Coaching for Improvement

Coaching for Improvement

Introduction

Coaching is a set of speci?c skills and behaviors that managers exhibit, and is intended to increase individual and organizational learning and knowledge, through decreasing the amount of direction and increasing discretionary activities of employees through learning activities and opportunities (Barry, 1994 & Ellinger, 1999).

A particularly innovative approach has been taken by a number of Organizations. Out of this, they have created a pool of coaches from within the organizations who can provide coaching services which are charged for, but the entire funds move from one public purse to another without involving external consultants (Bowerman.et.al, 1999).

Discussion

Most large organizations in the world today have coaching programs in place. These may take the form of external one to one coaches for middle and/or senior executives, management training in coaching skills, or training internal coaches (Thornhill.et.al,2000)

Principles

There are three principles underlying a coaching culture:

Responsibility

The more a manager takes responsibility in the workplace, the less that manager's reports will take upon themselves. People are naturally creative, enjoy contributing and like to have a measure of control of their workload. These instincts will be curbed by managers who bully, criticize, humiliate or micro-manage their staff. However, being left alone without any positive feedback or suggestions for improvement does not encourage people to take responsibility either; and this is where the other two elements come in.

Blame free

Research shows that human beings learn through making mistakes, so People must be allowed to make their own individual progress through trial and error, from the CEO to the most junior new recruit. People need the space to experiment, plus a measure of support, some suggestions, good role models, clear guidelines of what is expected of them and appropriate training for the job.

A useful question to ask oneself when a report makes a mistake is ''what response from me will help this person develop and remain motivated?'' In many cases, the answer to this is to remain silent. If someone knows he has made a mistake, and how to correct it, input from his manager may just make him feel worse, lowering energy and motivation.

Of course there are times when people are not aware of their mistakes, or are behaving unacceptably. The coaching approach here is to ask people to discuss their performance before simply telling them what is wrong. The chances are that when given the chance to talk, the person in question will describe the problems and come up with the solutions that the manager was planning to talk about, relieving the manager of the dilemma of how to address these issues at all.

Self belief

People's self belief can be boosted by praise from their bosses and peers. Outside recognition is not all that is needed, however. Think of a child learning to walk; it is encouraged by praise from the parents, but the key aspect is that the child is allowed to learn by falling down.

Ten point plan for creating a coaching culture

Below is a plan that might form a basis for any ...