The Power of Coaching

If you're relying on the technical, professional, and leadership contributions of key individual contributors, managers, and executives in your organization as a crucial variable in your company's formula for success, then you'll want to invest in the development of those people.

The environment in which these folks work and the challenges they face are only becoming more difficult. Being successful under these conditions is not just a matter of professional, functional, or technical know-how; in fact, that's only the price of admission to the game. Intra- and interpersonal awareness and competence, the ability to influence, understanding and applying organization dynamics, and being adaptive and creative in the face of continuous change are but a few of the essential competencies of those who thrive in today's organizations--the ones you count on to help more your organization into the future.

Those who will benefit from a coaching relationship seek it out, or are offered this opportunity in a variety of situations. When you or someone who works for you is:

• Starting a new job that offers significant challenges or opportunities, requires a steep learning curve, comes with major expectations or stretch goals, and/or demands high risk, incisive action
• Leading a significant and/or mission critical organization initiative with little time for mistakes and little room for error
• Under-performing--by their own or the organization's standards
• Running out of alternatives
• Experiencing the same problems and dilemmas over and over, suggesting a need to develop new approaches
• Receiving troubling or difficult feedback from others, directly or indirectly
• Having difficulty understanding or dealing with other people or political situations that require excellent influence skills
• Not getting the cooperation or results from others that they need
• Needing to prepare for their next career step

Engaging CoastWise Consulting to assist this individual in understanding the situation, assessing their behavior, developing alternatives and plans, and creating lasting personal and professional change will benefit both the client and the organization.

You may be wondering how the coaching process works. Here's how CoastWise Consultants approach this important relationship:

Contracting-- In an initial conversation, the client and coach gain a shared understanding of the client's needs, opportunities, goals, and outcomes; agree on what the client can expect from the coach and vice versa; create an explicit agreement about confidentiality and how data will be used; and determine logistics such as frequency of meetings, location, and other terms of engagement.

Assessment-- It is important to have independent and comprehensive information about how stakeholders view the client. This information is usually gathered in a combination of ways including an instrumented 360 profile, interviews of stakeholders by the coach, and real-time observation. It is frequently helpful for the coach to observe key meetings which enable him/her better to understand the organization culture and environment in which the client works.

Planning-- After meeting together several times and reviewing the assessment data, specific goals and desired outcomes are developed along with a plan for how the work will proceed.

Ongoing work-- Coaching is most effective when meetings occur regularly and last long enough for in-depth exploration. The focus is on the client's stated goals and real-life situations. The client is drawn far enough outside his/her comfort zone to investigate fully those situations in which he/she must be successful and to develop new behavioral and strategic alternatives. In subsequent meetings, the results of experiments with new options are evaluated and refined. The coaching process aims for the client to develop skills in identifying desired outcomes, assessing influence targets, and creating behavioral strategies.

Evaluation-- Periodically, the progress and results of the coaching process are reviewed, celebrated, and if necessary, the plan is modified.

Click here to learn how some of our past clients have benefited from coaching.

Articles:

Charismatic Leadership (Adobe Acrobat PDF)

Newsletter Issues:

Issue 2 - Leadership In Today's Environment
Issue 3 - Executive Coaching
Issue 6 - What is Organization Design?
Issue 10 - Hitting the Wall at 100 mph: What to do to Keep Your Head during the downturn