Creating Coaching Cultures: How a Coaching Culture Helps

This is the third article in our series on Creating a Coaching Culture. This series of articles is primarily focussed at HR and Development professionals wanting to transform the culture of their organisation and are seeing the potential of embedding coaching abilities within their organisation to achieve these goals. In this series, we’ll hear from professionals in the region and learn from their experience, struggles and successes. We’re giving away for free a full coach training on our Certificate in Professional Coaching programme, starting in October, to the HR or Development professional who engages most with these articles and who demonstrates the biggest shift in introducing a coaching culture to their organisation. Further details of what we’ll be looking for in our ideal winner can be found here.

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Last week, Matt helped you to examine how the current behaviour of your organisation impacts the people within and the results you are getting. This week, I would like to focus on what is possible for your organisation once you are able to build a coaching culture.  What would it look like when you are there and what impact is this having on your organisation and the people within?   Later in this article we will be referring you to our “Coaching Culture Canvas” tool. You can learn more about this tool here and download your copy here. Today we’re focussing on the section titled, “Visualise.”    

What does a Strong Coaching Culture look like?

The culture of an organisation is defined by the shared values, practices, ethics and beliefs of the organisation as a whole - and of the individuals within the organisation. In simple terms, it's the way your company does everything. Charlotte Moore, Director of Learning and Development described the benefits that Palazzo Versace Dubai have seen as a result of embedding a coaching culture as a "highly engaged team who are working towards one vision and mission. Everyone is focused on creating lasting memories for guests and team members" A strong coaching culture is, therefore, one where coaching becomes the way of life for the organisation at all levels.  If we are to truly embed a coaching culture, then coaching needs to not only be adopted at all levels of the company, it also needs to be part of the companies HR policies and performance criteria and the outcomes should be linked to the company's core strategy. The ICF and HCI 2014 report on Building a Coaching Culture noted that companies with strong coaching cultures practice coaching on a regular basis and also use a variety of coaching modalities. That means developing your internal coaching capability alongside building a trusted team of external coaches who you communicate with regularly, and also training leaders to use coaching skills on a daily basis with their teams.  

Benefits of a Coaching Culture

The HR and Development professionals that we talked to were able to give us a long list of the benefits they have noticed as a result of successfully embedding a coaching culture, or in some cases, starting to establish a coaching culture.  These were some of the examples we were hearing from those we interviewed.

• Responsibility and accountability has been given back to the individual leading to a higher level of motivation and engagement
• People have a clearer vision of where they are going and how they fit into the organisation
• Development of our organisation's future leaders
• Trusting relationships are being built between managers and their teams
• Ability to retain talent - in roles that are a good fit for them
• Increased capability and performance in the workforce
• People are empowered to take charge of their development needs
• Increased productivity leading to increased revenue growth
• We have a plan for developing our future leaders

  Melanie Cranko, a Leadership Development professional, has worked for a large oil and gas company in this region for a number of years. In her role, she was actively engaged in building a coaching and mentoring culture as part of the leadership development programmes, which had a focus on building accountability and responsibility in the development of leaders. She explained to me the benefits of a coaching culture that she has observed, "In the parts of the organisation where there is a coaching culture, staff are more confident, acting more independently, contributing more as a result of being encouraged and supported, and adding value. What does it look like? More ideas, more discretionary effort, happier staff." When we look back at last week's article, we can see that many of these benefits speak to the corporate ailments Matt spoke of, either directly or indirectly.  

Your Coaching Cultures Canvas

  Go to your Coaching Culture Canvas. In the Visualise section, consider the following questions and note down your thoughts.

·      What would my organisation look like if these hurts were healed?

·      What would be seen and heard in and of the organisation?

·      What will be possible that's not possible now?

·      What will be the impact of this new set of behaviours? On people, on performance on the business as a whole?

 

Competition for one HR professional to win a complimentary place on our October 2017 programme.

As part of this coaching cultures series, we will be giving away one seat on our October 2017 course completely free to one HR or Development professional. The NPCA Certificate in Professional Coaching is a 16-week coach development programme, which is accredited by the International Coach Federation (ICF).  In 2017, we have programmes starting in May and October. To be in with a chance of winning, we are looking for the person who engages most with these articles over the next two months by commenting below in the comments box, sharing, liking and commenting on our social media pages. The winner will also be someone who has demonstrated the biggest shift in introducing a coaching culture within their organisation. Please read our competition rules. The winner will be announced on 31st May 2017. You can enter the competition by emailing [email protected]

Next week 

Now that you have a vision of what is possible for your own organisation, please join us for our next post, when Matt will help you to look at some of the potential ways forwards from where you are now to where you want to be. If you want future articles delivered to your inbox or to be considered for the competition prize, sign up to the NPCA Community.

Please write your comments below and join in the conversation about how your organisation is creating a coaching culture. If you want to contact me directly, you can reach me at [email protected].

Enjoy the rest of your week, Sarah