Preface

As the business world becomes more complex, coaching has evolved into a valuable approach for supporting people through change. Many companies are recognizing coaching as a leadership competency that helps them address the unprecedented challenges involved in building and sustaining high performing teams. More people work in complex reporting structures such as cross functional teams and matrix organizations, in which they have two or more bosses. In these situations training and knowledge transfer is complex, making it difficult to attract and retain the right talent. In addition, people are not retiring as early as expected, so many employers now have the added responsibility of helping their people adjust to career and life transitions.

Many of our client organizations are implementing coaching and mentoring programs to provide support for training and development, knowledge transfer, skill development, and/or as a mechanism to sustain culture change.

The Niagara Institute, a recognized Canadian Leader in the field of Executive Coaching, has seen the demand for Executive Coaching rise dramatically over the last five years. Their clients are using Executive Coaching as a

– powerful way to develop the Leaders of the future;
– timely customized approach to support ongoing learning and development which is focused on both individual and organizational needs, goals and objectives;
– tool of choice for promoting retention and developing effective succession plans;
– process which fosters increased resilience, confidence, adaptability and independence; and
– process which has a proven track record in helping individuals and teams achieve excellent results within shorter timeframes.

They have also found Executive Coaching to be highly effective for individuals

– during transitions into new roles, promotions and expanded accountabilities;
– solidifying new teams following mergers and acquisitions;
– developing executive presence and effective ways to influence and network to increase buying;
– rounding out existing skills sets, e.g. development of management and delegation skills for those who have high technical expertise; pulling up from line accountability to senior functional roles; and development of execution skills for those who excel at strategic levels;
– promoting retention and proactively managing their career path; and
– supporting increased resilience by promoting work life balance and stress management.

In this book we will focus on our Triple Impact Coaching model and technologies that have been successful in helping individuals learn about themselves so they can become effective coaches, mentors, leaders and managers. We will explain our model, provide you with our tools and technologies and share our case studies that illustrate the Triple Impact return on investment (ROI). We hope that our approach will help you help your people develop their coaching competencies. Our approach has also been used to develop successful mentoring programs. We will briefly talk about mentoring in this book to give you a clear understanding of the distinctions between coaching and mentoring so that you can more clearly define your employee development programs.

What is Mentoring?

Mentoring, unlike coaching, is a privileged relationship that usually entails a long term commitment. Mentors often have influence that far outlasts their own lives. Edie often talks about her mentor, Douglas McGregor, who passed away many years ago. To this day, when she is stuck and needs advice, she often asks herself, “What would Doug do in this situation?”

Mentors may, but do not have to, know the people who look to them for guidance. We can all recall students, employees or clients who surprised us by telling us we were their mentors. Many of our students consider teachers or parents – most of whom probably did not know they were so influential — to have been their first mentors.

Mentoring focuses on developing values, attitudes, and mindsets. Mentors may transfer their wisdom through story telling, by providing examples through their behavior, or by inspiring us to think differently, oftentimes beyond what is happening in the present. In business, mentors may also introduce their employees to contacts or resources that help them achieve their career goals or life aspirations. Mentoring can be a formal or informal relationship.

Definition of Coaching

The focus of Triple Impact Coaching is a cascading or layered approach of coaching from you to your clients, and from your clients to the people they work with, resulting in benefits for the individual, team and organization. The coaching process begins with understanding your own Use-of-Self as a coach, leader or change agent in an organization and learning how to be more intentional with your choices to obtain the impact that you need and desire.

Coaching has evolved into a valuable approach for supporting people through change. Many companies are using the Triple Impact Coaching model as a way to develop coaching as a leadership competency within their organization. Our model helps them address unprecedented challenges involved in building and sustaining high performing teams.

This expanded focus helps to support the objectives of the organization, enhances the speed of learning, and ultimately creates the conditions for sustainable change.
In Chapter 6, we will explain how to design coaching programs in organizations that ensures this connection to the whole.

We believe that everyone in a leadership position coaches other people. Leaders, managers, supervisors and/or functional experts have to know how to help others develop the skills, knowledge and abilities to enhance individual performance, thus enhancing the team’s development and productivity and impacting the overall organization’s performance.

Coaching is a process that involves goal setting, action planning, measuring and evaluating progress towards a specific outcome or desired impact. The coaching process is usually short in duration and terminates once the goals are achieved.
Coaching is dependent upon the direct relationship between the coach and the client(s) and can take the form of individual, team and organizational coaching or a combination of all three.

We often use Table 1: The Difference Between Coaching and Mentoring to help clients determine whether a coaching or mentoring program best fits their needs.

Table 1: The Difference between Coaching and Mentoring

We recommend that both coaching and mentoring programs be implemented as learning and development opportunities, not as ways to advance careers through special access to job openings, privileges, or as a vehicle for managing performance. Before embarking on such a journey, we recommend that you understand the type of program you are developing and how it is aligned with the objectives of your organization.

Types of Coaching: Individual, Team and Organizational

There are many types of coaching. Coaching can take place at the individual, team and organizational levels and/or as a combination of the three, producing a Triple Impact.

Triple Impact Coaching, when conducted in the context of a carefully orchestrated, organization wide effort, produces higher performance at individual, team and organizational levels. This approach empowers leaders and teams to learn, lead and achieve with greater speed and effectiveness than with traditional one on one techniques. Working with individuals to explore their Use-of-Self within the context of their work, their relationship with their teams, and with their teams in relation to their shared organizational challenges, produce powerful and lasting impact. This approach results in stronger and more effective leadership, teamwork and performance. Through Triple Impact Coaching, many of our clients have experienced faster buy in, commitment and alignment with organizational objectives, producing quicker, more effective implementation, sustainable change and ultimately increased organizational performance.

Triple Impact Coaching helps organizations adapt to today’s fast changing environments by building capacity to sustain change through the alignment of its people, processes and culture. At its best, once Triple Impact Coaching unleashes people’s potential, it creates momentum, accountability and generates a critical mass that takes on a life of its own. It is a generative process that recreates itself with opportunities and synergistic capabilities that were at one time unimaginable, thus reinforcing the power of the collective, a critical element in creating and sustaining culture change.

In the next few pages, we describe each of the three types of coaching and show how they can work synergistically to produce triple impact.

Individual Coaching: Understanding Use-of-Self

Beverley recalls a story about her work as a new welfare worker in a highly complex and fast paced environment. “My supervisor informed me on my first day of work that it would take two years of learning and doing to be effective in this new role,” Beverley says. “She took her role as supervisor and coach seriously and outlined for me the formal training program, supervision process, performance standards and milestones of achievement.”

According to Beverley, her manager was very clear about how she was going to support her in achieving these objectives. Beverley took the formal training program that all welfare workers attended, and her supervisor supplemented this training with real time — and often just in time — individual coaching.

“This formal coaching approach focused on my Use-of-Self as a welfare worker,” she recalls. “We discussed my behavior, choices and actions that influenced my ability to provide client service. My supervisor led by example and from behind the scenes. Her style empowered me to make my own decisions and develop my personal approach to my work. I was always responsible for my actions and the interface with my client. Clients were never aware of her presence, but I knew she was with me, directing, supporting and empowering me to learn how to be an effective welfare worker.”

Team Coaching: Coaching Others

Effective leaders coach their teams in much the same way that sport coaches do. Through their coaching efforts, they help team members understand the larger vision and how their individual roles and interdependencies work together to achieve common goals and objectives. Team coaches employ Use-of-Self techniques to focus on helping other coaches/leaders understand the impact that their choices and actions have on the team. Team coaching leverages the strengths of team members so they can help themselves and each other achieve desired objectives.

An example of team coaching occurred when Beverley worked with the Product Support Team of a high tech company. This group was a newly formed team resulting from the merger of two functional groups, New Product Introduction and Product Support. The leaders of both groups needed to empower their employees to work better as a team, to make decisions, and help their customers adapt to a new service delivery model focused on self service rather than individualized support. This new model demanded that the technical support people change their focus from fixing the problems to coaching customers to help themselves. The leaders, in other words, needed to learn to coach their team to help themselves and one other.

Accomplishing these objectives required the leaders to work together to break down silos and nurture a cooperative team atmosphere among the formerly separate groups. Team performance was measured by the shared goals, level of quality, response time and customer satisfaction.

Coaching for the two leaders focused on helping them develop a better understanding of their Use-of-Self in providing direction, leadership and coaching to their respective teams to implement the new service delivery model. The leaders participated in leadership assessments such as Myers Briggs Type Inventory, team exercises, a Use-of-Self workshop, and coaching conversations which revealed that they had different preferences for communication and teamwork. These differences were pronounced enough to cause conflict and confusion for their teams, negatively impacting performance. One leader was hands on and detail oriented and wanted all aspects of a project plan documented. The other leader was visionary, intuitive and not particularly fond of structure. They both acknowledged that one was the ying and the other the yang in the relationship.

Quite naturally, each leader was giving directions based on their previously unexamined preferences, which had produced positive results until this most recent assignment where they had to work interdependently. Once they became aware of these differences and understood the impact of their Use-of-Self on their coaching styles, they were better able to be intentional about their actions. Working together, they adopted a shared coaching style that was less directive than the ones either had formerly employed, moving to a style that empowered and enabled others to act autonomously and responsibly for the good of the larger group. Both leaders learned to slow down, listen and create space for coaching conversations.

“Deciding to accept coaching was the smartest thing we could have done,” reported Dale Seguin, the “visionary” member of this learning partnership. “Coaching helped me understand how my Use-of-Self impacted my coworkers and team members. My partner, Daniel Houle, and I had the benefit of learning, reflecting and doing as we were living the experience of leading and managing a significant change within Mitel. Working together, we were able to leverage our strengths to develop the best solution for our team.”

According to Dale, he and Daniel struggled at first because they were so different but soon learned to work together to improve communication, create buy in for the new strategy, and generate the coaching culture they needed to succeed.

“We developed a new race track tool (score card) that proved to be a great success in helping the team and the organization understand the level of customer satisfaction,” Dale reported. “It also helped our team members understand the interdependencies of our work and clarified who needed to work together to address the key issues. The race track also enabled people to see the direct impact of their work in supporting the key company objectives. We significantly reduced cycle time and improved customer response time. All in all, our coaching program was a very powerful experience.”

In summary, the team coaching resulted in a triple impact. First, the leaders learned about themselves and changed their coaching style to become more effective coaches. Second, they learned how to help their teams be more effective as team members and customer coaches. Third, improvements on the organizational level were realized by increased team synergy and performance, measured by increased customer satisfaction, speed of adoption of the new service delivery model, and improved quality of product and service.