The John Lewis Partnership (JLP). Imagine those three words and the first thing that springs to mind is the retail group’s unusual employee ownership structure, where employees are ‘partners’ in the business and all own it. But the group is also making a name for itself in terms of coaching.
JLP is increasingly recognising that coaching is playing a pivotal role in developing the performance of its partners. And the initiatives are beginning to make an impact on the business culture too, claims Steve Millbank, personnel manager, learning and development for JLP.
“Historically, we had a command and control structure and we wanted to move towards a more empowering management style.” Millbank believes there is now a greater likelihood of problems being solved at first base rather than referred ‘up the line’.
“Examples of this are that many more customer service queries are now dealt with by the first employee to be involved,” he adds. There were other tangible business results for JLP as well: an employee opinion survey conducted at the end of 2004/05 revealed a 26 per cent increase in the number of partners believing that their manager encourages them to take more responsibility, and a 25 per cent improvement in the number of partners believing their managers help them to do their job better. Staff turnover decreased by 3 per cent to 20 per cent and productivity improved by 5 per cent over the same period. “For a labour-intensive organisation that’s a big jump,” reflects Millbank. “There was also quite a lot of anecdotal evidence that managers had accepted coaching.”
In early 2005, JLP introduced a new appraisal system whereby managers are now assessed on their team development, which covers coaching skills. “We don’t mention the word coaching specifically but the discussion between manager and partner would definitely cover their coaching activity, attention to developing their team members to full potential,” he comments.
Learner focused
But the team at JLP recognise that they have more work to do, admits Millbank. The company is now embarking on developing the coaching skills of approximately 3,000 section managers using an amended version of the original workshops, which is being delivered internally by the learning and development team.
“We have achieved a move away from a directive tool-orientated style of management to one that is much more learner-focused, and coaching really helps that process,” reflects Millbank. Giving staff responsibility for their own learning and development is crucial, he adds. “Our experience shows us that having staff who know that the quality of their work performance has a direct impact on their pay an promotion prospects generates real commitment” he comments. “Being responsible for their own development is far more likely to lead to progress than a manager insisting on or trying to enforce learning.
Although coaching had been around for 10 years within the retail group, JLP decided to make a big investment in coaching to transform the management style within its department stores, distribution centres and production units in 2003, explains Millbank.
“We wanted to develop managers as coaches and develop partners in the organisation. And we wanted our managers to develop a style that was less parental and more adult; less controlling and encouraged greater use of initiative,” he says.
Another reason that coaching was used by JLP was to maximise the output and potential of its 30,000 employees by giving line managers greater skill as coaches, addes Millbank. At the end of 2004 the learning and development team approached Fiona MacNeill, founding director of Fiona MacNeill Associates, independent development consultancy, after being impressed with her work with senior managers at the Newcastle branch of the retail group. “She helped managers at Newcastle understand how they could develop coaching plans, with individuals focusing on how they could do their job better and what skills could be improved,” recalls Millbank.
As a result, JLP contacted Fiona MacNeill Associates to do similar work across its 25 department stores during 2005. This involved around 800 senior managers attending two-day workshops to understand how to construct consistent coaching plans to identify the development needs of their line reports, explains Geraldine Grainger, head of learning and development for JLP.
“The workshops were designed to train managers to use a coaching plan to structure their coaching activity. Managers already had coaching skills, though the workshops inspired many to brush up on their techniques,” she says. “In addition, elements of the workshops, like transactional analysis, helped them refine their coaching skills.”
After the workshop finished, each participant was then required to submit a written coaching plan based on a real-life scenario. These plans were then assessed and the senior managers were given feedback on the effectiveness of those plans.
A few months after the workshops, the participants had to develop three coaching plans for staff as well as attend a review meeting to discuss the challenges they face and what they had learnt since the initial workshop.
Management support
Coaching hasn’t just been restricted to workshops. JLP has now included coaching in all its learning and development interventions. For example, during leadership courses, the company refers to coaching as a tool for getting the best from people, and course participants will coach each other in the process of forming development plans.
Millbank stresses that senior management support has been vital in pushing forward the coaching initiative across the business. “We talked to our managing director at an early stage and were lucky in that he was supportive of the role that coaching can play.”
During 2004, the learning and development team arranged for groups of senior managers to have one-to-one coaching. “This gave them an understanding of what coaching could achieve,” reflects Millbank.
“More importantly, we had role models seeing in their own personal development what coaching could do.”
The effectiveness of the workshops is being measured by studying the written training plans developed by the managers and through the observed assessment at the end of the coaching workshop. They are also able to monitor the number of training plans that a manager has in place at any one time, adds Millbank.
There is a clear link between developing the coaching skills of managers in developing partners and the business strategy, claims Millbank.
“We have a business strategy directed towards a whole set of operational and financial imperatives and there is a people element of that. It’s about JLP becoming a high performance culture and if you want that, then having a workforce operating to the best of their ability is important. Coaching is an integral part of developing people’s performance.”
Grainger is keen to emphasis that these coaching workshops are all part of the company’s shift to a high performance culture. “What a lot of our managers lacked was the ability to get the best out of their teams and that was where coaching has fitted in.”
JLP: Workshop techniques
The workshops were designed to help managers us structured coaching plans to improve performance, explains Fiona MacNeill of Fiona MacNeill Associates.
“the fundamental message as about moving managers from tell, task and fix it to ask development and empower.”
No single coaching model was used in the workshops but there were several theories underpinning the work done by the participants in the workshop. These included Kolb and experiential learning. Honey and Mumford’s learning styles and Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis.
The latter theory was critical in exploring the impact of the coach’s communication on the empowerment of the coachee, adds MacNeill.
“JLP is a parental organisation where many managers still ‘fix’ the performance by doing or telling rather than empowering and challenging. This programme was part of the culture shift towards developing performance in line with their new appraisal process.”
Learning points
- Do be very clear about what you mean by coaching and have only one definition for coaching.
- JLP defines coaching as supporting people’s development through helping raise their awareness about their own knowledge, skills, understanding and behaviour gaps.
- Create high-pro. le role models through coaches operating at a senior level
- Show people that coaching can be quick, manageable and immediate. It doesn’t have to happen away from the workplace or be time-consuming
- Create simplicity and structure around your coaching framework
- Start at the top of the organisation. Having senior managers with a good understanding and commitment to coaching really helps propel an initiative
- It’s important that coaching isn’t seen as something surplus but is run in parallel with your work in the organisation