Rambutan newsletter – Which coaching culture? – Oct 2014

At Rambutan we passionately believe coaching dramatically improves the performance of people and a coaching culture improves the
bottom line figures of most, if not all, organisations. What’s brilliant is this view is shared by many business leaders and this has
given us vast experience in developing coaching cultures for our clients.

The first step though, is to clarify the type of coaching culture they want, because from our experience ‘coaching culture’ means different
things to different people. Let me explain…

Coaching culture using super-coaches

The aim here is to have a number of ‘super-coaches’ available within the organisation who are able to coach others. The way we’ve
done this for some organisations is to help them to identify potential super-coaches before training these people to give them the skills
to become an ‘uber-super-coach’. The key here is to ensure by the end of the training the individuals are competent, confident and
looking forward to helping others through coaching. After all, when they’re coaching, they’ll be working on their own; there’s no buddy
to call on, so they need to trust and believe in themselves.

At one organisation we worked with, a super-cool coaching portal was set up on their intranet which contained the details of all the
trained super-coaches. This was then marketed internally as ‘the best thing to ever happen to the organisation’. All employees were then
encouraged to use this resource when they needed coaching. Over time, the pool of super-coaches grew and many of the leaders were
being coached by junior staff. Indeed, at one point the managing director was being coached by a PA.

In this type of coaching culture it’s vital the coach keeps to the role of pure coach. They never dip into the role of mentor or trainer,
they’re always the coach and that’s why they can transcend organisational hierarchy. Craig’s https://eta-i.org/valium.html superb top tips explain how these
‘super-coaches’ bring coaching to life!

Coaching culture using a coaching style

For some managers and leaders it’s very tempting to provide answers or solutions to issues that team members face. However, the
dangers of this are that colleagues stop thinking for themselves and personal development stalls. In these situations the manager or
leader often finds they’re managing at the wrong level.

One way to prevent this is to adopt a coaching style. Here the manager or leader uses coaching questions to help others find ways to
overcome the issues they’re facing. The benefits for the colleagues are enormous because they figure out their own solutions to issues,
try new ways of working and grow as individuals.

To achieve this culture we work with the managers and leaders directly to help them develop their coaching style and to recognise
when to, and when to not, use it. In this culture the manager or leader will play different roles depending on the situation. For example,
they may need to be a mentor, a trainer, a leader, or a manager rather than remaining as a pure coach. The key is knowing which role
is called for.

Which would best suit you?

Although these two coaching cultures differ from each other, they’re not mutually exclusive and maybe a combination of the two would suit
your organisation. If, like us, you believe coaching dramatically improves individuals and bottom line performance, then right now could
be a good opportunity to review how successful your coaching culture is. If you’d like any help, just give us a shout on +44 (0) 1858 461 071.