Series: Wizwords in Leadership         n° 101-E

   Main Menu                                                                 e-published:  September 2004

About the benefits of coaching

 Excerpt from a study-assignment ^[1]

by Andrea Derler

Class of 2006 Master of Philosophy in Leadership Studies graduate of the 

THIERRY Graduate School of Leadership. Andrea's prior education include BA 

and MA degrees in Philosophy from Karl-Franzens-Universität in Graz, Austria.

  What are the benefits to be gained through improved performance coaching ?

The mastery of coaching and its inherent belief in the human potential is based on the assumption that despite other common negative views about the working human being, people are positively interested in their professional development. It also recognizes the individual’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as a potential to grow and the strength to be challenged. The responsibility of a competent leader is to recognize a person’s potential and to challenge the unknown capabilities within that potential. The first part of coaching concerns the individual, whose particular professional strengths have to be recognized, developed and improved; in addition to this, weaknesses and fears should be addressed as to understand their sources in order to overcome them with the support of the coach. The second part involves the coach who has to find himself also in a position neutral to the emotional burden of the person being coached because the organisation’s goals and objectives must be accepted as set and momentarily unalterable conditions. 

The coaching relationship has its foundation in open communication between the trusted person, the coach, and the person being coached. Ideally, problems, fears, insecurities and other challenges can be discussed with the coach who will listen, empathize, comment and suggest a way forward. The difficult part of being a coach is to find the golden way between the organisation’s vision and the “coachee’s” personal growth. This is why it is extremely difficult for managers and leaders to represent both the company and the employee at the same time. Without the ability to step back from both and find a way that leaves both parties happy, there will be no successful coaching relationship and consequently no real professional development. 

A company’s interest in a coaching scheme presupposes a holistic and deep understanding of human relations and the positive impact they can have on the organisation’s financial success. To embark on such an enterprise however means to commit to a long-term strategy whose positive effects are not always quickly visible and measurable. The positive outcome of coaching as development tool can for example be observed in well-run small businesses, where the tight relationship between boss or owner and employee or apprentice can result in a steep and effective learning curve of the members of staff. This is not only related to the amount of direct control the boss has over his employee in the daily work process, but also through the close relationship between the two. The boss relies much more on his few employees and spends a lot more time training them, discussing mistakes and problems; opposed to this, in larger organisations we see much looser relationships between managers and employees and consequently less natural opportunity for coaching. The result of well trained and coached staff can sometimes only be noticed after a period of time of effective coaching, when they have displayed a level of consistency, loyalty and high quality work. 

What is the reality in some large organisations in terms of coaching ?

In order to keep up with the requirements in Human Recourses laws, many larger organisations have introduced so-called “Peak Performance Models” or “Performance Development Plans”. Quarterly meetings between managers and staff, where the employee is measured against performance– and behavioural targets should ensure steady growth and development. Nothing is obviously wrong with these models and supposedly they are better than not monitoring a person’s performance at all. However, they don’t seem to bring the results companies wish for either, as can be read in several Management Articles concerned with this topic. A few suggestions of why this might be are given here:

One of the issues seems to be the lack of training given to those who perform these reviews with their employees. As the member of staff is measured against a very narrow set of behaviours and performance targets, there is not much room for other favourable traits. This fact can make it very difficult for people to relate to certain tasks and behaviours so that they either don’t perform in certain areas at all or they pretend to doing them in order to fulfil the criteria. At the review, an unskilled manager finds it difficult to match the person with the required template of behaviours and consequently doesn’t find the appropriate way of grading them. To summarize this discrepancy: the employee tries hard to live up to these criteria which don’t represent his real behaviours, and the manager tries his best to measure a person’s behaviour that doesn’t represent his/her personal characteristics.

Another challenge is the lack of creativity and desire for change amongst many employees in organisations with rigid Performance Models. Going back to the adaptation to required behaviours according to the Performance Development Reviews, the following event can take place: homogeny. After a certain period of time, when the employee has either been forced to comply or started to adapt deliberately to the required behaviours, the process of uniformity starts to have an impact on him/her. Often faced with strict measures or even dismissal if the organisation’s processes aren’t followed through, the member of staff tries to “become” the ideal member of staff in order to survive in the organisation. The psychological term of “conditioning” springs to mind which means that the repetition of the required behaviours, followed by positive feedback by the manager, leads to an acceptance of these behaviours by the person. Eventually, the person comes to believe in this mindset which makes it much easier to follow daily tasks and the company’s vision. The disadvantage, however, is that in overriding people’s natural behaviours at work in order to adapt them, other desirable traits like creativity, thinking “outside the box”, positive criticism and adventurous new ideas are being suppressed as well. When everybody just plays the game instead of constructively working on their personal strengths, really unique qualities in people get lost and change becomes more and more difficult. Every unknown potential to make a positive difference or to challenge existing structures is therefore nipped in the bud and external Management Consultancies have to be brought into the organisation to “make a difference” in the existing approach to work.

Obviously, to establish a system to recognize each person’s real potential is not easy. Which team leader has the time and skills to closely watch their subordinate’s real behaviours and talents? Managers are overwhelmed by the amount of work and pressure themselves and to monitor a given set of behaviours in quarterly reviews is much easier than to sensitively encourage people to be courageous with new ideas. If presented with this new way of working with subordinates the wrong way it would only mean an additional burden for the manager without much immediate reward.

Being the leader of a team can be quite a challenge for some people as it is, and a lot has to be learnt and practiced over many years. How many team leaders or managers of teams in organisations today have enjoyed in-depth leadership courses or training seminars? Where do they learn about basic psychological facts, leadership strategies, or ways to deal with conflicts? Being measured against a set of tasks and behaviours by their own bosses, whom can they turn to in difficult times without being judged on their abilities as team leaders?

In my opinion, there can only be one solution to this unsatisfactory situation: training in leadership and coaching. In addition to their task oriented skills, team leaders and other people in leading positions need to receive information, support and coaching in order to learn how to lead a group of people effectively and harmonious. For example, they must be made aware of the fact that Performance Development Review models can only serve as basic templates for professional growth. As all models, Performance Development models concentrate on the best possible behaviours people are meant to display; as much as they can show ideal examples of how to reach peak performance, they can only embody the platonic idea of the real human being with all its missing and additional features. After recognising the weakness of these models, team leaders are then encouraged to be open for other skills, traits and interest their members of staff display in order to discover unknown strengths which could be very useful for the requirements of the job. Obviously, one could argue that certainly not everybody will develop extraordinary talents and some team members will probably stick to what they have been trained to do and nothing more. But then, maybe it is worth giving some people the benefit of the doubt and assuming that even they might have qualities useful for the team.

Benefits for the organisation

This leads finally to an answer to the question of how performance coaching would improve my and my organisation’s performance. The negative impact of a lack of coaching and mentoring is not always clearly visible, either due to the existing culture of the organisation or because things seem to work relatively well anyway. However, as soon as problems pop up (e.g. drop in sales), the organisation realises that there is something wrong and they might try to patch these problems up with panic strategies, e.g. increase the sales pressure, instead of looking for the source of the issue. A supportive culture, however, can not be introduced within a few weeks, and whatever the underlying issue of the obvious problem might be, it takes time to rectify it - time these organisations don’t have in a challenging business environment. 

Looking at a company without a supportive culture from the perspective of the valued customer, there may be other issues that determine their long term success or failure: fast changing members of staff, bad customer experience and long waiting times for delivery of services and goods are just a few to mention here. Internally, we see the problems of high staff turnover combined with training costs for new employees and loss of income during that time causing a headache to HR and budget managers. And there are further implications: in some industries (especially customer facing ones), ever changing staff can have a negative impact on the reputation of the company because good service is difficult to maintain. Another issue is good or bad work atmosphere in which people either blossom or just do the minimum in their jobs, focusing on coffee breaks and lunch hours instead of their work. Factors like these and many more eventually influence an organisation’s profitability; it is only a matter of time until we will see that a work force that feels encouraged motivated and supported by their organisation shows better results.

Obviously, the introduction of performance coaching will not result in a sudden increase of first-class staff on all levels. As a matter of fact, only half of all coached people will probably fully understand its purpose and use it as a tool for their professional and personal development. Still, the main argument pursued here is that there is room for improvement in most people and if it is only one part of their jobs they master better through performance coaching, it has been worth it. With this thought in mind, I pursue the idea that a company benefits financially as well as ideologically in seeing and appreciating the potential of every individual member of staff. This, however, is only possible with a good coach who not only recognizes his employee’s individual talent but also proactively acts upon it. The creative and free stream of thoughts and ideas that would be released over time cannot be valued highly enough. Organisations which are using high profile consultants as “creative catalysts” or “facilitators” for years just in order to keep up with the pace of time would do better looking for in-house professionals: their staff.

Finally we turn to the question of how performance coaching can help the person being coached. Apart from the fact that being coached means being appreciated and valued, it challenges many people’s lack of confidence. To talk about one’s strengths – and this is what the coach would initially concentrate on – makes people start realizing their own potential. This will make them feel more competent in their professional environment until they eventually dare to look at their weaknesses as well. And what could convey a more powerful feeling of suddenly being able to perform tasks that seemed impossible some months ago!

The formal consequences of successful performance coaching for the “coachee” will undeniably be seen in his or her performance. That is to say, if they are in the right job that really suits their personality and talent; to recognize wrong decisions in staffing early enough is just one other advantage for the company. A further benefit for the person being coached is to receive a great opportunity to grow and experience successes in their jobs which they would have never thought possible. Furthermore, there is a higher possibility that people establish stronger bonds to the coaching organisation because they fell appreciated and successful; this, in turn, will lead to greater loyalty and eventually a better workforce.

[1] An analysis-assignment in "On Performance Coaching and Mentoring by Leaders", a module of the MA and MPhil in Leadership degree-programs. 

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