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Creating a coaching culture

Culture is the most important foundation of any workplace

The core of any organization is its workplace culture. You have to have common culture that bonds everyone together. If you don’t have that common culture you just have offices and, most likely, a fractionalized organization not living up to its potential.

What is a coaching culture?

A coaching culture is one where the prevailing mindset and behaviours of the organization are, literally, coach-like. When an organization adopts this approach, hierarchy gives way to partnership and collaboration and blame gives way to curiosity, honest evaluation and learning. External motivators are replaced by self-motivation, protective barriers fall as teams build. Change is no longer feared but welcomed, satisfying the boss becomes pleasing the customer. Secrecy and censorship are replaced by openness and honesty, pressure of work becomes challenging work, and short-term fire-fighting reactions give way to longer-term strategic thinking.

Strong coaching culture = strong engagement and revenue growth

An International Coaching Federation survey of over 500 of the largest companies in the USA found that companies with strong coaching culture tended to have much higher employee engagement and also greater revenue growth in relation to industry peers.

The foundation of any great global firm is its core values that everyone shares and unifies around – a culture of communication, excellence, integrity, passion, performance, respect, trust, sharing, teamwork, technology and increasingly a global perspective.

Corporate culture and shared values strengthened by coaching management skills

IKEA is a multinational company which develops solutions that will influence the lives and future of millions. Essential to its global success are the IKEA values and culture which reflect the entrepreneurial spirit of its founder Ingvar Kamprad. IKEA embarked on a journey to harness its unique corporate culture and leadership style to drive business performance. To do this they asked Performance Consultants to equip their managers with coaching management skills to complement the existing management style and expand the portfolio of management and leadership skills.

“You can have very enlightened practices in the heads of the top leaders, and employees hungry for enlightened practices. And then managers are operating the way they always have, not understanding that there’s anything more to their responsibility than a good profit-and-loss statement.”

Deborah Holmes, Ernst and Young

A management coaching culture: the benefits

Creating culture, a great culture, finding the right people, managing them to do great things and solving problems creatively and systematically are challenges faced by all organizations. We help your leaders and managers achieve more through their teams by creating culture, specifically through creating coaching cultures by developing a coaching leadership style which among other things:

  • increases engagement
  • develops people and performance
  • improves creativity and agility
  • raises responsibility in employees
  • develops change management capabilities
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Register for our free Coaching for Performance webinar
to find out more about creating coaching cultures

Strong coaching culture = strong change management capabilities

Research shows that high-performing organizations have stronger change management capabilities and coaching is one of the most helpful ways to develop these capabilities. Using coaching to lead an agile culture correlates with greater confidence in employees’ capabilities in planning and executing change. Importantly, the results confirm that organizations with strong coaching cultures are more likely to have better talent and business outcomes, and success at large-scale strategic change.

Command and control management and leadership is no longer tenable in this fast-moving world. People need to be able to make fast decisions and respond to changing conditions on a moment by moment basis. For this they need a different type of leadership. One that empowers and facilitates.

Experts in creating coaching culture

Changing workplace culture isn’t an easy task and certainly not something which happens in an instant – we can help. Or perhaps, like IKEA, your organization has a unique culture you want to keep and strengthen – we respect that. From our long experience of working with organizations around the world, we know how important it is to integrate workplace culture with strategy and leadership in order to unleash competitive advantage.

We specialize in helping our clients create culture, specifically coaching cultures. Our gold-standard coaching training programme Coaching for Performance is based on Sir John Whitmore’s bestselling coaching book Coaching for Performance. Translated into over 20 languages, the book serves multinationals the world over, inspiring managers to manage in a coaching style and leaders to create a coaching culture.

The book also introduced our culture model for leaders and organizations: The Performance Curve.

Performance Consultants focus on human potential in organizations to drive performance, productivity and successful coaching culture through:

We help individuals focus on current and future achievements in a way that builds awareness of strengths, establishes personal responsibility and results in lasting behaviour change that impacts the bottom-line.

What people say to us about coaching and creating a coaching culture

“When I use the coaching process, I am not responsible for the outcome. The weight off my shoulders is huge”

“Something always comes out of it. If I didn’t use coaching, I would miss out on the insights”

“The GR of GROW questions have helped me more easily get to a goal”

“Pushing out biases and stereotypes, and keeping a clear mind, allows potential to come through. People pick up that you are coming from that mindset”

“Having the process to follow helps me not to get sucked in”

“The process helps me get really aligned and on the same page”

“The partnering approach brings significant benefits: more and more ownership in new and profound ways”

“I now have very efficient meetings – it is productive because it empowers. It means they do the work, their whole demeanor changes”

“It is like seeing a light bulb go on”

“The person owns the decision more – they go deeper into self-reflection and self-problem-solving. We are flexing that muscle for them”

“It really helps people to become more self-aware”

“The shift from telling to asking feels empowering”

“Coaching is liberating”

“I experienced my daughter growing before my eyes”

“People come up with solutions that are wildly different. And they have full ownership and are acting with commitment”

“They figure out through the process what they want to do and then have the excitement and energy for next steps”

“It is a weight off my shoulders, my team is more self-sufficient”

“It is really enjoyable and takes the weight off my shoulders. I have a set of tools to help them make the right decision”

meeting your needs

How can you bring a coaching leadership style into your organization?

Sir John and his colleagues at Performance Consultants were the first to take coaching into the workplace and coined the term “performance coaching” in the early 1980s. We continue to lead the field in performance improvement through coaching leadership training.

Select one of the options shown. Or get in touch and one of our world-class leadership development consultants will work with you to create a tailored programme that meets your specific needs.

  • Attend a Coaching Course – experience the benefits of coaching first hand. See our Global Training Calendar to find the right course for you
  • Transformational Leader Pathway – learn how to be a leader–coach with a coaching leadership style that creates a culture of high performance for you, your team and entire organization
  • Performance Coach Certification – become a coach or take your coaching skills to the next level so that you can practise transformational leadership coaching
  • Individual Coaching (1:1) – take your leadership to the next level with a tailored, fast-track professional development coaching programme
  • Team Development – unlock the next level of potential in your team with team coaching