Category Archives: Business Coaching

Business Coaching, Business Leaders, L&D, Leadership, News

Mind Tools creates Product Advisory Panel with sector experts to support leadership and management skills development

Mind Tools, the market-leading expert provider of leadership and management skills development to drive exceptional workplace performance, announced today the creation and appointment of their new Product Advisory Panel. 

The Product Advisory Panel has been established to provide strategic input and expert advice on the development and refinement of Mind Tools’ leadership and management skills development products. It will also advise on and contribute to Mind Tools’ thought leadership and contribute to our market leading content.

The Mind Tools Product Advisory Panel consists of a diverse mix of senior practitioners, influencers, and academics with expertise in leadership, management, and learning and development (L&D) content and technologies:

  • Donald H Taylor, Lead Researcher, L&D Global Sentiment Survey
  • Dr Markus Bernhardt, AI Strategist & Board Advisor
  • Joan Keevill, Director of Designs on Learning Ltd and Leadership Coach, Henley Business School
  • Julie Dirksen, Learning Strategy, Design Consultant Author
  • Samantha Burridge, Samantha Burridge, Board Director and Advisor, leadership coach and content specialist
  • Jason Zeman, Director, Strategic Enablement Leader (Talent/L&D, Deloitte Audit & Assurance)
  • Dr Nigel Paine, Author, Learning Culture – Learning NowTV 
  • Michelle Ockers, Chief Learning Strategist, Learning Uncut
  • Shabnam Shahani, CEO of Mind Tools explained the rationale behind the creation of the Product Advisory Panel:

A spokesman said:

“We are delighted to have such an esteemed group of experts on board.

“Mind Tools has embarked on a transformational product strategy that seeks to address the unmet challenges in modern leadership and management skills development by offering compelling learning experiences including capability diagnosis, accelerated development, on-going support, targeted coaching and consultancy services.

“Their expert insights and critique will help us continue our tradition of evidence-informed product development and thought leadership while bringing fresh, external perspectives that challenge and strengthen our offerings.” 

The Panel will be chaired by Mind Tools Chief Product Officer, Owen Ferguson, who said:

“The workplace is transforming faster than ever, and we’re committed to keeping our leadership development products at the cutting edge. By bringing together these experts, we’re ensuring our solutions remain innovative, relevant, and effective for both current and future leaders.”

Business Coaching, Coaching and Mentoring, News

How does your business know that its coaching and mentoring investment is fit for purpose?

Written by Diane Newell, Managing Director, OCM Discovery  at The OCM Group

Coaching and mentoring can be powerful tools for developing a strong leadership culture and fostering personal and professional growth, in service of business success.

Organisations, large and small, have seen their use of coaching, especially external coaching and mentoring, grow exponentially over the last five years or so. Investment in coaching and mentoring is an increasing part of many organisation’s HR, L&D or Talent budgets.

The potential for coaching and mentoring is well supported by studies that confirm their power in making learning opportunities count, building engagement and nurturing diverse talent.

A Berson & Associate study found managers with coaching skills increased business performance by 130%. Another study showed 80% of employees reporting higher performance at work, higher productivity, improved communication, and improved well-being[i].

 

Historically, organisations have often turned to coaching and mentoring as a reactive or opportunistic solution when facing business challenges like under performance, organisational change, or M&A. It is effective in meeting situational or short-term needs but can mean the organisation’s strategic goals and objectives for coaching and mentoring investment haven’t been properly thought through.  This makes it difficult for HR leaders to assess the full value and ROI of the coaching.

 

How will they know, for example, that their investment in coaching and mentoring is fit for purpose? Is it maximising benefits with the right mix of initiatives for their organisation? Is it making the most of the resources they have, in line with the organisation’s overarching strategy and priorities?

These are all questions that need to be answered to ensure every drop of investment counts at a time when many organisations are facing financial pressures.

 

Barriers to overcome

Understanding coaching and mentoring investment can feel like a job for the ‘too hard’ pile. It can be a real challenge to find and bring together the data on where investment is being made, so that you can get an overview of the whole process and an understanding of the opportunities for greater return. There can also be barriers to getting a focus on and coalition for change around coaching and mentoring.

In some organisations the biggest hurdle is a structural issue – there simply isn’t anyone with overall accountability for coaching and mentoring, nowhere to hold responsibility or gather information.

In other organisations, it is cultural: leaders wanting to ‘own’ their own investment in coaching may resist what they see as ‘interference’ from HR or L&D functions.

 

Also, barriers can be created by a more general absence of strategic linkage between HR, talent or L&D investment and strategic purpose and goals – which means that there’s no ‘organisational energy’ for the issue.

But whatever the barriers, building a coaching and mentoring strategy with policies and resources that deliver against the organisation’s purpose and priorities is one of the most powerful contributions to organisational agility and adaptability HR can make to the business.

It’s akin to increasing the talent bandwidth; change and adaptation flow faster allowing much more to be done by more people simultaneously, which ultimately drives organisational success.

 

A checklist for success

Because it can be hard to know where to start with this, it’s useful to have a simple checklist to work against as you think about how to ensure your investment in coaching and mentoring is effective and fit for purpose.

  1. Set clear objectives – establish the desired changes in behaviour, impact and culture that would deliver greater success and ensure coaching and mentoring initiatives match. Clarity of purpose is essential both for effective programme design and for learning or evaluation.
  2. Align with organisational goals – clarify the purpose of coaching and mentoring and ensure it is aligned with organisational goals. The desired changes in behaviour, impact and culture of the workforce must deliver against the strategic goals, purpose and values of your organisation.
  3. Review individual coaching contracts – individual coaching contracts or programmes need clear intent.  Some of that intent will be individual or contextual but it must align with the purpose of coaching and mentoring at an organisational level.
  4. Track investment – it’s vital to know how much is being invested in coaching and mentoring across the organisation, on who and why. Ensure someone has responsibility for this and it can be easily accessed at any time.
  5. Acquire insight through data – you can’t learn from what you don’t review. Collate data on the impact of coaching and mentoring by measuring the changes in behaviour, impact and culture against those that the organisation seeks.
  6. Ensure full transparency – have a clear policy that is transparent across the organisation to explain where and who you make coaching and mentoring investment in, and why.
  7. Check inclusivity – understand whether any groups are disadvantaged in terms of access, and whether disadvantaged or under-represented groups are receiving the coaching and mentoring support that meets their needs.
  8. Establish professional standards – standards drive impact through good practice but also ensure boundaries are set safely and risk is well managed. Coaching and mentoring standards and processes need to be consistent with professional and ethical practice, and all your coaches and mentors, internal and external, must be held accountable for doing so.

 

[i] https://www.td.org/insights/why-you-need-a-coaching-culture

Business Advice, Business Coaching, Coaching and Mentoring

The Five Ps of Strategic Coaching could be transformative for businesses

Written by Amanda Hobbins and Jenny Whitfield, Consultant Coach-Mentors for The OCM

Businesses are always looking for ways to drive meaningful change, enhance performance and achieve lasting growth. One way businesses can achieve this, is by turning to professional coaching to help them overcome challenges and achieve their long-term goals. The OCM, a leading professional coaching firm, has developed a comprehensive guide to strategic coaching based on five P’s that could prove transformative for any business.

Purpose:

The first stage to consider is Purpose, the driving force behind every action. This is by far the most important stage. Having a clearly defined purpose enables organisations to set a benchmark for measuring outcomes and it ensures alignment with strategic goals at both organisational and individual levels. Considering the strategic goals is vital for understanding how coaching will achieve them. The clearer the purpose, the better the level of success.

Partnership:

Selecting the right coaching partner is essential. It is more than a mere transaction; it is about forming a close strategic alliance and collaborating throughout the programme.

Organisations can sometimes feel that once a coach or coaches have been chosen that should be the end of their involvement. But it is just the start. A true partnership, with continuous communication and feedback from both parties, makes the difference between a good coaching engagement, and a transformative approach that has organisational impact.

Planning:

Effective planning is the backbone of any successful coaching programme. By integrating regular review points and organisational context, businesses ensure that the coaching efforts remain on course, driving towards the objectives.

Patterns:

Creating consistency and insight is vital. Establishing a common model for coaching conversations creates shared understanding and direction. Identifying recurring themes, patterns and insights from the coaching sessions allows organisations to understand invaluable lessons that inform future strategies.

People

Finally, organisations need to select their coaching partner and coaches carefully and say no if they do not feel like the right fit. Often this will come down to gut instinct, but if something does not feel right at the beginning, it is unlikely to change, and this can hamper the results. Reputable coaching providers will conduct a rigorous interview process between client and coaches before finding those who are the right fit for the engagement.

It is also worth pointing out that organisations should make sure they are coaching the right people. Coaching is an investment in their people, so choosing the ones who will benefit most and create the greatest transformation for the organisation is just as important as selecting the right coaches.

Putting the Five Ps into practice at Henry Boot PLC

Henry Boot PLC, with over a century of expertise in land, property, and development, embraced the five P’s approach to strategic coaching to accelerate leadership development and drive cultural change.

Integrating one-to-one coaching with their leadership development programme, the company witnessed significant transformation. Over a five-year period, a team of 27 skilled coaches worked with over 70 leaders in the organisation.

The programme has been an enormous success and is credited by the organisation as enabling cultural change that would not have happened without it. In addition, themes that emerged from the coaching programme have now informed and influenced the strategic goals for the organisation.

The success of Henry Boot PLC implementing the five P’s is testament to how a business can achieve its full potential by fully embracing the programme.

By working with an external coaching firm and putting the five P’s: Purpose, partnership, planning, patterns, and people at the forefront, businesses are able to focus, strategize and create a clear vision for improving their business performance and success.