outside coach or consultant with proprietary expertise.
Coaching is now viewed as a process that can be done in a variety of ways:
- Alone — self-coaching.
- With others in teams.
- One on one.
- Planned and scheduled or on the fly.
Different tools not previously available allow individuals to get:
- Self-help with on-demand coaching content and relevant coaching questions or
- Additional help when working with a coach that encourage deeper understanding and higher quality conversations.
Effective managers and leaders are increasingly aware of the need to listen and learn from their employees. They appreciate the value of coaching themselves and others. And, they are consistently focused on helping individuals grow and develop in order to perform more effectively.
When it comes to training related to coaching, managers and leaders must learn how to coach themselves and others. Being able to do both successfully is the critical link to creating a healthy workplace and to moving from command and control to support and excel.
Being able to do both is also essential when it comes to building increased competence and improved personal well-being.
Feeling good about oneself is not just a nice to have “touchy-feely” after thought. In today’s workplace, it’s a key contributor to productive work and an essential component when building effective/healthy organizations. By removing barriers and helping people discover new and better ways, coaching can provide this necessary boost for individuals and organization.
Today innovative coaching efforts must use technology and people in integrated ways to prepare the organization for healthy change. New and innovative approaches provide options for training leaders and managers to be effective coaches and concrete help to build the skills needed to be flexible and responsive as coaches — people capable of not just giving advice but working jointly with those they coach to improve performance and individual competence and personal growth.
Leaders and managers at every level know organizations have to be healthier to thrive in the new world of work and only competent — always evolving — coaches can make this happen.
Additional Insights:
What does a healthy organization and culture look like? It looks like this:
- Values are well defined and followed.
- Leadership is capable and eager for on-going development opportunities.
- Vision and mission inspire people to take action and be successful.
- Goals are clear and achievable.
- Reward systems are well-defined and equally available to everyone.
- Senior management is accessible and accountable.
- Everyone takes personal responsibility and is accountable for what they do (and not do).
- People give and receive praise for excellent work.
- Opportunities for meaningful work are given to everyone.
- Lots of communication – openness and free expression are encouraged.
- The work environment is flexible and relaxed. Humor welcomed.
- People trust each other.
- Constructive conflict is appreciated and practiced
- The general atmosphere is friendly.
- Honesty is expected and valued.
- High levels of collaboration are encouraged and maintained.
- Courage and persistence in tough times is consistently demonstrated.
- Diversity is encouraged, appreciated, and accepted.
- Respect, fair treatment, and equal opportunities for everyone is expected and provided.
- A spirit of competition and innovations within the industry is practiced.
- Everyone is proud of the role they play and people with whom they work.
- Little things count.
- Quality, compassion, accountability, innovation, results, and success matter.
What can I do today to start coaching myself and others. Master requisite skills like:
- Asking great questions
- Listening
- Clarifying and confirming
- Providing positive feedback
- Providing constructive feedback
Use an effective coaching model.
There are many effective coaching models in use today. Each allows anyone who wants to coach themself (or others) to stay focused on what they need to develop, change, learn about, or practice more aggressively.
We at QwikCoach recommend our proprietary model — the DARE to Succeed coaching model.