Feedback is not enough. What else employees need from leaders to be their best

 

The six most dreaded words for any employee: "Can I give you some feedback?"

The Gallup organization has found that only 26% of employees strongly agree that the feedback they receive helps them do better work.

Clearly, feedback isn't working the way it should.

Today, as leaders know, the workplace is radically different. Modern organizations are more decentralized, matrixed and agile. Employees have greater autonomy and are required to be creative in how work gets done.

This means leaders can't just give employees feedback about what they did "right" or "wrong." They must listen, ask questions, gain context and create a two-way dialogue in order to heighten self-awareness leading to better choices and outcomes.

The practice of management is far too complex for a simple rubric to transform how employees perform and develop. And there has never been a one-page checklist that can turn a bad manager into a good one.

Effective leadership requires managers to help employees prioritize multiple projects, shift deadlines, remove barriers and manage interpersonal challenges. There's hardly ever a single "perfect answer" to modern business problems.

In many professional situations, a successful outcome is based on emotional factors:

• how a customer feels after interacting with you
• how a team feels about a new initiative
• how a vendor feels about partnering with you

"Feedback" rarely makes sense in these situations. What you really want is an open, honest, two-way dialogue that strengthens relationships rather than one-way instruction and criticism.

To put it simply, traditional feedback is one direction (leader to follower), episodic (i.e., infrequent and isolated) and focused on past mistakes that can't be fixed.

Coaching conversations, on the other hand, are about now and what's next. Coaching conversations put the employee's potential at the center, in an ongoing, middle-of-the-action dialogue.

Great Managers Lead Great Conversations
Imagine the best manager you've ever had. More than likely, they were great at having meaningful conversations -- where you felt like you were heard and understood.

They may have delivered difficult messages or pushed you harder than you were used to, but somehow it didn't feel bad. They didn't always follow a script or a rubric. They adapted their approach to what you needed in the moment (Thank you Ken Blanchard for the blessing that is Situational Leadership!).

That's the power of individualized conversations. An employee feels known, understood, heard and appreciated -- even when the topic of discussion isn't pleasant. Great leaders build performance conversations around an employee's unique strengths while addressing weaknesses, so that the dialogue is naturally positive and constructive.

Leaders need to understand that these skills don't come naturally to most managers. They need to be taught, ideally in a role-play or real-life environment, and developed over time.

Feedback Focuses on the Past; Coaching Conversations Focus on the Future
Business today moves fast. Employees need to be adaptable in an environment where every aspect of a business can be ripe for disruption.

Like a good coach, great managers are always thinking about the next play, the next game and the next win.

They keep conversations focused on the future. What can we do to improve our chances of success next time? What would it look like to exceed our expectations? How can we prepare for the future?

Great managers are achievement-oriented and focused on developing their teams.

 
That's not to say managers should stop giving feedback all together. There's no doubt that reflecting on past performance and discussing how it went is important -- it facilitates learning.

The problem is employees typically experience feedback as criticism that is delivered far too long after the fact. Feedback is helpful when it's immediate and constructive. And even then, feedback alone does not translate to great coaching.

Improving feedback -- how you tell people about your observations and opinions -- is a low bar. It captures a small sliver of the picture.

Often, managers don't adequately observe performance or have enough expertise to tell employees how work should actually be done. Great managers take their coaching to the next level by observing, listening and proactively anticipating topics that will be useful to employees in the future.

They paint a vision for the future -- a portrait of success -- and establish ongoing dialogue with employees that helps them comfortably discuss issues they encounter along the way.

Great Coaching Conversations Are a Busy, Two-Way Street
Employees often feel like feedback "happens" to them. While well-intended, it's an event that tends to feel critical and condemning. And worse, research shows that it only improves performance about one-third of the time, while actually making it worse one-third of the time.

Great coaching conversations are a two-way street. Employees should feel encouraged to share their perspective, ask questions and bring issues to their manager. And it should be a busy two-way street. Frequent, meaningful conversations are key to fostering collaboration and engaged performance.

Great coaches inspire you to achieve more than you thought you could. They do exponentially more than just tell you what to do. They teach you to own your performance, do what's best for the organization and be a great partner.

By opening the door to great conversations, difficult conversations become easier, too. Important issues are no longer a surprise -- you can see them coming and hopefully do something about them before they become a problem.

Imagine trying to have a really tough conversation before that busy, two-way street has been established. Addressing sensitive topics like diversity and inclusion, pay, promotion, or under-performance are all going to feel scary if you haven't already built up some understanding and trust with your teammate.

Learn From the Best Manager You've Ever Had (or Wish You Had)
Great managers inspire independence and ownership in pursuit of high performance. That only comes through frequent, open-ended conversations where people feel like their honest opinions will be valued and respected.

Managers today may not be the experts in every situation, but they can shape conversations and deliver support in a way that leads to continual improvement.

Leaders can take the initiative here. They can change the expectations for how collaboration happens and how work gets done in their organizations. They can set up learning and development programs that teach these coaching skills to their managers.

And leaders can model these behaviors themselves:

• Learn more about your employees.
• Ask questions.
• Listen.
• Encourage them to bring their best ideas.
• Help them play to their strengths while addressing their weaknesses
• Do this consistently and you'll become the great partner they want to talk to.
  

Check out a related post: Is Your Feedback Invisible to Your Direct Reports?

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's culture, employee engagement and leadership capability? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, title companies, wealth management firms, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

8 Reasons to Appreciate Squirrels

 

In these COVID-19 times,  my wife and I have developed a greater awareness and by extension a greater appreciation for nature in our own backyard. We’ve found that being mindful of the things we use to take for granted in the yard makes us feel more at ease, reduces stress and brings about feelings of harmony and calm.

We’ve realized to a greater degree that our backyard is not really a “yard” at all. It is our habitat, an extension of our home and part of a larger ecological region. Our yard has become a source of peacefulness, and the center of wondrous enjoyment. It has shown us the marvels and idiosyncrasies of nature’s creatures. 

For example, squirrels were always part of the scenery, but we’ve never appreciated them as much as we do now because of what we’ve discovered about these ordinary—yet extraordinary creatures.

Here are 8 reasons to appreciate squirrels.

1. They help our planet by planting trees

Did you know that squirrels are agents of reforestation? They love acorns – which they bury in various places to snack on in the cold winter months. But they don’t always come back for them – in fact, squirrels may fail to recover up to 74 percent of nuts they bury!

While this may be frustrating for the little guys, their forgetfulness is really good for the planet – because these buried acorns eventually turn into oak trees.

2. Squirrels are highly intelligent animals

Contrary to popular belief, squirrels are very smart! Did you know they practice “deceptive caching?” It’s a little trick they use to fool would-be thieves. Squirrels pretend to bury a nut or (any other tidbit) by digging a small hole and covering it up as if they had hidden it – only that they don’t drop it in. Genius!

3. They’re more organized than us

A study found that some squirrel species cache their nuts according to type, with designated places to hide different types of nuts! The squirrels were given pecans, almonds, walnuts, and hazelnuts – and each nut was sorted and stored in various hiding places according to type. Yup, that’s squirrels being more organized than I’ll ever be.

4. Squirrels are the acrobats in the branches

The squirrel does not know he is not a bird. After all, squirrels live in trees just like birds and build nests called dreys. They leap like trapeze artists from tree to tree. Even if they fall (which is rare), they can come down 30 feet without getting hurt.

5. Squirrels can jump vertically five feet, and can leap between objects that are over ten feet apart.

Given that squirrels are less than 1/10th the size of people, if you could do this, you would be a superhero who could literally jump onto five story buildings and clear buses and trucks in a single bound.

6. Squirrels can sprint faster than us.

Unless you’re Usain Bolt, in which case you’re probably faster than a squirrel. But can you run vertically up a tree at 12 mph? I didn't think so. 😉

7. Squirrels are good swimmers.

Although they usually prefer not to.

Except for Twiggy, the water-skiing squirrel.

 

8. The college I went to had a rare white unicorn squirrel in its central square.

I saw it once, and it was one of the best days of my life.

A bonus reason: The noun squirrel evolved into an adjective describing a human being who is hyperactive, fidgety or nervous. For example,  "That I was a squirrelly kid whose need to leap from the piano bench, run outside and roll around in the mud would sooner or later kill my chances of doing something meaningful with music."

I hope the next time you see a squirrel in your backyard or in a park that you’ll be filled with delight knowing more about these amazing little guys.

Make it a snappy new day!

Peter Mclees

How to Transform Your Life During Uncertain Times

 

A mentor of mine has been following a disciplined meditation practice for more than 5 years. He says it helps him stay calm, clear and focused on the present moment.

It shows. Although he has a mountain of responsibilities, I’ve never seen him looking harried, tense or anxious.

Perhaps he’s onto something.

After all, the present moment is all we have. There was never a time when your life wasn’t not now, nor will there ever be. Your life is and always be “this moment.”

The odd thing about this realization is that it is both bone-crushingly obvious and, at the same time, seldom acknowledged.

Each day we’re caught up in our own personal dramas. We struggle to meet the deadline, finish the project, make the appointment, pick up the kids, drop off the car, stop at the bank, visit the folks, plan the dinner…driving around, we are swept up in the recollections of the past or, more likely, endless planning and worrying about the future.

By living in a state of distraction, we deny ourselves the only time we have to be fully present. Right now.

Trust me, you cannot savor your Asian chicken salad with the water chestnuts and sliced tangerines if you’re worrying about next week’s budget meeting. Nor can you enjoy your afternoon by the lake with your grandson if you’re talking on your device or fuming about something you saw on a news feed.

You can only appreciate the good things in your life when you’re fully present. Doing this allows you to minimize your negatives, too.

All of us face situations that are depressing, frustrating, or maddening. Yet, more often than not, our anxieties are the result of our own faulty thinking. It may be tough to admit, but it is our mindset—rather than the situation itself—that creates the negative emotions.

As Shakespeare wrote, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking make it so.” Truly, it is our thoughts that torment us, not our problems.

Some may disagree. After all if you have a child with a serious drug addiction or a parent that is dying of cancer, the problem isn’t in your mind. It’s real.

But there are only two kinds of bad situations in the world: those that can be solved and those that can’t. If you have a situation that can be solved, get busy fixing it. If you have one that can’t, get busy accepting it.

After all, your thoughts determine your happiness. The good news is that you can control them. That’s the power behind Reinhold Niebuhr’s well-known Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can; and Wisdom to know the difference.

Incidentally, while Niebuhr wrote this prayer roughly 70 years ago, there is an Irish rhyme dating back to 1695 that expresses a remarkably similar sentiment:

For every ailment under the sun,

There is a remedy, or there is none:

If there be one, try to find it;

If there be none, never mind it.

But when something truly sad or tragic happens, how do you keep from minding it? There is no easy answer to this one. Some wounds only time can heal. But returning to the present moment can help.

As Eckhart Tolle wrote in The Power of Now, “Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems—most life situations are—but find out if you have any problem at this moment. Not tomorrow or in ten minutes, but now. Do you have a problem now?”

Tolle says it’s impossible to feel troubled when your attention is full in the Now. You have situations that need to be dealt with or accepted—yes. But only worries about the future or regrets about the past can turn into personal quagmires.

Skeptics may argue that altering your thinking doesn’t change the problem, just your perception of it. But that’s the magic of it. Higher awareness is often that prelude to a solution.

Tolle says, “Accept—then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept is as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, no against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.”

How do you get started? Ironically, by becoming conscious of your lack of consciousness—something the majority of us never do—you take the first step toward an elevated state of mind. Your ability to enjoy your life, and deal successfully with your problems, increases the moment you become fully present.

Beware though. Living in the present moment means abandoning your old ways of thinking. In the present moment there is no judging, cherishing your opinions, or nurturing discontent.

It means slowing down. Relaxing. Focusing on your breath. Listening to the breeze. Or just taking a good look around.

You have the opportunity to enhance your life simply by choosing where to direct your attention. Where should that be?

Right here. Right now.

“The past is history, the future’s a mystery, today’s a gift, that’s why it’s called the present.”

Check out a related post: Sage Advice from a 2,000 Year Old Slave

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter C. McLees

Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

Mobile: 323-854-1713

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com

We help organizations and leaders accelerate their results. 

12 of the Biggest Lessons About Giving and Receiving Feedback

I've trained and coached leaders on how to give and receive effective feedback for the past twenty-five years.  And there is a ton of good content about how to provide effective feedback. However, I find that many leaders still struggle with consistently providing quality feedback that helps their people, team and organization learn and grow.

Providing feedback is so much more than sharing some helpful information with another person regarding his or her work. It's a gift -- a chance to help someone improve themselves and their work.

Here are 12 of the biggest lessons I've learned about feedback:

1. Feedback doesn't happen unless you make it happen.
2. Managers tend to stop giving feedback over time, even if they once did it frequently.
3. It is easier to give appreciative feedback than it is to give constructive-corrective feedback.
4. People often do not act on feedback without some kind of follow-up.
5. It is easier to filter feedback than to accept it.
6. People more fully appreciate the feedback they receive after they have applied it and seen its impact on their results.
7. Feedback declines after people improve because managers assume it’s no longer necessary.
8. Employees struggle to know how to respond to the feedback they receive.
9. Employees typically fear receiving constructive feedback because they see it as criticism rather than helpful input.
10. Companies always underestimate the difficulty of getting people to give and receive feedback.
11. Lack of effective feedback and coaching is the cause of most employee issues. 
12. All behavior is a feedback loop. 

You want something, you try for it. If you fail, you can try the same thing again; or you can figure out what the first try taught you (feedback), redesign your strategy, and then try again. Get more feedback from your second try, and keep changing and refining until you get what you want. Try and refine, try and refine. There is not failure, only feedback.

I'd recommend using these deep lessons as a spring board to discover where you and your team of leaders can improve. Why? Because giving and receiving effective feedback and feedfoward is one of the most important tools that a leader can leverage to unleash the potential in themselves, their people and ultimately their organization.

Here are three related posts:

9 Tips for Building A Feedback Culture

Learn and Grow From Feedback, Especially If It's Constructive

Grow with Feedfoward

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how a coaching culture can benefit your organization? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com or Mobile: 323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, branches, distribution centers, title companies, wealth management firms, design and build organizations, food production facilities, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

A Powerful Tool To Help Your Team Rise Up During Another Spike In Covid Cases

 

Covid-19 cases are rising again impacting 42 states and territories with the number of deaths reaching record highs. Many people are experiencing "Covid fatigue." We may be weary but of course the virus doesn't get tired.  The latest spike of cases and deaths is another reminder that no one is immune until we get a viable vaccine but, most importantly, that we are not in control.

These are difficult times. We are facing an extraordinary problem. So, how do you help your people cope and even get stronger? Start by helping your team focus on what they can manage. They cannot control the crisis, but they can learn to control their response.

How people show up during challenging times is how we show up everywhere. One way to be resilient during the crisis is to reframe our relationship with it. 

Pause before you react
These are scary times. We live under the illusion that we have control over our lives, but we don’t. Now, the realization is more evident than ever.

It’s okay to feel afraid, anxious or stressed out. Emotions are a natural response to external events, especially when we feel threatened. What is not okay is to let our emotions take over. We must manage how we respond.

When we react to an external stimulus, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens in the body, putting us in full alert. After that time, the body flushes those chemicals away. This means that for 90 seconds, you can observe the process happening — you can experience, feel it, and then see it how it goes away.

You can react to this chemical alert, or you can wait until it’s gone before you act.

The 90-second rule is a term coined by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor in her book, My Stroke of Insight, to explain the nature and lifespan of an emotion. If you leave it uninterrupted by thoughts, you can quickly regain control of your response.

Next time you are experiencing an emotional reaction, pause. Practice deep breaths — you can stretch your body, too — during those 90 seconds. Enjoy that moment, and don’t let emotions dictate your response. How do you feel using the 90-second rule to regain control of your reaction?

Reframe your words
Words are powerful. The way we talk about the crisis has a direct impact on how we perceive what’s going on. Negative words create an adverse effect and the other way around.  As neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Newberg  explains, “The longer you concentrate on positive words, functions in the parietal lobe start to change, which changes your perception of yourself.”

Use the chart below as a reference. For example, instead of using the phrase “social distancing,” use “physical distance.” Having to keep a distance of, at least 6 feet, doesn’t mean that we stop socializing with our friends or neighbors. That we work remotely doesn’t mean that we must distance from our colleagues.

The same happens when we replace "isolation" (that has a negative perception) with "protection." We are not isolated from other human beings; we are staying at home to protect ourselves and others.  

Become more aware of the words you use. Reframe negative ones into positive words.

Put the crisis in perspective
Every crisis is unique. This might feel the worst ever, but it’s not. Putting things in perspective will help you lower anxiety and regain control. As human beings, we have fought many crises before, and we were able to thrive.

Consider past devastating crises. Back in the time, everyone felt it was the end of the world, but people survived and bounced back.

The Bubonic plague killed 31% of the European population; 18 million people died in 1347. During the Spanish Influenza, 1 out of 20 inhabitants was killed in Spain. 9/11 put New York City on its knees.  Everyone got back on their feet, and humanity was able to thrive once again.

Think about your own crises. What were the worst experiences you ever faced? We’ve all lost loved ones or got fired from a job. Some people have to deal with severe health conditions. I’ve been very close to dying a couple of times, and here I am.

Crises put our characters to the test. It’s our choice that a better version of ourselves comes out of the storm.

All crises are survivable. We will survive this. Putting things in perspective will help you focus on what you can control. Take precautions — protect yourself — without overreacting.    

Reframe the event
Why do some people break while others thrive in adversity?

The answer is resilience — our ability to bounce back. Luckily, resilience is not an innate trait, but something that you can develop. The way you perceive an event determines how resilient you are.

“Potentially Traumatic Event” (PTE) is a term coined by George Bonanno, the head of the Loss, Trauma, and Emotion Lab at Columbia University. According to the professor, an event is not traumatic unless we experience it as such.

Our perception of an adverse event can turn it into a traumatic one or not. Your mindset, your thoughts, and how you frame reality, define if you will be traumatized by a crisis, or not.

Reframing is a powerful tool to help you cope with stressful events. It’s more than turning a crisis into an opportunity. Instead of thinking, “Why is this happening to me?” think, “What can I learn from this event?” By reframing an incident, you recover control by shifting your role from “victim” to “hero.” 

Psychiatrist Steven Wolin defines resiliency as “the capacity to rise above adversity.” When something goes wrong, you must manage to stay in control rather than let the situation take over. Your thoughts — not grit — shape your perceptions and behavior.

No one knows how this crisis will unfold, but you and your team, can at least, manage how you deal with it.

Check out these two related posts:

Developing Resilient Team Members During the Global Pandemic

How To Strengthen Your Team's Culture During the "Cycles" of the Covid-19 Disruption

Stay healthy. Stay curious.

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

You Don’t Get to Look Good and Grow At the Same Time

 

Learning to Have Better Accountability Conversations

If you think about anything in your life that you've gotten better at, there are these periods, they're clunky, they're clumsy. We feel insecure, we feel like we're an imposter or fraud in some way. And that's, in particular, true about soft skills/ communication skills and especially when learning to have better accountability conversations with direct reports, peers, customers and other leaders.

Anyone who has ever been in a relationship knows that as you're trying to navigate that territory of getting to know another person and getting close with them and creating dialogue -- it feels awkward, it feels weird, we don't feel like ourselves. 

When we translate over into the workplace. When we're in a leadership position, it gets even more problematic because you think, "Oh, I can't show these people that I don't know what I'm doing. I can't show these people that I don't have the answer." And in particular, if we have a technical expertise, if we're a good engineer or a good accountant or a good marketer or a good technician, and we've made a whole career out of having the answers and knowing how to solve problems, that makes it doubly difficult.

So this idea of really just accepting that when it comes to the people side of the business of getting feedback and becoming a coach and becoming a mentor and opening up dialogue and building trust, it's okay to feel like a beginner. In fact, if you feel like a beginner, you're probably on the right track. 

Accountability conversations, obviously enough, they're not things that only happen at work. They happen in our life. They happen in our relationships and if you think about the people who you've come to respect and the people that you've come to trust in your life, oftentimes it's those people who are willing to have that conversation with you or willing to engage with you and share with you something that they're seeing or something that they've observed or ask you a question about something in a way that might not be so comfortable. Right? 

Those are the people that we often call our best friends. 

That's what leadership is all about. Leadership is not about making the most number of friends. Leadership is not about being nice all the time. It is often about stepping into moments that other people would rather say, well, "I'm not going to go there."  

But you as a leader, because this is about you and your life and your values, to say, "You know what? I could avoid this conversation but I'm not going to, not just because this person needs to hear this feedback, but because that's who I am as a human being. That's who I want to be. 

I want to be somebody who enters into those moments who lives up to their values, who says, you know, I see something and I think that person could be doing better than they are and I'm going to say something about it and I'm going to lean into those conversations because that's who I want to be."

Accountability, if you think about it some more, it's not about work. It's not about tasks. It's not about the things that are in our inbox. It's about who we are. It's about the type of people that we want to be. It's about the relationships that, we want to have, where we can stand in ourselves, and look back on the moments that we are at this organization or in this relationship. And we can honestly say to ourselves, "Hey, I've been the best version of me that I know how."

Click here for a related post. How to Navigate Difficult Conversations

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step... 

Interested in learning how leadership coaching and training can help you create a high performance culture and drive results? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business imperatives. 

To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, title companies, wealth management firms, design and build companies, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Four Keys for Building A Coaching Culture

   

In 2020, the evidence is clear that coaching positively impacts the workplace. When coaching is embedded in the organization it is a game changer that shifts the way managers and leaders work together and develop others.

Why build a coaching culture?

Coaching improves performance, increases retention, creates higher levels of engagement and provides tools and proven processes for developing leaders both in-the-moment and in the longer-term coaching engagement.

At the heart of every organization is its culture—its personality and identity. Today, people are putting more importance on company culture than ever before. Deloitte recently found that 94% of executives and 88% of employees consider a distinct workplace culture important to organizational success.

According to a study by the Human Capital Institute and the International Coach Federation sited in an ATD article, organizations with strong coaching cultures report revenue growth well above their industry peer group (51% compared with only 38%) and significantly higher engagement (62% compared with 50%).

In the HCI – ICF 2014 Study on Coaching Cultures, of those organizations self-described with successful coaching cultures “nearly two-thirds rate their organizations as being ‘highly engaged,’ compared to only about half for organizations without strong coaching cultures. 

In terms of financial impact, 60% of respondents from organizations with strong coaching cultures report their 2013 revenue to be above their peer group, compared to 41% from all other companies. Based on these results, it becomes clear that coaching is more than just a way to increase employees’ skills and competencies; it can have a long-lasting systemic impact on an organization’s ability to retain talent and on its financial sustainability.

What is a coaching culture?

Culture shapes behaviors inside the organization and a coaching culture is one deliberately focused on growing and nurturing talent in order to deliver key results, strengthen leadership capacities, increase retention and deepen engagement. A culture that has cultivated a coaching approach to development often demonstrates the following characteristics:

• Giving and receiving feedback in the service of being at one’s best
• Focusing on opportunities to help members of one’s team grow
• Operating in teams with clear goals and roles
• Developing others when it matters most
• Asking and empowering more than telling and fixing

When coaching is embedded through all levels of an organization it creates a culture of employees who work and lead together with a common goal of building a best-in-class organization.

How does a coaching culture evolve?

Every organization will find a unique path to building out a culture that emphasizes a coaching approach. For some, it begins with using a few external executive coaches to work with specific leaders where high-stakes issues are at hand. In others, a single sponsor will instill coaching at the managerial level or others build out a small internal cadre of coaches to provide short-term coaching opportunities for mid-level leaders. As the impact of coaching is evidenced, organizations begin to develop a coordinated strategy across business units.

Ideally, a culture that fosters a coaching approach to developing people will utilize coaching at all levels of the organization— from the early manager to the senior leader. 

For workplace coaching to work and truly drive results for your business, it must echo throughout your entire company—at every level and in every conversation. One way that organizations can develop such a culture is through four steps called RLAA (pronounced “relay”): relevance, learning, application, and accountability.

1) Build Relevance from the Top Down

Organizations with robust coaching cultures are over 60% more likely to have senior leaders involved in their coaching systems. Leaders, if you want coaching to become your company culture, start with yourself. Make it part of every meeting agenda, strategic discussion, and water cooler chat. Illustrate the benefits of coaching—to the organization and to each individual—by talking about it and, more importantly, by doing it. And if you’re not the right leader for the job, find the person who is. Make that individual the spokesperson, and have him or her share enthusiasm regularly.

As senior leadership takes the reins, employees will naturally follow. However, to make workplace coaching fully relevant to them, pinpoint their motivation. Help managers, as well as employees, understand the value that coaching can provide them. Show managers how coaching can engage their people, increase team performance, augment their leadership skills, or add a credential/certification to their résumé.

2) Foster Learning on a Regular Basis

Every employee in the organization, regardless of role or level, should understand the basic principles of coaching and performance improvement. Organizations with successful coaching cultures were nearly 40% more likely to target every employee with coaching training than organizations with less pervasive coaching cultures.

Make coaching, training, and development regular opportunities by using classroom or virtual lessons. Then, like anything we want to excel in, it takes hours of practice. The more you coach, the better you become.

3) Help Employees Apply What They Learn

The adage is simple but true: Where you fail to plan, you plan to fail. You can’t create a coaching culture without developing an action plan and providing support to make the transition easier on employees. Establish a personalized follow-up plan that will work with your organization’s business cadence and structure. We’ve seen companies develop a master coaching class with follow-up small group sessions. Other companies use reporting systems and even online coaching platforms or apps. The point is, create a system that helps everyone apply what he or she learns, and check in on it regularly.

4) Develop Positive Accountability for Results

When it comes to accountability, we frequently put that responsibility on managers, but when done correctly, it looks completely different. The beauty of coaching is developing a workforce of people who feel supported in their abilities to make decisions and own their choices. An accountability system encourages employees to take ownership of their performance and encourages managers to take ownership of how they coach others.

What does this look like? First, make sure every employee at every level is experiencing coaching conversations on a regular basis. Second, establish transparency regarding coaching efforts in your organizations. Do you know who is coaching successfully? How many coaching conversations are occurring? Tapping into that knowledge will guide leadership on what needs to change and how to get there.

If your organization is already investing the time and money in workplace coaching, why stop there? Dig deeper, and change the identity of your company to one that coaches at every level and in every instance. As a result, you can expect better productivity, more engagement, and higher performance all around.

Click here to download information on how we can help you build a coaching culture.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, trainer and Performance Consultant

SMART DEVELOPMENT

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Interested in learning how a coaching culture can benefit your organization? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: 

Email: petercmclees@gmail.com    or    Mobile: 323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, branches, distribution centers, title companies, wealth management firms, design and build organizations, food production facilities, third-party maintenance companies, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth. 

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.