Section 4 : Study findings and Results
The study has attempted to assess the perceived efficacy of identified skills and tools closely aligned to ICF Core Competencies in a non-coaching environment.
)
The following is the summary of key findings.
- Participants and surveyed individuals accepted the importance and effectiveness of the following skills.
| Skill Set | Score (%) |
| (a) Planning & Goal setting | 93 |
| (b) Managing progress through accountability | 93 |
| (c) Creating trust and connection | 87 |
| (d) Enquiring and Learning attitude | 84 |
| (e) Acknowledging inner qualities& achievements | 77 |
| (f) Empathetic and intuitive listening | 64 |
| However majority of the respondents gave significantly lower weightage to the remaining skills viz. | |
| (g) Creating awareness | 41 |
| (h) Asking powerful / inspiring questions | 39 |
| (i) Holding other person’s agenda in designing actions | 23 |
Predictably, there existed unanimity about the high importance in areas of planning, goal setting, and managing accountability-(a & b).These are considered as straightforward and critical management competencies with high confidence towards implementing. Further there appeared no measurable improvement arising from the workshops.
Regarding ‘Creating trust and connection’ and ‘Enquiring and learning attitude’ (skill sets c & d), there existed high level of perceived importance amongst participants and respondents. Interestingly, there seemed to be confused thinking about their implementability. While the Workshop significantly improved clarity, subsequent feedback sessions indicated low success rate of adoption. Reasons given were a non-supportive organisational culture, inter-personal issues, excessive fire-fighting and difficulty in changing leadership styles. Our study indicates that many Managers perceive it easier to use their organisational power to push through their agenda (short term results) rather than invest in building trust, connections for long term leverage.
Acknowledgement (e):
There was marked improvement in its understanding due to the workshop. Post workshop feedback sessions also indicated better appreciation of this skill. More than 50% participants indicated that they have consciously implemented this in their day to day interactions and have observed benefits. Also there was clear difference in the scores between the workshop participants (who had developed better awareness of this perspective) and the survey respondents. Another interesting result was that ‘acknowledging the intrinsic qualities’ seemed to have a significantly positive impact on Managers/ Supervisors as compared to more junior staff. Also it seemed to work better with immediate subordinates in the reporting hierarchy than with staff who were below by multiple layers.
Empathetic and Intuitive listening (f):
While majority of respondents appreciated its importance, post workshop feedback and the questionnaire survey results showed divergence in views. The workshop clearly created an awareness of this skill. Most participants took this new perspective into their work area and reported significantly positive results in terms of staff motivation and ‘Ownership & risk taking” attitude. However perspective of the questionnaire respondents (who did not have the benefit of workshop inputs) had a much lower score. This in fact pulled down the overall weighted average score above.
Creating Awareness (g):
The perceived importance of this competence was low on overall basis. While workshop participants attached higher importance during the session, interestingly the score came down appreciably in the post session feedback. Further the interview respondents also attached low scores. Reason appears to be a tendency of Managers and Supervisors to hold onto their power base, restrict information on need to know basis. Somehow the need to create awareness as a way to empower subordinates holds low priority.
Asking Powerful / Inspiring questions (h):
Significantly, there continued to be low appreciation for this even after the workshop. Predominant perception of this competence was as esoteric and theoretical, more suitable for psychological intervention but with little usefulness in Organisations. It is felt that Goals and action plans work best when they follow a top-down approach and vetted by Management. Strategy and tactical actions need a uni-directional and time specific focus with very little room for “opening up” of issues based on questioning. In spite of workshop inputs, there appeared very little attempt to change one’s style from giving decisions and judgments on issues to that of ‘asking questions.”