Aspen is a place for leaders to lift their sights above the possessions which possess them. To confront their own nature as human beings, to regain control over their own humanity by becoming more self-aware, more self-correcting, and hence more self-fulfilling.

Walter P. Paepcke, Aspen Institute Co-Founder
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Measure and recognize managers as coaches

June 1, 2017
Economic Opportunities Program, and UpSkill America

Building Your Own Coaching Organization

by Virginia Bianco-Mathis and Lisa Nabors

 

Developing a coaching organization involves a systems approach that begins with creating a vision and testing readiness, then moves toward implementation and measurement. This ensures the creation of an infrastructure that will continue to support a coaching culture over time.

Create a Vision
  • What are the benefits of becoming a coaching organization?
  • What else within the organization would support a coaching organization?
  • How would such a culture support organizational goals and values? What organizational drivers will be fulfilled?
  • What would be the outcomes of becoming a coaching organization (for individuals, teams, and the entire organization)?
Assess Organizational Readiness
  • Does the organization believe in continual learning and change, or is the status quo valued above all else?
  • Is there a history or precedent within the organization for allocating money toward development programs? Is it valued? Is it considered during the budgeting process?
  • Does the culture support openness, confrontations, honesty, and dialogue—or is it best to hide information?
  • Are there other learning structures in the organization that the coaching program can depend on, be linked with, or build on?
  • Is the human resource department valued and credible, or is it seen as merely a compliance department?
  • Are managers encouraged or measured on how well they develop others, com-municate, and use a coaching approach?
  • How have other programs been successfully implemented within the organization?
Design the Components and Implementation of the Plan
  • Determine who can become champions of a coaching organization and establish a task force.
  • Decide whether the effort will be totally homegrown or will incorporate outside experts.
  • Define and outline the initial components of each building block of a coaching organization: coaching tools and mindsets, dialogue, and supporting infrastructures.
  • Given your particular organization and constraints, develop a project plan with a schedule, owners, steps, rollout plan, benchmarks, contingencies, tracking, and status meetings.
  • Investigate and determine costs and how costs will be budgeted and tracked.
  • Determine who will own and be administratively responsible for running the intervention/transformation.
  • Determine the key benefits and success factors and institute the necessary measuring tools (software, accounting support, surveys, focus groups, strategic alignment factors, bottom-line factors) to continually track and sell the coaching organization activities.
  • Establish how information about the program will be communicated in a multiyear communication plan.
  • Determine the kinds of data gathering that are appropriate, costs involved, how data will be shared, and with whom. Consider outside benchmarking, surveys, 360-degree instruments, inventories, supportive coaching software, and technology.
Measure and Sell the Benefits
  • Consider key stakeholders, link your agenda to their agenda, and develop appropriate negotiation strategies for ownership.
  • Relate the coaching infrastructure components to all other pertinent programs and demonstrate mutual support.
  • Carefully plan costs, both short term and long term. Develop and sell the cost-benefit analysis.
  • Prepare support materials, charts, graphs, role descriptions, and other marketing materials to guide your implementation plan.
  • Install tools for measuring key success factors of the coaching organization and publicize these widely.
  • Assess political climate within the organizational culture and plan for contingencies, formal and informal power channels, decision-maker involvement, and how things usually get done throughout the organization.

 

 

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