One of your prime functions as a manager is to develop those reporting to you so that they attain their maximum potential and productivity for the organization and themselves. There are many different ways individuals learn:
- Skills can be developed through coaching
- Skills can be taught
- Skills can be learned from an expert
- Skills can be reviewed by looking at past behaviors
Organizations may use all four methods to assist the development of their employees. Managers are increasingly expected to be able to competently perform each of the four ‘learning’ roles – trainer, coach, mentor, and counselor – for their team as the need arises.
Expecting every manager to be able to perform each role to the same level of competency is in many ways unreasonable. Organizations often poorly equip managers to perform these roles and offer little guidance as to how best to perform the role. You need to understand how each form of learning operates, and the differences between them, and ensure your behaviors match the role you need to perform in order to meet your objectives.
The role of ‘manager as coach’ is becoming more widespread, especially in organizations that have a culture of empowerment. This creates more and more situations where managers find themselves in a coaching role rather than that of trainer, mentor, or counselor. The rest of this section is dedicated to explaining how the coaching role differs from that used when training, mentoring, or counseling people.
The ways in which the coaching and training roles approach learning are quite different. Training is principally directive: it is driven by the trainer, who will control most of both the process and the content in order to transfer knowledge or develop a new skill as efficiently as possible. The effectiveness of training depends on the competence of the trainer and the aptitude of the trainee for the subject being taught.
Coaching on the other hand is driven by questions addressed to the coachee, who then explores what they already know, but in a way that would probably not occur to them without the guidance of a coach. The coach controls the process, but for it to be really effective, the coachee has to own the content.
Another difference is that people are often trained in groups and this does not reduce the quality of the training received in any appreciable way. However, coaching must always be done on a one-to-one basis.
Although they are distinct activities, training and coaching can work well when used together. One obstacle encountered in business education is the difficulty of transferring skills and enthusiasm from a training course to the workplace. Coaching can be an excellent way of helping people to apply what they learn from a training course and incorporate it into their day-to-day work.
In today’s business reality, achieving optimum performance from team members is a skill – getting engagement, motivation and commitment isn’t always easy. Our strong approach to the coaching and development of business people is combined with the unique ability to take people to a level that they would not normally get to on their own.
Professional coaching brings many wonderful benefits: fresh perspectives on personal challenges, enhanced decision-making skills, greater interpersonal effectiveness, and increased confidence. And, the list does not end there. Those who undertake coaching also can expect appreciable improvement in productivity, satisfaction with life and work, and the attainment of relevant goals.
Increased Productivity
Professional coaching maximizes potential and, therefore, unlocks latent sources of productivity.
Positive People
Building the self-confidence of employees to face challenges is critical in meeting organizational demands.
Return on Investment
Coaching generates learning and clarity for forward action with a commitment to measurable outcomes.The vast majority of companies (86%) say they at least made their investment back. Virtually all companies and individuals who hire a coach are satisfied.
Source: ICF Global Coaching Client Study was commissioned by the ICF but conducted independently by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Here’s some industry statistics and a general overview of the value and ROI executive coaching offers:
Among the benefits to executives who received coaching were improved:
*The respondents were executives from large (mostly FORTUNE 1,000) companies who had participated in either “change oriented” coaching, aimed at improving certain behaviors or skills, or “growth oriented” coaching, designed to sharpen overall job performance. The programs lasted from six months to a year. About 60% of the executives were ages 40-49, a prime age bracket for career retooling. Half held positions of vice president or higher and a third earned $200,000 or more per year.
Executives like to say that the company’s most important asset “goes up and down the elevator each day”. Venture capital investors often claim that they primarily “invest in management.”
As Executive Development consultants, we like to think that this is all true. After all, what makes up an organization if not its people? And logic would dictate that an intelligent, strategic plan of investing in this “human capital” would lead to a greater return on the organization’s core assets.
However, investing in people is not the same as investing in a piece of equipment or a new software program. For one thing, measuring the return on an investment in a person is a bit more difficult than, say, measuring the increase in the number of widgets per hour produced by the new widget machine that has just been installed on the factory floor.
While it is more difficult to calculate the ROI of an investment in coaching, it is certainly not impossible. The challenge is clearly identifying the Benefits Achieved through the coaching program and assigning a monetary value to those benefits.
Clearly Identifying the Coaching Objectives Upfront
We can increase the chances of calculating a meaningful estimate of the bottom-line impact of coaching if we carefully identify the highest priority objectives before the outset of the program – and take an “objective” measurement of these areas of interest before and after the coaching occurs.
The specific objectives that we focus on will vary by coaching case and will depend on many factors:
Again, while the specific areas identified for improvement will vary case-by-case, some examples of coaching objectives include:
After identifying the highest priority objectives for the coaching program, we can then consider the results that arise from either achieving or falling short of our objectives.
Measuring the Results of Coaching
Some results are more “tangible” than others and are, therefore, easier to translate into monetary value or bottom-line impact. This is not to say that the tangible outweigh the intangible in terms of importance. In fact, intangible changes in the client’s behavior can often have a wider-ranging impact than, or may actually lead to, the more tangible benefits of coaching.
Examples of tangible benefits from coaching:
Examples of intangible benefits from coaching:
There are several vehicles for measuring the benefits achieved (again, conducted both before and after the coaching occurs). They can include:
In order to calculate ROI, we have to convert these benefits into dollars.
Of course, while we believe executive coaching can have a considerable influence on business results, other factors obviously have an impact. For example, sales volume is subject to many complex factors, only one of which is coaching. The level of sales is also impacted by: economic conditions, product developments, competition, pricing, customer demand, currency fluctuations, etc. To the extent that we have confidence that the coaching influenced sales volume to some extent, we can apply a percentage adjustment or weighting to the monetary value of the sales increase to reflect this impact.
For example, if we believe that 25% of a $1 million increase in sales can be attributed to behavior change prompted by the coaching, we would add $250,000 to our “Benefits Achieved” number in our ROI formula. This adjustment allows us to isolate the effects of the coaching.
An Example of Calculating Executive Coaching ROI
Let’s look at a “simplified” example of calculating the ROI for an executive coaching case. Using a real-life case, we will focus on a single, tangible benefit achieved through coaching for illustrative purposes.
A division head of a large, public technology company was being considered for promotion to a recently vacated Chief Operating Officer position. However, the executive had a reputation for micro-managing and was considered by peers and reports to be “intense” and “intimidating”. A six-month coaching program led to breakthroughs that transformed his reputation as a leader to one of collaboration and empathy. The coaching also helped the executive to improve his strategic use of time through greater delegation of responsibility. The Board of Directors cited these changes when naming him the new COO and affirmed that without these improvements, a new COO would have been sourced from outside the company. The coaching program cost $30,000.
One key benefit from this coaching case was avoiding an outside search for a new COO. Let’s estimate the monetary value of this benefit.
If we stop here, we see we have already reached a 709% return on the coaching investment. Of course, this calculation is incomplete as we have not included the savings related to orientation, training, and other administrative expenses incurred with a new hire. We have also excluded other tangible and intangible benefits resulting from the behavioral improvements from the coaching, many of which may be quite substantial.
In the future, more and more HR professionals will be asked for the ROI on executive coaching expenditures. While challenging to calculate, it will be critical that monetary values be assigned to tangible (easier) and intangible (more difficult) results in order to measure this investment in a company’s most important asset – its people.
We define ourselves as Results Coaches. This means that our sessions are about creating the results that you want by following well researched methodology. We make sure that the result we achieve are perfectly aligned with our clients’ core values and are representative of who they are as a person. This process is not rigid and can cycle back and forth. We do however follow a structure outlined below that consists of the following elements: Set-up, Foundation, Goal Setting, Learning, Action/Accountability, and Completion.
This is where we start the co-creation of our coaching relationship.
We figure out how we are going to work together, when, where and how long, what we can expect of each other, what’s OK, and what’s not.
This is where we usually explain that we will get to make requests or give challenges to the client, and they get to say “yes,” “no,” or counteroffer.
This process may feel awkward at first, but after people see how well it works, they start applying it to their other relationships.
We also clarify the client’s specific goals for the coaching engagement.
This phase is a foundation for our work together. Clients develop their life purpose statements, or their personal mission statements; they identify their top values, and assess how these values are being honoured (or not) in their lives. They reconnect with the parts of themselves that have been neglected for a while, and rediscover more joy in their lives.
This work serves our clients long after our coaching engagement is completed. They walk away with a structure and a method for making decisions based on integrity.
Goals are an integral part of coaching. If there are no goals, we are not coaching. Our clients come to coaching with a great variety of goals, including:
We encourage clients to set resonant and thrilling goals – goals that align with their values, and that seems a bit out of reach. Ultimately what matters is not whether or not the client achieves the goal; it is the growth and learning that occur as the result.
Any situation – good or bad – is an opportunity to learn.
We listen to what the client is saying, and also to what they are not saying. Sometimes, we see a very clear disconnect between what the client is saying, and how they are saying it. Sometimes, we can just sense that there is something that is not being said right there in the space between us.
We share all of this information with our clients, and the clients assigns meaning to it. This is how they move to a new level of learning about themselves. Clients become more aware of their feelings, thoughts, drivers, and reactions.
This new level of awareness allows them to approach their situations from an entirely new perspective.
If there is no action, we are not coaching.
Clients commit to taking certain actions based on what they learn during the coaching session. This new course of action provides new learning, and that’s how forward movement happens.
What makes coaching work is accountability. As human beings, we are very good at honouring external deadlines, and we tend to put our own last. Coaching creates external accountability for something that the clients want for themselves.
At the end of each session we may give a client a request or a challenge, or simply ask, “What would you like to get done before we meet again?” Once the client makes a commitment, we will hold them accountable. Regardless of whether or not they were able to follow through, we extract the lessons they learn from the experience.
Closure is a very important part of a coaching engagement.
We spend 1-2 sessions at the end of the engagement talking about the client’s breakthroughs and breakdowns, major shifts, beliefs and ways of being in the world they are leaving behind, and new supportive beliefs they will be taking with them.
We talk about the way forward – new thrilling and inspiring goals, the habits and structures that the client will put in place to continue the forward motion after the coaching engagement has been completed.
It does not end there. We will at some point in the future, reach out to each client to see how they are holding up and if they require any further encouragement.
Typical Coaching Sessions
There are a variety of different formats that we use to cater to our clients’ needs. These can be but are not limited to walk and talk, phone, Skype. Most coaching sessions however, are conducted in person either at our offices or at the clients’ location.
Depending on the nature of the coaching engagement, a typical coaching contract is between 3 to 6 months long. This is for one-on-one coaching only. Corporate programmes vary in length to a greater extent. We try to meet at least once a week, in order to maximise the results, we hope to achieve.
You’ve probably heard people talking about coaching in the workplace. You might have even received some coaching in the past, or you might have used coaching to improve a person’s performance, even if you didn’t actually describe it as “coaching” at the time.
But what actually is coaching, and how can you benefit from it?
Let’s have a look at the basics of coaching in the workplace. This section will clarify what it involves, and review the key approaches that are used by successful coaches. We’ll also review some situations where coaching can be useful, and look at some examples of coaching questions.
About Coaching
Coaching is a useful way of developing people’s skills and abilities, and of boosting performance. It can also help deal with issues and challenges before they become major problems.
A coaching session will typically take place as a conversation between the coach and the coachee (person being coached), and it focuses on helping the coachee discover answers for themselves. After all, people are much more likely to engage with solutions that they have come up with themselves, rather than those that are forced upon them!
In some organizations, coaching is still seen as a corrective tool, used only when things have gone wrong. But in many companies, coaching is considered to be a positive and proven approach for helping others explore their goals and ambitions, and then achieve them.
Coaches in the workplace are not counsellors, psychotherapists, gurus, teachers, trainers, or consultants – although they may use some of the same skills and tools.
Most formal, professional coaching is carried out by qualified people who work with clients to improve their effectiveness and performance, and help them achieve their full potential. Coaches can be hired by coachees directly or by their organizations. Coaching on this basis works best when everyone clearly understands the reason for hiring a coach, and when they jointly set the expectations for what they want to achieve through coaching.
Where Coaching Can Help
Here are a few examples of questions that you can answer with the benefit of coaching:
Coaching is Founded on Confidentiality and Trust
Coaching can be successful only if coachees are able to discuss every aspect of an issue or challenge with their coach. The coach may need to listen to personal problems or private information that must be kept confidential. (Unless, of course, it involves criminal activity or activities harmful to the team, its clients or the organization; or affects the safety and welfare of other people.)
The Solution to the Coachee’s Issue Lies Within the Coachee
This may sound unusual, but it means that the background of an issue and the options available are generally known to the coachee. The coach’s job is to ask the right questions to help coachees arrive at their own conclusions. As we’ve said before, this is a very powerful way of helping people to change.
Of course, the coach can provide helpful input or suggestions, but the best answers usually come from the coachee.
Coaching Tools
Coaching is more than just a game of questions and answers. Being able to listen attentively and ask the right questions is essential to any productive coaching relationship though – a capable coach knows how to create space for someone to look at his or her situation differently. Aside from that, there are many tools and techniques to create insight into oneself, define one’s goals, generate new solutions and/or overcome inner and outer obstacles.
Here are some of the technique Nisus Coaching International routinely uses to guide its clients to more autonomy and effectiveness:
Nisus Coaching International often uses the GROW coaching model to structure its sessions. The GROW coaching model is a proven model that leads to a clear end result in four stages. It’s a hands-on way of evolving: from reflection to insight into one’s reality, to defining a goal, researching options and maximising motivation to make a change.
SMART goals bring structure and accountability into goals. Instead of vague resolutions, SMART goals create verifiable trajectories towards a given goal, with clear milestones and an estimation of feasibility. Every goal, whether it be an intermediary step in a greater plan or a goal in itself, can be turned SMART and increase its chances of becoming reality.
The model of neurological levels was thought up by a British biologist, anthropologist and philosopher by the name of Gregory Bateson. His model outlines the six levels people are always operating upon and living by, consciously and unconsciously.
Every level influences the other levels, creating a self-reinforcing network of environment, behaviour, skills, values and convictions, sense of identity and mission in life. Nisus Coaching International uses the content of these levels to create insight into one’s relationships and life situations. For example, this model explains and supports the observation that unwanted behaviour doesn’t disappear merely by changing one’s environment.
Language is a random model that reflects our subjective experience (an experience that is, in itself, a filter of the infinite elements that compose reality). That means that the same experience can be lived and encoded differently through diverse linguistic models. The meta-model is a collection of semantic structures that allow us to identify three processes: omissions, generalisations and distortions. It’s also a set of questions that allow you to complete and correct these omissions, generalisations and distortions.
We don’t react to reality itself, but to our model of the world – our map of the territory. This model of the world (MOW) is created through filters that we use to organise the infinite information around us. It’s like a radio tuner: if we were to receive all stations at once (all visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory stimuli), it would be too much to handle. That’s why we have filters, and they’re different for everyone.
By recognising and mapping these filters, we gain insight into how people function within a certain context. By paying attention to the way we function with regards to thought processes, emotions, language (the metamodel) and behaviour, we discover how our internal programming functions. That allows us to find where things are going wrong, and adapt small things that can make major changes.
Typologies allow you to create a rough personality sketch, highlighting the dominant general traits of one’s character.
Typologies aren’t meant as categories one is stuck into, but as universes of probable behaviour that allows you to compare people to each other, gain insight into the dynamics of their relationship, and create a sense of understanding and more harmonious communication.
We use them for individual coachings and to clear up conflicts within organisations, where different personality types are forced into contact with each other.
The GROW coaching model is a tried and tested coaching model to structure coaching sessions.
The power of the GROW coaching model is that it leads to a clearly defined end result through four phases. The coachee is personally active in identifying problems and generating ideas for solutions. The means that anything that comes out of the coaching session has a lot of chance to stick.
The GROW coaching model stands for learning through experience: reflection, insight, making choices and pursuing them. The success of a coaching trajectory with the GROW coaching model also depends on the time and energy invested into the process by the client.
How we use the GROW coaching model
The beauty of working with the GROW coaching model is that we don’t need to be an expert in our client’s specific situation to be able to coach him. The GROW coaching model offers a framework with general questions to elicit goals, obstacles, options and more without ever needing to offer advice or force any particular direction. In a sense, the coach provides a dynamic vehicle for our client’s development.
The steps in the GROW coaching model
The GROW coaching model consists of four steps. The word GROW is actually an acronym for Goal– Reality – Options – Will. To put it metaphorically, the GROW coaching model is what you need to plan a journey. You start with the map: where are you going (Goal) and where are you coming from (Reality)? It then charts the different routes and modes of transportation (Options). At last, it helps you pick the option that suits you best while still considering the obstacles on the way. We then help you chart out the process and make sure that your motivation for the trip is maximised.
The first step in the GROW coaching model is defining the goal of the coaching trajectory. That includes long term (the central theme of the trajectory) and short term (the goal for every session).
Goals need to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic and Timely.
Example questions to identify the goal:
Step two of the GROW coaching model is becoming aware of the actual situation the coachee is in. The coach’s role here is to stimulate self-evaluation with his client, and to identify the obstacles that have been holding the client back.
It’s important to not lose oneself in this phase; people have patterns and stories they can repeat and expand on endlessly. We will keep on summarising and repeating what we understand from you to keep you on track. Often, this phase of the GROW coaching model reveals underlying fears and convictions that can be worked on during or in between coaching sessions.
Example questions to discover the reality of one’s client:
Example questions to generate options:
Example questions to maximise the will:
Applying the GROW coaching model to your life or organisation
This is just a very basic outline of what the GROW coaching model consists of. As you can see, this is not enough for a full coaching trajectory. As coaches, we also employ our deep listening and rapport making skills.
On top of that, other coaching tools make this approach less rational and allow for creativity and contact with the subconscious.
We believe that the whole human endeavour is geared towards setting and achieving goals. Goals are part of every aspect of life: how you conduct your relationships, what you want to achieve at work, the way you use your spare time.
Everything comes down to priorities, and what you would like to accomplish in every aspect – whether you make a conscious choice or go with subconscious preferences.
Without setting goals or objectives, life becomes a series of chaotic happenings you can’t control. You become the plaything of coincidence. Accomplishments like sending someone to the moon, inventing the iPod etcetera are the result of a goal that was set at some point. A vision that was charted and realised.
What is SMART goal setting?
SMART goal setting brings structure and trackability into your goals and objectives. Instead of vague resolutions, SMART goal setting creates verifiable trajectories towards a certain objective, with clear milestones and an estimation of the goal’s attainability. Every goal or objective, from intermediary step to overarching objective, can be made S.M.A.R.T. and as such, brought closer to reality.
In Corporate life, SMART goal setting is one of the most effective and yet least used tools for achieving goals. Once you’ve charted to outlines of your project, it’s time to set specific intermediary goals. With the SMART checklist, you can evaluate your objectives. SMART goal setting also creates transparency throughout the company. It clarifies the way goals came into existence, and the criteria their realisation will conform to.
What does S.M.A.R.T. goal setting stand for?
Why not think of a small goal you want to set right now, personal or professional. To make your goal S.M.A.R.T., it needs to conform to the following criteria: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.
- What exactly do I want to achieve?
- Where?
- How?
- When?
- With whom?
- What are the conditions and limitations?
- Why exactly do I want to reach this goal?
- What are possible alternative ways of achieving the same?
Measurable goals means that you identify exactly what it is you will see, hear and feel when you reach your goal. It means breaking your goal down into measurable elements. You’ll need concrete evidence. Being happier is not evidence; not smoking anymore because you adhere to a healthy lifestyle where you eat vegetables twice a day and fat only once a week, is.
Measurable goals can go a long way in refining what exactly it is that you want, too. Defining the physical manifestations of your goal or objective makes it clearer, and easier to reach.
Is your goal attainable? That means investigating whether the goal really is acceptable to you. You weigh the effort, time and other costs your goal will take against the profits and the other obligations and priorities you have in life.
If you don’t have the time, money or talent to reach a certain goal you’ll certainly fail and be miserable. That doesn’t mean that you can’t take something that seems impossible and make it happen by planning smartly and going for it!
There’s nothing wrong with shooting for the stars; if you aim to make your department twice as efficient this year as it was last year with no extra labour involved, how bad is it when you only reach 1,8 times? Not too bad…
Is reaching your goal relevant to you? Do you actually want to run a multinational, be famous, have three children and a busy job? You decide for yourself whether you have the personality for it, or your team has the bandwidth.
If you’re lacking certain skills, you can plan trainings. If you lack certain resources, you can look for ways of getting them.
The main questions, why do you want to reach this goal? What is the objective behind the goal, and will this goal really achieve that?
You could think that having a bigger team will make it perform better, but will it really?
Time is money! Make a tentative plan of everything you do. Everybody knows that deadlines are what makes most people switch to action. So install deadlines, for yourself and your team, and go after them. Keep the timeline realistic and flexible, that way you can keep morale high. Being too stringent on the timely aspect of your goal setting can have the perverse effect of making the learning path of achieving your goals and objectives into a hellish race against time – which is most likely not how you want to achieve anything.
SMART+ Goals
Another thing that’s very important when setting SMART goals, is formulating it POSITIVELY. Remember that what you focus on, increases. So when you focus on NOT doing something, all you think about is that thing. And it will increase. So don’t ‘stop procrastinating’, but ‘achieve a daily discipline’.
SMART goal setting with Nisus Coaching International
The certified life and business coaches at Nisus Coaching International can support you and your team in setting SMART goals and objectives, turning them into measurable goals and following up on their completion. That means training, helping, steering and cheering on the solution of your personal and professional challenges.
Our SMART goal setting coaching trajectory can be used in all aspects of life. From the start of a business to refining existing processes; from finding the perfect partner to staying together. It brings clarity to your plans and free up energy for achieving your goals.
Professional Coaching is an ongoing partnership that helps clients produce fulfilling results in their professional lives. Through the process of coaching, our will clients deepen their learning, improve their performance, and enhance their quality of life.
In each meeting, we help our clients choose the focus of conversation, while we as coaches listen and contribute observations and questions. This interaction creates clarity and moves the client into action. Our process of coaching accelerates the client’s progress, by providing greater focus and awareness of choice.
Coaching concentrates on where clients are today and what they are willing to do to get where they want to be tomorrow. In the capacity of professional coaches, the team at Nisus Coaching International acknowledges and honours its ethical obligations to its coaching clients.
We work with people from all walks of life, who are ready to move towards a more fulfilling, joyful and productive state of being. We partner with a diverse range of clients; clergy, doctors, entrepreneurs, CEOs, members of various boards, yoga instructors and many others.
Each person has their own individual personality; however, they are quite similar in what they do. They share qualities such as passion, depth, willingness to face the truth, a sense of humour, the willingness to take calculated risks and of course, the desire to be a valuable member of society.