Nothing happens without personal transformation.
- W. Edwards Deming

In keeping with our beliefs that leadership can be enhanced, and that the tensions between power, authority and accountability can be balanced, we have introduced personal and team coaching for directors and boards to the work that we do. Coaching is a well-recognized tool for leadership and team development, with a strong element of accountability.

What is Coaching?

Sheila Norris Senior Associate

Executive coaching is a powerful, process-driven partnership between an individual or team and an experienced coach in which the coach supports the leader or team to develop and deliver upon work and related goals. Coaching is action and results-oriented, and is often focused on developing the soft skills associated with leading. It employs a series of steps to help individuals and groups examine values, identify and set goals, generate and implement actionable plans, and provides mechanisms for accountability – all to derive maximum benefit for directors, boards and their organizations.

Many authorities on leaders and leading have identified self-awareness – a key outcome of coaching - as one of the critical elements of successful leadership. Individual coaching helps people understand themselves better in the context of their world – including the impact they have on others as a result of conscious and unconscious behaviours, and the ways they contribute or detract from their own success. Team coaching is an effective tool for helping boards understand the power of the group through identification of the unique and complementary strengths of the individuals, the competencies of the group and the dynamics of the team.

What are the Benefits of Coaching?

Coaching has been shown to provide a number of benefits to individuals and to organizations. A study by Manchester Consulting of Fortune 1000 executives found that there was a monetary return of 6 times the coaching investment, a 53% improvement in productivity, and a 48% increase in the quality of work done. Other, softer measures that showed improvement were rates of retention, employee satisfaction, and relations with peers, colleagues, and reports. Leaders often report an increased degree of focus and clarity around personal goals, vision and mission, better balance in how they choose to spend their time, and increased capacity after participating in a coaching relationship.

How Does Coaching Work?

Approximately twenty percent of professional success results from technical knowledge and skill; the remaining eighty percent results from personal behaviours and interactions. Coaching is most successful when you are able to consciously and permanently change behaviours, enhancing those that are contributing to your success, and minimizing those that aren't.

The process of maximizing potential typically involves four phases:

1. Assessment : The process begins when you identify the change you would like to make. Through focused inquiry, the coach holds a figurative mirror up for you to see yourself differently, thus gaining some clarity around your current reality, allowing you to understand such things as:

• your values and motives
• your strengths
• your unique perspective
• the impact of your behaviour on yourself and those around you

This defines the starting point; the change goal is the end point.

2. Planning: After you have clearly established the current state and the goal, you work with the coach to define a plan for change, which involves exploring options, defining supporting resources, assessing potential obstacles and ways to overcome them, and establishing timelines.

3. Implementation: You, with the support of the coach, implement the plan. The coach has several roles throughout this process including thinking partner, challenger and cheerleader, and plays a key role in holding you accountable to your action plans.

4. Evaluation: You and the coach review the progress you have made against the goals set, and derive ways of assessing what is working and what is not, to ensure that progress is sustainable.

These four steps also apply to teams, such as a board of directors. The board establishes a change mandate, and the coach helps them through the process of truly understanding their current reality including the enablers that aren't being tapped, detractors that can be turned around and how the behaviours of the board members are helping or hindering the change process. Once these are clearly understood and agreed upon, the board and the coach work together to define a plan for change. The end result is that the board has a well-understood focus, an appreciation for the uniqueness and complementary strengths of its members, and a plan for moving itself and the organization forward in a way that it constructive and consistent with the values of the members.