Human Resources: Benefits of Management Coaching

In an ideal world, the talented entry level candidate you hired straight out
of college would grow and develop over the course of her career with your
organization, ultimately evolving into a key leader who carries with her the
lessons of every position she held as she climbed up the corporate ladder.
Not all employees will make the decision to stay with one organization
throughout their careers, but when an opportunity exists to retain and
develop an existing resource rather than hiring externally, it can be
beneficial for both the individual and their employer. In order to
capitalize on this type of opportunity, the appropriate tools and resources
must be leveraged to help your great individual contributor make the
critical transition to team leader and manager. Traditionally employers have
turned to training programs to develop these skills, however in recent years
that trend has been shifting towards a newer tool for talent management:
management coaching.

What is management coaching?
In the past coaching was not offered as a benefit but mandated to those poor
souls who were failing to achieve their workplace goals. From the executive
suite to the cubicle, the term "coaching" was synonymous with "remedial
training" and carried an implication of failure. For many, being coached was
the last stop on the train to termination. Fortunately those days have
passed and savvy business leaders and HR professionals have realized that
coaching can be a great benefit for high performers and (when properly
implemented) can turn things around for a struggling employee rather than
being a last ditch attempt to salvage a poor business choice.

A 2009 survey by Bersin and Associates
http://www.bersin.com/Resources/Content.aspx?id=6150 ranked coaching
programs as the #1 best practice for performance management. While coaching,
particularly life or personal coaching, has gained some prominence over the
last decade, the industry as a whole is still in its infancy. A wide variety
of practitioners offer coaching services. Some come with newly minted
certifications from training institutions (many of which have cropped up in
recent years to exploit the recent popularity of the profession with career
changers), while others are re-branded consultants or psychologists. Some
effort has been made to normalize coaching credentials (the most notable
source being the International Coach Federation
http://www.coachfederation.org , but most practicing coaches are measured
by their experience and rapport with potential clients rather than any
formal certification process. While coaching can take many forms, the one of
most concern to business managers and HR executives is the form which takes
place as part of an employee development program and is more commonly termed
executive coaching.

Technically the term "executive coaching" applies to the act of coaching C
level employees or individuals at the highest echelon of management. While
there is certainly a substantial benefit to targeted programs for these key
individuals, more recently this type of support has been offered at all
levels of the organization, and as such has come to be more broadly
described as "management coaching". Regardless of the intended audience, the
goals are largely the same - to improve the effectiveness and enhance the
performance of the individual, with the intent of improving (by extension)
the organization as a whole.

How Does Coaching Work?
How do management coaches work with their clients to create these changes?
Simply put, a coach helps an individual identify his or her strengths and
weaknesses, and then guides them through the implementation of strategies to
leverage their strengths and overcome their weaknesses. The core value of
coaching is in its ability to focus on the specific needs of the individual
manager being coached, as viewed through the lens of their organizational
ecosystem. While training can provide general skills development such as
time management or planning, coaching allows the manager to focus on the
exact challenges of their personal environment, and to develop targeted
strategies to overcome those obstacles. This combination of the trusted
advisor relationship and intense focus on applicable skills makes coaching
one of the fastest and most effective tools in resolving workplace
performance issues.

A further benefit of management coaching is its focus on the development of
skills by the individual being coached. Rather than forming a dependent
relationship where the manager must always rely on (and have access to) his
or her mentor, an effective coach will work to reduce the amount their
client depends on them, thus building confidence and self sufficiency in the
recipient of the service. Most coaching engagements last between 6 and 12
months, with the majority of active coaching taking place in the first 90
days of the relationship. So what actually happens during a coaching
session?

The engagement often begins with the stakeholders defining specific,
actionable goals and targets which become the metrics for success for the
coaching process as a whole. One of the ways to uncover what issues exist is
through the implementation of a 360 feedback survey. By soliciting input
from the managers, colleagues and direct reports of an individual, the coach
can then focus and on building an actionable plan to respond to any
deficiencies, as well as to build skills in specific areas such as time
management or communication.

Some coaches employ the GROW model - an acronym which stands for Goal,
Reality, Options and Will. By defining the goal, accounting for the current
realities of the environment in which the individual operates, finding
options to achieve the goal and then applying the individual's will or
commitment to complete the process, coaches can lead their clients through a
structured process to achieve their targets. Other coaches use a holistic
model to incorporate aspects of self awareness and personal growth into the
process of developing the manager's leadership abilities. Each coach will
have their own unique approach, and a key factor for the success of a
coaching relationship is a productive relationship between the coach, the
organization as a whole and the individual being coached.

Rather than relying on the presence or absence of credentials, organizations
who seek coaching for their managers and leaders should meet with potential
coaches to find out about their style and approach. Any reputable coach will
be willing to provide references and to speak in detail about their
experience with the challenges inherent in the proposed coaching engagement,
and to describe how they intend to approach the situation.

How Does Coaching Benefit the Organization?
There are many situations where a structured coaching program can show
tangible benefits to the organization. One scenario where coaching is
commonly applied is to avoid management turnover. Change is a challenging
issue in the corporate environment. Whether viewed as positive or negative
change brings with uncertainties which can make employees anxious, and thus
degrade their job performance. Management changes can be particularly
disruptive because of the close relationship between an employee's
relationship with their manager and their overall job satisfaction. Rather
than hiring a new manager, many employers prefer to coach an existing
resource to improve their performance, thus retaining the individual and
avoiding both the impact of a management change and the costs of recruiting
and on-boarding a new manager.

Coaching is often offered to individuals who have been identified by the
organization as having leadership growth potential. Succession planning can
be helpful in locating individuals who have the capability of growing within
the organization, and coaching can help them do so successfully. This type
of management development, once reserved for the executive suite has shown
such a positive return on investment that it is now being applied at all
levels of the organization. A study conducted in 2001 by Manchester, Inc.
(reprinted by the International Coach Federation
http://www.coachfederation.org/includes/docs/049ManchesterReviewMaximizingImpactofExecCoaching2.pdf showed an average ROI of nearly 6 times the
investment in coaching.

Another scenario where coaching can have substantial benefits is when an
employee is promoted from individual contributor to team leader. While many
companies advocate promoting from within, the practice is challenging since
the skills which make someone a fantastic individual contributor are not the
same as those that make a successful manager. Further there are often
internal political challenges to transitioning from being a member of a team
to leading it. These can range from hard feelings on the part of team
members who thought they should have been considered for the position to the
failure of other managers to accept the fact that the new manager is now a
colleague. Coaching can help a high performing individual learn to adapt
their communication style and other processes to become effective leaders,
and can help them avoid many of the pitfalls and errors that new managers
commonly make.

Management coaching is continuing to evolve, but based on the results
garnered in the first few years that the industry has existed it's clear
that there are benefits to engaging professional management coaches which
are not yet being fully leveraged in many organizations. To find out more
about how coaching might benefit your organization, contact the author or a
local coaching firm in your area.

Sources:
Bersin and Associates Top 22 Best Practices in Talent Management by Bersin
and Associates
http://www.bersin.com/Resources/Content.aspx?id=6150

The Manchester Review Maximizing the Impact of Executive Coaching by
Manchester, Inc.
http://www.coachfederation.org/includes/docs/049ManchesterReviewMaximizingImpactofExecCoaching2.pdf