Better results? Consider a coaching culture

Better results? Consider a coaching culture

Business is more competitive and future success depends on having better-performing people as a critical advantage for higher performance, higher returns and desirable business outcomes. Senior leaders often look for what they term a "coaching culture" and I see them making the investment in creating one.

Culture is an essential element for all organisations and unless you carefully shape the culture you want; you unfortunately end up with the culture you deserve. Culture is the organisation's unwritten rules, values, norms, behaviours and practices; how work gets done here, and embedding a coaching approach provide immeasurable benefits. On the individual level it helps people to pause and refocus so that performance can improve as expertise is shared and improvement is looked for. On a team level it develops skills and knowledge across the board. When we get to the organisational level it's possible to see desired behaviours blossom everywhere.

So what is a coaching culture? It's more than just simply having a lot of coaching taking place in an effective fashion. It has to be rooted firmly in the organisation and supported by willingness and commitment from the very top leadership capable of and committed to performance improvement, starting with themselves.

Done well it will sustain you through traumas and crises. It suits organisations that rely on the capability, loyalty and ingenuity of their people, and like all of us these days, which expect continuous, often disruptive change. Most of all it requires leadership capable of and committed to performance improvement, starting with themselves.

A HSBC insurance subsidiary successfully developed a coaching culture. HSBC Insurance at Singapore with more than 200 staffs decided to build a successful throughout the Asia-Pacific region by introducing coaching initiatives in 2005. Through coaching development eighteen senior managers who reported directly to the level immediately below the CEO were rated as more valued by their team members. The leaders became more confident in managing staff, and employees more open to ideas to stretch others.

When the coaching culture was rooted firmly in the organisation, the result was increased individual leadership capacity, enhanced organisational learning, and greater engagement at all levels, improving productivity and bottom line results.

Changing Culture is difficult and time consuming and very stressful for all involved so how do I go about creating a coaching culture? "Excellent" cultural support for coaching through development of internal coaching capacity is the real need for nearly all organisations. It requires leaders to target the right people and then, seed the organisation leaders and managers who can role-model coaching approaches. Target the right people, invest in their development and position them as role models for the new coaching culture.

In developing a coaching culture, coaches must tangibly link coaching outcomes to the success of the business so people see their accomplishments as they move forward. Leaders and managers should emphasise the importance and the effectiveness of demonstrating the business value of coaching and linking coaching outcomes to business outcomes.

After the new culture emerges and the new mindset develops, it is time to start coaching senior leadership teams in creating culture change. The more you reinforce it, the more you will see their behaviour change. In my experience typically more than twice as many leaders want team coaching as are receiving it; so the more the better is key in reinforcing a new culture.

Leaders have to recognise and reward coaching culture behaviours, and highlight role models and the positive outcomes produced by these new behaviours. When people do good things, do not forget to complement and give them positive reinforcement. Leaders and managers are more aware of employee thinking and behaviour; they feel more valued and continuously look for more room of improvement.

Last but not least, a coaching culture can drive business results; however, coaching means different things at different level and it is not the same for every organisation. It is important to customise a coaching culture that is right for your organisation, embed it in HR, and integrate coaching with other people management processes. Until coaching becomes the norm for individuals and teams, continuously increase organisational learning. Coaching and behaviours must be integrated with the appropriate people processes so that these become the natural way of doing business.


Arinya Talerngsri is group managing director at APM Group, Thailand's leading organisation and people development consultancy. Write to her at arinyat@apm.co.th

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