Coaching has seen a huge increase in popularity in recent years and the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development Learning and Development Survey currently reports that coaching is the second most effective development strategy, second only to on-the job training. One of the reasons for the continued success of coaching is that it can be responsive to changing needs and can focus on real live issues in the workplace. This makes it an ideal development strategy in changing and uncertain times.
Following the Brexit vote, we have rarely seen more uncertainty in the nation’s fortunes with many organisations nervous about what the future holds and what staffing levels will be needed. But this uncertainty is already a common working context for many businesses. Organisations are needing to change and adapt on an almost constant basis to new technologies, shifting customer demands and as a result of global reach.
This means that developing the human initiative of staff becomes a key objective in order to keep pace with the changes required and to develop agile and responsive workers. This has been called the ‘new industrial age’ (CIPD) where the instability can also create a need for reassurance and support to help staff deal with these daily challenges. Yet such a climate can make organisations nervous to invest, especially in things like staff development that might go some way to helping combat these issues. Investing in talent is often seen as ‘non-essential’ spending and is likely to be even further down the agenda when we are not even sure if that talent is able to be retained.
Developing your people in unpredictable times
Yet developing people is a great motivator and can be critical to maintaining engagement from key staff during times of uncertainty and change. It can help deliver enhanced skills and reassurance that their role matters. People will often ‘go the extra mile’ when they see that they are valued and that managers see them as personally worth investing in. This dilemma can be resolved using coaching. By offering one-to-one coaching that works on real organisational issues, companies can increase productivity and demonstrate investment in people while keeping costs under control.
Large scale training and development programmes can be costly and take key people out of the business for long periods of time. There is also a danger that training courses quickly become out-dated in the fast paced and uncertain climate that we all currently inhabit. By contrast, coaching can be delivered in short bursts and can adapt very quickly to current needs.
The main issue faced by many organisations trying to implement more coaching is the confusion with performance management. While coaching can be a way to enhance performance, some organisations have used it as a remedial intervention aimed only at under-performers. Not surprisingly, this had led many to reject coaching when it has been offered and has meant that those on whom it has been forced are simply ‘going through the motions’. It is almost impossible to coach someone who does not want to engage and ultimately a complete waste of that investment.
Understanding coaching
The coaching experience should be a positive personal development intervention based on partnership and challenge. The coach works with the individual to agree relevant and mutually agreed goals that form the basis of development conversations. Those development conversations help the individual to think through strategies, to apply their current knowledge and to set out development plans to improve in the future. Those plans can be based on changes in behaviours, new learning objectives or testing alternative approaches.
What is essential is that the individual takes control of any changes they want to make and uses the coaching support to challenge and develop their thinking. In the sporting world we can see that the best coaches were not always the most elite athletes, yet they can get their star performers to exceptional levels of performance by helping them develop their own personal approach and making the best use of their personal strengths. No coach can tell you how to do your job better, and if they did you wouldn’t listen anyway! The coach is not there to be an expert in your job, but to help you become more expert in it!
Some people find this concept hard to understand, but it reflects the difference between training and coaching. Training delivers knowledge and information on how to do things better. In the world of sport this might be how to play tennis. But once someone knows the game, the best performance will be achieved by raising their awareness of situations so they can use their own knowledge, expertise and personal strengths in real time on the court. I am pretty sure no one can teach Roger Federa how to be a better tennis player but he still uses a coach who will never have achieved his level of success. The reason the coach is still valuable is because he/she is an expert in helping him develop his craft.
A coach is therefore not always as great an expert in the content under discussion, but has significant expertise in the process of development and maximising human potential. If you need to teach people key knowledge, use training. Once they need to use judgement, develop initiative and carry more personal responsibility, use coaching.
Wendy Wilson & Carmelina Lawton Smith
The SpotCoaching Company
October 2016