EDITORIAL: WATERCOOLER MOMENTS : What we need to do to coach our teams into excellence

What you need to know:

  • We are far too used to being told what to do, I think most of it is driven by the ways in which our societies operate. We have schooling systems that encourage and train our students to listen to the teacher and the learning is predominantly centered on the teacher.

Tell me and I will forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I will understand,” Confucius is reputed to have said in 450BC.

We are far too used to being told what to do, I think most of it is driven by the ways in which our societies operate. We have schooling systems that encourage and train our students to listen to the teacher and the learning is predominantly centered on the teacher.

We have parents who make many decisions for us and we have a magnificent problem solver called Google that spits out answers to all our questions in multiple pages. In between these elements it’s little surprise that we do have the same expectations in the workplace. We want people to tell us exactly what to do. I dare say that for this reason coaching is a challenging culture to embed.

The flip side of embedding this culture though holds tremendous benefits and it is well worth the pain and resources it takes.

But what is coaching? The International Coach Federation defines coaching as; “Partnering with clients in a thought provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”

What are the benefits of coaching? We can categorize benefits in two categories:

Three top personal benefits to the employee or person:

1. Empowerment – the employee builds their ability to chart their path by figuring out their options and what their best way to pursue their dreams is.

2. Validation and confidence building – this will come in massive doses from the satisfaction of overcoming new challenges.

3. Advancement - coaching helps employees to employ their skills and knowledge to the best of their abilities and lead to advancements in their careers.

Three top benefits for the institution:

1. Productivity boost – employees who are empowered are able to make smarter choices and produce better quality work

2. Efficient and effective use of resources – the use of coaching reduces the need for formal training which makes best use of strained financial resources

3. Improvement of bench strength of the talent pool – this ensures that more delegation can happen and more meaningful work is performed. This directly contributes to the quality of work and retention.

The next question then becomes how best can institutions embed a coaching culture? Lets start by defining what a coaching culture means; it is a work environment which allows people at all levels to speak up, be listened to, but really important are heard. The type of work environment that breeds a spirit of everyone being responsible for everything.

The how question has various dimensions but critical points to pay attention to as you travel down the journey of creating a culture of coaching are:

1. Make a clear and simple to understand business case that links coaching to business performance and progress for individuals in terms of their professional growth as well as personal growth.

2. It must start from the very top – the most senior leadership must set the tone and demonstrate ownership by taking on coaching for themselves and offer it to others in their teams.

3. Line leadership or management must be involved in the process fully. Systems need to be created that allow them to access coaching as well as to coach their teams. They must have the tool kits that enable them to become confident and great coaches. These include tactics of giving feedback, supporting the teams through the process by having regular, robust and focused coaching conversations.

4. Deal with the resistance factors. These maybe in the form of mindsets that need to shift or it may be systems that discourage inter-levels interactions that are genuine and positive.

Whichever path you and your institution decide to pursue to achieve a coaching culture, I sure hope these steps offer enough food for thought to get you started.

In closing, if I borrow from a foreword by His Highness The Aga Khan to Excellence in Education 2003, “The true test of education is the ability of graduates to engage with what they do not know and to work out a solution. They must be able to reach conclusions that constitute the basis for informed judgements. The ability to make judgements that are grounded in solid information, and employ careful analysis, should be one of the most important goals for any educational endeavor. As students develop this capability, they can begin to grapple with the most important and difficult step: to learn to place such judgements in an ethical framework.”

His message contexts students primarily, however the same holds true for all of us in the work force. Coaching offers us a unique opportunity to create powerful self led evaluation, learning and clarity to enable us to take action about the challenges that come our way.

Terry Ramadhani leads HR in East Africa for the Agha Khan University