A coaching culture will help your company thrive in a new economy — here’s how to make it happen
The pandemic has changed everything — especially the economy. The new economy created by the pandemic requires everyone to have new skills, new processes, new structures and new ways of thinking. Nobody knows exactly how it will be different, which makes a coaching culture even more crucial.
We’re all going to be figuring things out at the same time. There’s no playbook for how to recover after a global pandemic. People will need to offer each other a little more understanding and empathy, supporting each other more to forge the path ahead.
And so to some degree, we must all become students at the same time we become teachers. And that’s exactly what a coaching culture should help you to achieve.
What Is a Coaching Culture?
One of the biggest mistakes is assuming that coaching is a top-down concept. For example, consider the definition offered by this Forbes article: “A coaching culture simply means supporting your employees so that they learn new skills and become greater assets to the company.”
They’ve got it right in that people are learning new skills, and as a result offering more value to the company. But what’s missing is who is doing the coaching. Ideally, you should have four types of coaches.
The obvious one is leader to direct report. No question, this coaching relationship is the backbone of your culture. But people also need coaching from their peers, external coaches, and for leaders, even from their direct reports.
The key is that no one is above feedback and growth. Everyone needs to be open to learning. After all, most leaders can’t be expected to be experts in everything. So, they need to accept coaching from others, regardless of where they stand on the org chart.
Thus, the real definition of creating a coaching culture is having an entire group of people giving and receiving feedback openly and regularly because they are committed to common success. In short, no matter where you stand, everyone is learning and improving their skills.
The key elements are having leaders with the competence and confidence to coach, motivate, and develop others. Organizations have a coaching culture when people, especially leaders, are holding better conversations that account for both the practical and personal needs of the person being coached.
What Are the Benefits of Creating a Coaching Culture?
In the Global Leadership Forecast 2018, DDI took a look at some of the benefits of creating a coaching culture. It found that companies that use coaching by direct managers and external mentors have much stronger bench strength. And they’re able to promote more leaders internally. Above all, they are more likely to have a pipeline of talent to fill roles immediately, which will be crucial in the high turnover times that are likely ahead in the next few years.
In addition, companies in which people receive coaching in any form (i.e., managers, peers, direct reports) have leaders who have a deeper understanding of their future career paths. And more importantly, they are more satisfied with their advancement. Both of these benefits are key to retaining leadership talent.
Other studies have found additional benefits. For example, HR Professionals Magazine noted that the benefits of a strong coaching culture include:
· Increased employee engagement.
· Increased collaboration in the workforce.
· Development of people and performance.
· Improvement of creativity and agility.
· Increased responsibility in employees.
· Newly formed change management capabilities.
In short, none of these benefits are ones you can afford to miss in a new and more competitive economy.
The Steps to Creating a Coaching Culture
So how can you get to the positive benefits of creating a coaching culture? Here are four key steps:
1. Get senior-level support. First, to be successful, culture change initiatives need to start at the top. According to HR Daily Advisor, “Organizations with robust coaching cultures are over 60% more likely to have senior leaders involved in their coaching systems.”
Senior leaders need to devote time to coaching by having it on their meeting agendas and discussing it in their one on ones and in their informal conversations. But most importantly, a senior leader must “walk the talk.”
When senior leaders lead by example, others naturally follow. But leaders still need to do more. They need to pinpoint people’s motivations and position the value received both when you coach but also when you are receiving coaching.
2. Give all leaders coaching skills. The second step is to give all leaders at every level coaching skills. In addition, make sure that people in informal leadership roles (such as project managers and agile leaders) likewise have these skills. What’s the best way to do this? At a minimum, train every leader in core leadership skills.
These core skills are a combination of emotional intelligence and coaching that will enable people to prepare for an assignment or to learn and improve for the future. Ideally, leaders will also be able to access other resources to support their development.
As such, many companies have built robust learning journeys to train their leaders to become capable coaches. The result? A big step towards creating a coaching culture that’ll get you the benefits we talked about earlier.
3. Encourage the application of coaching skills on the job. The next step is to have leaders take what they have learned and apply it on the job. The adage is simple but true: practice makes perfect. But how can organizations give leaders the coaching practice they need to be successful?
First, organizations need to develop an action plan to do it. This will help provide support to make the transition toward a coaching culture easier on the leaders and those they are leading.
While it is very common to have development activities for a group of learners, it is important that every leader has a personalized follow-up plan that connects with the organization’s business priorities and structure. Some companies develop a required coach training class with follow-up small group sessions to discuss coaching opportunities and to share experiences and lessons learned.
Other companies leverage peer coaching, online coaching simulations, or apps that can provide feedback in a minute or two. Above all, the critical element is creating a system and an environment that enables everyone to apply learnings and get feedback on their progress.
All the top performers in sports or the arts practice regularly and for extended periods of time. The same level of commitment and dedication is required to become a good coach. And when that commitment is combined with opportunities to coach, you’re well on your way towards creating a coaching culture.
4. Create accountability. Finally, it is important that everyone be held accountable for their role in creating a successful coaching culture. Oftentimes that responsibility is placed onto the leaders, but when there is a coaching culture in place it looks and feels completely different.
An outcome from effective coaching is that leaders are developing teams of people who feel supported and empowered to make their own decisions. The resulting accountability system encourages employees to take ownership of their performance and encourages managers to take ownership of how they coach others.
How will you know if your organization has this level of accountability? When every employee at every level is experiencing coaching conversations on a regular basis. The coaching can be from the manager, a peer, or a direct report. And coaching can come from either inside or outside the organization.
In addition, it is important to gather evidence around the effectiveness of coaching efforts. Do you know who is coaching successfully? How many coaching conversations are occurring? Tapping into this type of knowledge will inform leadership on what needs to change and how to do better. This type of knowledge will showcase instances where the coaching is working.
If your organization is already investing time and money in workplace coaching, why stop there? Dig deeper and embrace fully creating a coaching culture. Make sure coaching is happening at every level and as often as possible. The result? You will see better productivity, more engagement, and higher performance all around.
So how can you see the ROI from creating a coaching culture? Find out by reading DDI’s blog, “Creating a Coaching Culture for the New Economy.”
Bruce Court partners with organizations on all aspects of their leadership strategy. He’s experienced in every facet of leadership strategy design, development, and execution. Outside of work, Bruce likes to travel with his wife, Maureen. He loves eating at great restaurants as well as sampling good wine and craft beers. Bruce is also a huge fan of smooth jazz.
