By Jennifer Liston-Smith

Oxford Brookes University’s Tatiana Bachkirova embraced the wish to clarify and the need to allow complexity in developmental coaching. Presenting at the British Psychological Society’s Second European Coaching Psychology Conference in December, Bachkirova shared a framework to allow developmental coaches to work with sweeping ideas but maintain “a grain of mystery.

According to Bachkirova, development is “a combination of changes in the organism manifested in a sustained increased capacity to engage with and influence environment and to look after internal needs and aspirations”.

To support such change, Bachkirova proposed that developmental coaches focus on enhancing the client’s quality of perception both internally and externally; deal with the unconscious, automatic, emotional mind and the body, and deal with the multiplicity of mini-selves.

She proposed that focusing on enhancing the quality of perception both internally and externally would enable the client to notice more in themselves and their environment, including their conditioning and self-deception.

The best way to help the client work with the unconscious, automatic, emotional mind and the body is to support their “self-system” in dealing with this creatively, including not controlling or submitting to it completely. As a way to understand this, Bachkirova shared Jonathan Hadit’s (2006) analogy of the small rider sitting on top of an elephant, able to steer it only when its own needs don’t get there first.

She said that the third area of focus, dealing with the multiplicity of mini-selves that are the reality of how human beings manifest across settings and moment by moment, is also about “helping the coachee’s self-system (narrator) to create a better synthesis of mini-selves.”

Given these, she said the task of the coach is to engage with whatever theme is presented, which may follow a fourfold pattern:

• Coaching towards a healthy ego
• Coaching the ego
• Coaching beyond the ego
• Coaching the soul

 Further reading and resources

• For more BPS SGCP stories, see http://www.coaching-at-work.com/2010/02/28/how-do-we-coach-life-transitions/
• For more on Bachkirova’s work, see “Riding the elephant”, Coaching at Work at http://www.coaching-at-work.com/2009/12/09/riding-the-elephant/
• Bachkirova, T. (2009), “The Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Coaching”, in Cox, Bachkirova & Clutterbuck (Eds.) The Complete Handbook of Coaching, London: Sage Haidt, J. (2006), The Happiness Hypothesis, London: Arrow Books

The research was carried out by Giovanni Schiuma, an Italian expert on performance management, intellectual capital management and organisational learning.

Schiuma maps nine objectives of arts-based initiatives, such as inspiration, environment, investment and transformation.

Joanne South, research manager at Arts & Business, who worked with Schiuma, said: “Culture offers processes, insights, energy, skills and expertise that many businesses need to manage and thrive in an environment of turbulence, change and dynamism. Innovation and creativity flourishes from the cultural sector, and being able to take some of that into the workplace generates value to a business.”

The research suggests that the benefits for people and the organisational infrastructure are likely to converge, as shown by case studies at ITV and UBS.

ITV worked with coaching and creative consultancy Ci: Creative Intelligence to roll out forum theatre workshops to play organisational scenarios and real situations on a humorous platform. Qualitative evaluation showed that ITV achieved shared organisational standards for acceptable behaviours, reduction in staff turnover, improvement in internal communications processes and customer relationships management.

UBS partnered with the Circus Space. Nick Wright, UBS managing director corporate responsibility & community affairs said: “Significant portions of our revenue over a five-year period have come from activities that did not exist before. Potential new recruits hone in on our arts and community partnerships; what this tells us is that our partnerships can distinguish us and, we believe, provide a competitive advantage. Arts partnerships are complex but can be extremely powerful.”

• For more information go to www.artsandbusiness.org.uk

Volume 5, Issue 2

As a manager, I get to hear a lot about what’s wrong – with our customers, offices, printer, mailing service and even sometimes our people. And, of course, it’s my job to get something done about it. As a manager/coach, I often use a coaching style to start addressing these issues. Here’s an idea that could save lots of time and stress:

“What’s wanted is not the opposite of what’s wrong”

It’s tempting to think that by making a shopping list of all the things that are wrong and then setting out to do something about them, we are making maximum progress.

But think for a moment. Imagine going out to the supermarket for the weekly shop – with a list of all the things you DON’T want. No eggs, no butter, no loo roll… How useful would that be? Well, useful up to a point – we could certainly steer clear of those items.

But wait. There could well be more than 40,000 different lines in the store. Having rejected the small number of things you don’t want, you then stand in the middle of the shop looking around – and you still need to decide what you want.

In coaching, the same thing applies. Knowing what’s wrong is a useful starting point – but only to get to refining your ideas on what’s wanted. As a manager/coach, this is a key step in building yourself some useful projects and progress. So how do you do it?

Build the platform for coaching

Suppose someone comes to you with a story of something that’s gone wrong. As a good manager/coach, there are three useful things to do at this point:

LISTEN to the story – get the details, express concern, show how important it is by giving excellent attention.

AFFIRM the bringer of the bad news – let them know how important it is that they raised this issue, what you’re impressed by about them, their speed of action, concern for customers, etc.

TURN THE CORNER from focusing on what’s wrong to focusing on what’s wanted. Some good questions that can help here include:

“So, instead of that, what you want is…..?” (let them finish the sentence)

“What do you want to have happen next time?”

“What would be better than that, for everyone?”

Your counterpart may not have thought about this, being focused on what’s wrong. They may fall silent for a moment. Let them. Give them plenty of time to think about it. As always, a period of silence here is a good sign for the coach; there is thinking going on.

Expand the answer by asking, “What else?” to get more detail. Then ask about others’ perspectives on what would be preferable.

Name the project

A final tip here is to sum up all of the above with a name – a snappy title that connects in some way to what’s wanted. Asking your counterpart for a name is always a good idea. It allows them even more ownership.

Now you can sum up everything about the platform and what’s wanted in one phrase. And having become squarely focused on what’s wanted, you can pursue it with whatever coaching strategy you favour.

Try it out next time someone brings you a tale of woe – and see what happens.

Mark McKergow is director of sfwork, the Centre for Solutions Focus at Work and co-author of several books on solution-focused practice including The Solutions Focus (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2007). mark@sfwork.com, www.sfwork.com

Volume 5, Issue 2

The service, Inspiring Potential Now!, is staffed all year round by International Coach Federation accredited coaches from all over the world, who have director-level corporate experience. Personal coaching sessions can be booked and paid for online by credit card. Businesses can book a series of sessions up front, issuing credits to employees who can then book sessions at their convenience.

The broad spectrum of services includes executive coaching, career development coaching, leadership and management development coaching.

According to Inspiring Potential, the coaching is ideal for people who want to solve immediate challenges. However, David Clutterbuck, practice leader Clutterbuck Associates, said that those using phone coaching should not set their expectations too high. It has “many of the handicaps of both face to face and email coaching but few of the advantages of either”, and it requires “very, very good coaches to deliver similar value”.

Clutterbuck, who has compared coaching methodologies in Virtual Coach, Virtual Mentor, IAP, due 2010, said: “I am sceptical that volume coaching by phone can provide requisite quality beyond very basic skills coaching and perhaps some performance coaching.

Volume 5, Issue 2

Income was down 8 per cent for coaches with less than three years’ experience, returning to the levels of two years ago, according to the Sherpa Coaching Survey 2010 Earnings Report. Ten per cent of executive coaches in business for one or two years saw a significant drop in clients, as did 20 per cent of those in business for three to five years.

Earnings were flat for coaches in business for five years or more, after a 10 per cent drop last year. Coaches with more than 10 years in the business reported annual earnings of US$149,000, compared to $118,000 for those with six to nine years’ experience.

Two years ago, HR professionals paid up to $285 an hour for coaching. In the past two years, however, hourly rates have hovered around the $200 mark.

Yet coaches say they charge around $300 an hour, which Sherpa suggests could be down to coaches quoting ‘list price’ and buyers reporting what they are actually charged, or that coaches with lower rates get hired more often.

For more information go to www.coaching-at-work.com or www.sherpacoacing.com/surveyfp.html

Volume 5, Issue 2

The Minerva Project is the first of its kind in the UK prison service. Funded through One Hull and Working Neighbourhoods Funding and supported by Hull City Council, HMP Hull, Humberside Probation Trust, Humberside Police and the third sector, its aim is to enhance the resettlement process for ex-offenders returning to the City of Hull after a sentence of less than 12 months.

Adult males over 21 serving less than 12 months leave the prison with no support and only £42. Currently, 58.8 per cent re-offend. This ‘revolving door effect’ costs the city £60 million a year.

The two-year pilot is the brainchild of resettlement development manager Russell Waterman who launched a coaching development programme in January to help members of his 17-strong team seconded from the prison or police service use a coaching and mentoring approach with offenders in and outside of the prison.

“My big buzz is restorative practice and coaching and mentoring is needed to do this. When they start working with people who are disengaged, they will have the skills and attributes to make sure they engage with them to keep them outside.”

Some 12 employees, including Waterman, went through a four-day coaching programme designed with Keddy Consultants. Waterman hopes to roll out the training. “The police, probation service, health and social services all speak different languages and I want to give them a common language,” he said.

The programme included the TGROW and CIGAR models and a model called JAM (Just a Minute) developed by Jackie Keddy, managing director and lead consultant of Keddy Consultants. “We focused on lots of self-awareness for delegates based on CBT and TA, with Solution Focused Coaching through it. We did lots of role play and action learning sets,” said Keddy, former lead consultant of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Leadership Academy.

CDRPs are partnerships between the emergency services, local authorities, and public, private and voluntary sector agencies that work together to reduce crime, disorder and substance misuse.

Volume 5, Issue 2

Katharine St John-Brooks’ article, ‘Moral Support’(vol 5, issue 1) was an interesting perspective on the challenges of being an internal coach. Having operated as both an internal and external coach, I agree that the ethical dilemmas faced by internal coaches can be more complex. So it was worrying to learn that only a third use a coaching agreement agreed with their organisation. I know of two major UK plcs where such ‘maverick’ arrangements have led to a loss in confidence in coaching as a whole. This is a great shame because, as Katharine highlights, internal coaches are passionate about their work.

This ‘gap’ is not one that internal coaches themselves can fill without appropriate direction and leadership from HR. Further investment in individual supervision, networking, CPD or training could be wasted without such a rigorous coaching framework. Maybe this is an opportunity for coaching professional bodies to establish and communicate best practice and promote this directly to coaching buyers rather than to the coaches themselves?

John Blakey, 121partners

Big words

I am a little disturbed by Julie Starr’s assertion that as coaches “truth is our guiding light” (‘True Confessions’, vol 5, issue 1). She says that there is more than one truth in any conversation, but the implication is that ‘the truth’ exists and that the coach is more able to divine it than the client. This puts the coach in a position of considerable power.

Surely the goal is a shared sense of the reality the client is dealing with? Truth is based on our own perceptions and Julie’s description of how to develop your instinct illustrates how subjective this is. Truth is a very big word in coaching.

Hilary Rowland, Organisation Perspectives, www.organisation-perspectives.com

Volume 5, Issue 2

One afternoon in 2006, after coaching a client who clearly experienced something important, I knew I wanted to do more of this work.

Yet I found myself wondering why more people were not taking us up on our one-to-one coaching. I was head of learning and development (L&D) in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, so I sounded out L&D practitioners in other departments. Three years on, the Coaches in Government Network has 173 members from 48 organisations.

Membership is made up of coaches and L&D managers in central government departments and agencies. Our jobs include coaching, managing coaching services or some other aspect of L&D. We came together to increase opportunities for our people to have coaching, by making more use of the internal complement.

Through our informal brokering system of 22 volunteer members, the Network provides more than 400 hours’ coaching in other members’ organisations for colleagues who would not otherwise have had it.

One client, in a middle management role in the Department for Health told me: “I went through an enormously difficult period, with my health, family and career all suffering acutely. My new manager picked me up, dusted me off and, with my agreement, arranged a Network coach for me.

“Within the first couple of sessions I was back on my feet, and by the third there was such a turnaround that my coach wondered if the original terms of engagement were still adequate. Time will tell, but I expect I will look back at coaching as one of those truly life-changing moments.”

Clients have a wide range of issues: to be better organised; manage working relationships more confidently; be clearer on career moves; overcome anxiety in interviews; have a richer understanding of what it means to be in leadership, and how to act on this understanding.

Flexible arrangements

I strongly suspect that our flexible arrangements for accessing Network coaches means we can work with clients presenting a greater diversity of issues than in a closely defined programme.

To be a coaching member and to work with a client in another member’s organisation, you need to have a coaching qualification and complete a simple profile. The latter gives information on the coach’s experience, credentials and approach, and helps the potential client and brokering member choose a coach. Beyond that, we leave it to members to manage their own development and credibility, to act ethically with clients and to make their own arrangements for supervision.

The Network is a very effective vehicle for CPD. Our newsletter, The Listener, allows members to publish book and training reviews, case studies and discussions. It has contributions from the wider coaching community, often those who talk with us at our half-day conferences –another key CPD.

Members host the conferences and we have had input from distinguished practitioners, including Alison Whybrow, past chair of the Special Group in Coaching Psychology of the British Psychological Society. She sees the Network as: “a hugely valuable resource of internal expertise and peer learning that is accessible to individual employees and government organisations alike. What is particularly striking is the informality of the development and the organic growth of the group”.

Growth industry

Paul Jackson of Solutions Focus noted: “This is a voluntary network that thrives and grows through the passion of members.”

The energy was very clear to Wendy Sullivan of the Clean Change Company: “We expected an interesting half-day with skilled coaches, but we had not expected them to be so enterprising and innovative. The Network will surely have an important long-term role to play for coaching and continue to provide a model for how to achieve sustainable inter-agency collaboration.”

And of course there is a wealth of knowledge in the Network, which members are ever ready to share.

Some of the more experienced coaches and L&D managers have helped members devise coaching strategies. Justine Ballard, who set up an internal coach pool at the Home Office, says: “It was through the Network that I met Elizabeth Crosse from Legal Services Commission who set up a pool of internal coaches there, with ICF-accredited training. She inspired me to keep working to introduce internal coaches in the Home Office, and then through highlighting the benefits and issues to be aware of, I found it much easier to make it happen.”

Caron Twining in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) describes a similarly productive reciprocal process: “When I was tasked with developing DWP’s coaching and mentoring I contacted a member. The Network was a great source of support, sharing good practice and flagging up lessons learnt. And the DWP strategy is now being used by some Network members to inform their own departments’ approach to coaching and mentoring.”

A valuable resource

The coaching profession still has a slender evidence base and in this the Network is a valuable resource.

Members contributed to the recent EMCC research project on the ethics of internal coaching (see ‘Moral support’, in Coaching at Work, vol 5, issue 1). Katharine St John-Brooks, who carried out the research, says: “It was enormously useful to have access to the Network to reach experienced internal coaches. Interestingly, the results support the Network approach in that it retains the benefits of being coached by someone who understands the Civil Service while avoiding some the disadvantages, such as role conflict.”

Word of mouth

The Network is a community and not an initiative; it’s an example of how something can grow organically by word of mouth.

It has minimal structure, leaving members free to develop their practice autonomously. Keeping a light touch and taking an inclusive approach also allows members to make a discretionary contribution to the collection of organisations in ways that are in members’ control.

By not charging for coaching we have removed a barrier to access, achieved substantial savings in fees, avoided administrative burdens and maximised the resource. And all this from one speculative email.

Ken Smith is skills strategy manager at the Department for Transport. Email: ken.smith@dft.gsi.gov.uk

Volume 5, Issue 2

Glass replacement and installation expert Solaglas has won an award for a coaching initiative for frontline managers that reaped a 490 per cent return on investment (ROI).

The award-winning initiative also saved the business £797,000 in performance improvement, subcontracting, materials and recruitment costs and in absenteeism.

It was the second time a UK organisation has been honoured with the International Coach Federation (ICF) Prism Award – last year the BBC received it. Past winners include SYSCO Food Services of Canada, MCI, University of Texas at Dallas, Verizon Business, NASA and Deloitte.

Solaglas was presented with the award, along with ibm.com of North America, on 4 December, at the ICF’s annual conference in Orlando, Florida. IBM also won the award in 2005.

Despite the current global economic climate, ibm.com continues to see coaching as being critical to its success. It is witnessing compounded returns on both expectation and investment, with a 563 per cent ROI, according to a spokesperson from the ICF.

Presenting the award, 2009 ICF president Karen Tweedie said: “The award is granted to those who invest time, energy and finances into coaching to achieve specific business goals and then realise a positive contribution and ROI. Both organisations have experienced significant ROI through their exemplary coaching programs and we are privileged to honour their success.”

Since the implementation of its coaching initiative for field managers, Saint-Gobain-owned Solaglas has seen significant improvements in communication and collaboration; decision-making and ownership among engineers; and the enhancement of new potential.

In addition to improvements in employee sickness, performance and the cost of subcontracting, materials, and recruitment, Solaglas has seen higher customer satisfaction and confidence, as well as improved industry standing, claims the business.

Its ROI of 490 per cent has enabled it to double its profitability. Company executives believe these gains are small compared to the long-term impact coaching will have. The initiative was designed and implemented by Stewart Twinn, who the company agreed to train as a coach. Twinn is an ICF Professional Certified Coach. He has now set up his own business, Coaching4development, but will continue to work for Solaglas.

Part of the impetus behind Twinn suggesting the approach was to show what can be achieved through coaching with even the most inexperienced managers in one of the most challenging environments.

He said: “There was a coercive management style and lots of the managers were from a self-employed background. Many were scared to make decisions because they thought they’d get their money stopped.”

Culture change

The 400-strong company kicked off the initiative in July 2007, following a review of its leadership strategy within its operations division. The review identified a need for massive cultural change over the next five years, moving from a directive to a more empowering management style.

HR director Patrick Kent said: “We needed a total culture change. We needed frontline managers to be more engaged.” He stressed the importance of customer service – it would take only one customer complaint to a major insurer for the insurer to potentially refuse to work with the organisation.

The coaching initiative fast-tracked 15 frontline managers whose responsibilities needed to expand significantly after the removal of a layer of senior management. The managers had had little or no training. Requiring them to take up new responsibilities from day one was highly risky.

“This was quite an undertaking. These guys were engineers and had forgotten any ambitions they may have held about being managers,” said Kent. A coaching-based 18-month programme was rolled out through six modules including company process and systems knowledge.

Kent said: “Coaching provided the spine of the programme. As they’d been brought up in a more directive style, these people needed a more empowering coaching style of management so they could empower their guys to make decisions on the job. So we saw coaching as a key action.” Kent joined the organisation from Dixons Store Group, where he was regional HR manager. Throughout the Solaglas programme, evidence from managers was benchmarked against specifically designed competencies which became harder throughout the 18 months.

Aside from training (with Penna Consulting Group), managers were offered unlimited coaching with Twinn. Penna rolled out the coach training through a two-day workshop, followed by four practice sessions over six months to “avoid any learning decay”. The TGROW (Topic, goal, reality, options and wrap-up/will) model was used.

Evaluations

The main aim of the coaching was to support competency development by enhancing managers’ self and team awareness. Topics included critical incident reviews; 360-degree feedback reviews; training event learning reviews and competency reflection.

At the end of the programme, Solaglas called in Sheffield Hallam University to carry out a qualitative evaluation using the Kirkpatrick Model1, looking at any movement in style among field managers through focus groups, interviews and surveys.

In addition, Twinn carried out a quantitative evaluation. Kent said Solaglas had an advantage here as it had spent 90 per cent of the total management budget on this initiative. “So we could say that nothing else had changed apart from the coaching.”

Another saleable asset was that repair work went up from 52 per cent of jobs to 61 per cent. Plus the completion rate – in one visit – shot up from 87 per cent to 93 per cent. It meant £450,000 added to Solaglas’ coffers: 25 per cent of profits.

This was a prime example of how coaching was helping people on the frontline use their own initiative and come up with solutions in the moment, explained Kent.

He said the biggest risk the organisation took was in the “what about me?” factor. “Although we expected this, we didn’t really understand what a risk it was. If you’re going to roll this out to frontline managers and they’re using a new language, we didn’t know what that would create.”

At the start, this fostered uncertainty but it drove participants’ managers to focus on their own development.

Solaglas is now rolling out a programme to develop management potential in the same format. The first cohort will consist of eight potential managers, the target being 27.

A four-level framework devised by Donald Kirkpatrick to evaluate training programmes.

How Solaglas saw off the competition

• Company profit increased by 250 per cent with no significant increase in sales or job losses.
• Operational workmanship quality doubled.
• Operational staff turnover reduced from 19 per cent to 5 per cent, eliminating the cost of equipping and training 23 fewer staff than in the previous period. Staff turnover within the rest of the business remained at 19 per cent.
• Operational related letters from satisfied customers doubled.
• Operational employee sickness fell by 20 per cent, saving over 321 lost days.
• 73 per cent of staff reported an improvement in communication following the coach training.
• Subcontracting costs fell by 21 per cent.
• Material costs fell by 5 per cent.
• Initiative ROI was proven to be 490 per cent.

Volume 5, Issue 2

Coaching in Korea has risen from little more than a forced trend to a real and very promising movement. I came to Korea from the US in 1998 to start a coaching company. It was hard to introduce professional coaching here, even though I saw such a great need for it.

In Korea, it is mandatory for all men to go into the army and Korean corporate culture is highly influenced by the military. I’ve seen traditional Korean culture inspire Korean leaders to experience the power of coaching because of this cultural backdrop.

I offered the first International Coach Federation (ICF) accredited coach training programme (ACTP), which started in February 2001. I also introduced coaching to 46,000 Korean leaders, spending more than 4,000 hours training Korean coaches in ACTP, in addition to various corporate coach training and executive coaching services.

This pioneering approach was key in giving birth to more and better professional coaches. Graduates from the programe went on to start the country’s first ICF chartered chapter and many coaching companies began offering services to the public.

At first, corporate trainers and consultants introduced coaching as a trend only. I learned that many companies had bad experiences with coaching through their internal HR trainers and consultants. It took five years to rebuild their trust and gather enough ROI data.

Since then, mobile phone maker LG Electronics and mobile service provider SK Telecom, the latter the largest telecoms company in Korea, have increased coaching budgets every year since 2002. A total of 27 ICF master certified coach level internal coaches from both SK and LG have finished ACTP training.

Now, there is much evidence that coaching has become a real movement. The Korea Coach Association was formed in 2003. The Korea Coaching Institute was started by a group of professors in 2005. This body publishes an annual coaching research paper. In addition, the Peter F Drucker Society of Korea picked a coaching subject as their topic at the Drucker Centennial Global conference in June.

Also in 2009, the Korean government started its first coaching pilot to support 48 small and medium sized businesses (SMEs). The government reported a 21.9 per cent success rate based on personal performance, inter-relationship skills and team performance.

Pre-2008, the government had only funded consulting projects for SMEs. Following the success of the pilot the Korean government now plans to offer more coaching rather than consulting projects. This is a big change.

A key success of Asian coaching practice is the integrated approach between performance and emotion, and a disassociation from subjectivity – the opposite of a Western perspective.

When clients connect with their true potential and pure awareness by feeling things fully, they become more self-reliant and full of clarity. They do not limit possibilities or try to force an outcome but rather embrace the opportunity as a stable and balanced being.

Working with the ICF has been one of highlights of my life, and includes roles on many committees, as an assessor, an ICF conference speaker last year and for the nominating committee this year.

It is such a wonder to ride the wave of the coaching movement in Korea. It may be more like enjoying the wonders of uncertainty.  But as with surfing, it’s very important to maintain a balance and become centred with each wave.

Paul Jeong is founder and president of Asia Coach Center. He is an ICF master certified coach. In 2006 he founded ICF Korea’s Seoul chapter, which has 100 members. From 2005 to 2009 he was on the International Association of Coaches (IAC)’s board of governors.

Volume 5, Issue 2