Coaching Tool

Tool Date : 28/02/2006

Coaches can provide employees with a new perspective on their workplace problems and ideas. Taking time to help others work through problems, discuss relationships and tasks, and follow up on performance, has been shown to improve leadership more than any other training method.

Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, once said: "In the future, people who are not coaches will not be promoted. Managers who are coaches will be the norm."

Pre-coaching analysis

What does it take to make a great coach? A review of current literature suggests the following personal qualities are a prerequisite to being an effective coach.

Personal Qualities of an effective coach:

• People person—being relaxed with others, friendly and interested in others.
• Empathetic and respectful—understanding and open-minded to other people’s ideas and views.
• Collaborative—good at building rapport and maintaining relationships.
• Willing—enthusiastic and supportive of others and their needs.
• Self-managed—responsible and able to manage their own life without negatively impacting others.
• Effective communicator—able to ask relevant questions, guide the interaction to an outcome, and to listen at both a cognitive an emotional level to the coachee.

Additionally, prior to coaching a coach needs to

• Have clear and observable criteria for assessing results and outcomes—due to the very nature of exploring the unknown, results of coaching can be subjective. An effective coach will explore early in the process what success criteria both the coachee and coach will use to assess the effectiveness of the coaching intervention.
• Be clear about the limits of his/her competency—self-aware of his/her own limitations of being able to assist the coachee on both a cognitive, emotional and behavioural level. The coach does not need to be an “expert” in the subject matter of the coaching but needs to know the questions to ask and how far to pursue the interaction with the coachee.
• Represent the possibility of the coachee accomplishing breakthroughs—When a coach can no longer be responsible for this possibility, he/she needs to withdraw from the coaching relationship.

Post-coaching analysis

Good coaches recognise the need to reflect and review coaching interactions. Assessment is a critical aspect of the coaching relationship. Without assessment, both the coach and coachee can wander aimlessly – assessment helps to keep the coaching process on track and save valuable time

The following questions can serve as a self-assessment guide to coaches following a one-on-one session with a coachee.

• How prepared was I for this session?
• How did I build rapport?
• How did I show that I was interested?
• How appropriate were the techniques I used in this interaction?
• How did I listen for the underlying emotions?
• How well did I show empathy?
• How well did I remain objective?
• How well did I structure my questions?
• How patient was I?
• What specifically did the coachee gain from this interaction?
• What progress did the coachee make?
• In our next coaching interaction I would change ….