A space to reflect deeply and the coach’s skill in making them open up their mind to think and act from a fresh / broader perspective were seen to have made a big difference. Reflection appears to have benefited coachees in:
Coachee 1: “Fundamentally coach made you try to always keep the focus on the big picture. Always look beyond your initial problem now – although it may be important, and you’ve got to come up with a solution on it. His point was, if you fix it now, does it really add anything or change / contribute anything meaningfully to the bigger picture that is involved?
Coachee 2: “Probably more the reflection…you don’t tend to sit back and reflect on how things went or do ‘lessons learned exercise’ on everything you do. Whereas if someone says to you – ‘well, think about how that went?’…it actually makes you pause and then you’ve got a bit of time to think about it…”
Coach: “Helping them envisage what it will be like is creating the vision. It’s helping them create the vision of what’s going to be different. Getting them to own that vision and discover broader and better options to achieving a more meaningful resolution or result…I think is a really critical part of the process”.
Clearly, the coaches’ communication skills and ability of creating a reflective space was seen as vital. The key skills and capabilities included:
- Attentiveness
- Active listening
- Skilful questioning
- Paraphrasing and mirroring
- Refraining from giving a solution
- Coaches’ aim (and commitment) to leave the coachee with a process and the ability to think about reality accurately in the midst of complex demands.
Enhancing Executive Performance:
When all is said and done, Executive Coaching will be experienced as effective if (and only if) it:
Dr. Terry Bacon gives an excellent real life example, which demonstrates how to ensure the 4 points above are addressed. The initial presenting brief in the case of “Pat” was that he needed to improve his interpersonal skills and become more sensitive to people he worked with.
The Coach first helped Pat to convert these into specific issues and they looked like this:
- Not listening
- Making decisions too quickly and without sufficient participation by others.
Driving through meeting agendas
- Ignoring people’s moods and dealing with their personal problems insensitively and
- Having a compartmental view of downward communications that undervalued and disengaged from the larger organization.
Dr. Bacon discussed the relevant feedback from seniors, peers, direct reports and other stakeholders with Pat. Pat acknowledged these were valid issues. In fact, he offered several other examples of similar behavior on his part – which clearly shows that because the coach invited Pat to share his point of view (as opposed to forcing him to accept the feedback), he took ownership of the need to change. In fact Pat went to the extent of stating that the feedback to him “was an outward manifestation of an inward way of being that was task driven, task focused and also reflected a hierarchical mindset”.
Once Pat had become aware and owned the issues caused by his behaviors, the Coach asked Pat to put himself “in the direct reports’ shoes” and reflect on what would be different had Pat been more interpersonally effective.
To support Pat in this, the coach initiated the following dialogue:
Coach: Pat, what would be different if you were a better listener?
Pat: I would be more patient.
Coach: How would that look to your direct reports?
Pat: They would see me slowing down, not making decisions quickly, or at least not showing that I’ve made a decision.
Coach: Would you be able to hide it if you had?
Pat: Not really. I see your point. If I were a truly good listener, I would take in all the information before making a decision.
Coach: What else?
Pat: Hmm. I’d really pay attention to what they were saying. May be ask questions or offer a viewpoint afterwards. Or ask specifics.
Proceeding along similar lines, they specified all the behaviors Pat would need to change to improve his listening and other interpersonal skills. What emerged is that Pat would need to engage direct reports by giving them a broader view of what was happening, encouraging them to contribute ideas, involving them in problem solving, and waiting to make final decisions until people had the chance to give their perspective.
Pat and coach agreed on a scorecard that would be used to assess whether Pat was making progress which was as shown below:
Figure 5
Pat’s Interpersonal Measure
The scorecard was used to ask direct reports to regularly evaluate whether Pat was making effective progress, and whether they clearly saw him display the behavior changes required.
The coach also regularly made himself available and followed up with Pat to support him through behavior change challenges. After 6 months, the 360degree feedback process was repeated. Clearly, Pat’s scores had improved significantly. In fact, the company conducted a Climate survey, and Pat’s scores on relevant questions had jumped a full point.
It led Pat to say “I am inspired now to do my best”.
The real life example ties in well with Graham Hill’s analysis of various research studies. He has quoted a couple of coachee comments during interviews that aptly summarize the importance of results and making a difference to performance in real life.
Coachee 1: “It was coach’s focus on actions that would achieve results that gave me a sense that I can do this. That, and then there was always a follow up in terms of what am I going to do to make this effective? …. So that what I have just talked about or gone through benefits me? There was always, I wrote something down on paper and took it back with me to execute it, personally and professionally”.
Coachee 2: “And coach coming through and checking up that it is working and it’s working the way we expected it to… sort of holding the feet to the fire. Just not relenting in terms of making sure that you’re moving forward every day in every way…
STAGE C]: Ensuring positive and specific outcomes – post coaching:
It is apparent that executive coaches work towards positive outcomes on a continuous basis. They use experiential learning approaches during the coaching process, and encourage coachees to try out new actions and behaviors during the coaching process itself. Executive coaches also continuously review progress and follow-up to assess whether the coaching inputs are indeed making a difference.
What remains post the coaching process appears to consist of 3 important aspects
- Ensuring effective closure of the coaching process
- Involving Key Stakeholders in examining whether developmental goals have been effectively met.
- Ensuring ongoing support to the coachee to sustain the progress made during coaching.
The specific and details of methods deployed for this vary. However, it appears to consist of the following basic steps:
- Meeting between Coach and Coachee: This appears to include a kind of “debrief” – what has been the overall value of the coaching as seen by the coachee? How confident does the coachee feel of being able to independently sustain the gains? Have all coachee’s expectations (development goals), effectiveness of the coaching process and ongoing support from the coach been met? This meeting also seems to be important to check whether there are any other issues and concerns the coachee may still be carrying. The process appears to also bring effective closure in terms of coachee recognizing that the coaching relationship has (in the formal sense) come to an end, and it is now up to the coachee to sustain the new behaviors without regular support of the coach.
- Meeting with Stakeholders: Usually, the coach, coachee and HR representative meet the leader (coachee’s manager) to evaluate whether the development goals have been effectively met and whether there is a palpable positive impact / noticeable positive progress by the coachee in line with stakeholder expectations. A second important outcome from this meeting is to enlist the ongoing support to the coachee from the leader (including regular reviews, feedback, encouragement and continued developmental support where required).
- Three month “check-in”: Most coaching programs seem to have at least one more session with the coach 3 months after the close of the coaching engagement. In some cases, it could be two such sessions at the 3 month and 6 months post coaching stage. The idea is to address any issues that the coachee may have faced in the interim period – related to implementing the development agenda or any related additional issues that have surfaced. A second objective of these sessions is to discuss steps to build further skills / capabilities for the coachee’s ongoing development.
- Formal Documentation: In most cases, organizations expect the coachee to formally document the development goals and actions to accomplish / continue to sustain the gains. Any other developmental actions required such as add-on training programs, assignments etc. are also incorporated. A formal coaching and coach evaluation form is also usually completed.
Concluding Summary:
Undertaking this research paper has been very valuable for me. It has added immensely to my knowledge and understanding of what can be done to enhance Executive Coaching Effectiveness – both in terms of structuring the process better, as well as strategies, frameworks, tools and techniques that can be employed at various stages of the coaching journey. The best practices followed by expert coaches have given me a good idea of the practical measures and steps I could incorporate to enhance my coaching methods / skills.
Some other useful reflections and learning for me are:
- Pre-coaching: It is important to
- Recognize that coaching is not a panacea that can be applied to all executives and all situations
- Marry the Organization (Client) stakeholder’s and Coachee’s expectations at the “contracting” stage itself. More importantly, invest in ensuring that the key stakeholders are actively engaged in supporting the coachee throughout the journey. This is as important as what the Coach-Coachee do in their sessions.
Deploy a structured process of assessing “Coachability” of the coachee.
During the Coaching Journey:
Reading the research papers of Dr. Joo, William Hill and some of the studies they quoted has given me a better understanding of the different stages of the coaching journey and the role of the coach in enabling the coachee move forward through the process was most useful.
Reading the articles and papers written by expert coaches (Dr. Goldsmith, Dr. Bacon, Dr. David Rock, Dr. Nowack and Dr. Heller) helped me appreciate better the practices, tools and techniques they employ to make the journey effective.
I believe the combined effect of all of the above has been immensely useful for me. It will help me structure the coaching journey better. It will also help me select coaching strategies more appropriately – depending upon the stage at which a particular coachee is in the coaching journey.
Going through the best practices of expert coaches has helped me:
a) Understand how they ensure ownership and control of the coaching process always remains with the coachee
b) How the tools / techniques they use improve coaching process focus and sharpen the coachee’s engagement at every stage of the coaching journey.
c) The innovative and thoughtful way they use coaching skills, feedback and continuous assessment to ensure that there is real behavior change that makes a real difference to their executive skills and leadership effectiveness.
Bibliography:
Baek-Kyoo Joo (University of Minnesota) presents a useful framework for successful coaching, based on an “integrative review” of practice and research.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Executive Coaching : by Terry R. Bacon, Ph. D., January 2001
Kenneth M. Nowack, Ph.D. and Bruce Heller, Ph. D. Executive Coaching: How to Successfully Change Behavior Published in trainingmag.com December 2001.
Executive Coaching: Perspectives of Effectiveness from executives and coaches by Graham hill, Faculty of Business Queensland University of Technology June 2010.
Coaching for Behavioral Change by Goldsmith, Lyons and Freas, Jossey - Bass, 2000
A Brain-Based Approach to Coaching by David Rock, and Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D., International Journal of Coaching in Organizations,2006.