Today’s workforce does not respond well to the old “top-down, command and control” management style. They require continuous feedback, growth and learning opportunities.
This is a big dilemma for many CEOs, as to address it requires more than just additional management training. It often requires a change from a deep-rooted traditional culture to a more agile supportive one. I’m often asked by my clients about how to create a “coaching culture” in their organization. If you’re not familiar, a coaching culture is about delivering results, improving performance and making the most of people’s potential. The emphasis is on delivering results and making each other (and the wider organization) stronger and more capable. Ed Parsloe in his article “What is a Coaching Culture” describes it best:
If you could be a ‘fly on the wall’ in a coaching culture, here’s what you’d see:
- Managers looking for opportunities to help others to learn
- People asking each other open questions
- Employees at all levels having open, honest and supportive conversations with one another
- People routinely giving one another feedback – supportive and critical
- Managers coaching team members to help them develop, rather than just to tackle poor performance
- Coaching and mentoring relationships forming spontaneously
- Senior leaders with a clear vision that coaching and mentoring are at the heart of how we operate
- Teams working with clear goals, roles, processes and relationships
- Relatively few people will be ‘playing politics’
- A pragmatic focus on delivering results and at the same time building the long-term health of the business
The first step towards creating this remarkable culture in any organization is “clarity”. Leaders who have clarity know 2 things: 1. they have a crystal clear vision of the future, and 2. they know the next step they need to take to make it happen.
Often, in the beginning you will need to rely on external expertise and support, but this reliance soon drops away as you train a cohort of internal coaches and/or mentors – as well as leaders who use a coaching approach in their daily lives. Soon it becomes “the way we do business”.
The author, Joan Washburn, is an executive coach who teaches “Beyond Managing: Coaching Skills for Leaders who must make the Impossible Happen.”
