Coaching for Results

Before you decide to enter any coaching relationship, you need to know “how” your potential coach coaches. Below is how we do it.

We follow Marshall Goldsmith’s methodologies for behavioral change. Marshall is one of if not the top executive coaches in America. For more about Marshall and his methodologies, go to his website at http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/.

Every coaching arrangement must start with goals. Our goals are to make the greatest positive change for the executive and the organization using the least amount of resources (time and money). Our agreements are never based on time spent coaching, but on results delivered. Our clients have very little time and that time is incredibly valuable. The less of that precious resource that we use, the better.

Step 1 – Qualify

Have you ever witnessed a successful individual make a significant change in their lives when they did not deeply desire that change? Neither have we. Executives must acknowledge the need for change and have a strong desire to change for coaching to be effective.

Integrity or Values are very difficult to change. When coaches try to affect change to an executives’ morality or values, the outcome is usually superficial and rarely lasting. Therefore, we avoid these types of engagements.

Potential for advancement is another necessary factor for a successful coaching arrangement. Coaching is far too often used as a way to “coach out” an executive. In those situations, no amount of change is great enough to save the executive’s career. Those executives need to be routed to your outplacement program, not a coach.

Step 2 – Involve Managers and Executives

Managers, stakeholders and the executives themselves must all be involved in deciding the desired behavioral change. Managers and the executives are the key decision makers in this process, but it is always a good idea to hear from the people who the executive leads about what change they would like to see.

Less is more. A maximum of two behavioral changes are allowed for any single engagement. More than two goals diffuses the executives’ focus to the point of diminishing the change achievable. Additional goals can always be added once the first two are accomplished.

This is going to sound strange to state, but I see it happen all the time. The goals must be achievable by the executive alone. We can only change our own behavior and how we interact and lead others. We can provide tools, techniques and coaches, but we can never cause someone else to change. Changing is their job. Therefore, the executives’ goals must be behaviors that he or she can personally change. Do not state goals that the executive cannot personally make happen.

Step 3 – Include Managers and Stakeholders

If we are honest with ourselves, we are terrible at judging our own work and behavior. Either we are over-critical or way to lenient. How many of us relax our gut when we walk by the mirror? Not me. To avoid this bias, we involve a group of key stakeholders in your organization to help you judge your results and to provide ideas and feedback on better ways to improve.

We also ask these key stakeholders to pick something that they would like to improve in themselves. This makes the coaching and learning a “two-way” street, with everyone striving for positive change.

We all have “lenses of experience” that we view others actions through. If someone has acted rudely to you in the past, you expect them to act rudely to you again in the future and you are always looking for it to happen. What we focus on is what we see.

For example, how many yellow cars did you see on the way to work this morning? Think hard. There are not that many on the road. Now, I bet you will see more on the way home. Why? You will be looking. As a stakeholder in the coaching process, we must “clean our lenses” and let go of the past. We must be positive and supporting of the efforts being made to change. After all, we are working to develop a better leader, which will probably make your life a lot better.

Step 4 – Listen to Key Stakeholders

The executive being coached must demonstrate humility by asking for the stakeholders help in improving their leadership skills. If mistakes have been made in the past, the executive must apologize and seek forgiveness as part of the coaching process.

Step 5 – Executives Develop Action Plans

This is key. The coach does not create the action plans for change. That is the job of the executive. The coach provides feedback and suggestions only.

Step 6 – Measure the Change

At three month or shorter intervals the executive should receive measurable feedback from key stakeholders. Once the desired changes have occurred, the executive can move the goals higher or move on to another goal.

It is a rare case when determined, disciplined, and intelligent individuals cannot make significant positive change to their leadership and their organization with the help of the above process and a quality coach.

As leaders, we are always seeking team members who are willing and motivated to improve themselves each and every day. The leader must go first. Start the ball rolling by visibly dedicating yourself to self-improvement and your team will follow.

If you’d like more information on the return on investment of executive coaching, go to this article. If you’d like to review the biggest causes of failure in executive coaching, check out this article.

Thank you for being a part of our values driven community!

Image courtesy of http://eskimorugby.wordpress.com/tag/set-plays/.

Filed Under:

Comments are closed here.