Coaching for all – not just for the higher-ups

A crowd of lego workers

Coaching is gaining in popularity, as more organisations recognise the benefits they can gain from improved employee performance through coaching.

However, it seems to me that there is still a perception that coaching is for ‘higher-ups’. The assumption is that coaching is expensive, both in terms of money and time.  So, the argument goes, investment in coaching to help develop people should be aimed at those where the results will have most impact, usually assumed to be those in senior positions.

I think we need to challenge some of those assumptions.  Let’s start with cost.

A ‘good’ coach is expensive

I talked to an HR person recently.  She gave me a lot of information about how her company worked with external coaches.  But without asking me any questions, she assumed that the company could not afford me as a coach for ‘ordinary’ employees.  She assumed that she’d have to pay £300 for an hour of coaching.  This fee was based on what her company was paying for the executive coaches, but also on other assumptions – that there were no coaches close by, that you’d have to hire someone from London, pay their expenses, bring them down to the company for half a day etc. 

It didn’t cross this HR person’s mind that they could invest in a whole course of coaching – say, 6 sessions, plus introductory session and evaluation session – for the same price.  Yet they had internal coaches who were doing just that for a similar cost.  And at that same company, they’d think nothing of signing off £300 to send someone to a training event or conference, regardless of level.  But although the employee might get a few hours of valuable ‘input’, it’s unlikely there’d be any follow-up to see if the investment in training had made any real difference to the employee or company. 

It has to be face-to-face

The assumption is that the coach or coachee has to travel to be at a coaching session in person.  But this takes time and has an opportunity cost – you could be working instead of travelling.  I’ve mentioned before that I do a lot of work online – training and coaching online via telephone and video calls.  This has significantly reduced the costs I need to charge to clients.  In addition, both parties can choose a comfortable environment for themselves.  Don’t get me wrong – coaching in person is the ideal solution for many. But many clients find a session can be just as effective online.

And not only does technology mean you don’t have to travel, it also opens up the range of coaches you have access to, meaning you can find one that suits your needs, rather than having one that’s conveniently close-by.

We have too many employees

Employees won’t need a coach all the time.  But it may be appropriate for specific times or challenges in their career, for example when:

  • you’ve been newly promoted
  • you are going through a transition or period of change
  • you are looking to develop skills and behaviours to get you to the next level or take you in a new direction

So let’s start challenging this idea that coaches are just for the C-suite and open it up to all.

Seeing the world of work from the comfort of home

About half of my work at the moment involves training and coaching in Business English.  My initial career was in teaching EFL, so this is something I’m familiar with and trained in, but technology has enabled me to do this now from the comfort of my own home and on a much wider scale.

The focus is on using English for business purposes.  Multinational companies are increasingly requiring their employees to work across borders and see that their employees need to communicate on a daily basis with colleagues and customers in other countries.  English is usually the common language, so companies are investing in raising the levels of English in their workforce. 

These employees are located around the world, and are working in a variety of companies, departments and specialisms.  I’ve got learners in sales, HR, IT, engineering, marketing, legal etc.  They are also at all levels in the hierarchy: directors, managers, and individual contributors.

man looking at computer and taking notes with pen and paper

The sessions are mainly one-to-one, with some in small groups. The classroom is ‘flipped’ and I’m not teaching the language as such – this means I get to use my facilitating, coaching and mentoring skills more.  Sessions often involve discussions and practise around current business topics, such as leadership and management skills, culture, engagement, AI, time management, stress and self-care, and so on, and learners get to discuss business issues while at the same time using and developing their English skills.

This makes for some fascinating conversations and a real insight into the current state of work around the world.  For example, one learner is a HR Director for a Chinese company that has been bought by an international company with headquarters in the Netherlands.  She now regularly visits the Netherlands and has weekly virtual meetings, in English, with the Senior Management team dotted around the world.

I have another learner in Germany, who not only has to manage his own team in Germany, but also has to coordinate a team in Pakistan and Taiwan.  We talk a lot about cross-cultural management!  It’s also interesting to see and contrast the Chinese employee in an American company (P&G) based in America, and the Chinese employee in an American firm (IBM) based in China.  I talked recently to an employee in the legal department of a Spanish company, which is in the process of setting up another company with colleagues in Ireland and the Netherlands, and the frustrations that was bringing her.

I’ve talked with a multitude of employees, some going through layoffs and cutbacks, one going into her first management role,  another who’s just decided to quit, another who’s got a side hustle and is about to go solo.  I’ve had learners taking sessions while in the car, in hotels on wi-fi, on mobile phones while walking, and today from an old folks’ home – basically anywhere and everywhere.

The world is shrinking.  Technology allows us to talk with people globally at little cost.  The only difficulty is the time-zone difference.  And despite the conversations about cultural differences, it’s surprising how similar and human the employee experiences are.

What do you think ‘coaching’ is?

As someone who has relatively recently trained in coaching and mentoring, I find myself launched into a new, unfamiliar and occasionally confusing coaching ‘world’ – a relatively young field itself, which is professionalising, growing and expanding.  I see there are masses of opportunities to learn and I’m keen to develop my skills further. 

One thing that’s on my radar for development is to find opportunities to observe or listen to demo coaching sessions.  I was incredibly lucky to catch the first demo sessions from WBECS last year – these were both inspiring and reassuring.  (You can watch Marcia Reynolds’ two live coaching demos and I wholeheartedly recommend them.)

So I was excited to find a new podcast today with a ‘live coaching demo’ from Whitney Johnson.  I’ve enjoyed listening to her speak about the ‘S’ curve on other podcasts, so I had high hopes.

A different view of ‘coaching’

What struck me immediately, though, was disappointment – “this isn’t coaching!”  After learning some background about the coachee, it’s surprising how quickly we get to the ‘coach’ giving advice.  For example, she asks a question about how the coachee’s clients are finding him.  When he struggles to answer, rather than allow him to perhaps realise that this is something that it would be useful for him to know, she tells him to “find out”.

She allows the coachee to talk for a while, then adds ‘her thoughts’, which include resources he should look up and things he should do.  She talks through the pros and cons of doing things, rather than allowing the coachee to voice these himself.  Interestingly, the coachee responds “I think it’s aligned with what I’ve been thinking” and “I feel a little bit of validation hearing you say that.”  …which makes me wonder why she took this ‘telling’ approach rather than first asking him “What are your thoughts?” or “What have you been doing about this so far?”

On occasions, she actually dictates to the coachee what he must do, based on what she (the coach) has said.  She dictates the goals, the timelines and gives him ‘homework’ based on what she’s decided.  She doesn’t ask the coachee what his elevator pitch is or could be; she dictates what she thinks his elevator pitch should be. 

Now I’m not saying this is wrong.  In fact, right up front the ‘coachee’ says:

“I’m really looking for any advice and expertise and making sure that I’m somewhat on the right path…somebody like you who’s been down the road that I’ve- I’m- where I’m currently at, I feel like you can maybe help me navigate or be a little bit more strategic in the things that I’m doing.”

And the coachee seems happy and says at the end “There’s a huge amount of value in talking to people who’ve been where you’re trying to go.” 

And that’s true…

But is this ‘coaching’?

But is this coaching?  Is this even mentoring?  This is more like ‘coach as expert’ – telling someone else what they should do based on what the ‘coach’ has achieved previously.

One of the core textbooks for new coaches is ‘Coaching for Performance’ by John Whitmore, who describes coaching like this:

“Coaching is unlocking people’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.”

This view means that the coach helps the coachee uncover their own answers.  They don’t tell.  Furthermore, John Whitmore goes on to say:

“coaching requires expertise in coaching, but not in the subject at hand…Good coaching, and good mentoring for that matter, can and should take a performer beyond the limitations of the coach or mentor’s own knowledge.”

So the coach doesn’t have to be an expert in the coachee’s field.  In fact, personally I have found prior experience can actually be a hindrance in some cases, as it can limit the coach’s own thinking.

Professor at blackboard teaching student

I’m not saying that there aren’t times where it’s right for the coach to share their thoughts and experience.  But there are a lot of people calling themselves ‘coach’ that aren’t ‘coaches’ by this definition.  They’re teachers, consultants, advisers, mentors.  Just think of ‘speech coach’, ‘singing coach’, ‘football coach’ and so on, who are basically teaching or telling.  (And I’m called a ‘coach’ when I give training in Business English, too.) The fact that Whitney Johnson is using terms like ‘student’ and ‘homework assignments’, tell me that this is the territory we’re in.

I know as an adult I’m fed up of being told to do things.  In fact, I’m likely to resistdoing them exactly because I’ve been told to do them by someone else.  Coaching, in John Whitmore’s eyes, is effective, because the coachee has thought through the issues and chosen the path they want to follow themselves.  The coach facilitates my thinking; they don’t make decisions for me.

And the really interesting thing for me with this podcast, is the fact that this wasn’t a one-off session.  They followed up a few months later so we got to see progress.  You can judge for yourself whether the coachee had really done the ‘homework’ that had been given to him.

So what do you think when you hear the term ‘coach’? It seems the term means different things in different contexts. So the message for me has been that if you’re looking for a ‘coach’, have a conversation up-front about what you expect ‘coaching’ to be.  Are you actually looking for a mentor or adviser?  Someone who’s been there, done it and had success? Someone who has the skills you want to get? Or do you want a thought partner?  Someone to support you to discover your own solutions and success? Each has its benefits. Just make sure both you and your ‘coach’ are both are on the same page.