Why a Coaching Culture in Business Wins Every Time
We’ve all heard about coaching. Life coaching, relationship coaching, sports coaching, mindset coaching, and then there is business coaching.
You might wonder if coaching in business is just a buzzword, or something that crops up in your company vocabulary every so often only to fizzle out.
You might also wonder if businesses that truly invest time, money, and energy into building a coaching culture that is deeply embedded into their every day actually have any edge over the competition.
Well, wonder no more. Because according to a report that we will digest for you here by Zenger | Folkman,
It concludes that “regular coaching improves productivity, employee engagement, retention, employee development, and supervisor performance”, which is pretty powerful stuff to ignore as professional fluff.
How do we know employees want to be coached?
Their research indicates that most employees are more inclined to stay in an organisation if they invest in their development. This sentiment is also echoed in a recent International Workplace Group Study shared on LinkedIn that declared a whopping 93% of employees would stay in a company longer if they invested in their careers.
Coaching is development. Plain and simple. In various guises, it helps people to figure out what they can do better via corrective feedback and guidance on finding appropriate solutions to resolve any performance issues.
Yet managers are often reluctant to provide feedback even though employees are open to and often desperate for just that.
How do you start creating a coaching culture?
Regardless of the service or sector your business belongs to, it can become a business that embraces a coaching culture. So how do you begin that progress without faltering and letting the whole idea fall by the wayside? Consistency is key.
Here we break down some of the main tactics several organisations have used to seamlessly integrate a coaching culture attitude and embed that into their workplace.
Set expectations
This should come from the top down when it comes to messaging. If more senior management expresses a desire to incorporate coaching from all levels of management (even as far as describing the amount of time that should be spent doing such) it will become apparent very rapidly that this is a KPI for management and the expectation is that it be taken seriously.
Does it feature early in a meeting? As a high priority? More managers will take note. This needs to be the case at all meetings that are relevant and not a one-time-only shout-out to ‘a really good idea’.
There needs to be a process
The organisation should have a process in place that creates a flow and a purpose for coaching conversations. These should include follow-ups with employees and a record that indicates the progress along the process, which also gives management a tangible framework to demonstrate to their managers what has progressed or been addressed.
Skill training
Managers have strengths and weaknesses too. Some are natural leaders, others are detail-oriented and fit for the needs of their role. But not all are coaches straight out of the box.
It is essential that training on how to effectively coach another employee is a part of the process. Conversation skills, watching experienced coaches coach others, and practicing the art of constructive feedback are all critical skills that management will need to effectively coach those under their wing.
Monitor and measure
There are various ways to track the progress of your organisation as you build a coaching culture.
It might be via survey, informal discussion with all managers, or through informal inquiries with HR representatives as a neutral party.
Why does culture win in business? What is the collective payoff of a coaching culture?
Although leadership coaching has been on an upswing in the last decade, almost a necessity for serious leaders, what are the benefits of everyone having skills coaching?
- Productivity: When you have an effective coaching culture, you invariably have employees who are willing to go the extra mile
- Engagement: Effective coaches also yield greater employee engagement
- Retention is improved
- Employee development continues to build value in the employee and build the bottom line of the organisation
- Employees have improved opinions of their supervisors effectiveness and they take a vested interest in them
Still wondering if creating a coaching culture in your business would be a good thing to incorporate? The statistics are pretty overwhelming in favour of making this a part of every organisation. While it may initially seem daunting, especially for larger organisations, the benefits far outweigh leaving a coaching culture out in the cold.
This blog used data and information from Zenger | Folkman ‘How Developing a Coaching Culture Pays Off’ by Jack Zenger & Joe Folkman
