Why would organizations use coaching?
History of Coaching in the Federal Government
As downsizing occurred during the Clinton administration, management development quickly became essential to the continuing growth of organizations. This time also brought about a change in leadership and management approaches in government, and agencies began to emphasize succession planning. Due to the increased attention to the “softer” workplace skills, coaching has become a way to develop management competencies and leadership skills in government managers at all levels. For federal government organizations to be successful, mission must be accomplished; there is no profit bar to measure against. However, if the mission is not clearly defined, there can only be an unsuccessful result. As a whole, the federal government is charged with using taxpayer funds wisely and frugally. To hearken back to McGregor’s Theories, a Theory Y organization is much more likely to achieve its mission efficiently and effectively, as a Theory X organization requires much more overhead in management and personnel costs. In the federal government, however, the shift from authoritative to participative management philosophies will take time and a solid understanding of how coaching can help decrease the time and effort spent to develop employees. One of the most effective ways to use coaching in a leadership or career development program is to develop an employee-led development council. This council’s purpose would be volunteer-run, in that there is no tuition required for the program participants. The council’s purpose would be to provide civilians with the same or similar professional development information and opportunities as their private-sector counterparts.
While many agencies are turning to coaching to fill gaps left by inadequate training programs, there are still several areas in which coaching can serve federal government employee development. Currently, the vast majority of coaching programs are aimed at and offered to members of the Senior Executive Service. Federal employees from GS-1 to GS-14 rarely receive coaching services, and are instead given training for employee development. On some occasions, these employees are also given mentoring services. In the case of mid-level employees, offering coaching to supplement training efforts may yield higher returns than training alone. Targeting coaching towards building skills at tailored employee levels will be more helpful than providing employees with generic training, then not providing follow-on services.
Coaching Effects on Foundational Competencies and ECQ Building
There are four levels of employee contribution to an organization: individual contributor (leading and managing self), team lead/supervisor (leading and managing others), manager/supervisor (leading and managing others and programs), and executive (leading and managing organizations). The Office of Personnel Management developed a leadership competency model built around the five Executive Core Qualifications: Leading Change, Leading People, Results Driven, Business Acumen, and Building Coalitions. Underlying the ECQs are six foundational competencies: Interpersonal Skills, Written Communication, Oral Communication, Integrity/Honesty, Continual Learning, and Public Service Motivation.
Coaching can bring about the development of any of these competencies, when combined with training and job experience. There are several ways this can occur:
How to use Coaching in Federal Government Leadership Development Programs
The American Society for Training and Development estimates that in 2007, U.S. employers spent USD $50.77 billion on external training, workshops, conferences, and other employee training events.[i] This is in addition to the estimated USD $83.62 billion spent on internal training activities (i.e. training manager salaries and internal training events). However, the recent increase in interest in Return on Investment (ROI) has shown that the focus on training as the sole way to develop employees leaves something to be desired. Is has become increasingly evident that the cost of employee training has far exceeded the benefits, since it is not the training that is the problem per se, but the implementation and design of training programs. Some issues with the design and development are:
Many employees find that their organization is guilty of providing training without a solid plan in place for either evaluating ROI or ensuring training goals are related to current or future job tasks. It is important to emphasize that training is only one part of the trinity of developmental opportunities available to employees (the other two are job assignments and coaching). In addition to the drawbacks of training, most federal employees find themselves in inflexible job assignments, and realize that obtaining experience outside of standardized position descriptions is difficult. So, neither training nor job experience can offer the same pertinent, just-in-time development opportunities that are found in coach-client relationships.
Organizations wishing to implement a coaching program can train managers to become coaches. Those this has been implemented to varying degrees of success in some organizations, the only consistent success has been through internal or external, clinically-oriented coaches who are impartial and view clients as more than employees. In today’s fiscal environment, formal training program funding has been drastically reduced; to make coaching effective, organizations must determine their goals for implementing coaching programs. The overall goal might be to allow individual employees the opportunity to self-identify and assess the reasons they would like to use a coach or address issues identified by individual managers. Another option is to use coaching to address organizational issues, such as time management or work-life balance.
A New Approach to Federal Coaching: Project Management
Coaching is helping a client identify a series or collection of tasks and actions to accomplish a stated goal, with the following restrictions:
- A coaching relationship is a temporary endeavor, with definite beginning and end.
- There are clearly defined and unique results.aining Magazine (www.astd.org).