One major success story shows how a coaching culture evolved at an international environment consulting firm. Its global HR director had come on board after having a transformational coaching experience that changed his relationship with work.
“One of my strategic objectives in coming here was to create a coaching culture,” he says. Four years later, he has the following infrastructure in place:
1-on-1 coaching for high-potentials. External coaching is provided to 21 high-potentials (“hi-pos”) in the firm’s Global Leadership Development Program. About 60% of Global Leadership graduates retain their coaches afterwards.
Coaching skills workshops for top leaders. Half of the firm’s 170 principals and partners have attended a 2-day training to incorporate coaching skills into their leadership style.
Leadership champion training. Another 2-day coaching skills workshop for executives trains “leadership champions” to coach Global Leadership participants and graduates, as well as directors in the firm. Those directors in turn are expected to take a coaching approach to developing their staff and teams.
Individual coaching. A “significant” number of employees request and receive coaching to support their individual development plans. Leadership and management coaching is recommended for the top two levels of managers.
While personal experience inspired the HR director to champion a coaching culture, it was C-suite support that made it possible. “From Day One, I had support for these initiatives from my COO – despite skepticism from my CEO,” he adds with a laugh. “But once the CEO started seeing positive behavioral change, he became a fan of coaching. Now he’s very supportive.”
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Rey Carr
December 27, 2016 at 2:34 pm
With the increasing use of polls and surveys by different coaching groups or independent survey firms, it has become more difficult to integrate the different findings into a coherent picture.
Carol Goldsmith integrates the results from different surveys/interviews brilliantly in this article; and for those with a short attention span, she’s even included the top 10 in an executive summary.
Most of the organizations that conduct coaching surveys do not point out the limitations of their instrument or data collection procedures. However, when such surveys are combined, as they are in this article, the resulting data can be more credible.
Carol Goldsmith
January 2, 2017 at 10:33 pm
Thank you for the kind comment, Rey. Glad you found the article to be useful.
Be your best, Carol
Carol Goldsmith, PCC, NLPT
The Discovery Coach