Introduction

Three years ago, we had completed a pilot of a special coaching program with Seyfarth Shaw LLP, a major international law firm. We were collating the measurement data and found ourselves marveling at the incredible results. The ripple effect of the program went well beyond our expectations and those of the client. So why was it so successful?

We created an internal cadre of coaches beginning with a one-day coaching boot camp. These coaches were top partners in the firm who took a day away from their many clients and court cases to learn basic coaching skills. Armed with job aids, guidelines, sample scenarios (both written and video), and an expert coach to call on every month, each attorney took on two coachees for eight months. The following year, the program was geographically expanded and eight more coaches were trained. The third year, eight more coaches were trained, and we planned to add an additional format—team coaching—to the program in the future. By the third year, some of the coachees had become coaches, and the coaching mindset had spread throughout the firm.

How did we get the attention of high-level law firm partners? The legal profession is going through a transition. Law firms are struggling to address the beliefs of younger generations, including Millennials, and engagement is becoming a serious issue. Young attorneys are taking positions at law firms, staying long enough to make money to pay off their student loans, and then leaving for other legal-related jobs in government, associations, and universities. Based on our experience working with law firms, the traditional law firm culture—uneven work-life balance, structured approaches, limited collegiality—is no longer viable in today’s world. The managing partners of forward-thinking law firms are tackling this issue head-on.

So, how does a law firm create a more fluid atmosphere of engagement, provide more conversation and personal attention, identify long-term professionals earlier in their careers, give more personalized feedback, and help make associates feel appreciated and valued? And, in doing so, how do they increase the bottom line?

The coaching program we’ve described accomplished all this and more. The measurement data surfaced the following results: younger attorneys began bringing in clients earlier, the branding and public image of the firm became better because of an increase in publications, associates shared that they felt acknowledged and heard, and partners began giving more frequent and balanced feedback. Most important, everyone involved said they found themselves using the coaching skills in other parts of their lives, including how they interacted with clients. In one case, a client asked to only work with a “coaching” attorney because “the way he interacts with us is very energizing.”

What was responsible for this turnaround? The coaching solution essentially became the catalyst for a major organization development effort. The culture changed. The language and tools of coaching—dialogue, powerful questions, advocacy, inquiry, global listening, personal accountability, action plans, and outcome tracking—became common place in the hallways and behind closed doors. Confronting sensitive issues, recognizing the reasoning behind opinions and actions, and reaching higher levels of understanding helped in solving problems and attaining higher levels of performance. With junior attorneys becoming more productive and engaged, the entire firm experienced growth and leadership at every level. The hidden potential of the firm was released.

Once we saw the success at Seyfarth Shaw, we asked, “How can we help other organizations gain this advantage?” We began to duplicate and enhance this approach within other organizations. The results were equally positive. And from there, this book began to take shape.

Building a Coaching Culture

Our 2008 book, Organizational Coaching, continues to serve an important purpose as a handbook for learning and practicing more structured coaching within organizations. With our success with Seyfarth Shaw and the emphasis on a total systems approach toward coaching, we began to see that anyone in an organization could become a coach. When more and more people within an organization learn coaching skills, the culture of the entire organization begins to change, which positively affects daily behaviors and conversations, problem solving, strategic thinking, personal growth, action planning toward defined measures, and mutual support. The concept of people giving one another meaningful and actionable feedback becomes the norm and not something that only occurs during annual performance appraisals. Furthermore, sharing insights to improve performance becomes acceptable and expected at all levels—up, down, and across. All employees have permission to ask questions to further learning.

Why is this permission given and even expected? Because everyone has been trained to do so with integrity and a special set of skills that makes dialogue powerful. With appropriate training and role modeling, leaders, managers, and co-workers take on the tenets of coaching:

• They believe that everyone is talented and can perform at a higher level.

• They believe that it is their job to help themselves and others unlock potential.

• They focus on solutions and actions.

• They deliver honest feedback even when the message might be difficult to hear, and they do it with appropriate dialogue skills and care.

• They focus on each interaction and their listeners.

• They listen for what is being said and not said.

• They stay in the moment.

• They hold a vision of possibility for themselves and others.

• They support others in achieving visions and desired outcomes.

Think of the possibilities when everyone in an organization is working and interacting with this mindset. In his first edition of Masterful Coaching, executive coach and thought leader Robert Hargrove (1995, 16) defined coaching as, “Challenging and supporting people in achieving higher levels of performance while allowing them to bring out the best in themselves and those around them.” Additionally, colleagues and managers have all been trained to use conversation tools for transparent and supportive interactions. As a result, trust emerges. Employees, co-workers, bosses, and leaders begin to treat one another with respect and honesty, and not as objects. The continued practice of these skills begins to shape attitudes and behaviors and within two years, a culture can be transformed.

So how do you sustain this culture over time? As we learned from our work with Seyfarth Shaw, the organization must hardwire the new behaviors by instituting support structures. This can include:

• adding group coaching

• encouraging peer coaching

• assigning a coach to every new employee for six months

• assigning a coach to every newly promoted employee (no matter the level)

• offering coaching refresher courses (in person and online) to sustain the culture of coaching

• providing periodic coaching examples from YouTube with real employees

• volunteering to share coachees’ successes

• offering coaching objectives with every performance evaluation

• instituting coaching into every management and leadership learning activity.

The implementation of coaching infrastructures is further addressed in chapter 8.

Coaching is part of mainstream corporate culture across the globe. While coaching was at one time associated with fixing toxic behavior at the top, the most frequently cited reasons to engage a coach are now developing high potentials, facilitating transitions, acting as a sounding board, and addressing derailing behavior (Coutu and Kauffman 2009). As coaching continues to evolve, it is useful to note that leading-edge organizations are strategically moving toward the development of coaching cultures. If we consider that “culture is the way we think, feel and act in relation to our workplace,” a coaching culture is one where coaching is “the predominant style of managing and working together” (Sherpa Coaching 2017).

The International Coach Federation’s 2016 Global Coaching Study notes that “the use of coaching skills and approaches has expanded beyond professionally trained coach practitioners to include managers, leaders, and human resources and talent development professionals who apply these competencies in their daily workplace interactions” (ICF 2016, 3). This study also reports that coaching within organizations continues to increase every year and with it the credibility of coaching programs.

Coaching is recognized as a proven and accepted method for improving both tangible and intangible performance practices (Table I-1). Because of this, organizations are getting smarter in considering “the whole person” when measuring coaching results, and they are considering individual behavioral-based improvement, impact beyond the individual receiving coaching, and business results. This includes formulas and data on return on investment (ROI), financial impact, and impact on business metrics.

Lastly, this trend toward an organization-wide coaching culture is further emphasized by another finding from Sherpa Coaching. Namely, when participants were asked, “Why use coaching in your organization?” the answers went beyond individual and team impact to include major organization development efforts such as change management, growth, and productivity (2016, 32). Thus, in more innovative organizations, coaching is no longer being viewed as isolated one-on-one interactions between two people or with a team, but as broader within the context of being able to make a difference throughout the enterprise. You may determine the extent to which coaching affects the following positive results, as has been already proven in the research literature.

Table I-1. Measurable Coaching Results

Underlying Theory and Approach

As behavioral practitioners, we support a cognitive coaching approach. Namely, the coach becomes a thought partner with the coachee. Coaches—whether a boss, employee, colleague, or professional practitioner—help coachees identify limits in their thinking and aid them in adopting more accurate, useful reasoning and thinking patterns. This in turn leads to better relationships with others, improved decision making, and higher levels of performance (Stober and Grant 2006). The basis of cognitive coaching is the notion of “mental models.” A mental model is a belief you may have about the world that causes you to act and behave in certain ways.

For example, you may believe that yelling is the best way to get your staff to perform well. This mental model might have come from your experience with past bosses or your own need for control. A technique that your boss, professional coach, or even an employee might use to give you feedback is something we call “the continuum of beliefs”—a picture of how your mental model influences your behavior and results (Table I-2). By discussing your existing and possible new beliefs, behaviors, and results, you might more clearly recognize how your existing thought pattern is causing the very result you are trying to avoid! With this insight, you can gradually entertain different mindsets and behaviors that can lead to more productive results.

Coaching someone from an old to new behavior doesn’t happen overnight. Yet, with everyone using coaching approaches, the likelihood of adopting more successful behaviors increases substantially. This cognitive tool, and others covered in this book, represents the kind of theoretical underpinning that supports our organizational model. Such cognitive tools help you create a strong coaching base and produce evidence-based results.

The Purpose of This Book

Everyday Coaching is meant to be read by anyone who works in an organization and wants to learn and adopt a new way of working, talking, interacting, and succeeding. The premise is that the practice of using dialogue and tools in organizational coaching should be accessible to everyone—not just professional coaches—and that such accessibility and on-the-job behavior can transform an entire organization. Even if the rest of your organization doesn’t adopt this premise, you can have a positive impact on your own performance and interactions with those around you.

Table I-2. Beliefs, Behaviors, and Results

Adapted and used with permission from Bianco-Mathis, Nabors, and Roman (2002, 112)

Coaching should happen up, down, and across. Specifically, you can practice coaching as a leader, manager, colleague, or professional coach by:

• managing or coordinating: as a supervisor, leader, or team lead [coaching down]

• contributing: as a staff person, employee, or team member [coaching up]

• collaborating: as a colleague, peer, consultant, or professional coach [coaching across].

Not every person can become a professional coach. There are specific requirements and credentialing for that role (see www.coachfederation.org for examples and more information). However, anyone can learn coaching language and can use those skills in daily interactions. As we will explain later, coaching can happen under many different circumstances:

• a normal coach and coachee relationship for six months

• a sales manager conducting monthly coaching visits with her salespeople

• a colleague coaching a team member on a new system; two team members walking down the hall and exploring how to form a better working relationship

• an employee approaching a boss and advocating for more ongoing feedback

• a director coaching his team on using a more consultative approach with internal customers.

This book introduces the Seven Cs Coaching Map, a series of seven steps you can learn and follow when approaching coaching situations. Although the map is addressed linearly, it often unfolds iteratively. Each chapter provides practical examples to help you utilize the rhythm and nuances of coaching dialogue. Coaching tool job aids are shared throughout, and you can download a graphic of the map at http://strategicperformance.net/downloads/7c.

Part 1, “Connecting Through Coaching,” discusses the concept of changing our conversations (chapter 1) and utilizing the tools of dialogue: global listening, powerful questioning, and supportive advocacy (chapter 2). This part provides the foundation on which coaching organizations can be built.

Part 2, “Navigating the Seven Cs,” includes four chapters covering the coaching map:

1. “Capture Context and Clarify Purpose”

2. “Collect and Feed Back Data”

3. “Create Options and Construct a Plan”

4. “Commit to Action and Celebrate Success.”

Finally, Part 3, “Building a Coaching Culture,” discusses how to empower an entire organization, retool the organizational DNA, and then create, implement, and align systems toward a new way of thinking and achieving high performance.

At the end of each chapter is a section called “Making It Real.” Here, you will be asked to reflect on key chapter concepts and develop an action-oriented goal you can apply on the job. These exercises will help you hardwire your brain and integrate new information creatively and mindfully.

Our goal is to help you reframe how you look at organizations and your role as a champion of coaching language, the unleashing of potential, and the excitement of more positive working environments and results.