Coaching for success: Print 21 magazine article

They're not Kevin Sheedy or Wayne Bennett but the role they play is just as influential. Workplace coaches can make a real difference to the performance of people and businesses, says Peter Barnet.

What is it that you really want to achieve in your business/career? How committed are you to getting it? What is your plan to achieve this and when can we start?

These are examples of typical questions you face when engaging a business coach.

Coaching is one of the buzz words that have been rapidly making their way into the management vocabulary over the last five to ten years. So what is it all about and how can you bring some of it into your business?

Workplace coaching
Most of us know the process of coaching as it appears in sport and it has the same meaning in the workplace. Fundamentally, coaching is a means of bringing about individual performance improvement so that each individual can move towards his or her full potential. It is true that coaching shares many characteristics and skills with other processes such as mentoring and counseling, however, it differs in its emphasis on end goals and empowering the individual to discover their own answers and greater awareness.

Coaching in the workplace is about following a process and not so much about coaching to improve people's actual work skills. Although this may be an outcome and objective of the coaching process, the coach is most likely to help the participants come up with a plan to improve their skills rather than actually improve them by coaching.

The process of coaching is to start with two or three goals in mind that really inspire the person to move forward. The more the person being coached can connect to their goal the more likely they will want to participate in the coaching process. For example, if you are coaching someone to achieve a sales target it might not be enough for them to achieve the target but it might be what happens when they get the target that is the driver. Getting the target may result in a sales bonus which may equate to an overseas holiday or new car for the person. So the process of coaching will focus on the holiday or car as the goal as this will most inspire the sales person to achieve his/her target.

Once the goals are decided, the coach and individual create a strategic plan to achieve the goals. Actions are set for each week to move the individual towards their goals and the outcomes are reviewed with the coach. Insights are discovered during the week and any blockages that may have appeared are discussed. Blockages are 'excuses' that come up that seem to stop the individual from completing their actions. This is the point when coaching is most relevant - moving people through the blocks that stop them from achieving their goals. An effective coach will help the individual really understand the consequences of giving up and the rewards for pushing through.

Coaching is good for you
Most credible research in this area shows that coaching does have a genuine, positive impact on personal and business performance. This is provided that the coaching is properly supported and carried out by trained coaches. When done in this manner the process has a dramatic effect on personal and subsequently business performance.

Many organisations are now investing in training their managers to be workplace coaches, and the results can be very impressive, especially when working with sales people. Take the example of a newly-promoted sales person in a printing company who has all the knowledge and a great deal of enthusiasm. He/she has a sales target and a customer list but no real plan or process about how they will get there. By following the coaching process and breaking down the plan (the sales target) into weekly bite-size chunks, the sales person has a far greater chance of success and manager has a far greater means of monitoring and support.

I recently witnessed the results of this in the workplace where a highly capable female marketer suddenly found herself in a sales role by her choice but then was not sure how to go forward. After a few rocky months she finally found her feet and with coaching and mentoring she is now exceeding her sales targets by 30 percent every month.

The investment in time and money to bring coaching into the workplace is not great and if it can improve each worker's performance by as little as 1 or 2 percent, imagine the effect on your organisation or bottom line.