Creating a coaching culture in an organization is essential for developing the potential of employees and improving engagement. It requires taking the time to build trust in the team, pushing them to do remarkable things, and asking good questions to improve performance. Leaders must be equipped with the right training skills to help develop key influencers in the company. Before attempting to incorporate coaching into your culture, it is important to first integrate it into your leadership and talent development framework.
Educate your star players on what coaching is, what it does, and what some basic training skills are, such as listening, questioning, and reflecting. The democratization of coaching is quickly becoming popular as decision makers interested in ROI now recognize that coaching is the most effective way to develop employees and increase engagement. Having an internal coaching services department allows an organization to provide training to members of the workforce in a cost-effective manner. The ideal situation arises when business leaders and human resource professionals demonstrate training skills and a coaching mentality themselves.
Organizations with a strong coaching culture have nearly two-thirds of their employees highly engaged, compared to only half of organizations without strong training cultures. A coaching culture exists when an organization understands, appreciates, and adopts a coaching approach as a key aspect of its leadership and development strategy. A coaching culture is like a three-legged stool made up of internal coaches, external coaches, and managers who use coaching as a leadership style to transform potential into performance. A coaching culture allows for radical organizational transformation by developing conversation and training skills on a daily basis.
As humans, we often make quick judgments about situations before considering all the facts. Other people notice this and become defensive. However, if you can approach situations with genuine curiosity, the defenses of others will diminish and you'll be able to engage in a much more effective conversation. Commit to making generous assumptions that give people the benefit of the doubt (yes, even the guy who cut you off in traffic this morning).
Instead of coming to a negative conclusion when you learn about an issue or conflict, ask yourself questions such as “What else could be causing this?”.
