Truth and Courage: Implementing a Coaching Culture

Many leaders recognize that coaching is more than a collection of effective techniques.

This recognition has led them to strive for a corporate culture that reflects a coaching mindset and the kind of relationships that coachees find liberating.

As many more leaders have experienced the benefits of coaching (by professional coaches or mentors) the appeal has expanded dramatically and so has the demand for interventions that can deliver this kind of culture.

In this paper we will contribute our experiences helping organizations shape their climate and culture to reflect the implicit values of coaching relationships.

Leaders whose organizations have learned to adapt to rapid, turbulent change have developed an obsession with getting the culture and cultures within their organizations right.

Culture and its expressions shape the practical and emotional environment in which we work, and influences the ways organizations accomplish their goals.

More powerful than strategy and more persistent than vision, the culture and cultures of an organization affect who stays, who leaves, and how we deal with each other.

It is the environment that enables performance or subverts it.

Implementing a Coaching Culture
In this brief introduction to implementing a coaching culture, we’ve sought to make several key observations based on our experiences with companies of different sizes, in different industries, across the globe.

Key to our experience is the reality that sustainable change requires capitalizing on what is already working and proving its worth in an organization.

Although we are believers in the importance of organizational willingness to invest in the right culture, we are suspicious of giant initiatives that ignore the pace of human adaptation to change.

Starting small in multiple areas and providing the right resources to expand and adapt what is already working pays off more quickly because we are talking about changing behavior and relationships.

Those changes require simultaneous changes in thinking and feeling, and they are expedited by trust in the intention, intelligence, and judgment of those propelling the changes.

Careful planning, systematic involvement of populations within the organization, and longterm commitment create the environment in which culture can adapt to meet the needs of the marketplace and the organization’s success in it. It is worth the price, but don’t underestimate what it will take.

Get the right partners and begin today.