Initially a ‘tough sell’, the introduction of coaching to Catholic Health is helping its executives perform to a higher level and is creating a more open feedback culture
When coaching was first introduced to US health organisation Catholic
Health five years ago, initial staff reaction was “pretty sceptical”, recalls vice president of leadership development, David Black. “One of the tough sells for coaching was that people regarded it as if they were being assigned a psychiatrist.”
Yet Black says that coaching was a logical choice: “We were a newly formed national organisation and we found that we had to confront a couple of issues.”
One of these was getting people used to working in this new organisation. The other issue was a cultural shift. “We are not used to practising open and honest direct conversation and direct feedback.”
The organisation pressed on and as Black puts it, “created a buzz around coaching” within nine months by getting one or two top executives to give it a shot. As Black explains: “Instead of trying to sell it corporate-wide, we did a couple of demonstration models. It sold itself after that.”
Coaching is available to Catholic Health’s top 300 executives. The objectives are threefold: “Growing them for promotion, or for performance, and helping leaders new to the organisation get up to speed,” he explains.
“Coaching provides an opportunity to have access to an outside executive who can help put them in touch with their developmental challenges and organisational expectations, and organise and plan to help them to contribute to a higher level.”
This feeds through to improved performance and better leadership. It isn’t available lower down in the organisation because “it’s a pretty big dollar investment, and we are looking at where we can maximise the return”.
At the organisational level, coaching can make a contribution to better results, and a lower turnover of executives, suggests Black. He is “working up some numbers”, which he confidently expects will show that coaching has had a measurable impact.
Catholic Health’s executive coaching is contracted out to Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH), a global human capital solutions company. There are usually 15 coaching assignments going on.
While Catholic Health does not employ any full-time internal coaches of its own, the coaching abilities of staff have not been neglected. Black says one of the most successful aspects of LHH’s work is an educational programme called Coach the Coach, aimed at around 150 of Catholic Health’s top executives.
“We recognised that one of the deficiencies was the inability of top executives to effectively coach people below them to achieve rising performance expectations,” he explains.
The programme consists of two and half days of instruction and practice in what Black calls “coaching conversations”. Each executive then carries out a series of coaching sessions with a more junior member. LHH coaches continue their involvement by helping the executives prepare their sessions, and by debriefing them.
Coach the Coach is subtly different from coaching, says Black. “Whereas direct coaching is about accelerating the contribution of an individual or their career, Coach the Coach is really all about raising the confidence of local leaders to lead more effectively.”
Though LHH employs the coaches, Catholic Health has a say in their selection. It is looking for people who have owned, or been in, business, have depth of coaching experience and have been accredited by LHH.
“And we are always looking for the best fit between coach experience and specific leader challenge,” adds Black.
Quality control is built in through a rigorous, ongoing feedback process. This is achieved in two ways: first, clients provide Black with feedback and second, coaches report directly to the client’s boss.
“Coaches are expected to make regular reports back to the supervisor about the progress that is being made against plan: What is the progress? Are we achieving major milestones along the way?” says Black.
Typically these reports will be at least monthly and any recurring weaknesses are used to fine-tune future coaching assignments.
“This would involve adjusting the plan, recasting the milestones, or changing the coach,” explains Black. “We find that as a result of soliciting feedback from the client we start to build up a sense of the competencies of each one of our coaches.”
Although Black keeps close tabs on coaching, at an organisational level Catholic Health doesn’t track major trends across all assignments. Coaching is, however, closely aligned with Catholic Health’s HR processes.
“All of the coaching is overseen by HR, which makes the final determination on when coaching is the appropriate choice.”
Coaching plans are also linked to the organisation’s strategic goals, such as fiscal targets.
“Coaching has been used to help people achieve those specific levels of contribution,” says Black. He emphasises, however, that first and foremost it is focused on the individual. Catholic Health prefers coaching to be face-to-face, but Black accepts that because the organisation is spread coast-to-coast, this is not always possible, so on occasion it does use telephone coaching, particularly in the case of longer engagements.
Black is now looking to take coaching into new areas, such as identifying emerging leaders, and growing them more rapidly.
Catholic Health: fact file
A not-for-profit health organisation operating hospitals and care homes across 19 US states with a workforce of 65,000
Defines coaching as….
an opportunity to access an outside executive to help executives recognise and work on their developmental challenges and organisational expectations.
Uses coaching for:
- Performance
- Developing employees for promotion
- On-boarding for new leaders
- Top 300 executives
Is coaching linked to business goals?
Yes
Telephone coaching?
Yes, although face-to-face is preferred
Evaluation?
- Rigorous, ongoing feedback process from clients
- Achievement reports from coaches at least once a month
Mentoring?
Predominantly informal. Some formal where a colleague’s successor has been named.
The coaching model
The Lee Hecht Harrison results-based coaching model used at Catholic Health
1. Outcome – Start with the end point in mind.
- Focus on current reality and gain clarity on real issue(s)
- Identify goal or desired outcome for conversation and overall issue that serves both individual and organisation
- Be clear whose agenda is being worked on (organisation, coach, client and discuss how aligned
2. Information – Gather and analyse a variety of data.
- Identify key sources for input, knowledge and ideas
- Collect information on situation/issue
- Determine any patterns
- Assess openness to feedback
- Discuss how others may be affected.
3. Strategy – Create and implement a plan of action.
- Discuss possible options or approaches
- Prioritise ideas into action plan with milestones
- Assess what barriers might block success
- Discuss available supports.
4. Results – Measure progress and sustain and clarify next steps.
- Discuss agreement made and actions taken – what has worked and what has not
- Acknowledge successes and determine strategies for working through setbacks
- Determine next action steps
- Assess commitment level to achieve results.
Learning points
- Establish a strong working partnership with the coaching provider
- Ensure provider is willing to understand up-front the organisation’s business imperatives, priorities and the specific business deliverables being sought
- Have regular honest conversations with provider about the quality of the coaching team.