In the last in this series on how to use coaching successfully in companies, Frank Bresser makes the case for more coaching programme quality

Part 4: Where do businesses stand in the design and implementation of coaching programmes?

Coaching is one of the fastest growing business phenomena in the world. In practice though, the design, implementation and optimisation of company programmes is still in its infancy.

The quality of coaching programmes is, on average, low.

It can be quite a disappointment to look behind the curtain in many companies, even in those that claim coaching is a substantial part of their corporate culture. There is a real risk that coaching may end up being used superficially at symptom level or that organisations merely pay it lip service to raise their profile.

Positive exceptions

There is good news though: the number of professionally implemented programmes with good results is increasing.

Our book1 presents 23 detailed high-quality company case studies written by HR/OD/L&D managers from across the globe, responsible for coaching in their companies. These include SAP, MTN, BBC, a Chinese producer of optical devices, NASA, T-Mobile, Ramada Hotel, PepsiCo and Nordea Bank.

While there is room for further improvement, all have thought through their coaching programmes in a systematic way and have tailored their initiatives to their specific context and business strategy. They have made deliberate choices about the coaching forms they used and have worked out concepts and plans (for example, clear objectives).

When implementing coaching, these companies formulated learning points, for example:

• Always have a clear picture of where you want to go and the purpose of your coaching.
• Think of coaching as part of your long-term strategic plans.
• Make best use of coaching to achieve alignment and synchrony with your business strategy.
• When making professional use of coaching, its benefits far outweigh its costs.
• Coaching is fully leveraged when it is an integrated part of the larger learning system and organisational culture.
• Implementation works well with strong support and permanent involvement at the top.

Quality of coaching

What do we mean when we say that the current, average quality of coaching programmes in business is low? The following three statements best illustrate this:

1 Poor qualifications of many implementers

Managers and directors responsible for coaching in their firms are often not sufficiently qualified to fulfil their roles.

There are many reasons for this:

• Coaching, and in particular its systematic implementation, is still new, and often done by trial and error
• The coaching industry itself was, and for the most part still is, unable properly to provide managers with systematic guidance and support in planning its implementation.
• The managers responsible for coaching often have a whole range of tasks, one of which is coaching.
• Coaching, and the proper qualifications of the responsible manager, may have low importance in companies.
• There is often a lack of organisational power within HR/OD/L&D and of their acceptance as a real strategic business partnership.
• Many implementers are reluctant to admit the limits of their capability or to get the external support they need. As a result, failures go unrecognised or are not made public.

2 Lack of real coaching plans/concepts in companies

Most businesses still have an ad hoc approach to coaching and don’t think through their initiatives. Even when firms invest quite heavily, for example, in single coaching services, there is often a lack of systematic planning to ensure their most effective, organisation-specific application.

Many companies use coaching, but don’t have a clear understanding of it and the reason they are using it. Also, the practice of coaching evaluation is generally poor.

3 No, or very low, strategic integration of coaching

For any coaching to be successful, it needs to be clearly linked to company strategy. However, in some organisations, you may still come across coaching programmes that simply:

a) contradict and work against existing corporate, business and/or functional strategy

b) do not contradict current strategies, but do not support them: they run in parallel without really having an impact on business success, and

c) could easily be linked to strategy, but are not and therefore lose momentum, acceptance and impact.

All of these scenarios are unsatisfactory. Coaching only starts to become value-adding and sustainable where it visibly serves business strategy and success. To do this, companies must deploy coaching as a direct means of achieving strategic objectives.

They must establish strong links between interventions and corporate, business and/or functional strategy. Where coaching has a particularly high strategic importance for a firm, it should also be explicitly included in the strategy itself.

Yet in many organisations coaching is only used case-by-case, or is a low-key, standard part of HR or L&D strategy. This means the organisation has integrated coaching as a standard personal development tool in its HR or L&D portfolio, thereby keeping it rather general and off-the-shelf.

In short, we need much better qualified developers and implementers of coaching programmes in companies, much better thought through concepts and plans and much better linking of programmes to business strategy.

Management and delivery

The management task of designing, implementing and optimising successful coaching programmes should be distinguished from the actual delivery of interventions (for example, professional coaching delivered by coaches or coach training provided by trainers).

In your role as manager/director responsible for coaching in your company, you need capability in implementing programmes. It is about setting the frame of reference and direction of coaching within a company and the high-level management of initiatives.

A new discipline

The difference between management and delivery is new and hasn’t yet been understood by many companies. While the awareness of the distinction has increased in recent years, a lot of companies still try to implement coaching by improvising on the basis of their classic HR skills plus classic coaching skills. But this is not enough.

Make a self-assessment

We suggest you go through the following sequence of steps to identify your own company-specific needs for external support in implementing and optimising coaching programmes:

1 Honestly assess your level of existing literacy regarding design, implementation and optimisation of coaching programmes

What qualifies you to be a manager responsible for coaching in your company?

2 Honestly analyse the gap between your current level and the capability needed to implement coaching successfully in your firm

Establish your organisation-specific coaching needs and the skills required to implement this in your firm (and for your role specifically). Compare your existing and required capability.

3 Identify your exact needs for external support

Once you have determined there is a need for external support, formulate your need as clearly and precisely as possible. Think about the focus, nature and reach of it.

4 Contact us to explore the possibility of collaboration

Email: info@bresser-consulting.com

The Global Business Guide for the Successful Use of Coaching in Organisations (ebook PDF, ISBN 978-3-9808833-9-9), by Frank Bresser (ed. Amanda Bouch) is available at: www.frank-bresser-consulting.com

Frank Bresser MBA is a global business expert on implementation and optimisation of coaching in organisations. He received the Global HR ‘Strategic Leadership Award’ 2011 at the World HRD Congress 2011. Email: frankbresser@bresser-consulting.com

Could you implement a second-generation coaching programme of excellence in your business?

Do you think your organisation has what it takes to become an exemplary role model and pioneer in the design, implementation and optimisation of coaching programmes?

We are in the process of implementing second-generation coaching programmes of excellence in companies and are keen to generate case studies of organisations applying our seven frameworks in designing and implementing their coaching strategy. Organisations are welcome to apply (the earlier the better; no later than August).

To find out more, email: info@bresser-consulting.com

Figure 1 Poor average quality of coaching programmes in companies today
Figure 2 Distinction between management and delivery
Figure 3 Gap analysis regarding your current level and the coaching capability needed to implement coaching successfully in your firm

Coaching at Work, Volume 6, Issue 4