Creating a Coaching Culture

Many organisations are developing coaching cultures where leaders, using a range of leadership, coach their people to manage change and improve performance. The approach works best in organisations where senior leaders themselves have experienced the benefits of coaching understand its role in developing people and changing organisation culture. To ensure last outcomes, we adopt a systemic approach involving sponsorship from the top and involvement of one and two up managers in the programs.

We start from the premise that change is happening all the time in your organisation. Its medium is conversations. We draw on the analogy of the source of our DNA: the double helix to capture the dynamic processes by which information, ideas, stories and behaviour are created and enacted in organisations. The approach can be grouped under four re-occurring activities drawn from our own and others research: Need, Engage, Act, Review (NEAR). The focus throughout is on creating a coaching culture by supporting those leading the change/the conversations. The support takes many forms and including supporting people to listen fully to each other, to pause and to explore ideas. We don’t start by asking what’s wrong and how it might be fixed. We start by asking what people are passionate about and what they are good at doing. Our involvement reduces as internal capability builds.

Creating a coaching culture empowers and supports people critical to success, build a collective sense of purpose, increases the likelihood of positive outcomes by keeping focus on the purpose and accommodating adjustments.