We established in last week’s blog that establishing a coaching culture is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. And, as with all culture changes, there are multiple levers that need to be pulled in order to make it sticky.
I always advocate that people receive coaching as a first step. You can explain coaching until you are blue in the face, and although people will nod their heads as though they understand, they actually find it hard to put it into practice without seeing it first. The best way to see it is to experience it. The best way to experience it is with a well-trained, credentialed executive coach.
It is really important to find coaches who are deep specialists – at coaching, not necessarily your business. Coaching is not the same as mentoring, so you don’t need people who have a background in your industry. Sometimes it helps not to have that experience because the coach asks the most naive questions that are so back-to-basics that the coachee hasn’t even thought about them – this can be really enlightening. However, working with someone who has previously worked in the corporate world will provide you with someone professional, who understands organisational culture at a macro level.
I talked about the person being well-trained and credentialed. You want a role model who takes their own professional development seriously. Ideally, you should be screening for coaches with training from an accredited training centre. Accredited by the International Coach Federation, or the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, or the Association for Coaching, or the Association for Professional Coaching and Supervision. Not only should they have such training, but also a credential from one of the above to show that they meet certain standards for coaching.
Last, but not least, each coach must be receiving coaching supervision to keep them at their best. You want to know that the coaches in your pool are continually learning and growing their own skills of coaching, and have somewhere to discuss ethical issues.
There are many more criteria that you might want to use to screen coaches, but these are the essentials.
Experiencing coaching is just one lever that you can use to start to create a coaching culture. More levers to come in future posts.
