WHILE COACHING has been hailed by many as a panacea for executives in need of development, one of the most common pitfalls, according to a global coaching institute, is that organisations believe coaching will solve all their problems
WHILE COACHING has been hailed by many as a panacea for executives in need of development, one of the most common pitfalls, according to a global coaching institute, is that organisations believe coaching will solve all their problems.
Rather than the ‘silver bullet’ to cure all ills, Ivy Ning, a Hong Kong based partner in the Institute of Executive Coaching, said coaching should be used with other measures that include infrastructure and systems changes as well as business culture development.
“Reshaping an organisation’s systems is an important element in successful cultural change,” she said.
“However, without a shift in the mindsets, attitudes, behaviours and performance measures of individuals, ultimately the organisation reverts back to its former status quo.”
Another common coaching pitfall was using a panel of individual coaching providers, which leads to a lack of quality control and consistency across the coaching intervention, she said.
Ning also said that many organisations often erroneously believe that ex CEOs or executives automatically assume they make good executive coaches.
“Doing something well doesn’t mean that you can coach it, at all. A good coach understands the environment the executive operates within and the process for exploring and engaging the potential of the executive.”
Ning said there were a number of steps in picking a good coach. Firstly, organisations should ask the potential coach about their qualifications and business experience, and then check out their credentials.
“Then, ask them for examples of their coaching assignments.”
The final step, according to Ning, is to assess the potential coach’s ability to clearly articulate their coaching process – in other words, how they would go about coaching you.
“When interviewing a coach, it’s important to pay attention to the coach’s language, coaching approach and preferably understand from their previous clients what area they are most effective in,” she said.
Ning’s final recommendation was that the executive conduct interviews with a few different coaches to provide them with an opportunity to sample the coaching style and approach of different coaches before making a decision.
