Executive Summary: Panel discussion on industry best practices on coaching culture

Speakers:

Mamta Srivastava; Senior Director- Learning and Organization Development at Virtusa

(Awarded for Innovative and Impactful Practices in Coaching)

Kshitij Bhusari;  Vice President HR at Schindler

(Awarded for Emerging Coaching Culture Practices)

Abhijit Bhattacharya; Global Career Coach at S&P Global

(Awarded for Best Practices with Internal Coaches)

 

Moderator:

Fatima Hussain, Lead Research Analyst and Psychologist, uExcelerate

 

Overview

Coaching culture stands as the main aim of any organization that wants to inculcate coaching. However, it is an arduous task as the results of coaching are seen in the long term and have no defined time period of germination. This develops a lot of uncertainty regarding the ” how” of adapting coaching for maximum company growth. In our first panel discussion of the year we were joined by three of our four winners of last year’s Coaching Culture Circle Awards on best practices in building coaching cultures. The profound session gave insights into the winning organizations; individual journeys of creating a thriving coaching culture from scratch. The panel discussion also saw the  launch of the Best Practices In Building Coaching Cultures report that was created through a thorough analysis of these winning organizations.. The report portrays an in-depth analysis of the best practices adapted by award-winning companies. The session also announced the launch of the Coaching Culture Circle Community, which is a unique collaborative community for internal coaches aiming to connect coaches through the power of knowledge.

To access the Best Practices Report, click here: report on best practices on coaching culture (uexcelerate.com)

Context

The panel discussion was organized on the basis of the best practices included in the award-winning organizations in last year’s Coaching Culture Circle Conference and Awards organized by uExcelerate. These awards were given after a thorough evaluation of the coaching practices adapted by various participating organizations. Schindler, Virtusa, S&P Global, and Salesforce were the winners. The three of the four came together to impart their experience with building a coaching culture in an organization successfully.

Key Takeaways

 Starting out coaching practice:

 ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’- Leo Tolstoy

 Every organization is different in its own way and works towards its own problems and goals. So the starting point for coaching in every organization was very different. For instance, Schindler started with experimentation. The two responsible people took coaching certifications themselves and applied the learning within Schindler. Virtusa wanted to have a better structure in their organization. The way they moved forward was to start Conversations about conversations, the plan was nothing more than to have a positive and accepting attitude within employees. S&P Global on the other hand struggled with navigating career structure because of the change in the leadership. The coaching they adapted was career coaching for their employees.

Innovative Coaching practices in Virtusa:

Virtusa won the award for innovative practices in the CCC Awards. The most unique aspect of Virtusa’s coaching culture was that it was open for all regardless of the position of the employee. They connected their CSR initiative with the upskilling of disabled employees through coaching. Living the motto “Impact becomes manifold” Virtusa started with pro bono coaching and after two years of consistent efforts managed to nourish a healthy coaching culture with more empathy among the employees.

Internal Coach Pool at S&P Global:

With the idea of coaching clear in the heads of the leaders, full-time coaches were employed by the organization and with mindful confidentiality, coaching was imparted to anyone who wanted to be a part of the experience. Thus providing a safe space to the person who needed help. With the aim to build a landscape view to help people advance in their careers, S&P Global managed to provide quality coaching with fewer coaches.

 

Emerging Coaching Culture at Schindler:

Keeping the theme of the “Learning journey of coaching” Schindler divided and conquered the problems of establishing a coaching structure with the internal coaches on the frontline. The strategy used by them was very well thought out, which included first, to provide coaches to high potential employees which can then second work onto growing coaching culture in their respective departments thus spreading the awareness towards coaching sufficiently.

Challenges in growing a Coaching Culture

Three big challenges faced by the panellists while establishing a coaching culture were:

• Quickfix culture: People want instant results but coaching is a long process and it is a long-term investment.
• Skepticism around Coaching: Coaching by practice is not yet prevalent in Indian Organizations which leads to skepticism towards the whole practice.
• Lack of pre-developed tools to track the benefits of coaching: Behavior, on the whole, is unique to every human being, and tracking the change quickly is not possible, which leads to the problem of maintaining the practice.

How to provide Psychological Safety to the Coachees?

Making people trust a foreign practice is a difficult task. Giving them their safe space and coach trust will provide the required psychological safety making the coachee comfortable joining the session regularly and adapting the exercises during the session to maximum positive output.

Suggest initial steps in building a Coaching culture

• Micro experiments: Every organization is different. People should work towards finding out what coaching method works best for them
• Have passion: Passion helps in moving towards the goal relentlessly
• Have a big vision: With a big vision it becomes easier to conquer small obstacles
• Willingness to cross-correct and not get stuck on one idea: One thing to note is that change is the only constant. Agility helps improve and grow.

Suggestive cautions before starting Coaching Culture

Someone’s mistake is another person’s lesson. The panellists gave the following cautions to avoid any irreplaceable damage to the practice on the whole:

• Be transparent with the coachee, and respect their boundaries
• Embibe by ethical values and establish guidelines according to the organization’s values
• Have conversations around coaching to push down the skepticism around coaching
• Educate the organization about coaching

Tips to imbibe a Coaching Mindset and Coaching Culture

Coaching, on the whole, is a foreign concept for Indian organizations. There were some suggestions by the panellists to inculcate a sustainable coaching culture within the Indian context:

• Develop a coaching mindset
• Be in the present moment
• Work to solve the present
• Stay curious
• Have the willingness to support people

The impact of the best practices report and CCC awards by uExcelerate

It was mentioned that the report by uExcelerate was thorough and gave a very appropriate analysis of the coaching culture in the participating organization. The insights helped the winners to nourish and give a stronger structure to their existing coaching culture. The awards, on the other hand, were reflective and coaches to enrich their coaching practices in the right direction.

To download the report click here:  report on best practices on coaching culture (uexcelerate.com)

uExcelerate – a Digital Leadership Coaching Platform

If you’re looking to build a coaching culture within your organization, uExcelerate can help.

Our SaaS platform provides customized, holistic solutions to help organizations scale coaching and foster personalized talent development for their employees. Whether you want to develop your coaches internally or hire them externally, uExcelerate is a one-stop solution for all your coaching needs.

Our product offerings include:

APPRAISE- Coaching Culture Maturity Model: This helps the organizations discover the stage of the coaching culture maturity model based on our 7C framework

DISCOVER- Coaching Marketplace: Connect employees to a pool of diversified experienced and certified external coaches for specific requirements in the organization.

SYMPHONY- Coaching Platform: Launch on-demand one-on-one and/or group coaching engagement program by onboarding the leaders as internal coaches and employees as coaches.

PACE- Coaching Programs: Leadership development, DE&I Mental well-being, high-performance acceleration, Leader as coach program

uExcelerate works to combine all these products to bring you an out-and-out solution to help you build your coaching culture in your organization.

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