New England Coaching » Internal Coaches

Can Internal Coaches work with Senior Staff?

New England Coaching — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 15:06:56 +0000

Popular belief would have it that Senior Executives would only consider being coached by somebody external to the company. External coaches do have some significant benefits such as it’s their dedicated profession, confidentiality is king and they are very removed from the outcome (and can be objective). So how can Internal Coaching overcome some of these concerns?

According to Marshall Goldsmith and together with some work done at GE Capital, they found that Internal Coaches could work with senior executives if they met the following criteria:

Confidentiality (Trust)

The executive needs to be able to trust the coach whole heartedly that the contents of their discussions will remain between them. Any doubts in this regard and it will be a total waste of time and money; and a backward step for all involved.

Credibility (Experience)

The executive must believe that the coach has sufficient knowledge and experience to me able to relate to the issues and challenges brought forth. Not unlike the selection process for an external coach, the coach must be able to demonstrate this.

Training (Capability)

To coach people at the senior level requires business knowledge but also proficiency with the skills and tools of coaching. Often it is assumed just because you have read the books or you are a go to person that you can be a good coach. These are certainly key ingredients but to coach at the senior level requires that people have the competencies of a fully trained coach.

Time (Resources)

Coaching internally cannot be regarded merely as an adjunct to what is normally done. It needs to be an inclusive part of the individual’s job description and therefore the time (and supporting resources) made available to execute upon effectively. Internal coaches to senior staff must see this as one of their primary responsibilities.

Calculating ROI for Internal Coaching

New England Coaching — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:38:49 +0000

Internal Coaches are being developed in organization as a means of making this methodology and capability available to more staff. The C-Suite typically has access to Executive Coaches but it is cost prohibitive to provide this type of coaching to others below this level. The solution – create your own cadre of coaches. But how would one calculate the ROI on such an initiative? Let’s look at this in qualitative and quantitative terms.

Qualitative

Skills

Undoubtedly there would be an addition of skills that would allow both the new coaches and those being coached to see and experience the effectiveness of such an approach. This would lead to higher levels of confidence both in terms of helping themselves and others.

Behavior

The essence of the coaching approach provides for a behavioral mindset based on helping and developing other people. This in turn fosters far greater teamwork, sharing of ideas and higher levels of performance all of which that can be observed in how people show up and interact with each other.

Commitment

New coaches, and those impacted by it, would also feel a greater connection with the company for making the investment in their development and promoting a much more collaborative approach to problem solving and managing the business.

Quantitative

Employee Retention

Employees who are supported by coaching will have an opportunity to address their concerns (caring) and development (improving) which in turn will enhance their confidence and commitment to the organization.

Revenue Growth

Coaching skills model effective selling and will in fact allow the sales person to be even more effective themselves as well as supporting them achieve their goals and overcome challenges.

Productivity

Coaching can very effectively support cost reduction initiatives and minimize absenteeism by providing the structure, support and accountability necessary to realize positive results.

What HR Type Make The Best Coaches?

New England Coaching — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:43:51 +0000

In very general terms Human Resource personnel typically fit into one of the following broad categories:

Process Oriented: They normally specialize in areas such as payroll, benefits, recruiting, etc. They apply a very systematic and sometimes rigid approach and for the most part they see things as either black or white. They are typically most concerned about the outcome from the company’s perspective.
People Oriented: This group more typically aligns with areas such as performance, discipline, training, etc. They are generally seen as flexible and more people friendly. They have this knack of been able to assess the situation and work out a diplomatic solution. However their outcome concern has more to do with the person than the organization.

Interestingly, coaching is a “People Process” and therefore it draws on both sets of skills or orientations mentioned above. On the one hand it invokes key “People” skills such as questioning, listening, acknowledging, empathizing, etc By the same token it draws on “Process” skills such as goal setting, developing plans, ensuring accountability, etc in pursuit of a desired outcome. Coaching is about truly understanding the situation and moving quickly towards a favorable outcome for all concerned.

So if your company is considering a selection process for HR people to be trained as Internal Coaches or simply to adopt a more coach approach, consider which attribute likely candidates normally demonstrate. Then ask the question, do they possess the ability and desire to straddle both, as appropriate?

Success Criteria for Internal Coaching

New England Coaching — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:25:14 +0000

Many organizations are developing Internal Coaches as a means of making this resource available to their staff. The use of External (Executive) Coaches, though it can be very effective, is not always an affordable option and creating an internal resource is helping to address this.

In a recent paper by Ruth Donde and David Rock of Result Coaching Systems, they highlighted how one can measure the effectiveness of training internal coaches. The four parameters under which they assessed the initiative were as follows:

Reaction

Through a series of pre and post evaluations they assessed participants’ reaction to the training in terms of such things as:

Perceived value by the organization
Levels of stress experienced.

Learning

For this participants were asked questions that assessed their level of confidence in helping others. Examples of questions asked included how they helped others:

Manage time and priorities
Grow and develop

Behavior

Through the pre and post evaluations, measures were created that assessed participants ability to demonstrate communication skills and also rate their communication acumen.

Business Impact

The more tangible ROI impact to the business was assessed by reviewing key business metrics around revenue growth, cost control, employee retention, and general productivity of the people directly supported by coaching.

From this it is apparent that the impact of developing internal coaches can have far reaching impact to the organization, both quantitatively and qualitatively.