When a manager is required to implement change, it will inevitably mean modifying the way people behave. As you have probably found from my previous posts about the organisational culture, behaviour is a reflection of culture. Therefore you must address the cultural influences. In brief, you need to be able to persuade staff to act and perhaps think differently.
The cultural change should start with the leaders, because if they are not open to change how do you persuade the rest of the workforce to adapt to it? However not all managers and leaders are able to inspire and change organisational culture. This is also because people are resentful and resist the change.
One of the things I think its true is that organisations have cultures. And those cultures develop moods and attitudes. They are also very distinct from one company to the next. A lot of that revolves around leaders. Leaders are very visible and they are the symbols about what the company is. Therefore if we want to do something about this, we start from leaders. It must start from the leaders and must be supported by them. We need to work with the leaders and work down to implement the process. This way people see the common purpose and work towards it.
Relationship - possibility - action
Part of what we will need to use in this approach is ontological analysis. And that is what leads us to the communication. We are talking here about the conversation about relationships, the possibilities and the actions. You must have the relationship in place to get the possibility, and if you have no possibility there is no actions to take.
A part of it is the idea of coaching. Coaching others to take the changes to the heart. Because in many cases when we look at making cultural change good coaching skills are important. We will explore below the relationship building in particular coaching and this article will mainly focus on developing our coaching skills.
Coaching
Part of what is a great skill for management of organisational change is coaching.
I have attended few professional coaching sessions recently, and would like to share with you some learning and points I have made.
We will explore what coaching is really about.
So, what is a coach? Someone who share knowledge to help others, good listener, a guide and encourages others. A mentor who support in the challenges. Often helping them to find their own solutions. All these different answers tell us is that most people aren't sure what the coach should be or not should be doing.
A coach is somebody who assist another person to achieve their goals. The coach is different than therapist (past issues and healing, looking backwards) and looking into the past too much is not coaching.
A coach is different than mentor (less structured and go-to person) and coaches do not give advise and are generally very structured.
A coach is different than consultant (expertise, advise, show how things to be done).
Coach facilitate in identifying goals, structuring actions in order to achieve them and helping to create strategies to empower others in the future. Coach can be a mentor, but they are different things, and sometimes giving advise can be very dangerous. Advise may sent people to take different carrier path that may not be right for the person.
We currently live in the times of uncertainly and a lot of people struggle with the changes which the society facing right now. Interestingly, the coaching industry is currently unregulated in much of the world. Many professionals call themselves coaches right now. It is difficult who is qualified or not if the industry is not regulated. It is confusing for coaches and the clients. Many people would like to be coaches, do it properly and effectively. And those, who do it properly can only succeed.
Coaching skills is not a quick fix. It is a thorough and deliberate learning which need to be effective. Only 1% of coaches is really successful in the industry. This means that most people will only get results from the 1% of coaches.
Today we will explore the 1% of great coaches and what they do to be successful and bring the change in people they set up as a goal.
There is 4 levels of competence: 1. Unconscious incompetence, 2. Conscious incompetence, 3. Conscious competence and 4. Unconscious competence. We want to get to the point when our competence and what we need to do is a 'second nature". We no longer have to think what we are doing and it brings the best results. And thats what the 1% of the greatest coaches achieved. They not longer think about what they need to say or do. It is no longer hard work for them and becomes effortless.
Coaching takes time and efforts and building habits and mentality to become an effective one. This can be done by learning legible skills to achieve that.
Let's see what the best coaches consider and work on to become most influential and able to make a difference.
Coaching skills
The coaching skills can be divided in the 3 different categories:
Personal development
Essential skills and,
Business Skills
These are the key areas. If we don't have the Personal development we basically self-sabotaging. If we don't have the Essential skills we won't be able to help others. And finally without Business skills you will not be able to persuade the leaders and achieve the change planned.
Personal development
Personal development is vital. Limiting believes leads to conflict and unuseful patterns of behaviour. We need to work on our limiting beliefs. Think about our limiting believes? What common limiting believes you and people have?
The most common limiting beliefs is "I don't have limiting beliefs."
Here we are talking about your confidence and be open to being able to be outside of your comfort zone. This is the place where we learn and talking about personal development. The truth is that we all have doubts and its a normal thing to feel. But to move forward, these insecurities have to be addressed. We can sit down and understand what we are not doing in terms of personal development to gain the confidence and remove the limiting believes. This is the first step to be empowered to achieve our goal.
Essential skills
Essential skills are those directly related to the area where change is required. When I started my quality journey, I did not know nothing about the industry. I have made and still make my mistakes, but consistency, experience and continuous learning allows me to develop the essential skills required to succeed with my job. We are moving here into the technical expertise which we truly need to take to our heart to move forward. So what are the technical skills of a good coach?
A coach is only ever as good as their coaching skills. You need to invest in the area to be successful. I must admit I am making my first steps to become a coach. The journey is interesting and when done properly, also exciting. This is because, we learn about ourselves, discover our strengths and focus on them. There is many great coaching seminars and programs available.
In coaching it is impotent to address individual person. Most people think that they are great coaches, but are they? Have they considered what people want, have they analyse what makes them "tick"? Have they though about the fundamental needs they have? Let's explore few most important essential skills listed by the best coaches:
1. Effective questioning and listening is the power of coaching. It is huge, and the number 1 in the coaching journey. If we know where issues and behaviours come from will be crucial. Here understanding the root cause is essential. Questions like: what, how, when, who? should be considered. First, we are not trying to solve the problem but analyse the problem. Often it would be allowing let the frustrations go and than ask questions to establish the root cause. It is not easy to give people solutions so we do not become the mentors, but asking questions to open up. Before we start working on the problem we really need to understand it in depth what is going on. We should be asking open questions and leading the people to discover how to move forward. This stage is about the understanding.In the context of change management the questioning and listening need to be done among different levels, from leaders to employees.
2. Building and maintaining rapport where trust-based relationship develop. Rapport is very important for coaching. Why? It encourages trust, help people to understand, respect each other and they are able to communicate well. If the person doesn't have the trust on you, they will not open up about the problem. This will hold you back in managing any changes going forward. This can be struggling and frustrating. You will have a difficult time if you are focusing too much on the goal and not on the problem itself. It is scientifically proven that people who think like us, talk like us are those who we want to open up to.
"Mirroring" is one of the tactics used to build rapport. Reflecting on their posture, gestures and voice qualities help to built the rapport. We don't want to copy everything. It need to be selected appropriate behaviour by reflecting their behaviour, and moving back to them. What is great about mirroring, is that we are in the position of purposeful leading. We can lead the person to mirror you and it is a natural thing to do. They may start adjusting their posture to mirror you and feel more empowered. The objective is to eventually lead the behaviour and attitudes.
3. Follow coaching structure. Establish clear goals, reality checks, realistic aims, explore and interventions, wind up. So many things have to happened before working on solutions. This is a typical GROW model within the coaching principles. Discover the Goal, describe the Reality, explore the Options and Wind Up. This structure has been proven to work for may coaches and become one of the most popular concepts within the industry.
Business skills
Business skills are those which will help you to link your efforts to the business strategy. These skills will generally be helpful when working and influencing the business leaders and get the "buy in". Additional knowledge about the business commercial, financial, sales, marketing, operational matters will help you to achieve your change. You must understand the business in its essence and what the leaders are trying to achieve. I must say, it took me a great amount of time to realise these skills are one of the most important. As a result of these I have decided to take studies on Business Management. These include learning and understanding of business as a whole and it has been a great adventure so far. I am looking forward to explore on what drives the businesses decisions, and how much my actions fit into the wider organisational context. Most of the leaders will be looking at finding out "what is there for them" when you trying to make change. Understanding the business itself and how it operates, what are the strategic objectives, how things are "done around here" will be an inevitable part of you change making process.
But next to understanding the business implications of your actions, you also need to look at yourself as a "business" itself. Lets see how this can be done.
Brand yourself.
Branding yourself is also a business skills. Branding and marketing yourself is a missing piece for so many people. Generally, because they are unskilled in the area. They want to coach and help, but they cannot market themselves correctly. An easy answer to this, would be to be authentic and consistent with it.
We can also try to answer the question: why should I have my personal brand? Because it defines what you offer and differentiate you from others. It can also build trust if presented correctly. As with other things, it takes time to develop one for yourself. Especially if you have been working in one place for a long time and others know you already. But with your quality activities and consistent efforts we can built our brand.
You image is also important. With your actions and words you tell others what you are about. You want to present yourself with the most positive outlook. A lot of people falling into a trap of playing it safe. but sometimes its worth to take a risk and show what you are really about. This can be a creating, fulfilling and strategic experience to help you with your change efforts.
Sometimes paying it safe is the riskiest strategy of all
When talking about brand you need to understand who are you? What is you identity? Why are you here, and what can you bring to the table? Try to demonstrate clearly what are you about and what you stand for. This will bring others feelings and judgement about you.
You will also need to think about the question how people feel about you. Are your values aligned with the values people you want to persuade to make necessary changes? You can see how this questions link to the overall strategy of achieving the change. Often people's decisions about you come from the feeling. Your social mission is important to determine. Think about what do you support, what are your values, integrity and contributions.
With change efforts, it is also important to determine the group of people who the change will involve the most. Here, try to find out what they are looking for, what their struggles are and how can you help them.
Market your message.
You need to think what is your message. A lot of people will be interested in you but you need to ensure they also engage in you. If you have a great idea its not always enough. You need to market it out there. You might think about opening up yourself here as well. Think about what is your mission and your values. Being intentional here is vital. What are the few big words describing your mission? Its more about what are you doing and what kind of change you want to bring.
There are pros and cons of a marketing. Some strategies may get you interest but not commitment. Think about how to use what you say to work for you. Think about which communication methods will work best to affect the people you want to influence.
There is a very interesting question: how much does it cost to speak to 1000 people individually? Your time is worth a lot of money. Apparently it takes approx £9 per person for a coach to talk to one person. Therefore you need to target your audience and use targeted message to ensure you make the most of your time. It could be that different groups will require different message, depend on their goals and needs. Those should however contribute to the main objective of achieving the overall change.
In summary, good coaching is a set of skills. A lot of people talk about coaching but only a small percentage truly understand what coaching is about. It requires looking into your own believes, personal development, your message and investing into the analysis of the current situation and helping others to see the benefits.
There is no quick fixes and it requires certain skills to be successful.
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