Focus: How do you make the coaching in your organisation sustainable?
Large organisations invest in thousands of coaching conversations a week. Even if you work in a small organisation, how is your organisation benefiting from this investment? If you only use coaching to solve problems, you are missing out on the wider benefits of realising potential in people and teams and of growing capacity.
Manager as Coach programmes have been introduced widely to develop coaching skills in managers, but without good criteria in place to measure effectiveness, and supervision of the coaches, it is difficult to effect sustainable change.
Coaching is only sustainable when • the coaching encounters are transformational • the coaching relationship happens in the context of the individual, the team and the organisation • there is good supervision to ensure that these are happening
So what makes a coaching conversation transformational?
Transformation comes when something changes during the conversation. Sometimes it’s called an ‘aha’ or lightbulb moment. It is clear that something has slotted into place and there is a shift in the story the client is telling.
Claire writes: 'I recently sat for an afternoon observing managers coaching. The purpose was to be clear whether they were using coaching at all and to then give individual feedback and explore their training needs as they develop as coaches. This benchmarking process can be hugely powerful and can allow initial coach training to become embedded in managers day to day practice. It’s also cost effective as the managers get individual feedback on specific areas to develop.
It was refreshing to hear how much their skills had developed since they attended Manager as Coach training. I noticed a significant effect on the people being coached. Those who were clearly thinking about their situation in a new way made considerably more progress and were far more positive and optimistic than their colleagues who use the coaching space to repeat old information. Original thought which made the coaching transformational. Innovative thought is the place where the greatest learning takes place. How can managers develop this ability in their teams?
Original thought may not necessarily be new ideas. It could look at existing facts in a new way. Some useful ways in might include:
Giving choice: What will be most helpful to you? To tell me what you’ve already thought? Or to explore new ideas?
Know your colleague: If you’re working with someone who needs to give loads of information, invite them to give the information in an email to you in advance, or negotiate a small and fixed amount of time in which to hear the facts
Ask!: Is what you’re telling me new to you? How can we work together to move this forward? How can we work together to look at this differently?
What makes coaching sustainable?
Peter Pan’s ‘Do-as-you-would-be-done-by’ approach has much to teach those of us involved in personnel development. People who are being coached make better coaches. In fact in the Manager as Coach training delivered at Siemens, almost 80% of the training is focussed on learning to receive coaching (Source: Making Coaching Work Clutterbuck and Megginson).
It’s not always comfortable, but in an arena where we are encouraging others to reflect, we need to do that ourselves. This is where the coach can pay attention to their relationship with he organisation and the individual, ensure quality, develop professionally and gain support. We are so committed to supervision that Claire has recently completed the Foundation Course in Coaching Supervision with Peter Hawkins at Bath Consultancy Group.
So what makes a coaching conversation transformational? 
What makes coaching sustainable?