How to Develop a Coaching Strategy

10 Questions to ask yourself when developing a Coaching Strategy

Organisational Coaching Hub (OCH) has worked with multiple organisations to support them in thinking about and implementing strategies for coaching, including developing coaching cultures. Here we list 10 questions we believe are important to consider when thinking about your coaching strategy.

1. Do We Need a Coaching Strategy or a Coaching Culture?

Peter Druker famously said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast” meaning that whatever your strategy is, if it doesn’t change or align with your culture, the organisational culture will undermine the strategy. So when developing a coaching strategy, it’s important to consider both the existing culture and how strategy might shape it.

But a culture of coaching isn’t the same as a coaching culture. Putting processes and coaches in place doesn’t necessarily achieve what you really want from a coaching strategy.

2. Do We Know the Problem the Coaching Strategy is Trying to Solve?  

The worst types of solutions are those that don’t understand the problems. Common problems that organisations experience are: 

• Hierarchies of power where seniors believe they have the answers
• High potential people whose ideas aren’t heard
• Managers leading people who do jobs they themselves have never done
• Slow decision making through constant escalation to seniors, many of whom don’t really understand the issues. 

Coaching is increasingly being turned to as a solution to these problems because good coaching:

• Creates greater awareness around problems in order to generate new possibilities
• Is people focused, helping them to help themselves 
• Stimulates collaboration – where two heads are better than one
• Stimulates creative ideas, releasing potential in people

3. Does Everyone Need a Coach? 

Many coaches will tell you that everyone needs a coach – spot the conflict of interest? At OCH we believe, first and foremost, that everyone deserves to be led well. This may or may not include a coach. But we do see coaching as a key leadership skill for all managers to employ – when appropriate. Leading well means knowing your people, attending to them and caring for them. Don’t be tempted to “outsource” this vital element of leadership to someone else.  

It’s useful to consider different types of coaching for different needs within the organisation. Leaders trained in coaching skills can meet the day-to-day coaching needs of their people by informally using those skills in regular conversations and meetings. 

But there also needs to be space to step back and reflect more deeply, with the freedom and safety to think differently. This is where formal coaching sessions are especially valuable. Working with a coach who sits outside the reporting line, allows individuals to explore personal and sensitive topics, supporting growth in new ways of thinking, believing and acting. 

The ICF suggest coaching cultures are formed from several layers:

1. Managers using coaching skills in daily meetings
2. Internal coaches, outside the reporting line, providing coaching across a broad area
3. External coaches providing coaching for critical and senior roles

4. Should We Expect All Managers to be Coaches? 

It is right to question if you want managers to be coaches or not. But there is a lot riding on this question. Managers with good coaching skills bring out the best in their people. They listen, empower, and support. They lead better. But if they start to identify as coaches more than managers, they become more independent, perhaps even losing touch with the work of their team. 

How you develop your managers in coaching skills is important because it forms a sense of identity. Who are they becoming? Is it a better leader? Or a better coach? 

At OCH we ensure we provide accredited development programmes that support that identification – we partner with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) to develop coaches and the Institute of Leadership (IoL) to develop managers. 

For us, it’s all about our purpose – everyone deserves to be led well. But who coaches the leaders?  

5. Do We Have Enough Internal Coaches? 

The role for internal coaches is to provide coaching outside of line management that is more responsive to individual and organisational needs. Internal coaches should be trained at a higher level than managers so they model good coaching practice in the organisation. If everyone is trained to the same level, no-one knows who holds the standard, and it can be quickly eroded.

Having enough internal coaches is somewhat dependent on how many external coaches you have. External coaches can offer credibility and independence, but come at a cost. And do you want an external coach for all coaching requirements? Having a team of internal coaches, can provide a responsive offer from people with strong knowledge of the business. When starting out, they can be managers who also do coaching for others in their organisation. But when coaching is established, having a team of dedicated internal coaches provides an agile force multiplier to an organisation.

For both internal and external coaches, having a certain level of coaching expertise is important. But what level?   

6. Should We Expect a Certain Level of Coaching Expertise?

Not everyone can call themselves a doctor, but anyone can call themselves a coach! So how do you know the level of coaching expertise you’re getting? Experience, qualifications and credentials are key:

• Experience.  Experience is probably the most important factor. Experienced coaches bring both depth and breadth, enabling them  to work effectively with a range of people and contexts. While it can be tempting to choose someone familiar with your organisation or industry, it’s often the very separation from that context that makes coaching effective – the power of coaching lies in NOT knowing. However, be cautious of consultants who describe what they do as coaching; it may not be, which is why a recognised coaching qualification matters.
  
• Qualifications. An internal or external coach should have a recognised coaching qualification and it helps to understand if the accrediting body is either a coaching or management body. For instance, coaching bodies include ICF, EMCC, AC and APECS. Management bodies include ILM, CMI and IoL. The accreditation says a lot about the identity of the holder. Coaches learn to coach, whilst managers learn to manage. But having a qualification is only as good as the moment you gained it. This is where credentials come in.
  
• Credentials. Being a member of a professional coaching body means holding a recognised credential. This binds coaches to the organisation’s standards and ethical practices for as long as the membership remains active. It offers a much stronger guarantee of coaching quality because such professional standards are policed. We recommend you only work with external coaches who hold a credential.

7. Is Team Coaching Required? 

Team coaching is the fastest growth area of coaching. We have written previous blogs about its importance as a way of reaching more people with coaching. 

Sometimes, focusing on one person isn’t where the true potential for coaching lies. Team coaching provides the opportunity to work between people, between relationships within teams and even between teams within organisations. Expanding the “boundaries” of coaching from 1:1 to the team level enables more complex issues to be explored and tackled. It’s especially valuable when the underlying need is unclear or not linked to any one individual. A team coach is likely to work through a discovery phase to identify the need and then a development phase to support the team to make headway.

8. Are There Ethical Issues Which We Must Consider? 

Yes! The following topics are not exhaustive, but provide some areas to think about. 

• Line managers and direct reports coached by the same person can erode boundaries around confidentiality and, therefore, trust.
• When line managers coach their direct reports, it reduces the freedom to explore issues that involve the manager themselves.
• Line managers of a coachee can’t ask a coach to disclose confidential information discussed within a coaching conversation. 
• Coaches can’t promise absolute confidentiality – if issues of safety and legality arise within a coaching conversation, they may need to be taken to the other people affected.
• Confidentiality, relationships, and many other topics often surface unexpectedly in coaching conversations.  Anyone providing formal coaching should have a supervisor – an experienced coach who offers guidance, support and ongoing development. Supervision helps ensure the coach can respond appropriately to unusual or unexpected issues that may arise, whether within the coaching itself or from the wider organisational context. 

9. Am I Ready to Convince the Leadership Team That This is Strategically Vital?

A coaching strategy needs the support of the leadership team. This isn’t just because they will need to “sign it off”, but because as managers, they will role model what leadership looks like in the organisation. This is lesson 1 where culture trumps strategy. If the leaders aren’t seen to develop and use coaching skills, then it undermines any other initiative.

If the leadership team is inexperienced in coaching it can be helpful to create a steering group to add weight to the ideas and plans. Choose the directors interested in coaching, plus others in the organisation who have some experience and passion for coaching. A group of 4-6 keen people can make all the difference to bring about some good, solid thinking and plans, and win over enough people to make a difference.

Don’t try everything, everywhere, all at once. It can be tempting to treat a coaching strategy as a series of tasks – like some other strategies – with a “go-live” date. But coaching is a relational process – it’s all about people – which means taking careful, deliberate steps that make more progress in the long run.

Are you ready to sell (and measure) the benefits?

Don’t think this is easy because coaching is likely to:

• Expose more problems (which were previously hidden)
• Slow decisions down (especially if line managers previously made all the decisions on their own)
• Get more things sorted sooner (rather than being escalated)
• Make managers question their role (as they no longer hold all the answers)
• Bring out more potential in people (who then need opportunities to realise this potential)
• Improve retention (as people feel more committed to the work they have more say in)

You can see from this list that some managers will struggle to move on from their love of being in control.  Be ready for this – urge them to do all the bigger picture things that currently aren’t being done! 

At the heart of any coaching strategy has to be a willingness by the leadership team to empower their people, to let go of control, and create the conditions for others to make and take decisions. 

10. Are We Ready to Start a Coaching Strategy?

When you have the backing of the leadership team, you’ll start to implement the strategy as outlined in your document. But are you really ready?

This is where a steering group can provide much needed support. And where internal coaches can start to demonstrate the behaviours and impact of coaching internally.

Implementing a strategy for coaching may feel like you are the one driving it. But when you create a coaching culture, it becomes self-sustaining. The benefits are felt by managers, staff, and leaders, so the whole organisation goes up a gear in expectations, power and performance.

If you want to discuss and improve your coaching strategy, please get in touch with us.