Business Coaching – Improve your effectiveness

Introduction

Coaching is the current fad in many business circles. Unfortunately, the popularising of this term has led both to the well meaning and the unscrupulous to apply it to their existing services. Consequently coaching is in danger of being misrepresented, misperceived, and dismissed as not so new and different and for failing to live up to its promises. Contrary to the attractive claims of many management consultants there are no quick fixes in business. Good coaching is a skill and attitude, which requires a depth of understanding and extensive experience if it is to deliver its astonishing potential.
Performance Coaching will help you to recognise the enormous value and potential of coaching, and perhaps set you on a journey of self discovery that will have a profound effect upon your business success and the quality of how you relate to others.

Why Do Executives Need Performance Coaches?

In a rapidly evolving business world, the executive faces some major challenges:

• Faster pace for business.
• Higher stakes for reward and failure.
• Fewer resources to apply to any given problem.
• More factors to consider in most decisions.
• Changing role of management with more information available to all employees.

Quick solutions just do not work. Hard work and concentration on the long term issues as well as on the issues at hand will make the difference. The availability of an independent Coach whose responsibility is to optimise performance in any situations can make an enormous difference to any business in such a changing environment. The purpose of a Performance Coach is to help the executive make permanent improvements in his/her performance. The Coach is neither a competitor nor an evaluator of the executive’s performance. Together the Coach and the executive develop a specifically tailored program to develop the executive’s strengths, minimise weakness, and enable positive business performance and competitiveness. Performance Coaching is designed to be part of the background, not the centre of the action. The Performance Coach helps to provide ideas, positive support, and encouragement and a trusted colleague to enable the executive to do their job more effectively.

How Management Performance Can Be Improved With Performance Coaching?

Background

In many modern, dynamic and enthusiastic businesses it is not uncommon for most of the management team to have been promoted on the basis of excellent performance and strong track record. There is often little structured management development.

With the expected development of any fast growing business there is a need to ensure that all managers are ‘finely tuned’. Transfer of learning is an important philosophy within the process. Any development process must encompass the business values, and support managers to ‘Walk-their-Talk’.

Approach

I believe a detailed analysis of needs will lead to an effective development plan specific to the needs of an organisation’s leader (s). Individual ownership of the development plan is vital. Each plan is likely to be in two phases.
1) A diagnosis to start each manager on his or her own development path.
2) Phase 2 subject to further agreement – more specific help with individual issues.

The Analysis

As the target group are all competent individuals, one of a range of 360 or psychometric profiles would be used dependant upon initial identified needs and experience. Outputs from this would be used to develop a cohesive management development plan, for both individuals and the organisation.

Ongoing Development

This approach would help put in place a sustainable approach to analysing and producing action plans for managers in the future. It does not tie the organisation down to any single provider or approach. This method would complement any current performance management system (appraisal scheme).

Evaluation & Measures of Success

The success of this programme will be measured by both quality and finance factors. The organisation will set it’s own success measures prior to commencement.
As a part of the process the coaching philosophy is encouraged for transfer to the organisation.