Assignment 2: Coaching Model
Due Week 6 and worth 250 points
For this assignment, consider the organization where you currently work or an organization where you may have worked in the past as a point of reference for evaluating the coaching model and team-based performance.
(Note: You may create and / or make all necessary assumptions needed for the completion of these assignments. In your original work, you may use aspects of existing processes from either your current or a former place of employment. However, you must remove any and all identifying information that would enable someone to discern the organization[s] that you have used.)
Write a five to seven (5-7) page paper in which you:
1. Classify the selected organization’s approach to coaching as it relates to one (1) of the following: Ad Hoc Coaching, Managing Coaching, Proactive Coaching, or Strategic Coaching (ATTACHED BELOW). Judge the extent to which the identified coaching model has worked to optimize the organization’s performance management activities.
2. Recommend three (3) practices to improve the selected organization’s current performance from Table 4.3: Best Practices for Manager-Coaches in the textbook (ATTACHED BELOW). Justify each element as it relates to optimizing performance.
3. Construct five (5) best practices that would maximize team-based performance in the selected organization. Specify the primary manner in which each practice aligns with the organization’s overall goals and vision.
4. Use three (3) external sources to support your responses. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources.
Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
· Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
· Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
· Develop a coaching model that optimizes performance management activities.
· Debate the team-based performance management best practices.
· Use technology and information resources to research issues in performance management.
· Write clearly and concisely about performance management using proper writing
mechanics.
Organizational Approaches to Coaching: Four Stages
To set the stage for what is happening in many organizations today, consider a continuum of organizational approaches to coaching that evolves from completely unstructured and ad hoc to relatively strategic and systemic (Peterson & Little, 2008; see also Clutterbuck & Megginson, 2005; Hunt & Weintraub, 2007; Underhill, McAnally, & Koriath, 2007; Valerio & Lee, 2005).
Stage 1: Ad Hoc Coaching—Driven by Individuals
At first, coaching in most organizations is driven almost exclusively by individuals, typically when a boss, HR professional, or potential coaching client decides he or she would like to find a coach. Although individual participants are likely to obtain significant value from coaching, the lack of coordination across the organization means that it is difficult to evaluate how much coaching is taking place, who is delivering it, who is receiving it, and how much value it is providing to the organization overall. Coaching at this stage is reactive rather than proactive, typically in response to a specific problem (for example, an abrasive manager) or sudden need (for example, on-boarding a key executive in a challenging role). This stage exemplifies the situation depicted by Sherman and Freas (2004) in their article on “The Wild West of Executive Coaching.”
Stage 2: Managed Coaching—Driven by a Champion or Sponsor
Organizations typically enter the second stage when one of two things happens. Either someone questions the value of all the random coaching that is occurring and seeks to rein in costs and prevent inappropriate uses of coaching, or someone decides that coaching is such a powerful tool that its use must be harnessed in a more organized and methodical fashion to gain the full value. The first step in either case is to appoint someone as manager of coaching, whose task is to manage all the external coaches running around the organization, including establishing selection criteria, defining coaching processes, and measuring participant satisfaction. As organizations set up processes to manage their external coaching resources, many at this stage also begin to provide clearer expectations and basic training in coaching skills to their managers. Rarely, however, do organizations at this point establish formal criteria for who receives coaching, nor do they measure the overall organizational benefits of coaching.
Stage 3: Proactive Coaching—Driven by a Business Need
Organizations at the third stage of the continuum typically use coaching in an organized, planful fashion to address a specific business issue or need, such as accelerating high potential development, on-boarding new leaders, driving a change in culture, or facilitating integration following a merger or acquisition. The benefit to the organization as a whole, as well as to individual participants, is now a key factor. Organizations typically define criteria for who delivers coaching, for who receives coaching, and for the coaching process itself. Some organizations at this level set up internal coaching roles or formalize the coaching expectations for their HR and leadership development professionals. Some of the more sophisticated organizations at this stage may define different tiers of coaching, such as providing internal coaches for new hires from outside the organization and providing external coaches for promotions from within, or providing internal coaches for most middle managers and external coaches for most executives (Holstein, 2005; McDermott, Levenson, & Newton, 2007).
Stage 4: Strategic Coaching—Driven by Organizational Talent Strategy
Currently there are very few organizations at the fourth stage of the continuum, where coaching is integrated into the organization’s overall talent management strategy and is used as a key tool in developing high priority or pivotal talent pools (Boudreau & Ramstad, 2007). At this stage, organizations use coaching to maximize the value for individual participants, specific talent pools, and the broader organization by making sure that investments in coaching are clearly aligned with business strategy and organizational needs, and that coaching is the most appropriate and cost-effective method for the purpose. Organizations at the fourth stage are explicit about what is expected of managers as coaches, as well as what coaching needs are served by managers, internal professionals, and external coaches.
TABLE 4: 3
| 1. Coaching relationship |
Table 4:3 Best Practices for Manager-Coaches
· Take time to explore what is important to the person you are coaching—his or her goals, values, and motivations.
· Communicate your desire to help the person develop and ask what kind of coaching he or she would like from you.
· Communicate the positive expectation that you believe in the person and his or her ability to learn and make significant progress on objectives. |
| 2. Insight |
· Clearly communicate expectations and success factors.
· Provide feedback and discuss performance relative to those expectations.
· Ask questions that help people reflect on their own behaviors, performance, and impact. |
| 3. Motivation |
· Help people clarify their goals and motivations related to work and to their own development.
· Identify specific personal and organizational benefits for development. |
| 4. Capabilities |
· Provide specific advice and guidance on how to improve performance and behavior.
· Encourage them to prepare development plans.
· Support training, stretch assignments, and provide opportunities for on-the-job learning. |
| 5. Real-world practice |
· Ask people what exactly they will to do to make progress on their development objectives, and where and when they plan to do it.
· Help them find or create opportunities that stretch their capabilities. |
| 6. Accountability |
· Hold regular (for example, monthly) conversations to gauge progress against development objectives.
· Ask people what they have learned recently and what they will do in the next month to continue learning. |
| 7. Organizational context |
· Ask people what organizational barriers are getting in their way and brainstorm ways they can work around them.
· Be a role model of learning by seeking feedback and coaching from others, sharing development priorities and progress openly, and talking about why development is important to you personally. |
