amirror - connectwell€¦ · ignorance)is)bliss,)right?)yes,)butnotif) you) are) truly) invested)...
Post on 08-Aug-2020
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Ignorance is bliss, right? Yes, but not if you are truly invested in your own professional development.
People o=en shy away from coaching because it can hurt. A coach asks you quesAons that you may not ask yourself, and gets you to consider different perspecAves that may pose a threat to your ego and core beliefs. A coach may make you feel vulnerable and may bring to life some aspects of yourself that could use improvement, even aspects that you thought you had together for all these years. How dare this person come into your life and slowly and painfully scrub off all that shiny gliDer and wax.
The truth is that, the truth maDers. Research shows Ame and Ame again the value of authenAc leadership; being true to your va lues and open and transparent in your leadership style. To be authenAc though, you need to come clean with yourself. While this is not an easy process, having a coach to help you along the way adds tremendous value.
But who am I to tell you this? At Connectwell, we pracAce what we preach, and we see the effect in the impact of our work with our clients. Our company values are reflected in part by the commitment we make to conAnued p r o f e s s i o n a l d e v e l o pmen t ; A Connectwell Career = ConAnuing Professional Development and our own coach! We don’t need to believe in the very real power of coaching – we benefit from it every day. We only ask of our clients along their journey the same that we would be willing to commit to on our own.
So what’s the big deal then?
A mirror. Imagine if someone read out loud the script that plays inside your head about yourself -‐ the one that doubts you and makes you second-‐guess. Imagine someone replaying the unhelpful and destrucAve views and opinions you have about your team or the department in the other room. Go on, listen! Does it sound absurd? A coach can bring to life these maladapAve thoughts that influence your daily thinking and performance -‐ bringing them to the forefront so that their validity and accuracy can be tested. ReflecAve wriAng is another technique that allows you to document your thoughts, feelings, experiences and beliefs and helps you recognise the impact that they have on your work. This is especially important during transiAons, when your thoughts, feelings and beliefs are especially malleable and influenced by your early experiences within a company.
A perspec+ve-‐taker. On the same idea of collusion, learning through perspecAve-‐taking is especially powerful. It shows us that we are not the center of the universe (gasp!), and how other people, policies, and outcomes are inevitably affected by the decisions you make and the way you see the world. One effecAve and common tool that companies are using to help people learn and develop through perspecAve-‐taking is a 360° feedback review. These are especially powerful because they allow leaders to gain a breadth of insight into their relaAonships with people at work and the impact that they have on organisaAonal performance, from mulAple voices and lenses.
A sounding board. Support vs. Challenge. SomeAmes we collude with ourselves, or we get trapped in our habitual way of thinking. This can be dangerous because of its limiAng effects on possibiliAes and its blinding effects to missed opportuniAes and soluAons when making decisions. A coach can offer the right balance between support and challenge, and can act as a compass to help you idenAfy and focus on your goals and aspiraAons.
An enabler. Whether we admit it or not, someAmes we simply need validaAon. Someone to say that our dreams or ideas are brilliant and that we have the potenAal to bring them to life. It is someAmes hard to get past our own limiAng, self-‐defeaAng beliefs, the social norms, and the negaAve self-‐talk. A coach can help us challenge these thoughts and come up with evidence to discount them and to show otherwise; to show us that we are capable.
Tangible vs. Intangible Values
At the end of the day the quesAon always comes down to whether or not there is a return on investment with coaching iniAaAves. There is plenty of quanAtaAve research that supports the benefits of coaching in relaAon to v a r i o u s p e r f o r m a n c e a n d development indicators. Yes, the numbers are appealing and there is something about the percentage symbol, %, that makes something seem more valid than without it. But as an experienced researcher, I feel tempted to draw aDenAon to the flaws in research. Without boring you with the details, I will give you some food for thought: publicaAon bias, confirmaAon bias, and confounding variables. While I do not at all discount the research that has been done, I am simply drawing aDenAon to the truth that research has its flaws, and focusing exclusively on numbers is easy but inconclusive. I’ll leave it at that, and challenge you to appreciate the real value in the immeasurable and intangible.
Therese Joyce reflects on her +me as Director at an interna+onally opera+ng Educa+on company, and the value that working with a coach had on her leadership impact: “I remember a par*cularly challenging performance review was coming up and I was struggling with
how to be clear and direct without crushing the spirits of my employee. As the Director on site, this was not a conversa*on I could have with anyone internal to the organisa*on and having a coach allowed me to think aloud, and to explain my concerns. The exper*se with which the coach encouraged me to speak my mind, and then reflected my statements, enabled me to see that the solu*on was already there in front of me. The opportunity to clearly ar*culate what I wanted, and needed, to say, along with my reasons for the decision (this employee was not receiving the promo*on they so dearly
wanted), helped me to become more precise in my message, and to see that this “bad” news, was also important, honest, and fair.”
How do you measure the impact of someone’s first 100 days on the job who has been coached, and compare it to if he/she hadn’t been coached? Well, you can’t. However, as a mirror, a perspecAve-‐taker, a sounding board, and an enabler, (at the very least), it is easy to argue that coaching would have empowered and maximised the output of potenAal during this transiAon. Similarly, how do you measure the impact that an enhanced leadership style has on its people? Maybe it is faith, a gut feeling, or insAncts. Whatever it is, leaders and stakeholders are o=en reluctant to buying it. Maybe it is worth taking a chance or believing in the power of the human spirit that is more powerful than a staAsAcal package. The ROI of coaching is far greater than what the numbers tell us.
Tiffany Missiha July 2013
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