4 Steps to Create a Coaching Culture in Your Business
A coaching culture is a learning culture-- one where everyone is free to fail, receive feedback, be coached, and learn. Here are 4 steps to put your organization on the path to a healthier, more productive culture.
Get a coach. Set an example by getting a coach to help you become a better leader. Share the insights you gain through coaching with your coworkers up and down the org chart. Before long, others will want a coach as well.
Learn and apply coaching skills in your interactions with others. Coaching is a highly skilled profession, and you will want your professional coaches to have ICF (International Coaching Federation) certification. However, the communication skills coaches use (active listening, asking open-ended thinking questions, building the relationship, and providing structure and certainty in a conversation) can also be used by managers and individual contributors. Seek out managerial coaching training-- there are many opportunities online and face-to-face.
Train the whole organization in coaching skills. With common understanding and language around coaching skills, employees become more coachable and more willing to coach instead of criticizing or avoiding conflict. It is important that leaders model the importance of this learning by attending training and practice sessions in coaching skills.
Foster mindfulness. Coaching cultures blossom when people are self-aware, and mindfulness helps develop self-awareness. Mindfulness is simply the coaching competency of being present and aware, of noticing what you are doing. Simply slowing down and thinking before reacting, listening before answering, reflecting before deciding, and monotasking instead of multitasking can bring a sense of peace to you and to those who work with you. Peace is contagious.
One of the beauties of coaching is that it can spread from the top of the organization to the bottom or from the bottom up. Doing both at the same time can impact culture even more.
