The Benefits of Adopting a Coaching Approach

The benefits of adopting a high-performance coaching approach are limitless to you and your team. There has been extensive research done into the benefits of coaching at work and collectively those findings show increases and decreases in the following areas.

McKinsey and Co

One of the many studies done in the area of coaching inside organizations was by McKinsey and Co. Their studies found that only 21% of managers were good coaches. Furthermore, they found that managers who were good coaches and primarily took a coaching approach in the workplace, had significantly better all-round results. Their other finding was that managers who are bad coaches (79%) are twice as detrimental to performance as good coaches.

Googles Project Oxygen

Project Oxygen (so-called as they see their people as the lifeblood of the organization) was a large-scale study conducted by Google from the start of 2008 to the end of 2010. Project Oxygen was designed to see the impact of good managers and what exactly they were doing differently.

They found that people leave their company for three reasons:

1. They have a bad boss - this was the biggest factor.
2. They don’t feel a connection to the mission of the company, or sense that their work matters.
3. They don’t really like or respect their co-workers.

What Google discovered was an 8-point plan to help their managers improve. On top of the plan, was be a good coach.

1. Be a good coach.
2. Empower your team - don't micromanage.
3. Recognize individual and team successes. Show an interest in this and their personal wellbeing.
4. Have a drive for results.
5. Be a good communicator and listen to your team.
6. Help your employees with career development.
7. Have a clear vision and strategy and talk about it regularly.
8. Have technical skills so you can help advise the team.

Note that technical skills came in at number eight. Not at number one, as expected by many managers . Google found that a manager's technical skills were far less valued by employees than people skills.

Coaching Has Been Shown to Increase:

1. Employee engagement.
2. Individual and team performance.
3. Emotional commitment.
4. Connection to the bigger organizational picture and therefore a greater sense of meaning and purpose.
5. Productivity.
6. Psychological safety with their direct manager.
7. Sense of autonomy and accountability at work.

Coaching Has Been Shown to Decrease:

1. Staff turnover.
2. Absenteeism.
3. Performance variability.

Another benefit is to simply support (serve) and develop your people. To help them, help themselves rather than have all of their monkeys (problems) on your back. This becomes tiring, stressful, and unenjoyable.

When you can do this well, it frees up so much of your time to do other things that are more productive and beneficial.

So often, when we look at a manager's workload we see that at least 25-50% of their work is spent doing things for their people that they could or should be doing themselves.

Training in Isolation Fails

Another important reason to coach your staff is to motivate because training in isolation fails to get performance improvements and most people leaders know this to be intuitively true. This makes sense as training focuses only on one part of the performance equation - ability and this in isolation will not produce high performance.

Hiring the right people and ensuring they have the knowledge and training needed to perform is critical. However, it’s not enough on its own.

Training Case Study

A well-quoted study by Neil Rackham the founder of US sales, consulting, training, and research company Huthwaite International, carried out an evaluation of sales training at Xerox Corporation in the 1970s. It was the first documented study of its kind and while it was done in the 1970's all other studies since this time have shown the same results.

By establishing the degree of carry-over from the training room to the job, he hoped to gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of the organization's training. The results stunned everyone. The study showed, on average, that trainees lost 87% of their new skills within one month.

Interestingly, Rackham found an exception in the Xerox data. Some people highlighted their skills and knowledge remained the same and others showed an improvement from the training. 

Further research found the improvement group was employees who had managers that actively coached them back at work, immediately after the training, to apply their new skills, knowledge, and behaviors. 

The key lesson here is that once you have dealt with the "ability" side of the performance equation; you need to implement a system to coach and motivate your staff to consistently apply the knowledge and skills they have learned.

The Future Generation

Welcome to the Millennial generation. By 2025, 75% of our workforce will be made up of Millennials. This is the name given to Generation Y (born 1980-1994) and Generation Z (born 1995 onwards). People often ask, “Are Millennials really that different”? The answer is YES! Profoundly so, and the success of your future business will depend on them.

Millennials will change the world decisively more than any other generation. They will continue to disrupt and change the social fabric of society and of organizations. They are no longer willing to tolerate inept, incompetent leadership and poor organizational cultures. They are demanding better and will quickly look elsewhere if they do not get it.

According to a Gallup Research paper titled "How Millennials Want to Work and Live" (2016) they are recommending leaders and organizations focus on making critical cultural changes called the “Big Six”. 

Coaching Millennials (Gen Y and Gen Z)

• Over time the emphasis and focus have changed for Millennials from pay-check to purpose. Compensation is important for them and it must be fair, but it is no longer the main motivator. Millennials want to have a purpose in their lives and want to work for organizations that have a strong mission and purpose. 
• Millennials want career development. In fact, they want career development over job satisfaction – but preferably both. Many millennials do not actually care too much about the fancy bells and whistles found in offices today. The ping-pong table, the fancy latte machine. Giving out too many toys and entitlements can be a big leadership mistake for millennials. Career development is what drives this generation. 
• Millennials have made it clear that they do not want bosses or the traditional manager. They want managers and leaders who can coach and develop them, who value them and the effort they are making, and who focus predominantly on building their strengths. 
• Millennials do not want annual reviews either. These are a thing of the past. They want ongoing conversations. The way millennials communicate — texting, tweeting, Instagram, etc. — is now real-time and continuous. This dramatically affects the workplace because millennials are accustomed to constant communication and feedback. Annual reviews no longer work.
• Millennials do not want to focus on their weaknesses — they want to develop their strengths. Gallup has discovered that weaknesses never develop into strengths, while strengths develop infinitely. This is arguably the biggest discovery Gallup, or any organization has ever made about human development in the workplace. 
• Organizations should not ignore weaknesses. Rather, they should minimize weaknesses and maximize strengths. We are recommending leaders and performance coaches transition to strengths-based cultures, or they will not attract and keep their stars.
• It is not just my job — it’s my life. One of Gallup’s most important discoveries is that everyone in the world wants a good job. This is especially true for millennials. More so than ever in the history of corporate culture, employees are asking, "Does this organization value my strengths and my contribution"? "Does this organization give me the chance to do what I do best every day”? Most importantly for millennials, a job is no longer just a job — it is their life as well.

Millennials are typically the least engaged generation in the workforce. By engaged, we mean emotionally and behaviorally connected to their job and organization. Furthermore, having a sense of purpose by linking work and its impact on organization performance is important!

Engaged on Average:

29% Millennials (1984-onwards - The term millennials includes Gen Y and Gen Z)

32% Gen X's (1965-1983)

33% Baby Boomers (1946-1964)

Interestingly...all generations can benefit from leadership coaching in the workforce!

YOU Hold The Pivotal Role

YES, YOU hold the pivotal role! The first part of the coaching journey is to realize that all people leaders (that includes you) hold a pivotal role in influencing their team's performance. Your team motivation is dependent on the day-to-day actions and conversations you choose to undertake with your staff or the conversations you choose not to have. Many performance issues are not because of what a manager or leader has done; rather they are because of what they haven't said or done.

When we say "you hold the pivotal role", we mean there is no one else in your organization who has more impact on your team's performance, productivity and engagement than you do!