Coaching is a process that facilitates people’s broad understanding of their roles in an organization by exploring talents and capabilities. The knowledge can lead to improved leadership skills and career advancement.
The terms “coaching” and “mentoring” are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same. The International Coach Federation (ICF) defines coaching as, “An ongoing partnership that helps clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Through the collaborative process of coaching, clients deepen their learning about themselves and the opportunities and issues in their lives, improve their performance, and enhance their quality of life.”
Mentoring, on the other hand, primarily focuses on helping people progress along a career track within the organization. Coaching is a broader process designed to facilitate learning and development so that people use their full capabilities and talents. For this reason, coaching may address any of a number of needs, including leadership development, improved work performance, enhanced interpersonal skills, and career advancement. Coaching challenges current personal or work related constraints and identifies development needs for success.
Business coaching is typically a one-on-one relationship between a coach and a coachee. The coach is an advisor, facilitator, mentor, and challenger. The coach does not exercise authority, do personal counseling, or push the coachee towards a target. The coach might be an organizational member or an external person. In some cases, the organization will contract external coaches to train and guide internal coaches. The decision to use internal or external coaches depends on the abilities of the existing staff or whether it is believed an outside perspective would be most valuable. In either case, the coach must be willing and able to challenge the coachee.
Coaching is used for career development, process improvements, to implement organizational change, change management, or to enhance a new executive or manager’s integration into the institutional culture. It is used to develop high potential talent by helping the coached adjust to expanded roles, implement new strategies, enhance competencies, and supplement existing leadership programs.
Finding the Most Value in the Learning Process
The coachee is typically an executive or mid-level manager. It is a collaborative process that concentrates on developing sustainable learning. This could be argued as being the most important function of coaching – facilitating learning. For example, a coachee is encouraged to accept stretch assignments, with the understanding that mistakes will be made while working towards goals. However, some level of mistakes is considered acceptable, if the person being coached expands learning. Instead of only celebrating outcomes, the coachee’s learning is recognized as being just as valuable. Employees are encouraged to accept challenges, and the coach provides the affirmative support. However, the support is customized based on an assessment of the coachee’s abilities and need.
People able to accept work challenges without fear of reproach for mistakes made during a learning process are going to be much more likely to leverage problems as opportunities. It is human nature that they are more likely to explore their capabilities if learning or knowledge growth is appreciated for its business value. The potential benefits are unlimited – increased talent self-awareness and growth, increased organizational energy accompanying growth and learning, tapping of previously undiscovered talents, development of skill sets, enhanced succession planning, better matching of knowledge and talents to real world problems, better adaptability to change, increased productivity, enhanced ability to resolve conflicts, and many others. In a globally diverse workforce, coaching can improve cultural awareness and sensitivity and enhance relationship building across teams or units.
Coaching programs are structured and have purpose, and ideally will flow through and permeate the organization. An executive coaching, program leads to managerial coaching which leads to employee coaching, whether formally or informally. The stakeholders and participants involved in the coaching program must be committed because it is an in-the-trenches type of program requiring organization-wide cooperation. Top leadership, like the CEO, must develop the right messaging to show full support. The structure includes setting objectives and goals, developing training materials, completing assessments, and developing and using performance tools.
Coaching is done within the organizational context, requiring the coach to have a clear understanding of the business structure, mission, goals, and so on. In a global company, or a company based in Asia or Europe, the context also includes cross cultural issues, meaning the coach must be able to overcome personal biases or assumptions about countries or groups of people. This may be a good reason for using an external trained coach if cultural biases are too embedded within an organization. Ultimately, the coach must balance individual needs with assessments and organizational processes. The coached executive gains an in-depth understanding of the implications of his/her behaviors for the larger organization. Coached mid-level managers gain a better understanding of the organization as a whole and their role in it now and in the future.
Only the High Performing Need Apply
Coaches can choose to use from among a variety of measurement and training techniques, tools, models, instruments and frameworks. They include Appreciative Inquiry, assessment and feedback, Myers-Brggs, benchmarking, Assessment-Challenge-Support, Hofstede, Edward T. Hall, and others. Best practices are focused on making sure the coach-coachee relationship is productive, but the fact that each association is customized means the coach must be able to adapt to the individual’s personality style, build trust, and establish boundaries; identify the coachee’s function and place within the organization and place it within the broader context; select and apply the right tools or frameworks for each particular coaching engagement; and help the coachee grow self-awareness and set goals that have the greatest potential impact on their learning process.
Coaching is a customized practice designed to develop talent in a high performing and learning culture. To get commitment and sponsorship from key stakeholders and participants, a case for coaching is built based on research evidence. The case is then framed according to the organization’s needs and strategies. The next step is to persuade the top executives of the need for integrating coaching with talent. Coaching represents a balance between meeting organizational goals and meeting the needs of individual staff members. It enables the coached to take responsibility for professional and personal development, and the organization to get the benefit of maximized talent potential.