As CEO, so the adage goes, you have two jobs—hiring the right people and making sure you don’t run out of money. In this increasingly turbulent world, providing the leadership that sets the tone for the rest of the company is also critical if it’s to stay the course. Yet so many CEOs tend to leave big questions such as “What do we want our expensive layers of management to be doing for us?” and “How should we equip them to be able to do that?” to HR and L&D colleagues to wrestle with, even if they actually ask those questions at all.
With reported levels of executive burnout at 50% and the international malaise of poor employee engagement coupled with the highest levels of “intention to quit” for a generation, it is time for leaders everywhere to dig deep, roll up their sleeves and re-engage with the workforce. But how can they set the tone for a revolution in engagement that will turn the tide on the $8.9 trillion loss of global productivity we’re currently facing?
For the last 25 years, the market for coaching services has been one of the fastest-growing sectors. Indeed, many successful CEOs (if pushed) might credit some of their success to having worked with a top-flight Executive Coach. But where this form of support might be offered more widely, it typically reaches fewer than 1% of employees, its expense making it the preserve of more senior managers.
Not surprisingly, many organisations have sought to bring coaching skills in-house by offering training not only to boost the capabilities and motivation of key managers but also in the belief that managers should act more like coaches to support the development of their team members.
Of course, that’s an attractive idea, and consequently, a vast market for coaching skills training has grown to meet demand over the last two decades. But hold on a minute—things have been getting worse, not better. So what’s going on?
Why is coaching failing?
In their desperation to bring coaching skills in-house, people practitioners turned to the training market, where the only training available was to train new Executive Coaches. Spotting an opportunity, these training programmes were hastily rebadged as Manager as Coach or Leader as Coach programmes. Many managers and leaders since have sat through training lasting anywhere from a few minutes to many days, as they’ve learned to conduct the formal coaching sessions one might expect to receive from a professional Executive Coach.
But here’s the rub: research shows that whilst many enjoyed their training (who wouldn’t?), the allure of developing team members was quickly shattered as managers returning to the workplace were rudely reminded that work isn’t made up of a series of planned, sit-down, 1:1 coaching sessions.
Not only did they struggle to find the time to run these sessions, but they were also hesitant in case they got it wrong. For those who did manage a session or two, they soon experienced the uneasiness of trying to formally coach someone who reports directly to them and for whom they hold their own agenda—flying in the face of the central tenet of coaching that you’re there to serve the coachee’s agenda.
In fact, the thirteen most popular coaching models taught to managers today are Executive Coaching models like GROW or its various derivatives. They’re not suitable for the cut and thrust of a busy workplace, which brings us back to the questions posed earlier about what you want your managers and leaders to be doing and how should they be equipped to do that? One thing is for sure: managers are, first and foremost, managers. Attempts to turn them into a coach have largely failed. Ask for the measurable return on investment from any internal coaching programmes… tumbleweed.
If the answer to the question is still that we want our managers to be able to engage with their teams more effectively, support their development, lead with purpose, and provide the psychological safety and well-being that help people to thrive in the workplace, then we need to rethink how we’re equipping them with the modern engagement skills to do that.
L&D departments worldwide have squandered billions and billions of dollars as they have each tried, separately, to invent their own version of a wheel that might do that. Unlike just about any other skilled role, there is no recognisable standard or agreed set of competencies or expectations for an effective line manager. Consequently, industrious departments, many with their own video production units and green screens, have created myriad development programmes, hoping managers might pick up some nuggets to aid them in their management enterprise.
But with 50% of all employees leaving a job just to get away from a poor relationship with their manager, this cross-our-fingers and hope we’re having an impact approach isn’t turning out the professional, capable people managers who can motivate the newer generation entering the workforce or engage team members across all five generations.
Enabling the other 99%?
So, how can we equip our managers to enable the other 99% of the workforce and unleash its vast reserves of potential?
Well, the intention was right; it’s just that the execution was wrong. We were fixated on the idea that coaching was episodic and that managers had to be taught how to do a coaching session. No one had ever taken the time to analyse and reformulate its fundamental premise, the attendant mindset shift required, or the behaviours that need to be adopted so that coaching could be used as a preferred management approach, every day, in the flow of work.
Which is why a new approach called Operational Coaching® has been making waves, even recently capturing the imagination of the UK Government.
In response to a damning report from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which calculated that improving the quality of our management by only 7% (to align with our G7 partners) would unlock a productivity boost of £110 Billion to the UK economy, the UK government established a research fund to find solutions. Operational Coaching® was chosen for an extended academic study to assess the impact it could have on advancing capability and improving productivity.
Conducted by the London School of Economics (LSE), a randomised-control trial across 62 organisations in 14 sectors set out to teach managers how to apply a new management model—STAR®. Working through the programme, participants became aware of their impact on others and developed their situational awareness, learning to interrupt their unhelpful management habits and instead STOP, long enough to THINK about what the person in front of them needed from them in that moment. Determining in a split second whether the situation offered a coachable moment, led them to ASK powerful questions intended to stimulate the other person’s thinking (and not just to gather information for themselves). After a short conversation, managers would then secure a RESULT from that interaction, a commitment from the other person to take an action or a next step to resolve the situation for themselves.
Creating constant learning opportunities for team members to stretch their thinking and retain accountability for moving things forward themselves, led to profound results. With a datacube of 49 separate measures applied to learners and their participating organisations, LSE proved that managers learning to adopt an Operational Coaching® style of management increased the amount of time they spent coaching their team members in the flow of work by 70%, whilst generating an average 74x ROI.
Positive trends were also recorded in a six-fold improvement in employee retention between intervention and control group organisations. After much recutting of the data to determine whether the approach might favour particular groups or sectors, the results were found to be universal, and the research outcomes were declared “robust”.
Operational Coaching® represents an advance in the science and practice of management as it invites the development of a new skill set built around purposeful enquiry and intentional enablement. It gets managers back to where they should be as the enablers of their team members’ talents, encouraging them to learn and contribute at their highest level, and celebrating their achievements and advancements with appropriate strengths-based and appreciative feedback.
As CEOs, we alone are the group that can effect the greatest changes in the global workplace. If we’re to turn the tide on moribund productivity and global employee disengagement levels, we need to roll our sleeves up, now. We alone can drive the conversation about what we want our managers to do for us. Instead of being hostage to the pace of change, we can set the tone for building an adaptable and resilient coaching culture that creates engaging, productive, inclusive and collaborative workplaces where all employees can flourish.
And who wouldn’t want to work in a culture like that?
Written by Dominic Ashley-Timms.
Have you read?
Most Fashionable Countries. Best Countries For Business Expats. Best Non-Native English Speaking Countries. Countries With the Largest Household Size. Best Countries For Older People To Live In.
Add CEOWORLD magazine to your Google News feed.
Follow CEOWORLD magazine headlines on: Google News, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
Copyright 2024 The CEOWORLD magazine. All rights reserved. This material (and any extract from it) must not be copied, redistributed or placed on any website, without CEOWORLD magazine' prior written consent. For media queries, please contact: info@ceoworld.biz
