Course Guide

Coaching in the Workplace

Coaching is a collaborative relationship in which both coach and employee are jointly accountable for achieving the outcomes the employee wants and/or manager has set for them.  Coaches bring essential coaching skills of rapport-building, active listening and powerful questioning to the process; employees bring knowledge of their own situation and needs. Coach and employee work together to achieve an outcome that promotes performance improvement or goal achievement, plus increases the employee’s satisfaction and happiness with work and life in general. 

In the workplace, coaching helps clients develop skills and abilities to forge effective relationships in both their personal and professional lives. It addresses interpersonal and communication difficulties, relationships issues with the manager or colleagues, and any other concerns causing employees stress or anxiety. It also identifies the importance of teamwork and paves the way for more effective collaboration and decision-making.

Coaching is used to develop self-awareness and insight, and bring about behavioural change. Coaches work with employees to expand their horizons, change their perspectives, and open up their minds to other possibilities. Coaching conversations encourage discovery leading to insight, thereafter establishing goals and taking actions for which the employee is responsible and accountable. Coaches explore with employees the “What if” scenarios – the world of possibilities - during which process employees discover their true self, what motivates them, and what causes them conflict and concern. They discover their own solutions and become motivated to achieve their goals. 

Coaching in an organisational setting is conducted in a number of ways including executive coaching, leadership coaching, team coaching and peer coaching. For example, the senior management team may be coached by executive coaches who are engaged from external consulting companies. Some organisations have internal teams of coaches who coach individuals on a needs basis. In addition, leaders may coach their direct reports for performance improvement. In the latter two scenarios, internal coaches and leaders may or may not be formally trained as coaches by external coach-training providers but they will usually have received some internal training by the organisation (but only hours or maybe 1-2 days). 

Who is the client? 

In an organisational setting, the organisation is paying for your services, not the individual. Hence there are two levels of reporting. The first is to the individual employee; the coach provides a summary of each coaching session and encourages the employee to brief their manager on the outcomes. The second is to the employee’s manager; once or twice during a six-month coaching program, the coach takes the opportunity to sit down with the manager to expand verbally on any areas of concern. Often this is a three-way meeting involving the employee. 

There are three steps that a coach needs to undertake in order to conduct an individual coaching program in an organisational setting. These include: 

Step 1: Negotiating the coaching program with the employee’s manager. 

Step 2: Meeting with the employee and employee’s manager together.

Step 3: Meeting with the employee alone to begin the coaching program.  

 

This modified excerpt is taken from the book “Positive Psychology Coaching” by Dr Susanne Knowles which is available www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com.  Book Reviews and a Book Trainer are available on www.susanne.knowles.com.