Smart managers know coaching gives organizations competitive advantage
Sarah McVanel, founder of Greatness Magnified, is a passionate advocate for inviting leaders to shift their focus towards solution-based approaches that recognize creativity, adaptability, resourcefulness, commitment and productivity. At SCN’s recent event, McVanel challenged the HR audience to shift their gears from being dysfunctional to co-operative, from being divided to united, inefficient to productive, and disengaged to contributor.
So, what exactly are the fundamental principles of solution-based approaches?
It’s about the ability to coach and develop others. However we describe the process, it’s exciting to see business coaching emerge from being a short-lived fad to a fundamental value-add proposition.
Leaders are increasingly recognizing the value of being able to focus and refocus on future solutions, and accessing the best in people for sustainable change.
Successful organizations such as Burberry, Hewlett Packard and Exide Batteries are examples of how coaching is being incorporated as an essential management skill.
The question is how many organizations are ensuring managers know and understand how or why coaching works, how powerful it can be, and how to do it effectively?
We still have many organizations where a manager’s role is defined as employee performance reviews, fixed employee and team meetings on tasks and goals, dealing with and fixing problems, controlling how things are done and maybe offering advice.
In contrast, coaching is about championing employee growth, development and achievement by removing roadblocks to performance and creativity.
Coaching helps cultivate “we” cultures, transformation and sustainable growth for individuals, teams and organizations. Effective coaching goes beyond the individual manager-employee relationship.
It’s no surprise in our VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) world that many managers will simply tell you they don’t have time to coach their employees as well as manage day-to-day priorities.
McVanel more than demonstrated the positive impact coaching can have in our workplaces with just a few uncomplicated strategies and exercises.
If your organization is considering or is truly committed to creating a coaching culture, it’s really important to be prepared to select and invest in the development of the right people. You may consider establishing a pool of dedicated managers or coaches to be your initial role models, your enablers.
You want them to demonstrate authentic and effective coaching with other managers; help motivate other managers to learn new ways of developing and inspiring their own teams; and to experience the benefits of promoting creativity, breakthrough performance and perseverance.
Every organization needs coaching advocates to help build, improve and sustain a coaching culture — it’s not exclusively HR’s mission.
All of us know teams, departments and organizations that are looking to strengthen their level of productivity, to have the ability to tackle difficult challenges together, and to add higher levels of value to their organization.
Creating a coaching culture can help accelerate any organization’s competitive advantage and reveal new and effective ways to flow and operate within an environment of accelerated change.
I’m finding in a number of organizations that many people want to contribute and be part of something far larger than themselves, but they don’t know how.
Additionally, I’m finding many are equally tired of working under fear-based leadership practices. For me, that’s the best motivation possible, and coaching is one powerful way of enabling that “leadershift” to happen.
It’s a long-term and sustainable benefit for everyone.
Trish Maguire is a commentator for SCNetwork on leadership in action and founding principal of Synergyx Solutions in Nobleton, Ont., focused on high-potential leadership development coaching. She has held senior leadership roles in HR and organizational development in education, manufacturing and entrepreneurial firms. She can be reached at
[email protected].
