The
transformation of rubber from a useless substance to a resilient
product was a simple as adding a missing process—heat, in the form of
steam. Charles Goodyear named the process vulcanization after the Roman
god of fire, Vulcan.
Today
it’s hard to imagine life without Goodyear’s rubber. There would be no
electricity, no cars, no computers, no bicycles, no radios, or
televisions, no phones. We wouldn’t have airplanes, washing machines, or
toasters. We wouldn’t even have our favorite pair of old sneakers.
Scientists
have known the secret of accelerants for decades, adding them to speed
up chemical reactions, achieving results more quickly. Accelerators work
the same way in business, making the things you’re doing work better,
faster, and more smoothly, without throwing you off balance.
The
relationship between a management accelerant and improved business
results is highly predictable. In the workplace, there are few
accelerators with more impact than individual and team coaching.
Solid coaching skills are a valuable asset for leaders and managers at all levels.
A 2021 study found that leaders who frequently coached their employees and teams improved their results by 21 percent.
The 4 Realities That Compel Leaders At All Levels To Be More Coach-Like
Reality #1: Change is inevitable. Even
the most successful organizations cannot rest on their laurels. They
must continually remake themselves or risk falling from glory. Because
today’s excellence is not a guarantee for tomorrow’s success, leaders
who bask in complacency are due for rude awakening.
Reality #2: People must learn and adapt quickly. Your
people’s skills will become obsolete—in the same way technologies
become outdated—if you rely solely on today’s capabilities to lead your
company into the future. You cannot just hire talented people, teach
them to do their jobs, and leave them alone. To cope with the
inevitability of changing work demands, you need a work force that can
learn new skills and adapt quickly.
One
way or another, most people figure out how to do their jobs. But
development by default is too passive to achieve the standards of
excellence and versatility that you must meet. Because the world refuses
to wait for those who say “slow down while I gain more experience,”
organizations are looking for better and faster ways to achieve
breakthrough performance with their people. Experience and time alone
are slow and inefficient teachers. You need to jump start learning and
make sure it runs full speed in the right direction.
Reality #3: Employees want to grow. Lifelong
employment in the same job is a career path found only in the history
books. Millennials at 33 percent, now represent the largest generation
in the U.S. workforce, surpassing the Baby Boomer group, which has
declined to 31%. And Millennials are not just pursuing job satisfaction
they are pursuing development.
Reality #4: People are the real source of competitive advantage. Versatile
people—those who learn better and faster than your competition—sustain
you edge in the marketplace. Because your people are your most important
assets, coaching is your investment vehicle for long-term payback.
How Coaching Benefits the Entire Organization
The
benefits of coaching seem to be very employee-oriented; however,
looking at the bigger picture, your organization as a whole gains from
having effective coaching sessions. Workplace Psychology, a website
which covers areas of the workplace and workers from a scholarly
perspective, offers some advantages of integrating coaching in your
organization. I have elaborated their top three reasons:
1. Overcome costly and time-consuming performance problems:
many companies still rely on their annual performance to evaluate their
employees’ performance. By integrating coaching in your organization,
you can identify performance problems easier and quicker, and take the
appropriate measures to overcome these hurdles such as re-aligning the
employees’ objectives, or offering training/mentoring to help your
employees succeed.
2. Strengthen employees’ skills and results: Coaching
allows employees to gain valuable skills and knowledge from their coach
– whether it is you or a senior employee – which will eventually
increase the productivity of your organization. Coaching also provides
you with how the employees are performing; by following up with their
progress, you may discover that they possess skills that you were not
aware of. Therefore coaching helps you identify the competencies of your
team and you may then take the initiative to strengthen these skills by
encouraging them to take advanced classes or/and attend seminars.
3. Improve retention: when
employees are coached, they feel supported and encouraged by their
manager and their organization. Coaching is a two-way communication
process. You provide feedback to your employees and they are able to use
this opportunity to also give feedback. Employees are more likely to
stay in your organization if they feel that their voice is being heard
by you and senior management. By integrating coaching, you are
encouraging your managers and yourself to be more present among your
employees. Coaching also allows you to identify employees who fit with
your succession planning.
The Secret of the 5% Solution
Many
managers when exhorted to coach more and boss less will rightly say,
“But my plate is already full. I can’t handle one more obligation. I
rarely see my people because I’m so busy and they are scattered all over
the place. There’s no way I can do all this.”
Managers don’t need to add coaching to
the role, they just need to learn to be more coach-like. Leaders can learn to
ensure that the activities they are already engaged in are infused with a
coach-like attitude and approach. The simple, moment by moment interactions
that happen every day are the places that good coaching occurs.
You
face a dilemma: Simple solutions don’t work for development, yet you
don’t have time for complex solutions. So you need a coaching process
that attacks the true challenges of getting a variety of people to
change and yet is still manageable in light of available time and
resources. That process is the 5% solution.
You
can be effective and efficient if you focus 5% of your energy and
attention on coaching and development. Working smarter—not harder—helps
you make the best investment of your time. The secret of efficient
coaching is to know your priorities and then to create and seize
coaching opportunities that arise in the course of your everyday work.
If you are prepared, you can leverage a relatively small investment of
your time into a walloping payback.
Remember,
that the time you spend coaching is “high-leverage time.” By coaching, you
engage the productive capacity of your people. For every, say, twenty-minute
coaching conversation you have with an employee, you should be engaging hours
or maybe days of the employee’s productive capacity. If that twenty-minute
conversation is effective, that twenty minutes of coaching should substantially
improve the quality and output of the employee’s work for hours or days. That’s
a good return on investment—that’s why it’s called “high-leverage time.”
Check out these related posts:
To your greater fulfillment and success!
Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT
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