Coaching is widely recognised as a key management skill in today’s business world.
This blog looks at the following areas:
To develop your skills and confidence as an internal workplace performance coach, the ILM Level 5 Certificate in Effective Coaching would be the ideal qualification.
If you would like to view upcoming Open Programmes Dates for this qualification, click here.
If you would like to develop the coaching skills for your managers, we have our very own Coaching Skills for Managers programme, as well as the ILM Level 3 Award in Effective Coaching.
The term ‘coaching’ is commonly used today both inside and outside organisations. There are various types of coaching and various interpretations that mean that there is often a lack of clarity in respect of both its application and effectiveness.
Coaching can take place across all walks of life be it in the organisation, the sporting field, or within the home. It happens all the time both formally and informally in various forms, in a variety of different ways using a variety of different skills.
Every successful Olympic athlete of today will have worked with a professional Coach in order to achieve optimum results. A professional Coach will see their role as making the perceived impossible a possibility by working with the individual’s body and mind. Coaching in the work environment is similar.
Coaching is about unlocking potential in order to maximise performance and/or development. It is about the individual solving their own problem rather than it being solved for them. In this respect coaching is a different to other management processes that can be merely one way, with the manager having the authority and the solutions. It is however possible for coaching to be built into everyday management processes so that a manager maximises every opportunity with their people.
There are 2 main types of coaching:
Formal Coaching
This occurs when there is a clear and explicit agreement to Coach between the Coach and the individual.
Informal Coaching
Does not necessarily require a clear and explicit agreement between the Coach and the individual, it happens on the spur of the moment.
Some examples of Formal and Informal coaching opportunities have been summarised in the following table.
There are 2 broad aims of coaching:
Performance:
Coaching in business is most often concerned with performance. Performance may relate to the following:
Learning & development:
This is about the individual understanding their strengths and limitations.
It is about:
A summary of what coaching is:
A Summary of what coaching is not:
Coaching gets confused with counselling and mentoring. There are some similarities and some differences which are explained below:
Coaching v. Counselling
Counselling will tend to relate more to the individual’s personal issues. The counselling process is less likely to have such a specific goal as coaching. The purpose of counselling is more for the individual to talk, explore and reflect as opposed to meeting a specific aim. As such it is less directive and more open ended than coaching. Whilst this distinction exists it is fair to say that parts of the coaching process may contain some counselling and parts of a counselling process could contain some coaching.
Coaching v. Mentoring
Mentoring is again different to coaching. A mentor will tend not to be the persons’ line Manager. They will tend to be more experienced and senior than the individual and is usually someone the individual admires and recognises as a role model. The mentor tends to work with the individual on a longer-term basis over a period of time, whereas the majority of coaching conversations have an immediate or short-term performance impact. The mentoring relationship has a focus on supporting the individual’s learning and development. The relationship usually develops as an informal and friendly relationship.
The Role of the Coach
The role of the Coach is to enable the individuals to improve their own performance or skills. This is achieved by understanding that the Coach’s role is not to solve the individual’s problems for them but to enable the individual to resolve the problem for themselves. The Coach will use a diverse range of skills dependent on the person and the circumstance to help the individual gain understanding and awareness of their strengths, limitations and thus options available.
The emphasis therefore is about spending time with people efficiently and effectively. A successful Manager will recognise and understand that coaching is an invaluable tool to help maximise individual performance and results whilst at the same time meet and exceed individual expectations in terms of motivation and personal fulfilment.
Why use Coaching?
At an Individual level
Coaching is a conversation or series of conversations that help a person. It can help a person to:
At a Managerial level
Coaching can be helpful to achieve:
At an organisational level
Coaching can be helpful in the following ways:
There are various opportunities for coaching, some of which have been summarised below:
You can find out more information on a guide to one to one Coaching in the workplace Here
There are a number of different areas in which an individual can be coached. However, there are some common areas in which people often need help. These have been summarised below:
Competence/skills - A particular skill or set of skills that the person wants to address. This could be an area that the individual needs to develop and perceives as a remedial or weak area - perhaps it has been brought up in an appraisal or feedback. Alternatively, it could be an area of strength and the individual wants to increase or develop further.
Performance - An individual may be falling short of their targets, goals or results and may need coaching around how they can meet these. The coaching at this stage could be around the skill as described in point 1 or it could be around attitude/motivation. The Coach works with the individual so that they are aware of the required performance level and plans steps to towards achievement.
Relationships - This is about improving the relationships that are important in the workplace. This could be about managing a team, managing a boss or managing important stakeholders. Coaching in this area looks at those relationships in terms of what is working well and not well with the aim of understanding and improving them.
Managing oneself - This looks at the individual’s profile, image and network. Many individuals fail to progress in their roles because they do not have the image and profile that the organisation appreciates or recognises. Coaching in this area would be about raising the individual’s awareness of the perceived expectations in the workplace as well as strategies for the individual to close the necessary gaps.
Career aspirations – This looks at where the individual wants to go with their career. All too often in organisations performance and skills are looked at via the appraisal but career aspirations are often overlooked. Coaching would seek to bridge this gap by helping the individual define their goals and aspirations and encouraging the individual to explore practical ways to achieving these goals.
Coaching Process v. Skills
An effective Coach will differentiate between the skills of coaching and the process of coaching. Both of these need to happen in the coaching environment simultaneously and seamlessly.
Skills
The skills of a good Coach relate to a number of areas - listening, summarising, paraphrasing, giving feedback etc. We will look at these in more detail later in this handout.
The key is to be able to apply the appropriate skill at the appropriate time. The Coach’s skills will inform HOW the coaching intervention is undertaken. It is important therefore to recognise your areas of strengths and development in this arena.
Process
If skills are the HOW, then the process is the WAY. The process will inform the direction of the coaching. It will be the road – map for the Coach so that they have a framework to help navigate their way through the coaching intervention. The process helps to keep the Coach on track and also helps to manage expectations.
There are many different coaching processes in the marketplace. A simple, clear and straightforward process, particularly for practical application by line managers, is described later in this blog.
There are 3 main aspects to consider
The Skills of a Good Coach
A good Coach will recognise that coaching is about the relationship and the conversation that takes place within this relationship. One of the most important distinctions that can be made is the difference between a directive and non-directive approach.
Directive - The intention of a directive conversation is more PUSH in its style. It’s about active involvement in solving someone’s problem. This can be telling, instructing, making suggestions, offering guidance, or giving advice. There may be times in the coaching relationship where the individual is stuck and needs an answer or some feedback.
Non-Directive - The intention of non-directive coaching is more PULL in its style in that it is helping someone solve their own problem for themselves - listening, paraphrasing, summarising and asking questions that raise awareness encouraging the individual to learn and discover for themselves
The table below shows these 2 styles:
Four key skills have been looked in a little bit more detail and some best practice guidelines and advice are given on the next few pages:
Push - Giving feedback
Pull - Asking questions
Pull - Listening
Pull - Non-verbal behaviour
Push Style:
Giving Feedback – given that the primary purpose of coaching is to improve performance, a person can only do so if they know what the required standard is and if they get some feedback about their current level of performance. When giving feedback, the aim is to make it constructive but it must also be real.
The model below gives a simple four-step approach to giving feedback:
Describe the performance /development issue
Start with a description of the performance/development issue at hand. It could be that you have had a complaint about the individual’s performance, or it could be that you have observed a particular area of development. Whatever the area is, it needs to be introduced as a first step so that the individual is aware of the area to which the feedback applies.
Express organisational/personal impact
You may then need to make a link to the impact this issue has on the organisation and to the individual. For example, if there has been a customer complaint, you may need to point out the negative impact of poor customer feedback and stress the importance of good customer feedback to the organisations’ future success. Make the link clear between the individuals’ behaviour and how they have the accountability to really make a difference here.
Discuss the feedback
Be specific about what they did well and not so well, check for the individual’s own assessment of how they did and help them to own the feedback by assisting them with the identification of what could be better and how they can change/develop. Avoid generalisations and judgement of the person.
It is beneficial to give feedback as soon as possible after the event/incident and to focus on the things that can be changed.
Explore next steps
Following this, you should be able to move into the agreement with the next steps. It’s beneficial at this stage to get the individual to suggest ways to take things forward as this enhances ownership.
Pull style:
Asking Questions
This is probably one of the most important skills in coaching. It is important because you will need to gauge the individual’s level of skill and comfort before, during and after the coaching session.
Active Listening
Your ability to listen effectively is a key element of any relationship, but particularly when you might be listening for what is not said as well as what is said. Hearing and listening are not the same and the manager must suspend his or her own thoughts in order to listen on the surface as well as beneath the formal communication.
Listening skills are critical to effective communication. There are three main levels of listening:
Hearing the words - you must be able to actually hear and understand the words that are being spoken
Understanding the meaning - you must understand the overall meaning of the statements that are being made
Perceiving the inference level - you must pick up signals which infer opinions, attitudes or biases which may be important in getting a true understanding of the situation
In active listening you show that you are listening through your own body language and communication, and you operate at all three levels described above, picking up verbal and non-verbal signals.
Non - Verbal Communication
There are a lot of myths about non-verbal communication; myths, which suggest that people cannot control their behaviour and/or can be ‘read’, like a book through non-verbal ‘leaks’. If someone looks uncomfortable defensive or hostile, check this out and ask them why and how they might be made to feel more positive. The time when non-verbal communication is really important is when it gives clues that people are not saying what they feel, in other words, if there isn’t congruence between what they say and what they do. But it should, in all cases, be checked out to ensure that you’re drawing the right conclusions about what is going on.
Be aware that your own style of behaviour influences the style of the people you are meeting with, sometimes unwittingly or unknowingly.
As a coach it is important to be aware of the behaviour of both the individual and yourself.
The Personal Style of the Coach
Your own style and approach will have an effect on the coaching process, understanding your style and how others perceive you are critical if you are to be an effective Coach. Your personal style will be a complex combination of personality traits, communication style, appearance and your approach to others. The general terms that are often used to describe this complex set of things are qualities and attributes.
The qualities and attributes of an effective Coach:
Process or Approach the Coach Applies
Earlier we outlined the process is the WAY - it is the roadmap and helps steer the Coach throughout the coaching. It helps the Coach stay on track and manage the conversation. Whilst the process provides a clear and consistent framework upfront for the Coach in order to plan for the coaching conversation, the Coach needs to be mindful of amending the process in accordance with the person and the situation. The Coach needs to have freedom and flexibility to veer off course with the confidence of getting back on course as required.
An effective Coach will be aware that skills, style and process are all important
The skills and personal style of a Coach will make a significant difference to the coaching relationship. It is not enough however to just be comfortable with the skills and personal style, and most coaches find that they need a framework to help them steer their way through coaching scenarios.
Below are the typical stages of the coaching process.
COCA Model
Contracting phase
This phase is about establishing clear outcomes, confidentiality and rapport. This phase will take into account the type of person and their unique circumstances and needs. This phase is focused on creating the optimum coaching environment so that there is a sense of mutual trust and respect. The Coach will need to be responsible at this stage for both the hard and soft parts of the contract. The hard refer to specific goals of the coaching whilst the soft are the rapport and trust elements.
The Coach will need to explain upfront why the coaching has been initiated and allow for the individual to respond and open up.
What does good contracting look like?
Mutual trust & credibility is established. Ground rules for working together: when, where, how. Boundaries established - what is legitimately part of coaching and what is not:
Opening Up phase
This phase is about encouraging the individual to open up and out. The focus for the Coach is on allowing thorough exploration of the issues through good questioning, listening and paraphrasing. The tone will be dependent on the topic of the discussion and whether this is a performance, skills, development or career discussion. However, the conversation should always allow for the individual to do more of the talking (80-20%) and the Coach should be mindful not to jump in too early with judgements or observations too early on. The opening up phase is about getting as much information from the individual about the topic in order to move forward sufficiently together. This phase will occupy about 40-60% of the conversation time.
Closing down
Unlike the opening up phase, this phase is about narrowing down the information gained. The significant issues will need to be identified/prioritised and the Coach will move towards a more focused problem-resolving approach. Once the priorities are on the table, this is the phase where further exploration to resolve these priorities will occur. The individual should be invited to suggest ways forward and the Coach may be directive at times with their own suggestions. Thus, whilst strong pull behaviour will be essential some push behaviour in terms of managing the process will be essential at this stage. This phase will occupy about 20% of the conversation.
Action planning
This is the final phase where the conversation is wrapped up and the next steps are agreed. The Coach should provide a summary of what was discussed and what has been agreed upon. Milestones and dates should be agreed and both parties should be clear on the way forward. Once again, the Coach should be aware of both the hard and soft outcomes and should not overlook the importance of ongoing trust and respect and leave the conversation on a good note.
Smart Objectives
Devising Smart objectives are at the heart of effective coaching. Your role as Coach is to facilitate and enable appropriate objectives to be established.
A SMART objective is:
In a coaching situation the challenge is not necessarily in writing the objective but is selecting an objective that is really going to make a difference. Depending on the level of self-awareness, the individual may or may not be aware of what they need themselves. You may need to help them to identify what is going to help that at this moment in time. For example, if someone is continually late for meetings, the individual’s first response may be that their watch is telling the wrong time. The challenge for you is to get them to take responsibility to arrive at the meeting on time without excuses.
A good coaching objective would look something like this:
‘To make a strong impact in my presentation to the Senior Leadership Sales team on 24th October at the Annual sales conference. Specifically, I want the audience to recognize the importance of sales targets going forward and also to perceive me as a vital team player going forwards.
The specific actions I know I can take to do this are:
Every coaching situation is unique as every individual is unique. The Coach cannot approach every coaching scenario in the same way. Coaching should always aim to achieve a highly supportive yet also highly challenging environment. If it’s too challenging it will feel stressful and if it’s not challenging it will feel too comfortable.
The Coach needs to consider carefully the following areas in order to fully appreciate the individual differences:
To develop your skills and confidence as an internal workplace performance coach, the ILM Level 5 Certificate in Effective Coaching would be the ideal qualification.
If you would like to view upcoming Open Programmes Dates for this qualification, click here.
If you would like to develop the coaching skills for your managers, we have our very own Coaching Skills for Managers programme, as well as the ILM Level 3 Award in Effective Coaching.