Engaging Employees: How to Introduce and Measure ROI on Coaching
By Bernard Chanliau, Saturday 16 February, 2008
The fabric of the workforce is changing. What worked five years ago in management style, is no longer enough to be competitive. And business, after all is nothing without people. The rules of engagement have changed. Executives need greater resilience and more inner resources than ever before, bottom line. Lorna McDowell explores what it means to introduce a 'coaching culture' into your organisation.
Executive coaching is demonstrating extraordinary results in helping executives harness the power of human behaviour in performance. Why? The outcome is not just about their work and solving a problem or managing teams, it's about their own self actualisation: who they are and what they stand for and how far they can stretch. In the 21st century, this is a now a far greater motivator of man than money will ever be. As Daniel Goleman states, we are now in the "emotional economy" and finding the "sweetspot for achievement" - the optimal state for success and being in flow is the new nirvana of today's driven business person.The 'emotional economy' demands huge self mastery on a mental, physical, emotional and spiritual level, as well as the vision for change, the capacity to influence and inspire and the courage to drive change no matter what.
"In truth, it is not acceleration that the world needs. What we must have is a bed, a bed upon which, stretched out, the soul will determine a respite, in the name of its salvation. Is civilization outside the balance of man and his disposability? The civilized man, is he not the expandable man?" Cheikh Hamidou Kane
In recent years, coaching has been introduced into a number of organisations. The early adopters introduced it in an experimental and often isolated way - not always knowing why they were doing it but found it highly stimulating. It also seemed to create a feel good factor that may have been missing in organisations. Elastoplasts over larger problems.
One of the questions was "how to measure it?" or whether indeed it could be measured. The danger is that if we don't measure, we can't really say it works, or that if we measure it too much, we lose the very essence that makes it such an alchemic process, in organisations that are still fundamentally paralysed by dis-engagement and 'moving away from' and risk-averse attitudes. As a result, coaching was often brought in without a holistic and strategic plan and without tackling issues at the top that would be needed to make it ultimately successful.
Fundamentally, coaching has the capacity to re-engage the hearts and minds of staff, and completely overhaul company culture. Why? Because it is highly personal, it experientially teaches people to think differently, take ownership of themselves and therefore create more desirable and productive outcomes. However, in doing so, risk-averse leaders might fear "losing control" - there's nothing worse than empowering people and then stamping on their progress with toxic attitudes of 'we don't do it like that here'. Introducing a coaching culture does sort out those organisations that are truly committed to change and innovation and those who are still trying to figure out how to innovate and improve without changing anything.
What is the potential of coaching on culture change?
The skills that one picks up through being coached are fourfold: a) huge self awareness which translates into self management and ownership of one's issues b) challenging the way we think which translates into innovation and improvements and c) better interpersonal communication, thereby enhancing productivity and d) the courage to take risks on a personal level, which translates as the courage to take risks on an organisational level.
The alchemic result of this - the fifth dimension - is significant "re-engagement". Now, the employee can see the workplace as somewhere where he can self-actualise, stretch and grow to his potential. And every person coached in an organisation, is one step closer to the "engaged organisation" - the nirvana of productive, proactive, fulfilled employees all collaborating towards a common goal, whilst continuously innovating what they do.
It starts at the top
Coaching should not be a ground up initiative. It must start from the top. No surprise then that the growth in coaching is also forcing a demand for better leadership. Leaders that are inspirational, highly networked with a strong personal brand and can create clarity and direction for those who follow them.
Introducing coaching into your culture requires leaders to consider what kind of organisation they want and to get real about what kind of culture they actually have. The CEOs own personal values are key here. Too often values are left as meaningless words on websites and dog-eared posters around the walls, rather than living entities that translate into "how we do things round here". Values should be tightly correlated to business vision and mission, and most importantly every value should be translated into behaviours and actions that demonstrate how we can make those values real for ourselves and our customers.In this way, coaching drives change in organisations, by "chunking down" and mapping organisation values to personal values. Values drive thoughts that create behaviours that lead to actions within an individual. By reflecting and considering these values, the individual and the organisation has an opportunity to self-actualise. Easy to write down innovation as a value on a website, but to make it a tightly defined personal objective in daily life, requires a whole set of new thinking and behaviours. That's the excitement lies - coaches that have been down this road have found their passion for life rekindled in amazing ways. The lights come on ... and something shifts inside as they feel more purposeful.
Supporting Change
Coaching also helps people to embrace and plan for change in a way that becomes as regular and comfortable as planning for vacations or Christmas. They know what to expect, how to manage themselves and a toolkit for staying positive.
Measuring Success
Objective measurement of success must incorporate both external and internal factors.
External indicators of performance can be seen and measured in the individual's work outputs, engagement and the catalytic effect on the organisation/environment. However, the more profound indicators of success are the internal factors, which drive the external manifestations of output. Typically, these are harder to measure, but are measurable nonetheless. Look for measures in the development of the individual's relationships, influence, confidence, thinking skills, adaptability, and impact.
Tangible ways of measuring can include:
- Stakeholder feedback interviews regarding specific observations and perceptions of the coachee.
- Assessments that measure attributes such as emotional awareness, decision making, influencing skills, leadership style, "chunking down" style to specific behaviours and activities which coachee and stakeholders can score, providing quantifiable data and often these can be compared to a database of international averages for high performing people.
Other measures might include productivity, reduced stress levels, reduced absenteeism, higher team motivation etc. Over a longer period of time, organisations who are rolling out a coaching culture across the organisation will see upward improvements in employee retention, ease of recruitment, team performance and business results.
What is essential is that goals and measures are clearly set and measured at the beginning of a coaching programme and there is a clear path in the programme for working on these chosen issues. If it is not tangible at the beginning, it will not be measurable at the end and 'happy factors' are not enough to persuade the data-driven decision makers.
Some of the business drivers that often lead to coaching will also influence what is measured:
- Helping people adapt to change in a rapidly evolving business environment
- The need for good leadership and "walking the talk" - whilst theory is often learnt in the classrooms of leading business schools, it must leave the classroom to be of any value. Coaching can help managers apply theory into real life, completing the learning process by making it happen and working through resistances and obstacles.
- Faster reactions - structural features of modern organisations are much flatter and so command and control structures no longer work - we need fast decisions and empowered people. To have empowered people, we need resilient and highly self-aware and other-aware people
- Clear, challenging and strategic thinking - the use of reflection, divergent thinking and introspection in coaching helps executives to become more visionary and make better decisions
- Helping CEOs to raise their game - far more is expected in terms of charisma, creativity leadership and personal branding from our top people as international standards drive excellence
- The need for constant innovation requires constant and personalised learning. Coaching provides a "Just-in-Time" individualised process delivered through a variety of face-to-face and on-line formats, at flexible times, anywhere in the world.
Check List for Adopting a Coaching Culture:
- Assess and coach your top team first - model from the top
- Position coaching as part of an overall cultural or business journey
- Map organisational 'aspirations' regarding values, behaviours and culture to what's actually happening
- Consider the inspiration-factor of your CEO - does he/she create followship charismatically and impactfully? If not, find him an experienced coach fast!
- Enable employees to make sense of corporate values in relation to their own individual values and traits
- Include coaching in EAP - address the causes of troubles, rather than treating the symptoms. Coaching develops mental fitness and focuses on building the future rather than dwelling on the past
- Train managers in coaching-style management - this develops innovative thinking
- Consider recruiting a panel of external coaches for issues where objectivity is a must
- Create a feedback habit within your culture - not just formal 360 assessments, but encourage informal, free-flowing 'gifts' of feedback - coaching-empowered people makes it "safe" to do this
- Ensure internal coaches have access to external supervision to support their efforts and ensure objectivity, best practice and continued learning.
- Link coaching and behaviour performance to appraisals