Why a Coaching Culture?
“‘Would you tell me which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ say the wise cat.
‘I don’t much care where,’ say Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which may you go,’ said the cat.”
- Lewis Caroll, Through the Looking Glass
Many times, we see organizations initiating multiple culture-shaping projects with the intention of shifting the people and culture to the highest level of performance and productivity. However, they may be choosing to develop a coaching culture just because their rivals are developing their coaching culture as well, or the coaching culture is a prioritized trend that an organization shouldn’t miss. With this mentality, the “change strategy” will likely fail because of their inability to determine their purpose and objective. This is because they simply don’t care where they are heading.
An organization’s purpose should go beyond profit. Seventy-nine percent of business leaders surveyed by PWC believe that an organization’s purpose is central to a business’s success, and millennials who have a strong connection to the purpose of their organization are 5.3 times more likely to stay. So, it’s worthwhile to find out more compelling reasons of why building a coaching culture is important.
Before you begin your discovery in coaching culture, you should ask yourself these questions:
1. Why a coaching culture? Why not other cultures? Why not high-performance culture, D&I culture? Learning Culture? Creative and Innovation culture?
2. How do you define coaching culture?
3. What do you want to get the most out of the coaching culture for your organization?
4. How can a coaching culture impact your organization’s performance?
To have a Strong Purpose
As a professional coach, coaching a client with the mindset of having a purpose and objective is the utmost important agenda in my coaching conversation. Having a strong purpose is not about achieving the goals or pursuing profit; it is about aligning your organizational purpose with the company goal. The purpose and objective are centered around you. As you decide to build a coaching culture in your organization, having this purpose in your mind will help you, especially when you’re rolling out a tactical plan and communication strategy. The audiences (employees) will be convinced by your genuine purpose.
Having said that, not all companies want to build a coaching culture because of many reasons. Some of the reasons could be:
1. A company expects 100 percent order-follow, with less room for deeper discussion. They see “fast and efficient” as the keys to success.
2. A company director who prefers a top-down approach, expecting the company to follow his direction 100 percent and ensuring they are up to speed with execution.
3. A manufacturing-based company that thinks coaching doesn’t apply to their day-to-day routine job.
4. A boss who believes employees need to go through hardship with absolute followership.
5. Coaching is perceived as a slow communication style that doesn’t work in today’s fast-paced business environment.
It’s all right if the company doesn’t invest in creating a coaching culture. Maybe they don’t see the value of coaching YET, or they think this is not a good time yet for coaching culture.
What will be the biggest benefit gained from a coaching culture?
You or your organization may want to build a
1. Fun-filled and high-empowerment culture that attracts a young workforce
2. A culture that focuses on creativity and innovative breakthroughs
3. Work-life integrating culture that empowers employees to take charge of their work and life
4. Development-focused organization that builds tomorrow’s leaders
5. High performance-driven organization
