Simon North, a co-founder of the One Life Partnership, looks at coaching as organisations wrestle with the challenges of recession.

Many organisations will be debating the fundamental/
discretionary dichotomy during 2009 as the recession bites and key profit related decisions are taken. This article sets out the case for coaching being treated as fundamental for organisations – in recessions as well as boom times.

Coaching as a Discretionary Purchase

Coaching is relatively new. Learning options for leaders have opened up in recent years and include courses/programmes or academic pursuits in business school environments. Those who have tasted coaching have tended to like it as a process and to find it useful. For the buyers (generalist HR managers or specialists in Learning or Talent), it has not been easy to judge the cost and benefits based on the diverse coaching approaches available and the difficulty of measuring coaching consistently.

The coaching process tends to be based on strong personal bonding between the coach and the coachee. The definitions and the language used are not yet clear and not well understood. It is not totally clear, for instance, who it is benefitting – the individual and/or the organisation, and to what degree.

The coaching industry nationally and internationally is gearing up. There are multiple providers of coaching working in a fragmented market who are supported by multiple professional associations and accreditation processes. Getting to grips with how to value coaching is not easy if you are trying to judge whether to invest in the coaching process.

Return on Investment

Training budgets in the 1960s and 1970s were spent mainly on management development programmes. Most involved in these programmes reflect today on what the RoI was then – probably most of the return was in the form of some unmeasured cultural and corporate bonding. It was difficult to measure RoI then and it is similarly difficult to measure the RoI on coaching now.

Coaching works at the level of values, beliefs and behaviours. Getting clarity at that level will drive how the coachee chooses to behave and the type of activities they choose to focus their time upon. The results will come. They may not be immediate, particularly if there are big shifts to be made, but they will come. When they do they will be significant for the individual and for the organisation.

Return on investment measurement processes need to be developed in the context of the time it takes to achieve fundamental change and the fact that coaching is helping to shift soft issues (like values) before harder issues get addressed.

Fundamentals for Human Beings

In work, as in life, we all have the right to be heard; really heard. Then we can be respected as a person. We also need the space to do our best stuff, to be able to think and to be creative. An active adult-to-adult partnership which is supportive, challenging and empowering is required. Then it is possible that a human being can be respected and valued as they are and as they wish to be.

These are fundamentals for all of us. We could argue that it is a manager’s job to enable this but the manager needs the skills and doesn’t necessarily have the wherewithal to achieve this. Given these conditions, however, it is possible to enhance everyone’s ability to do their stuff well.

The fundamentals for people in organisations as described above are similarly critical. They are fundamental for organisations to be better tomorrow than today; to continue to be fit and healthy. These are fundamental issues to organisations at any time.

A Business Case for Coaching

Demographic analysis in recent years has pointed to what we know as the war for talent – a war that has yet to really hot up. Individual workers increasingly have choices about where they work and what they do. Whilst this issue may become hidden during this current recession, it will become a large issue as we come out of it. The really critical war will be for leaders, both current leaders and emergent. They really will have choice.

As organisations seek to retain their best employees and, in due course, find new recruits what is going to be most important? Values are likely to be the most important issue to these individuals. These are the key elements that are important to individual workers:

• Treating me with respect. A roll up of all the issues that have dominated the workplace for a generation now – like equality and diversity - extended into a requirement to support me in a tough working environment
• Respecting my ability to do things my way. You pay me to think so let me work out the optimal way to achieve within the bounds of the organisation’s culture and the law
• Respecting my need for a flexible world. Let me be judged on what I do and not when you see me – presenteeism may conflict with other facets of my life which are important to me
• Respecting my need for technology to enable me and not restrain me. We have technology and I grew up with it. It makes me more efficient and effective if used appropriately and I can have it with me 24/7 if necessary
• Respecting our world – the green agenda, local community issues etc. These issues are reflected by any organisation that employs me in branding, in products, in supply chain, in customer service and in employee activities. I will see inconsistencies if they exist

Recent History

Coaching that has been carried out in recent years has tended to be individually focused - for the benefit of the individual primarily. Coaching has not always entered the space of benefiting the team and the organisation as well. This relationship between individual, team and organisation was a central component in the Investor in People standard and took some time to be understood and applied.

Some coaches have learned and continue to practice a pure approach to coaching. Some have trained in these skills but have not been able to apply them. Clients have tended to manoeuvre their coaching towards mentoring – usually with the coachee asking to be heard and then being interested in the coaches’ views. Whilst this can be useful, it is mentoring and not coaching. Nothing is as powerful as the non directive approach to coaching for the individual.

The difference is mainly to do with who is doing the thinking. Where the individual is given the chance to be resourceful and creative, they will be able to find their own path. The benefit to the team and the organisation is higher as a result.

The Fundamental Case for Coaching

Coaching in its purest form is a fantastic process for the person being coached. To be respected in the way it is described above is unusual and unforgettable. If organisations can provide support to the individual as well, it is an unbelievable and memorable mixture for the individual worker.

To be able to focus time and one’s brainpower with someone that understands your world and who has great skill as a coach is basic and is a fundamental in life.

The One Life Partnership is an international coaching organisation formed in late 2008 by a group of coaches and business professionals. Using a specific and rigorous approach and attitude to coaching it works with organisations and talented individuals around the world. Their expertise focuses on providing individuals and teams with coaching that has high impact both personally and organisationally. Further details can be found at www.onelifepartnership.org

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