REACH
YOUR
PEAK
Coaching in the Workplace
byRAMONA ELENAVLAD
Noble Manhattan Publishing Ramona Elena Vlad
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.HOW DOES ITWORK?
1.1. What is coaching?...... page 2
1.2. The importance of coaching in the work place…………………………………………...... page 3 1.3. The truth of coaching ……………………………………………………………………………………….page 4 1.4. Team dynamics …………………………………………………………………………………………. .page 5
2.THE MANAGER AS A COACH PROS ANDCONS
2.1. Pros………………………………………………………………………………………………………………page 7
2.2. Cons …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….page 9
3.How can a manager coach………………………………………………….page 11 3.1. Coaching the team …………………………………………………………………………..……….. page 11 3.2. Required skills …………………………………………………………………………………………..page12
4. What issues does it raise?...... page 14
4.1. Potential issues………………………………………………………….…………………………..…… page 14 4.2. Resolution of the issues ……………………………………………………………………………… page 15
5. Conclusions …………………..………………………………………………………………………page 17
6.Resources ……………………………………………………………………..………………………page 20
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1.HOW DOES ITWORK?
1.1.What iscoaching?
If every person on the planet had a coach the world will be a better place. When coached, people feel empowered to take responsibility for their education and their future, they feel inspired and motivated to learn, lead and serve others.
The spirit of coaching has been around since the beginning of humanity, but the term itself did not appear until the 19thcentury. In 1830 the word coach was used to describe a tutor who ‘’carried’’ a pupil through an exam. Yet in 1972, the word took on new meaning with Tim Gallwey’s book ‘’The Inner Game of Tennis’’. This book highlighted the inner structures that athletes face. The personal coaching industry emerged in the late 1980s.It further solidified its place in the marketplace with Sir John Whitmore’s GROW model published in 1992. Since then, several coaching models have been designed and coaching books published, adding to the profession’s increased popularity. (1)
As of 2015 coaching is used to support executives and managers to reach performance targets, increase motivation and enhance wellbeing within a business environment.
More recently coaching has made headway in other contexts including education, youth development and parenting. (2)
I was aware that by writing about this topic will actually help me make a positive change at work, and would be a first step in improving the efficiency and productivity within my team therefore I have decided to do my final dissertation around this subject.
Coaching a group in comparison with coaching an individual is different and the difference goes well beyond the added complexity of numbers. A team, an organization, even a partnership or intimate relationship exists as a living system, not simply as a collection of individual parts. A human system can be thought of as a group of interdependent members with a common focus. The behaviour of the system emerges out of the interaction of its players and is greater than the sum of its parts. Executive or leadership coaching for team members or key individuals will likely improve their performance and can have secondary impact on the team, but the coach is still interacting with an individual. Coaching the system as a whole leverages the power of the coach to impact the entire team or group.
Practice shows that when there is individual coaching for team members, the system may resist, sometimes even reject, the individual change. The system has his own homeostasis. The preferred approach is to have both; one to one coaches as well as a team coach to provide optimal value to the system.
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In today’s organisations the frequently perception is that a team is composed of functional parts (team members) and that repairing or replacing a broken part will fix the team as a whole. But the theory and reality of living systems are different. Every individual has an impact on the system, but is also true that the system has an impact on the individuals. (3)
Also the team players have different roles based on their values. Based on their values, they don’t get on very well, they have conflicts. The bottom line in coaching a team is identifying what is the key issue and help the team discover and use the skills they already have to improve.
1.2.Importance of coaching in the workplace
Facing the issues with my team lately, made me realized that coaching could be the solution to help them be more efficient, and supporting my colleagues to develop their skills and abilities would enhance the wellbeing within the company. My other intention was to make them participate constructively and actively into the meeting in order for them to feel valued and appreciated.
By implementing a coaching culture, I am aware that the people will reveal who they are truly and that would only benefit the company and the team leading to high performance and employee engagement.
Based on my experience I am encouraging my senior managers to understand that coaching should not been seen as a corrective tool, used only when things have gone wrong but to be considered a positive approach for helping others explore their goals and ambitions.
Assessing how my team carries out the daily responsibilities made me want to discuss with them the reasons for coaching and how this could improve their performance and help them achieve their full potential.
I was aware that by making them understand how coaching could benefit them, it will make the transition very smooth.
By being exposed to research and my resources from my coaching course I knew that if I will use my coaching knowledge and skills at a practical day to day level that will enable me to;
Have more impactconversations
Run more efficientmeetings
Improve personal timemanagement
Improve the management ofpriorities
Have an increased self-awareness as a people’smanager.
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Before starting my new venture I had to analyse my team's daily activity, to identify what people are actually doing with their time, resources, and energy. I have noticed that by having a relaxed attitude and by not being strict with my team, some of them got this message wrong and wouldn’t support the customers completely. I have identified the problem areas and started to work on a strategy of how I could improve the overall team effectiveness.
That’s when I understood that coaching them could be the solution, but probably my challenge will be to separate my management role from the coaching role.
I am the type of manager that would empower his team and engage them with solutions that they are coming up from them rather than forcing them to do something, therefore I know that coaching will be the best way to achieve that. As through coaching several things can be successfully achieved.
The examples of some goals that I want to achieve with the help of coaching are the following:
How could my staff manage their time better to achieve their daily /weekly tasks?
How could they reduce the stress at work orlife?
What skills they need to grow and developfurther?
How can they achieve a better balance between work life and homelife?
And most importantly it will help them understand how they can improve relationship with their co – workers.
But also it will enable me to increase their productivity and engagement.
In order for me to conduct a good coaching session I have considered the bellow point of views on coaching.
1.3.The truth ofcoaching
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.
The solution to the coachee's issue lies within the coachee.
The coach's job is to ask the right questions to help coachees arrive at their own conclusions. This is a very powerful way of helping people to change.
As a manager, you probably have useful knowledge and experience, and you're responsible for helping people find the right answers to questions they're asking.
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However, be sensitive and humble in the way you help people – situations may be more complex than you initially think!
There's no Judgment or Fixed Agenda, but Have an Agreed Goal for Each Session
For a coaching session to work well, there should be a lot of relaxed conversation, and the session should be free from the fear of judgment and should not follow any set pattern. At the same time, coaching conversations must be focused in order to be effective.
Coaching is About the Whole Person
Although a coaching session will probably focus on one issue, coaches must remember that they're having a conversation with a whole person who has specific experiences, emotions, and patterns of behaviour (4)
1.4.Teamdynamics
My approach to improve the effectiveness in my team with the benefit of coaching came by contemplating on the benefits of coaching and how great it is for helping people develop their skills and abilities and for resolving issues before they become serious.
Coaching is useful in many different situations, and I am considering using frameworks such as the TGROW model to help me structure my sessions.
Having in mind that the coachee's interest is at the forefront of coaching sessions, I would encourage coachees to come up with their own conclusions through open questions, rather than giving them the answers. The coach‘s role is to ask, not tell.
People get most done when they work together effectively. So when team members don't work well together, performance and productivity can suffer. With this in mind I have approached my team and explained my strategy.
Team coaching helps people understand how to work better with others. It's an effective method for showing teams how to reduce conflict and improve their working relationships. The team can then focus on its real work, and achieve its objectives.
To coach my team, I have to emphasise on interpersonal skills and interactions instead of on individual development (as opposed to individually-focused coaching). The way people act with their teammates, and the way they communicate with one another – these are important drivers of effective team performance. After all, high-performing individuals could be placed on a team and still have performance problems.
People must learn to work together and understand how to relate to one another – otherwise the team's output will be less than it could be, and I get a sense that at the moment some of my team members need to polish those qualities.
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I appreciate that everybody is different and coming from different company cultures but certainly the best place to start team coaching is by understanding the dynamics of the team and people values. This is the process of figuring out how team members relate to one another, and what could be their ethics and priorities.
I understand that we all have different styles of working and communicating, and when we encounter a person with a style that's different from our own; we can often get frustrated with that person, and fail to recognize his or her unique strengths. That is something that I noticed it’s happening most of the time with my team members.
Effective working relationships are built by understanding team member’s needs, preferences, and styles of work. By helping people understand their own styles and appreciate the different styles of others, you can work with them to change their behaviours and use everyone's strengths. (5)
A dictating style was never my piece of cake, even though as a child I was always being told what to do. I believe in the freedom of speech and giving people the opportunity to express themselves, but I have learned that as a manger, people might sometimes take advantages of this style. Therefore the best way is to coach them, support and challenge my team to develop the awareness, ability and skills that enables them to become even more effective, efficient, and focused in reaching agreed planned objectives.
The process of improving team performance takes time, and it may involve looking deeper than team processes.
The reason I am coaching the team is for their performance to improve, both as an individual and as a member of the team. I want to make sure that they understand what they did wrong and how to avoid it. Most of all I have to make sure I won’t demotivate them. My plan is that after the coaching session, my team should be fired up to go out and do better, not cowering at their desk afraid to do anything.
I would expect resistance from some of them but I won’t have any rest until I make them understand the benefits of coaching. However, the end result of this work is usually well worth it; improved collaboration and communication will benefit the organization as a whole.
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2.THE MANAGER AS A COACH – PROS ANDCONS
Great leaders move us. They ignite our passion and inspire the best in us. When we try to explain why they are so effective, we speak of strategy, vision, or powerful ideas. But the reality is much more primal: Great leadership works through the emotions. No matter what leaders set out to do—whether it’s creating strategy or mobilizing teams to action—their success depends on how they do it. Even if they get everything else just right, if leaders fail in this primal task of driving emotions in the right direction, nothing they do will work as well as it could or should. (6)
To summarize the attributes of coaching leaders, they are individuals with a genuine interest in helping others succeed. They do this by focusing on the development of others, while using their keen sense of empathy and their own self-awareness.
I have enjoyed a lot reading the book ‘’Emotional Intelligence’’ by Daniel Goleman and it resonates with me a lot, because while I look after the best interest of the company I am concerned about my teams welfares also.
While business coaching has been around for quite a while, it’s only lately that the companies are starting to use this as a resource to vitalize the teams.
As described by Daniel Goleman, the coaching leadership style is best summed up by the phrase "try this." They're able to tie together career aspirations and personal
goals. They help followers to see how everything fits together. And because of this ability and interest in helping others, they're good at developing a long-term plan to reach long-term goals.
These leaders provide plenty of feedback on performance; but they are also experts at delegating and giving employees assignments that are challenging too. They won't hold someone's hand through the rough times, but they will tell them how to weather the storm. (7)
2.1.Pros
One of the advantages of the manager being a coach is that people can fit it around their schedule rather than having to dedicate an entire day to training. Coaching the team also clarifies how to think through important problems that need to be solved in an enhanced manner, no more quick decisions, we will have the tools to thoroughly think out the ramifications of the suggestions and then decide which solution is best.
Additional benefit could be that by knowing the culture of the business, knowing the people it’s easy because any personality conflicts could be avoided. I am aware exactly what needs to improve and I am working on addressing those issues. I consider this as a big advantage instead of outsourcing a coach for the business.
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By constantly interacting with the team there will be many more opportunities to influence them than an external consultant would have, therefore this is another advantage.
While an external coach has the luxury of a laser-like focus on the coachee and his progress and performance, the manager-coach needs to balance the needs of the coachee, other team members and the organisation as a whole.