The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Coaching in Organizations

Douglas Riddle, Emily R. Hoole, Elizabeth C. D. Gullette

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781118841488
• eBook ISBN: 9781118841495
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Organisational Development
• Index: Business

Effect better outcomes with a robust coaching program

The CCL Handbook of Coaching in Organizations deals with the practical, ethical, and political challenges of coaching within an organization. From coaching superiors to coaching business teams, this book outlines the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) approach to professional coaching to help readers better manage leadership development and talent management program outcomes. With expert guidance on the key functions of human resources, learning and development, and organizational development, readers will gain insight into the issues associated with coaching program implementation and management, and the use of internal versus external coaches. Coverage includes a wide range of coaching-based services used in most large organizations, with practical advice on creating the right programs for maximum impact within the available budget.

Professional development is a hot topic and plays a key role in attracting and retaining the best talent. Coaching is a broad area within the field, encompassing a range of services and goals, with varied expectations and requirements. This book provides actionable guidance for those designing, initiating, and implementing coaching programs, with new approaches and techniques that drive better outcomes.

• Provide direct coaching within an organization
• Manage coaching systems and programs
• Initiate and lead mentoring and peer-coaching programs
• Manage external coaches, and deal effectively with coaching suppliers

An ideal coaching program must balance need with budget and be tailored to the requirements and resources of both the organization and the participants. It's a complex undertaking, but the right strategy and planning can lead to even better than expected outcomes. For the human resources professional who wants to strengthen an organization's coaching program, CCL Handbook of Coaching in Organizations is a thoughtful reference for a specialized function.

Part 1
Toward a Coaching Culture

Creating and Managing Coaching Programs

The challenge of promoting the necessary culture, talent, and leadership to support business strategies in today's complex organizational environments makes one-off and ad hoc coaching activities inefficient and ineffective. This is particularly true when it comes to coaching, because coaching is often delivered one-on-one or to only a few people in an organization, and it can easily remain hidden and disconnected from broader organizational goals and initiatives. A strategic, systemic approach to coaching, by contrast, is more likely to lead to sustainable results in terms of outcomes and the organizational impact that it is hoped will follow. Indeed, an ultimate goal for many organizations is to extend the benefits of coaching throughout its culture—to create a coaching culture—such that developmental conversations, reflection, and multilevel learning become embedded in the everyday behavior and attitudes of organizational leaders at all levels. Potential benefits of such a culture go beyond individual performance and development to team and organizational performance, as well as to employee retention and engagement. Moreover, a coordinated, systemic approach to coaching allows for visibility, management, and evaluation, the better to ensure an appropriate use of resources and a return on the investment of those resources.

So how do you, as an HR leader, plan and drive the development of a coaching culture within your organization? What are other companies doing that you could learn from? What range of coaching-related activities could contribute to an integrated approach to embedding coaching and learning into the culture of your organization? How do you decide what your organization needs and what it is ready for? How do you leverage outside resources as part of the equation, and how do you manage internal resources that are part of developmental activities? And, finally, how do you evaluate the effectiveness of any of these coaching-related initiatives in your organization to ensure that they are delivering the return intended?

Part 1 serves as a resource for you, the HR leader, as you consider these questions in the context of your organization. It can also be a resource to you as you consult with and educate the senior leadership of your organization as you work to incorporate coaching into its talent and leadership strategy. Chapter 1 lays the foundation for thinking through the nuts and bolts of developing and managing coaching programs by providing some benchmark data from the most recent Conference Board survey on the internal use of coaching in organizations, including recent trends and thoughts on future directions. Chapter 2 dives into the needs and readiness assessment processes, prompting you to ask the questions necessary to clarify the unique demands of your specific context and the indicators of readiness or challenge that should be taken into account in developing next step plans for your organization. Chapter 3 serves as a “thought partner,” with which you can interact to consider the variety of activities or components that might contribute to a coaching culture and which ones and which combinations make the most sense for your organization given its strategic goals.

Having comparative data on other organizations' coaching activities and assessing the needs and readiness of your own organization are important elements to ensuring that quality in your development efforts is only half of the coaching culture equation. Understanding the value and impact of coaching initiatives at the individual, team, and organizational levels is the other half. The topic of evaluation is covered in chapter 4, including models for the evaluation of coaching, best practices, and a new instrument recently developed at CCL, the Coaching Evaluation Assessment (CEA), for understanding coaching impact and the quality of coaching. This part ends with chapter 5, which covers the complicated topic of managing pools of coaches, from recruitment and selection to supervision and accreditation. Drawing on years of CCL's own experience and that of HR leaders within its client organizations across the globe, part 1 offers proven cutting-edge advice to you as you design your own approach to a coaching culture.

All of the authors who contributed chapters to this part provide well-grounded resources, drawn from research and experience, trial and error, successes and failures, and their work will give you a head start in the do-it-yourself process of creating a coaching culture that fits with your organization's values and goals.

Chapter 1
The Rise of Coaching in Organizations

Amy Lui Abel and Sherlin V. Nair

We thank Jordan Stabley, research assistant, The Conference Board, for his timely help and support on this project.

Workplace dynamics have dramatically changed over the past two decades. Globalization, increased competition and regulations, emerging technologies in the cloud, global connectivity and social media, evolving workforce demographics, and a shorter shelf life of knowledge have not only shrunk world borders but have also all converged to make the workplace more fluid, complex, and ambiguous (Meister & Willyerd, 2010). These sweeping changes may have unleashed the need for a new breed of leaders with new skills and competencies. Gone are the days of superhero CEOs who swooped down to rescue organizations (Seng e, 2000). Globalization and inter- and intraconnectedness have destroyed the cult of the hero-leader and made it mandatory for organizations to develop leadership capabilities throughout the organization.

Businesses today operate in an environment where the pace of work will continue to accelerate, talent will be the single most important factor in driving competitive advantage, and the skills and capabilities needed tomorrow may not exist today (Elliott, 2010). This focus on talent and human capital in an evolving business environment has also been the primary and most critical challenge that CEOs globally have identified (Mitchell, Ray, & van Ark, 2013). This was the most important insight to emerge from the responses of 729 CEOs and presidents from across the globe to the 2013 edition of The Conference Board CEO Challenge survey.

Building internal strength and creating value requires an unflinching focus on people, as well as an enterprise-wide dedication to excellence, regardless of the task or the external landscape. For leaders to focus on the human side of business and manage in a highly future-oriented business environment requires them to have new competencies: the ability to lead change, possession of a global thinking and mind-set, the ability to retain and develop talent, and collaboration with others (see exhibit 1.1).

Despite the critical need for leaders to demonstrate these competencies today and be prepared for the future, a recent study conducted by The Conference Board (Abel, Ray, & Roi, 2013) to examine strategic leadership practices found that 40 percent of leaders were not prepared at all or only marginally prepared to meet the business challenges of the next twelve to twenty-four months (see figure 1.1). For any one organization, this could mean that a large number of the leaders do not have the required competencies to meet strategic business goals and objectives. In addition, this lack of preparation of leaders may have further impacts on organizations, especially in the United States and Europe, that will soon have to also face the inevitable vacuum in the senior leadership pool created as the baby boomers begin to retire. With only 9 percent of leaders identified as very prepared to address current and future dilemmas, the study exposes gaps in leadership developmental efforts and a need for organizations to develop their new and existing leaders in order to promote continuity and seamless business growth (see exhibit 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Preparedness of Business Leaders to Meet Upcoming Challenges

Source: The Conference Board.
Note: Percentages do not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.

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Exhibit 1.1

Research Insights: Impact of Leadership Development

Leadership development programs have become laboratories of change. Leaders going through executive developmental programs are introduced to skills and competencies that will help them empower and engage their workforce. Leaders may be born, but there's a growing school of thought that because most aspects of leadership are behavioral, leaders can be developed through a well-crafted leadership development program (Watkins, 2012).

Several studies show the benefits of a successfully implemented leadership development program to improve business outcomes (Coffman, 2000), including these:

• Retention
• Productivity
• Profitability
• Cus...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Foreword
• The Authors
• Introduction
• Part 1: Toward a Coaching Culture
• Part 2: Coaching Guidance for HR Leaders
• Part 3: Special Applications of Coaching
• References
• Name Index
• Subject Index
• About the Center for Creative Leadership
• End User License Agreement