By Coaching | Jul 27, 2021
How to Build a Coaching Strategy that can Positively Transform your Organisation. Part 4: Executing and Managing your Coaching Strategy
Now that you have your coaching strategy in hand, you can go ahead and implement it.
If you don’t have a strategy ready yet, go back to Part 3 or start at the beginning if you need to, so I can guide you through each phase of the journey.
The implementation process is not difficult, but it does involve moving through a series of planning steps for the execution, communication and management of your coaching programme before you start putting anything into action. You’ll see what I mean below.
Step 1: Executing Your Coaching Strategy
This first step is all about putting a few processes and procedures in place to identify, select and perhaps train a group of coaches.
Internal or External?
This decision is an important one. You may have already established that you’d like to train your very own team of coaches. Or perhaps you’d like to outsource these services for a certain period of time before delving into training programmes.
Either way, what qualifications, experience or level of coaching skills should they have? Take notes on what the application process will look like.
Will you put a contract out to tender? Will you interview a group of training providers or external coaching companies?
Create an audit trail and selection process so you can confidently select the best coaches or providers for your organisation
Developing Those Coaches
If you do go on to train a group of internal coaches and put them onto an accredited programme, don’t forget to ensure they follow a Continued Professional Development (CPD) programme and are supported by Supervision so they keep their skills up to date and your organisation can benefit from the use of the latest and greatest coaching theory and methods as things progress.
Attracting and Educating Coachees
I very regularly see a similar situation develop at the organisations I work with: when an organisation first starts to get the coaching ball rolling, the staff at all levels of the organisation really think they understand what coaching is, and how it works.
But this is often certainly not the case.
So this is something to watch out for—misconceptions, a lack of understanding of some of the basic concepts of coaching, and people missing out on experiencing the true, wonderful benefits of coaching because of missing knowledge. This is so critical if an organisation’s culture is to change.
What’s great is that the solution to this problem is extremely easy and economical. You’ll also be amazed at how it can provide you with a sudden interest in your coaching programme, right across the organisation.
What’s the solution? Usually, a one-day introduction to coaching course provided to as many staff as possible.
These one-day events are fantastic for wiping out confusion, inspiring your people and generating interest in coaching culture development. They may even take the form of a presentation day that is provided by your internal team. Either way, I can’t recommend them enough.
Once you’ve provided your one-day intro, you may send out a memo to collect the names of anyone who might be interested in being a coachee so you can begin your coaching programme with the keenest, enthusiastic managers… and then go from there.
Others look at “high potentials”, and decide who would most benefit from coaching sessions, and prioritise that way. What would work best for your organisation?
Once you do have a long line of coachees (and/or budding coaches) ready to take their working life to the next level, be sure to secure their commitment to the process with a contract that will allow them to squeeze as much good out of their sessions/training as possible.
Step 2: Communicating Your Coaching Strategy
Want to imbed your coaching strategy into the lifeblood of your workplace? Communication on all levels is what you need, and it’s simple to do.
Plan it
The stakeholders you identified when creating your strategy are key here. They may all try to take your communications plan in different directions, so meet with them to hash out a plan that everyone can get on board with. Then…
Launch an Event
There’s nothing like an event to get your staff in the right mindset, as mentioned above. Provide food and drink, and then…
Sell the Benefits
Yes, choosing someone who is great at selling coaching will really make a difference on the day of your event. Your key stakeholders should be present. A presentation full of educational material, plenty of short breaks and a case study or two will put you on the road to success here. If that all seems like a lot to manage, you can easily bring in your coaching training course provider (we offer one, by the way).
Step 3: Managing Your Coaching Strategy
This step is also simple and easy to apply. A Coaching Champion is really all you need.
Picking Your Coaching Champion
This individual will promote, support and communicate the successes of coaching at your workplace, as well as review, amend and ensure that coaching is well managed and sustained.
To select a good candidate, reflect on who is the most enthusiastic member of your team. Who is great at motivating and encouraging people? Who will keep their coaching skills razor-sharp and be an inspiring, role model coach?
Keep Stakeholders Engaged
News, success stories and useful information are the keys to keeping these individuals on board, updated and enthusiastic.
You may like to liaise with your Coaching Champion in order to produce a few short documents regarding how things are going each month, as your Champion is most likely to come into contact with coachees and coaches who can share their testimonials, success stories (which should have a challenge-solution-outcome structure—here’s more on that), tips and tricks, what has worked for them and what hasn’t, etc.
Great. We’re almost done with this series. Good luck executing and managing your coaching strategy. Next time, we’ll cover how to evaluate and adapt your strategy so your organisation goes from strength to strength.