The value of coaching is spreading throughout the business and professional world. Increasingly, senior leaders are bringing coaches into their organizations to partner with leaders, managers, and individual contributors alike. Between 25-40 percent of Fortune 500 companies, such as eBay and Charles Schwab & Co, are using coaches.
What’s the One Big Mistake?
In the early days, coaching was used as an intervention for underperforming employees. While most of that stigma of coaching has disappeared, there is a surprising number of organizations who have not kept up with changing trends, and continue to use coaching in this limited way. Is your organization making the mistake of investing in coaching only for “problem” employees?
If coaching is such a powerful tool, why make the investment only for “problem” employees?
How else may coaching be used? Coaching gives both leaders and their employees the self-confidence and resources to develop their own ideas and come up with creative solutions to problems. Whether your focus is on aligning toward a new vision or otherwise managing change, seeking to diversify leadership, or developing a new business strategy, coaching can boost organizational growth, employee performance, impact, and profitability. Here are three additional ways your organization could leverage the power of coaching, besides working with underperformers. Change Management. Providing coaching support to key leaders and managers can make smooth the oftentimes bumpy ride of change. Coaching provides key team members with the necessary support to handle all the complexities of managing organizational change, including fear and adherence to old ways of operation. Coaching through a time of change may be used to increase employee morale and to confront any resistance early in the change process. The sooner your employees adapt to change, the easier the process will be for them and the more likely your business or organization will be successful. Develop a diverse leadership pipeline. Organizations are now looking closely at how to develop an inclusive leadership pipeline, both as a reflection of their company mission and as a strategy for a profitable and effective business. Some organizations that do a great job at recruiting diverse candidates for entry-level or mid-level positions get stuck when it comes to retention and promotion for senior positions. Leaders may scratch their heads wondering: where has all our diverse talent gone? The answer lies in utilizing coaching to invest in leadership development throughout the pipeline. Working with diverse coaching rosters to strategically develop a diverse pipeline will help to increase diversity at upper levels of management and leadership, as well as impacting individual growth and organizational success, as proposed in the Harvard Business Review. Creative problem-solving. For an organization to grow and prosper, new creative processes for problem-solving are constantly needed. Coaching can help inspire leaders and employees to seek creative solutions to issues, to produce new ideas and then communicate those ideas effectively. A smart way to leverage coaching is to invest in coaching when there is a need for a team to innovate in a specific way. Today, there are a plethora of powerful ways to leverage coaching. Make sure you’re not making the mistake of only investing in “problem” employees. Used in a smart way, coaching can help to propel your organization and workforce in the right direction. CoachDiversity Institute provides customized coaching solutions to forward-thinking corporations, foundations, nonprofit organizations, and government entities. CoachDiversity prides itself on its diverse pool of highly experienced, certified coaches. No matter the size of your company, we are ready to design coaching solutions to meet the needs of your workforce. Contact us today to learn more.