Coaching unlocks potential in people and, when applied effectively at scale in an organization, across communities. Not all managers are naturally great coaches (though they can learn) and not every organization is setup to achieve the desired results from investments in coaching. What I’m noticing from Vancity’s investment in an enterprise-wide coaching experience for people leaders and influencers is that results come when HR listens to stakeholders from the business and focuses coaching conversations on the most relevant topics for the enterprise. Here are six coaching streams that your organization needs.
Leadership
This is probably the most common stream of organizational coaching. People managers have busy schedules. Some have a lot of direct reports and most are accountable for big decisions. Leadership coaches provide personalized support with the intention of enhancing a leader’s capability to achieve the goals of an organization or community.
Performance
The famous and simple GROW Model emerged from coaching for performance on the tennis court. These coaches focus their powerful questions and deep listening so that individuals can bring changes to their lives (or tennis game). Performance coaches raise awareness with their coachee (or “client”) in the context of delivering results for a business or community. This often requires them to observe their coachee’s work as part of the experience.
Career
Everyone needs to make career moves, even within (or to get out of) an organization. Deloitte employs coaches to help employees navigate their professional growth. Accenture’s coaches provide feedback to managers about where their clients might move next within or beyond the firm. These coaches not only deliver personalized service for clients but can also mitigate bias in decision making by providing data and perspective about an organization’s talent. Think about leveraging career coaches with folks who are new to an organization, returning from leave or thinking about retirement – the best career conversations often happen amidst work life transitions.
Change
When it comes to serving organizations, ICF argues that coaches and change management professionals are “the ultimate power couple.” People respond to change uniquely and in highly personalized ways. Equipping coaches with the right change management tools and then engaging these coaches with teams that are going through technology, space or organizational changes will raise the likelihood of engaging people in transformations big and small. This approach can be crucial for helping staff feel cared for and supported when their professional world is disrupted.
Wellness
Wellness coaches help people assess their current state of mental and physical wellness. These coaches help clients set goals for what they want to achieve in their overall wellness. Leveraging wellness coaches in your organization can increase productivity and engagement. Raising awareness about peoples’ wellness, especially with managers, can also reduce burnout and raise morale.
Feedback
The 2019 Vancity Community Leader Interns gave us the idea of feedback coaches (we asked them for recommendations about how to create a culture of feedback in our credit union). The purpose of these coaches is to facilitate, support and drive good conversations about feedback and that contain feedback. The most powerful way to create a culture of feedback is for leaders to ask for it and then to be cool with what they hear – enough reps of this behaviour will make the process unconscious and contagious across the organization.
Bringing it all together
These streams operate most effectively – and in alignment with organizational goals – when these different coaching streams are governed by a community. At Vancity we use a community of practice to govern coaching. Many of the streams above are evolving because of where the community, not my team, HR or executive leadership, is taking the work. My colleague Christine and I refer to this as “crossing the streams” because we’re supercool people who may or may not be fans of Ghostbusters. We also believe that combining groups of people to engage in coaching embeds the practice in our culture and drives results.
—
This article was originally published on September 18, 2019.