Since coaching is something done with people, rather than to people, just how well prepared (both in skills and attitude) are managers to coach? Managers typically have an innate interpersonal technique, and so perhaps management’s perceived value of coaching can be indicated by how readily it’s being absorbed into business culture and put into practice.
So why in some managers is there a disconnect between the manager’s ability and/or willingness to coach and their drive to achieve the organization’s goals?
Further to this disconnect, we need to make the distinction between coaching skills and effective. If coaching occurs within an obvious context of a shared vision, corporate objectives, organizational values and performance indicators then what’s achieved is effective coaching.
Finding solutions to this disconnect provides trainers with an opportunity to develop a role as a performance consultant – someone who has a primary role of improving productivity, first through analysis of the cause of the issue and then, designing appropriate behavior change programmes.
Find out what business processes and outcomes managers measure in order to determine productivity and profitability. From a selfish perspective, being an advocate for coaching and being able to communicate this business case for coaching places you in a position of higher value within the organization. You show yourself as someone who is on a similar wavelength as the managers in helping drive the business.
Some managers confuse coaching with simply giving advice. As Gore Vidal said, “There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise”.
There is an increasing need to improve involvement and engagement of all employees to achieve business outcomes. Managers are continually asked to improve productivity without additional resources.
One option is to enhance behavior and performance through interactive communication and influence, such as coaching.
Managers need to invite employees to participate as partners, develop trusting relationships and combine everyone’s best efforts into creating business solutions. Managers also need to use their coaching skills with people within (who don’t necessarily report to them) and outside their organization.
Typical business performance indicators include productivity, employee turnover, profitability and customer satisfaction.
Business - Out of the Box 