Having quite a lot of experience coaching, supervising and mentoring the biggest mistake I see with people is in the understanding of what coaching is. I am a firm believer coaching takes time to understand and master, a seriously long time. It is not about tick box coaching, in other words coaching by numbers just like painting like numbers. Coaching is much more than that. On my courses the first thing I say at the beginning of any course is I will not be able to make you a coach in two days as an example, it is just not going to happen. The companies that say you can be a coach with some written work, no monitoring of your sessions and giving you feedback on written work do not turn you into a coach. It is practice and understanding, receiving feedback on the practical sessions on all the data that is in the room. It is about understanding what is not being said and sharing this. What I do on any of my courses is to give you some skills and techniques to start the process to understand what the coaching culture is. Coaching is a fantastic skill to have and use in all aspects of your life. Whether you use it professionally or at home with partners kids, the skills work everywhere.

The key benefit of adopting a coaching culture is engagement

80 per cent of the workforce who have experienced coaching say it positively impacts their work performance, productivity, communication skills, and well-being, 65 per cent of those in a coaching culture are highly engaged, only 36 per cent of organisations offer coaching-specific training In addition to engagement, coaching also improves business performance. A recent Bersin & Associates study reports that providing managers with coaching skills can provide 130% in business performance. Consider the following benefits of a coaching culture, and you won’t have to wonder why your company needs it; you’ll be wondering why everyone’s not doing it. Engagement leads to higher levels of productivity, creativity, profitability, and employee retention. Coaching makes employees feel valued and improves job and career satisfaction. But a coaching culture achieves those goals and goes far beyond individual employee satisfaction by creating and supporting optimal people and business performance. Coaching comes into the picture, employees feel more engaged and more valued, and experience higher productivity and produce strong bottom-line results. Executive coaching, performance coaching, and coaching for development all play different roles in a coaching culture, but all create stronger bonds and forge better working relationships that support business goals and performance. Coaching routines, coaching training, and management accountability for coaching are just a few ways to begin building coaching into your culture. Claire Moody is our head coach at Target Training, and you can read more about her here.  She delivers training on all coaching and numerous training the trainer courses.