A company’s strong coaching offer may now be in jeopardy as the organisation looks to make significant reductions in its L&D budget. How can coaching boss James prove its impact?
James is responsible for coaching in his organisation. The business has built up its coaching offer over the past eight years. At first, it ‘tested the water’, employing a couple of external coaches who worked with a few executives. Over time this grew to include the majority of the top 5 per cent in the company as well as individuals identified as top talent in the succession plan.
About three years ago, the organisation introduced internal coaching to make coaching available to a greater number of managers and professionals. The coaches were trained with a leading coach training company and, after a few teething problems with ‘supply and demand’, the internal coaching began to do well.
However, it doesn’t look as if it will be all roses in the garden in the future. Like many organisations recently, the learning and development budget has been under constant scrutiny and threat. It seems as if this will be even more the case during the next year.
James is concerned that all the hard work to date could be undone. How can he increase the impact and reputation of coaching to reduce the chances of significant cuts to the coaching budget, and to capitalise on successes thus far?
Gil Schwenk
Executive coach, supervisor and team coach, Bath Consultancy Group
James’ situation is very common. So what actions can he take to increase the value of coaching?
Does the organisation have a coaching strategy? How is it related to business strategy and recession survival tactics? What are the ‘big issues’ the organisation is facing? Who are the owners of these issues? How could coaching add real value?
James could consider three-way contracting with the client, manager and coach, to increase the accountability of coaching. It will stop all coaching that does not detail its purpose, number of sessions, cost and clear outcomes. This will certainly get the attention of the coaches.
Organisations that have a clear focus on who has coaching achieve the greatest value. Criteria could include: a) individuals who are working on system-wide change, b) individuals recently promoted to a new level, and c) developmental challenges identified in performance management or personal development planning.
Ensure supervision. We find that consistent one-to-one or fixed group supervision works best to develop the capability and impact of coaches.
One of the best ways to show value is to ‘publish’ coaching case studies. A few sentence stems will make it easier:
- I decided to have coaching because…
- With the help of my manager and coach, we agreed on coaching outcomes…
- As a result of the coaching, I realised… I now [behaviour or action]…
- The benefit to [person/group/organisation] is …
Ensure supervision. We find that consistent one-to-one or fixed group supervision works best to develop the capability and impact of coaches
Bob Garvey
Professor of business education, York St John University Business School
People who experience coaching know it ‘works’, but not in predictable ways. The challenge of Change is that managers lose confidence and revert to type. They slip into ‘cutting’ and ‘prove it’ mode. And ‘cutting’ has a negative effect on people.
This business, after three years, is surely over the ‘prove’ it stage. If not, coaching remains optional.
Coaching has the potential for real and relatively painless continuous change. But it requires a major change in the discourse of managers. The dominant management discourse is quasi-scientific, derived from Socrates. It is mainly about power, and cause and effect decision-making; a ‘technical’ discourse that translates into organisational policies based on ‘good practice’ thinking. It creates ‘objective’ standards, competency and ethical frameworks; objectives and ‘objective’ measurement. Given that objectivity in human affairs is “a figment of our minds; it does not exist in nature” (Skolimowski, p42), management has been barking up the wrong tree for years.
Coaching comes from a different discourse – a humanistic one that values learning and cedes power with notions such as the ‘coachee’s agenda’.
Sadly, coaches often subscribe to two discourses – the technical and the discourse of coaching. While practitioners ape the dominant management discourse and live in another discourse when coaching, there will be no change.
H Skolimowski, Living Philosophy, Arkana, London, 1992
Coaching has the potential for real and relatively painless continuous change. But it requires a major change in the discourse of managers
Coaching at Work, Volume 7, Issue 1