A coaching culture simply means supporting your employees so that they learn new skills and become greater assets to the company. A management culture that emphasizes training, regular feedback, and opportunities for growth creates a more engaged and energized.
Deploying coaching culture
Step 1. Make the case for coaching by allowing key influencers to experience its power.
Don’t assert the value of coaching. Instead, demonstrate its value, particularly in situations that are painful for the business’ leaders. You want the influencer to be able to say something to the effect of: “I’ve been struggling with this for the last 3 weeks. It’s amazing that in only 30 minutes with you, I’ve found alternative ways of handling this. I have new-found confidence!”
Step 2. Integrate coaching as a core element of your talent and leadership development strategy.
Before trying to embed coaching in your culture, start by integrating coaching in your leadership and talent development framework. Embed coaching in some of your leadership programs for targeted populations, like high potentials, senior managers, and senior experts. It’s equivalent to learning how to walk before you run. It also exposes your organization to a critical mass of adopters.
Step 3. Equip HR professionals with coaching skills.
The ideal situation arises when business leaders and HR professionals exhibit coaching skills and a coaching mindset on their own. Contrary to popular belief, coaching isn’t exclusively for development purposes — it’s also for everyday challenges.
The performance of your organization will always be determined by the effectiveness of every single employee. In this context, coaching can address 80% of routine obstacles in less than 20 minutes, as opposed to other forms of management that may force people to do things that feel unnatural or leave them pondering for weeks. The more that your HR department can experience this and exemplify the benefits, the better it will be for the entire organization.
Building Coaching Culture
Lead By Example –
If you think your team could benefit from coaching, engage a coach for yourself. Find someone who delivers exactly what you are hoping to provide for your team. If you achieve the desired results, then share your experiences with your team. Leading by example will change the paradigm of “you need assistance, but I’m just fine,” to “I have benefited, and now I want you to experience this.”
Ask Your Employees The Right Questions –
A coaching culture encourages employees to learn from their experience by exploring the right questions rather than telling them what to do and how to do it. Next time an employee has a challenge ask them open-ended questions that begin with “how” or “what.”
Ditch Coaching; Build A Learn/Do Culture Where Teams Self-Coach –
The days of sitting in three-day courses designed to “fix” skill deficiencies are done. Time-consuming weekly one-on-one meetings to coach and coax are done. The new model for high performance is to implement hands-on, learn/do programs related to specific business outcomes, where teams receive on the job training and mentoring from an expert, and hold themselves accountable to perform at a high level.
Start At The Top –
Start by teaching senior leaders a few coaching basics — listening, asking questions, encouraging others to reflect and develop insights before taking action. Then guide them to coach their most respected team members. As these “influencers” gain traction from being coached, they will be open to learning and modeling the same coaching behaviors. Over time, a coaching culture will emerge.
Bring In Training –
If you are going to successfully integrate coaching into your workplace culture, you must engage expert coaches to train individuals at all levels of the organization in coaching practice. Too often, companies try to bring what they call “coaching” in, which is not actual coaching, but more like mentoring or advising. You need to ensure there is alignment at all levels and evaluate effectiveness.
Just Do It –
Coaching is a way of being, and as such, you can’t simply integrate it. You just have to understand what it is and do it. It’s not the same as adding carrots to your stew. So the key is to educate teams about what coaching is and then have them do it — coach each other. Have a weekly group coaching session with a coach to help answer questions and demonstrate.
Build A Coaching Routine –
You can’t be a runner without putting in weekly miles, and you can’t have a coaching culture without a coaching routine. One high-performing sales manager at Salesforce creates a coaching culture by allocating an entire day each week to coaching. On Tuesdays her 10+ direct reports get 30 minutes of one-on-one coaching — time completely dedicated to their developmental needs.
Make Managers Accountable For Developing Employees –
Create a coaching culture by tying this activity to the company’s mission, and hold every manager accountable for coaching employees to help them master their jobs and learn new skills. Create a structured process with clear goals for coaching employees. Be sure to make time and resources available to guarantee success. Reward managers who meet or exceed these goals and reevaluate those who don’t.
Ask More Questions Than You Answer –
When someone asks you what to do, ask them what they think will work. Ask how they came to that conclusion. Ask what alternatives they’ve considered. Show them that you value their input, and empower them to make decisions and be ready to defend them. Over time, you’ll find that people will begin to bring you solutions instead of problems, and they’ll encourage their teams to do the same.
Be Clear And Strategic –
If you don’t already have a clear definition of what coaching is, you need to have one so everyone in the organization is in sync with what it means, especially compared to mentoring, training, consulting, etc. Then, ensure coaching is not an “ad hoc” activity, but is truly integrated into your overall talent management strategy. How does it fit with all other aspects of your employee lifecycle?
Live What You Claim –
Ever joined a company that claimed they had an open-door policy but that door was always closed? To cultivate a coaching culture you need to create a workplace that walks the walk. Training, regular feedback and evaluation schedules, valuing different voices, rotating team leadership opportunities, and mentorship programs will create an interdependent and energized workplace. –
Have Lunch Bite Drop-In Sessions –
Teach people how to be with one another and listen through short introductory coaching lunch drop-in sessions. Many people say they listen when in fact they just wait their turn to speak. Coaching skills teach people how to deeply listen, stay curious, and locate the root of an issue fast.
Gain Buy-In And Practice –
Coaching is real-time development by all team members to all team members. It’s about practice, not perfection. Start asking questions to help individuals gain more insight on what happened and how they can handle it next time versus just telling them what to do. This gains buy-in and puts them in the driver seat. They will take on more ownership and know they have you for support and resources.
