Getting the most from your Guru
Will Executive Coaching go the same way as
the dot-coms? Certainly there is lots of hype and many people
piling
into “the next big thing”. It is now a sign of
significance and seniority in some organisations to have
your own personal management coach. However there is no doubt
that
organisations and their people need the benefit of appropriately
targeted coaching as never before. |
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| At its purest Executive
Coaching is the process by which the coach uses the key skills
of questioning and listening to help the participant to learn
for themselves. Very straightforward you may think, but buyer
beware. |
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| As the client do
you know what you want – and do you know what you are
buying? And as the participant do you know what you are getting? |
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| In some cases clearly
not. Take the case of the Trophy Coach. “We think you’ve
reached a point in your career where a coach would be of great
help. As you know a number of very senior managers here have
coaches”. For many individuals who are offered coaching
in this way they may be unsure whether they are being rewarded
or punished! |
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| A more insidious variation is that of the Terminator
Coach,
where an unsuspecting individual is offered coaching by a boss
who is under pressure to reduce headcount hoping that coaching
will somehow persuade them that their future lies elsewhere.
In other words outplacement by stealth. Not surprisingly this
is a particularly damaging scenario, since it creates an entirely
negative perception of coaching. |
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| As does the coach
as Surrogate Boss: “As you know my
new responsibilities mean that I’ll be away for the next
six months; don’t worry a chap from a coaching outfit
will be in touch to spend some time with you”. Once again
the coach is being positioned as a substitute for the manager,
rather than an external resource who can add value to the organisation
and the individual. |
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| There are many areas in which coaching can add this value
including |
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Assimilation coaching for new hires,
international assignees and newly promoted senior managers
where the aim is to accelerate the process by which a “new” person
gets up to speed. Many of us will look back on the first 100
days in a new role and ponder on the difficulties we encountered
in working out what our role really was and coming to terms
with the unexpected quirks of a new culture. Interestingly
whilst some organisations now provide coaching for new hires
to assist their integration this is much less common in the
case of international secondments, where the culture shock
of crossing boundaries within the same organisation may be
substantial. |
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Career coaching for high potential individuals.
The aim here is to help the organisation significantly enhance
the progress of talented staff, using coaching to enable them
to reflect on development needs and ways of meeting these. |
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Performance coaching for teams or individuals who
are not achieving their full potential or targets. This area
of coaching covers a very large range of potential participants
from M&A teams to sales teams; from an under-performing
back office manager to a branch manager who “cannot inspire
the team”. Here a wide spectrum of skills and experience
may be required from the coach. Indeed, it may well be sensible
to involve coaches with specific know-how during the process.
Watch out for the Universal Coach who can do anything for anybody. |
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| Whatever the issue the coach and their corporate
client need to explore the context in which coaching is seen
as a possible intervention and agree objectives and how “success” will
be measured. And then these must be shared and discussed with
the participant. A recurring theme in situations where coaching
has failed to meet expectations is because expectations were
never shared at the outset. |
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| The question most participants ask at their first
meeting is: “do you report back to my boss on what I
tell you?” And the question the boss most often asks
is “how will you keep me in the picture?” A simple,
safe way of handling this, which may seem revolutionary to
some, is to TALK TO THEM BOTH TOGETHER. In this way you can
agree “rules of engagement” for the process and
safeguard the integrity of the coaching. |
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| One of the great
things about coaching is the power it has to help the participant
reflect on any barriers to achievement
in an entirely new way. There are a number of reasons for this:
the opportunity to work with an outsider, the “ thinking
space” a good coach can provide for the individual; the
luxury of a non-directive approach which avoids the trap of
going for the seemingly obvious solution; and gaining the commitment
of the individual to the process by open and honest discussion
at the very beginning. |
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| Why doesn’t this happen every time? There are no doubt
many reasons; one is the absence of organisational “savvy” on
the part of the coach. Have they held a senior line role? Have
they worked as an internal or external consultant? And have
they got a recognised qualification in coaching which included
supervised practice? These experiences are strong predictors
of successful coaching outcomes. Although coaching is generally
a one-to-one activity, it never occurs in a vacuum. So the
coach needs to be able to position the individual’s aspirations
and concerns in an organisational context. They will know that
they need to spend some time gaining this perspective, and
in so doing their track record will give them credibility in
the eyes of others in the organisation. |
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| At the end of the coaching programme the trialogue needs
to happen again: coach client and participant reviewing what
has been learned, whether the original goals have been achieved
and what actions are now required. |
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| What Coaches to Avoid |
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| Individuals and organisations need to watch out for the Adhesive
Coach. This individual will constantly emphasise how expert
they are. They alone are able to help and they will not offer
a choice of other coaches should the chemistry not be right
in the eyes of the participant. The idea of transferring coaching
skills into the organisation troubles them, as does the thought
of the participant not doing exactly as they are told. |
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| Look out for the
Coach on the Couch who will offer huge amounts of empathy but
little positive help. They may confuse intuition
with judgement and will certainly relive some of their experiences
whilst ostensibly expressing interest in yours: “that’s
just what happened to me…here’s what I did…” |
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| Also beware the Absentee
Coach who offers telephone coaching
rather than face-to-face meetings. This person is so phenomenally
successful you should think yourself lucky they are even prepared
to talk to you. |
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| Finally – and probably the most dangerous of the lot – is
the Borderless Coach who will blithely go where others will
not. Lacking any sense of ethics or boundaries they tackle
issues they have no technical competence to explore. Lacking
any practical training or sense of their limitations, they
are best avoided. |
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| On the other hand… |
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| An Effective Coach will ask both the client and the participant
for their commitment and time in helping the process work.
They will emphasise the shared nature of the process and invest
time in understanding the corporate and personal context of
their contribution. They will not suggest an immediate sheep
dip of psychometric tests but will explain how feedback can
be a very powerful tool to support personal growth. They will
also show the personal satisfaction they gain from helping
people achieve their true potential. |
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| For more
information please contact us. |
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