Improving organizational performance always starts with coaching. It is part of the routine interaction between management and employees. But it's important we address the differences between consulting and coaching, and why coaching is a better option for your organization both now and in the long run.
COACHING VS CONSULTING: WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?
Coaching often provides positive feedback about employee contributions; brings performance issues to an employee's attention, and helps the employee to correct them.
In contrast, consulting often identifies performance problems in an organization and makes recommendations for various changes. There is no hands-on implementation component to typical consulting beyond some generic how-to advice to management. Management is routinely left with the challenge of implementing a mass of recommendations from consultants.
Coaching is centered on unlocking a person’s, or organizations, potential to maximize performance. The objective of coaching is to work with an organization – long term - to either solve employee and management performance problems and/or to further improve the work of a superlative employee, team or organization. People who respond positively to coaching and improve their performance can become more valued contributors to business success.
For businesses, professional coaching is a competitive strategy employed by firm’s that strive to stay ahead of the competition.
Research has found that coaching can:
- help attract more business
- improve customer service
- provide structure, guidance and focus
- help monitor and evaluate actions
- guide individuals and streamline processes
- promote initiative and accountability
- encourage people to take responsibility
- motivate people and improve skills, including the ability to communicate better
- help retain staff
- provide objective advice on business decisions
- increase awareness of resources
- broaden the scope of information, ideas and solutions
- show the organization is socially responsible towards its team.
SURVEY FINDINGS: IS COACHING EFFECTIVE AND/OR BENEFICIAL?
There is a growing body of survey findings and evidence to support the increasing value of coaching compared to alternatives. Demonstrating that coaching is one of the most powerful ways of developing people and adding to bottom line business performance, a study of Fortune 1000 companies using coaching showed that coaching resulted in:
- an increase in productivity by 53%
- increased customer service by 39%
- increased retention of senior people by 32%
- reduction in costs by 23%
- increased bottom line profitability by 22%
The same survey reported that the individuals who received coaching saw
- improvement in working relationships with colleagues and staff
- improved working relationships with their direct line manager
- improvement in teamwork
- reduction in conflict
- improved working relationships with clients
In a separate survey, the Chartered Management Institute found that 80% of coached executives said that they would benefit from coaching at work and dismissed the suggestion that coaching was a fad. In addition, 96% said that coaching should be available to employees regardless of seniority.
A 2013 Executive Coaching Survey of more than 200 CEOs, board directors, and senior executives of North American public and private companies by Stanford University Business School found that nearly 100% of CEOs in the survey responded that they actually enjoy the process of receiving coaching, but two-thirds of these CEOs do not receive actually coaching or leadership advice from coaches.
The survey found that effective coaching can have a positive impact on an organization and can produce improved relationships and teamwork between staff at different levels. Employees have increased job satisfaction, which improves productivity and quality, and there is an overall improved use of people, skills and resources, as well as greater flexibility and adaptability to change. Organizational coaching can help to align individual performance with team and organizational objectives, maximize strengths, enhance communication between managers and teams, help individuals take ownership and responsibility for their behaviors and actions, and encourage individuals to stretch beyond their assumed constraints.
The survey found that 99% of 500 CEO respondents agreed that coaching could produce tangible benefits, both to individual and organizations. Additionally:
- 93% agreed that coaching and mentoring are key mechanisms for transferring learning from training courses back to the workplace
- 92% agreed coaching can have a positive impact on the bottom line
- 96% agreed coaching is an effective way to promote learning in the organization
Lending further credibility to the coaching profession is the foundational statement of the International Coach Federation (ICF):
The ICF adheres to a form of coaching that honors the client (coachee) as the expert in his/her life and work, and believes that every client is creative, resourceful and whole. Standing on this foundation, the coach's responsibility is to: Discover, clarify, and align with what the client wants to achieve; Encourage client self-discovery; Elicit client-generated solutions and strategies; and Hold the client responsible and accountable.
The ICF definition of Coaching: “Professional Coaching is an ongoing professional relationship that helps people produce extraordinary results in their lives, careers, businesses or organizations. Through the process of coaching, clients deepen their learning, improve their performance, and enhance their quality of life. In each meeting, the coachee can choose the focus of conversation, while the coach listens and contributes observations and questions. This interaction creates clarity and moves the client into action. Coaching accelerates the coachee's progress by providing greater focus and awareness of choice. Coaching concentrates on where clients are now and what they are willing to do to get where they want to be in the future, recognizing that results are a matter of the client’s intentions, choices and actions, supported by the coach’s efforts and application of the coaching process.” (Source: ICF Website 26 January 2005 - The International Coach Federation, 1444 I St., NW #700 Washington, DC 20005)
FINAL THOUGHTS
In business and other organizational settings, non-directive coaching is most often employed. It requires the coach to listen, ask questions, explore and probe and allows the person coached to find solutions to problems. In practice, this means that effective coaches enable individuals to go beyond their previous boundaries.
Coaching can be applied to a variety of areas, such as motivating employees, delegating, problem solving, relationship issues, team-building, and team development. It focuses on what people being coached want, what their goals are and how they can achieve it. It is a collaborative relationship which encourages people to know their values and live them while achieving their goals. Effective coaches challenge limiting beliefs and reinforce positive beliefs by providing tasks followed by feedback.
Learn more about the effectiveness of coaching for your organization by visiting Powerhouse Learning. You may also contact us at 208-316-7656 for further details and questions on how your workplace could benefit from coaching.