Generativity Two: It is important at this point to identify a major decision made by Lee Salmon and his associates in establishing the US Government Coaching program. A major coaching initiative such as Lee mounted often requires extensive training of new coaches. Furthermore, a large organization like the US federal government requires a large cadre of coaches if the program is to succeed. Programs that are intended for the training of new coaches are directly aligned with a generativity two emphasis on mentoring (along with training and education).
This option was not available to Lee Salmon. There was probably not enough time or resources (money) to mount a large coach training program. Rather, Lee adopted a second option. He recruited experienced practitioners rather than train new coaches: “the program used both internal coaches and external coaches contracted from the Federal Consulting Group.” (Salmon, 2009, p. 62) There was hitch here, for the experienced practitioners were accustomed to serving as technical experts and consultants rather than coaches. Fortunately, agility was at play. While many of the experienced practitioners that Lee recruited were accustomed to providing consulting rather than coaching services, they were able to make the adjustment. Most importantly, they were already experienced in working with high level governmental executives, and already had credibility with the clients they would be serving (especially because they came mostly from the Department of Treasury, which at the time was a highly respected branch of the US government).
The executives who would be receiving the coaching services were often going through a challenging transition regarding the work they were expected to do (Salmon, 2009, p. 64):
The transition from technical subject matter expert to manager is challenging for many people. People require new mindsets and skill sets in order to succeed in their new role as manager. An executive coach can help with this perspective shift and promote the soft skills needed to go from being an expert individual contributor to getting things done through others. To support the transition, each participant chooses a coach through the executive coaching program.
Lee realizes in many cases, that the Federal Consulting Group experts were themselves making a major transition from consultant to coach. While most of these experienced practitioners could make this transition, Lee found that some orientation had to be done with both the coaches and their clients—given that existing expectations arose from consulting rather than coaching engagements. The participant and their coach were oriented to the program expectations and to aide their own transition the coaches were given a copy of the organization’s competency model and an orientation to the culture of this program and the unit of government in which they would be doing the coaching.
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