Coaching: the highlights

We round up some of the best bits from this year’s Coaching at Work – People Management’s sister magazine.

From www.peoplemanagement.co.uk, 1 January 2009

Editor’s comment

The past year has seen coaching truly come of age and earn the right to be called a profession. In the midst of all the economic gloom, coaching has been holding its head high as an intervention that creates space for people to reflect, gain clarity and fulfil their potential. Despite budget constraints, businesses have been reluctant to turn their backs on coaching – one impressive area of growth has been in training internal coaches and managers as coaches.

To celebrate some of the successes of the year and give you a taste of what’s on offer in People Management’s sister publication Coaching at Work magazine and its online resource, here’s a potted version of some of the best articles of 2008.

Liz Hall, editor, Coaching at Work

News in brief

Coaching through the recession

Businesses looking to enhance their creativity and productivity during turbulent times could find the answer in coaching.

Addressing meaning and purpose in coaching sessions helps people to be more creative, more productive and reach their full potential, suggests a survey of more than 1,000 coaches carried out by Coaching at Work and the Association for Coaching. Top of the benefits cited were increased work productivity (20 per cent), helping people reach their full potential (19 per cent), working out whether people were aligned with their jobs (17 per cent) and increasing their creativity (15 per cent).

EMCC pilot targets solo accreditation
Independent accreditation for individual coaches and mentors in Europe is close at hand.

A pilot scheme for the European Mentoring and Coaching Council’s (EMCC) model for professional accreditation was launched in September. Meanwhile, the EMCC is looking to develop a quality award for shorter programmes.

Coaches take skills to wider community

Making a difference to society is important to coaches and brings a host of benefits to businesses, suggests a survey, by Coaching at Work and the UK International Coach Federation, to mark the launch of the magazine’s Coaching the Community campaign.

Businesses are encouraging their coaches to use their skills to make a difference to society because it’s the right thing to do (65 per cent), to enhance employer brand (31 per cent), to practise skills and gain experience (28 per cent) and to improve retention (12 per cent). Some 60 per cent of employers involved in community coaching or mentoring do so in the education field.

Dial-up service offers fast solutions

A telephone coaching service is providing support and guidance to business managers grappling with the effects of the credit crunch.

Market research firm TNS Worldpanel UK has made the emergency service available to 70 managers. Coaching on Call’s director Ruth Paris said it offered an efficient way for managers to feel supported at a tenth of the cost of executive coaching.

Shipbuilder aims for learning culture

VT Group is shifting from a paternalistic, competitive “old boys’ club” to a culture of learning focused on self-responsibility and teamwork - all thanks to coaching.

“The culture was very much male-dominated and quite competitive... we had people who were obedient and hardworking but who didn’t employ their brains,” said Jo Robbins, HR director.

To help sell coaching to the board, Robbins shared “an overriding message from middle managers who, when asked what they liked about working at VT, said, ‘[staff] do what they’re told’”.

Profile

Ripe for change: coaching in South Africa

Imagine that the livelihoods of 2.5 million people and the future of a nation’s political and social change programme depend, at least in part, on your ability to coach and spearhead cultural change.

This was the scenario facing Peter Hawkins, chairman of Bath Consultancy Group, when he helped South African fruit exporter Capespan to shift from a parochial to a global culture as part of its merger with Unifruco. This was against a backdrop of far-reaching political change, including black empowerment in South Africa, and most of the big international supermarket chains slashing the number of fruit suppliers from hundreds to three or four.

Hawkins says coaches need to take the wider context into account. “Coaches must serve both the organisation and the individual. You’re there to hold the mirror to them about how realistic their agenda is, given the context.”

Hawkins’ approach to transformational coaching focuses not only on the client achieving insight and agreeing good intentions but also, importantly, on the client making a “felt shift” in their mindset, emotions and motivations, which creates embodied learning and commitment.

Special report: coach selection

Taking your pick of the good coaching apples

Google "executive coaching" and you’ll find nearly half a million hits. No wonder the Harvard Business Review has referred to the market as the Wild West of coaching, writes Kate Hilpern.

With the coaching market estimated to be worth £150 million in the UK and £1 billion worldwide – according to research by coaching supplier Acuity Coaching – organisations wanting value for money are understandably keen to wave goodbye to HR professionals taking on coaches without a thorough investigation into their individual background and techniques.

“Organisations are being approached by individual coaches charging up to £1,500 per hour – with no means of telling the good from the bad,” reports Simon Coops, chief executive at Acuity Coaching.

Selecting coaches: the dos and don’ts

Do:

• Dig deep in your questioning methods. You’re trying to understand what the coach brings to their practice and how that fits with objectives.
• Ensure the coach has a clear understanding of the purpose of coaching within the context of your organisation.
• Think carefully about taking on coaches who insist on using their own coaching assessment tools – they should be able to adapt to an organisation’s tools.

Don’t:

• Consider coaches who can’t outline what they can achieve.
• Take on coaches who name individuals they have worked with but beware those who are unable to name any clients.
• Assume experience counts for everything.
• Accept qualifications at face value.
• Consider a coach who does not undertake independent supervision.
  

Letter from Kenya

Lessons in leadership from Sauti singers

A rusting ferry boat creaks and hauls its cargo across the bay to Likoni near Mombasa. Hawkers shout above the din of diesel engines, honking car horns and the clattering chaos of market day. In a sleepy village behind the market, it’s a different story. I can hear singing: “Women don’t sleep... It’s time to show your true colours... Women are leaders, the mirror of life and the backbone of families.”

I’ve come to visit the Sauti women’s network, a self-empowerment group sponsored by charity ActionAid. The packed-earth floor is a long way from the ice cool, grey-carpeted boardrooms of the world’s financial capitals. Yet some of the principles of the human spirit are just the same. I’m struck by how human kindness and robust thinking can transfer across cultures and achieve such a variety of outcomes. And how groups can have many leaders and flexible hierarchies in service of desired goals.

Rachel Ellison coaches high-potential employees and senior leaders. She was a BBC news correspondent and international project director and was awarded an MBE for her work with women in Afghanistan

Health special

Be well and prosper

A growing number of employers have made the link between the personal health of their staff and business success, and are now offering coaching on health, diet and exercise as part of employee benefits or development packages, write Sarah-Jane North and Stephen Palmer.

Although health coaching in both the US and the UK is still in its infancy, an explosion is predicted. In 2000, the US-based Wellcoaches Corporation, whose health coach training programme is endorsed by the American College of Sports Medicine, trained 100 coaches. Last year, it trained 1,000, among them several UK practitioners.

In the US, health coaching often forms part of a wellness programme which is designed to reduce healthcare claims, make health insurance more affordable and improve the overall health of employees. As a result, the return on investment becomes relatively easy to measure in financial terms by comparing costs of the programme with claims. Although the incentive for UK employers to use wellness and health coaching programmes is less than in the US, as healthcare claims and health insurance do not usually enter the equation in any big way, executives and other employees are likely to personally benefit from wellness/well-being programmes and employers can expect a decrease in absenteeism and improved performance.

Case studies

Duke University in the US offered its 30,000 employees and their dependants a “prospective” health programme rather than a more traditional “preventative” approach. Group health coaching formed part of the programme. Meanwhile the Lend Lease Foundation’s Feeling Alive Programme has achieved a “real shift in thinking”, according to Mirka Packard, regional /EMEA manager. “We’re looking at our employees through an holistic lens, as people who have lives outside work.”

Quotes of the year

“Coaching is having a significant impact on both individual and organisational performance. As coaching helps people to develop, it’s a perfect fit for the fast-moving knowledge economy in which we operate”
John McGurk, CIPD adviser, learning, training and development

“The difference is that in therapy you follow the trail of tears with a goal of healing. As a side effect, people’s level of functioning and job satisfaction go up. In coaching you follow the trail of dreams with the goal of igniting the people to be their best. As a side effect some kind of healing can happen”
Carol Kauffman, co-founder and director of the coaching and positive psychology initiative, Harvard Medical School, Mclean Hospital

“I think the reason we’re getting the whole explosion in coaching is because we’re tapping into something which awakens people’s energy... and from individuals and organisations having so much more choice, and greater responsibility to manage choice”
John Leary-Joyce, founder of the Academy of Executive Coaching

Profile

Learning at the European Commission

When Norman Jardine, head of learning and development at the European Commission, talks to his mother about work, “there is a perception of people living the life of Riley”.

The reality, he says, is that senior managers at the EC are often working 12-16 hours a day in a demanding environment. So when a group of EC leaders took part in team coaching sessions as part of Jardine’s push away from classical training, it was a “revelation”. “The ability to take half a day out at that senior level is a great luxury,” Jardine says.

The EC is embracing team coaching as a way to encourage self-directed learning, create high-performing teams and increase the consistency of its training and development offer EC-wide. Team coaching is also a way to “health check” senior employees and to “wean them off their dependence on individual executive coaching”, says Jardine.

Roadtest

Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI)

What is the tool?

The SDI is a practical tool used for building more effective relationships and enhancing communication and interpersonal skills.

What the administrator said:

"The robustness of the SDI provides a solid foundation for raising self-awareness for individuals and improving team communication" said Lise Lewis, executive coach and director of Bluesky.

What the client said:

"I felt the tool was best used between a coach and a client who knew each other well" said Darren Milne, director of finance and resources at the Cheltenham Ladies College.

Diary

Diary of a manager-as-coach and her client (who is her direct report)

In their diary entries about their first session together, manager-as-coach, Elaine Robinson, and her direct report and client, Rebecca Peat, both of Nottingham Trent University, shared their concerns about juggling their different roles.

“My first concern was to ensure that other staff members were happy with the fact that Rebecca and I would be meeting regularly,” wrote Robinson. “I was also aware that once the session was over, we would both go back to the office and continue as line manager and employee. I felt this was a mini-hurdle to overcome,” wrote Peat.

With the coaching contract established, the pair could start to identify goals to work towards.

Learning points

• Build rapport
• Contract – begin with the end in mind
• Encourage reflection by the client
• Set coaching scene by communicating and offering coaching to other staff

Further Info

Norman Jardine will be speaking at the CIPD’s HRD conference taking place in London on 21-23 April 2009.