How Using a Professional Coach Can Benefit Your Agency
Imagine sitting down to watch your favorite football team compete in the Super Bowl. Now, imagine that your team is playing without the guidance of its coach. A good coach can make all the difference when it comes to winning or losing. A coach knows the team’s strengths and weaknesses and how to employ or address them to succeed.
Beyond strategizing, a coach is there to motivate the team in the face of adversity. In the world of sports, people understand the benefits of coaching. But coaching isn’t limited to the sports world. In fact, agency teams can enjoy similar benefits through a process called executive coaching. The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), the official repository of regulations for federal agencies, recognizes coaching as a pivotal workforce development activity.
Executive Coaching Can Offer a Win-Win to Your Organization
Coaching is a proven key resource for empowering leaders, improving productivity, and meeting agencies’ visions and missions. A memo from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to the Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) Council described coaching as a critical tool. It encouraged the development of internal coaches and the leveraging of external coaches to create a coaching culture and improve retention and productivity.
The CHCO, in turn, identified common coaching objectives:
- Clarify vision. You can’t get where you need to go if you have not defined your goals. Coaching helps you better understand where you want your organization to go and how you will get there.
- Identify strengths. Coaching helps you bring the right players to the right roles. It helps you recognize — and capitalize upon — existing assets and talents.
- Create meaningful goals and achievable action steps. A dormant vision is no more than a daydream. Coaching enables you to determine goals that are crucial to your organization’s growth and success, such as generating a practical, actionable, and achievable plan.
- Develop leadership skills and competencies. No one can afford to be stagnant in a dynamic organization. Coaching empowers employees to sharpen their skills and become the leaders who direct their teams toward the organization’s goals.
- Facilitate professional growth and transitions. Every team comprises individuals. As they grow, so does the team. Coaching provides support that empowers team members to identify their professional goals and actionable plans.
- Support change management. Changes are constant. Coaching can enhance your organization’s ability to navigate changes adeptly and confidently.
While this list encompasses common objectives of coaching, there are many additional ‘side’ benefits.
Attract, Engage, and Keep Talent
When your organization is recognized as one that values a coaching culture, you are more likely to attract a larger pool of qualified candidates, which means you can better select those who fit your organization the best. Additionally, the Harvard Business Review reports that coaching can help build more collaborative teams with higher morale and increased motivation to stay and grow with your organization.
Improve Creativity, Focus, and Performance
Coaching is an important human capital tool that improves the creativity of those receiving coaching and stimulates and benefits their colleagues. It can often help people consider new viewpoints that in turn can create innovative solutions. A good coach can also assist employees who may be stuck in a professional rut to change or enhance behaviors that lead to better performance. When applied across a team, coaching can optimize the way team members interact, leading to higher satisfaction levels and productivity.
Build Teams, Plan for Succession, and Develop Emerging Leaders
Coaching can improve communication techniques that, in turn, improve team cohesion and problem-solving. It is often used in succession planning to ensure a smooth transition as experienced employees leave and are succeeded by others who can come to the table prepared and ready to perform. Coaching is ideal for developing employees who have potential and will likely benefit from structured interaction.
Coaching Is Flexible
Executive coaching provides your organization with consultation and support while pursuing goals. As your organization grapples with rapid change, high demands, and constant adaptations, consider calling in a coach to empower your employees to go long and score big.
In addition to achieving long-term success goals, executive coaching improves organizations by bolstering recruitment, and retention efforts, which helps the organization build teams, plan for succession and develop leaders from within.
For more information on how Management Concepts can help, check out our best-practice coaching services and courses for supervisors and HR personnel who encounter “coachable” moments in their everyday interactions.
