Introduction
Today’s business environment is characterised by rapid change, increased complexity and the need to continually raise levels of performance and productivity. In order to remain competitive, organisations need more than good managers skilled in the discipline of coaching, they need to establish coaching cultures in which the members of their organisation share a common vision, language, mindset and approach to working together and solving problems.
In this article we will:
- Discuss the concept of coaching cultures
- Illustrate the organisational benefits of coaching cultures
- Demonstrate how to create a coaching culture within your organisation
Culture, Coaching and a Coaching Culture
Culture: An organisation’s culture is composed of the collective attitudes, beliefs, values, relationships, and processes by which members of the organisation conduct themselves. Culture is the powerful interpretative filter through which all relationships, changes and strategic decisions are perceived and experienced.
Coaching: Coaching is a distinct way of communicating, relating and acting based on the belief that people want to demonstrate their competence and if given the chance to improve their competence, they will. Coaching enables rapid increases in performance and productivity, by making people aware of the factors that govern performance, increasing people’s sense of responsibility for their performance and supporting people’s performance by helping them unlock their natural abilities.
Coaching Culture: A coaching culture is a mindset in which members of an organisation share a common vision, language and approach to working together and solving problems, based upon the principles of coaching. A coaching culture sees the establishment of standard protocols and processes that facilitate communication and cooperation in the achievement of business goals.
The Benefits of a Coaching Culture
Today’s organisational environments are witnessing unprecedented rates of change. The modern marketplace demands exceptional value and competition within the marketplace is fierce. The only way for organisations to achieve a sustainable advantage in such a dynamic environment is to develop a culture that will enable it to react more quickly and innovatively to market demands than the competition.
While one-on-one coaching is valuable in assisting individuals to make significant improvements in short periods, one-on-develops
coaching is simply not enough to develop the innovative capability required by organisations as a whole. To do this requires the establishment of a coaching culture so that the entire organisation can partake in the benefits of a coaching approach.
Developing a coaching culture within an organisation is a very powerful strategy for creating an environment which is readily adaptable to change and growth. Creating a coaching culture is the next step in the evolution of performance-focused organisations.
Tangible organisational benefits of coaching cultures include:
- Increased alignment between individuals and teams due to a greater sense of clarity regarding core purpose
- Better communication between individuals and departments leading to improved organisational effectiveness
- Increased competence in generating and maintaining effective relationships, resulting in increased levels of trust and accountability
- Expanded levels of responsibility and capacity for initiative and action, resulting in greater risk taking and the production of results aligned with organisational objectives
- Better leadership as coaching competence develops at all levels within the organisation
- Greater sense of unity and team spirit that enables powerful work relationships and the achievement of unprecedented results
- Improved teamwork and collaboration
- Increased sharing of “lessons learned” between individuals and teams, reducing errors, “reinventing the wheel” syndrome and time to market
- Reduced resistance to change as people become able to embrace change initiatives
- Improved working environmen, leading to people becoming more engaged in their work and reducing turn-over
- Better matches between employees and their jobs
- More creative business breakthroughs and more success at new ventures
- Decreased stress and increased morale
Clearly the factors listed above will contribute greatly to an organisation’s capacity to respond quickly to market driven forces, but these benefits will not be realised overnight; it takes years to develop a robust coaching culture. However, this development time is actually an additional benefit of coaching cultures. Coaching cultures are not as tangible as most products or services and as such, they cannot be easily duplicated by competitors. Once an organisation has a mature coaching culture it will take competitors years to develop one to match it.
How to Develop and Implement a Coaching Culture in Your Organisation
The creation of a coaching culture is a long-term developmental process for building organisational capacity to create and sustain high-performance results.
While the creation of coaching cultures is a complex task, the most important prerequisite for such cultural shift to take place is a long-term commitment from the leadership group. In order to become sufficiently inspired about the prospects of creating a coaching culture, they must be willing to commit to leading the way.
Leaders set the tone, pace and expectations for their culture. Therefore they must become sufficiently inspired about the prospects of creating a coaching culture, that they commit to leading the way. Furthermore, they must lead by example; they must undergo their own personal transformation from "boss of people" to "coach of people". The leadership group needs to be able to demonstrate their “coach-ability”. True cultural change can only be accomplished when the leaders of the organisation become conscious role-models of effective coaching.
Without commitment from the leadership group, the critical mass to propel a coaching ethos throughout an organisation will not be reached and attempting to influence a cultural shift towards a coaching culture will be impossible.
If sufficient buy-in exists within the leadership group to create a coaching culture, a number of activities and strategies can then be actioned to equip people with the skills, knowledge and behaviours required to coach effectively in their roles. As more and more people become acquainted with coaching, develop coaching skills and act with a common coaching mindset, a coaching culture will begin to form. With adequate frameworks in place, a coaching culture will become embedded within the organisation, allowing it to reap the associated benefits.
In our experience, the development of coaching competency in combination with developmental 360 degree feedback based on behavioural coaching competencies serve as an effective catalyst for the creation of coaching cultures.
When the results of developmental 360 degree feedback based on behavioural coaching competencies are baked into the design of coaching developmental programs, the most significant areas for coaching development can be effectively addressed, allowing for the rapid skilling of large numbers of people and the more rapid establishment of a coaching culture.
Conclusion
In the new economy it is not sufficient for an organisation to have people with well developed supervisory and management skills. To create and sustain a competitive advantage, one that enables the organisation to continually respond effectively to market demands, a coaching culture is required.
The benefits of a coaching culture are numerous, the most important of which is the establishment of a sustainable competitive advantage that cannot be easily copied by competitors.
Commitment by the leadership group is critical to the establishment of a successful coaching culture, as is a well designed framework from which to install the skills and values of coaching across the organisation.
If you are interested in learning more about how to develop a coaching culture within your organisation, please contact one of our consultants on (03) 9855 1436.
