Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching is offered either as part of the development journey of the leader as a stand alone intervention. Such coaching seeks to provide the leader the space to think, reflect and work in 100% confidentiality on issues and challenges manifest in their role. Coaching is also an integral part of any wider leader development, team development or a cultural transformation intervention. In this case there is a higher order intention for the coaching sessions that links directly to the desired outcomes of the intervention itself.

The approach taken to Executive Coaching at Pathways to Performance follows the protocol laid down by ‘Consciousness Coaching ©’ and approved by the International Coaches Federation.

The Consciousness Coaching © (CC) protocol covers either a 6 or 12 session coaching cycle. The first session is a Chemistry session where the high level coaching cycle objectives are agreed. Each session will include a small “Awareness Creation” teaching that aims to build the consciousness of the Coachee. There will also be agreed action steps in order to maintain momentum of the coaching between sessions, and to ensure skills and mindset shifts are built and integrated. The work on these actions is covered in the check in – at the beginning of each session. You can see more about this approach at the CC website: http://www.consciousnesscoaching.co.za/; or read about its founder and creator Marc Steinberg at: http://www.marcsteinberg.com/.

Group/Leadership Team Coaching

The reality of increasingly complex organization dynamics and demands, along with environmental and contextual opaqueness, calls for leadership to shift from being seen as purely an attribute of individuals to being lived and manifest through collective effort and alignment. Thus the importance of Leadership Team Coaching, critical at EXCo and top team level and hugely valuable at all levels and also within virtual or “non-natural” teams (such as cross functional project teams for example).

The Challenge for Teams is increasing daily as they seek to deal with a plethora of elements that are outside of direct control, including:

Managing the expectations and dynamics of all the different stakeholders

Running and transforming the business (so it is fit for future purpose) in parallel

The capacity to work through systemic conflict without avoidance or breakdown

Living with multiple memberships and belonging (e.g. Head of Function/BU and also member of EXCo), making matrixes work

Gaining perspective on an ever changing and more interconnected world

Developing deep resilience, the ability to re-charge and cope with virtual worlds that are 24/7 and chase the sun

Dealing with the connective tissue of the organization – attending to the challenges inherent in the interconnections and the white space of culture, rather than just the separate parts (because they are not separate)

Unlocking and winning the EMOTIONAL support of the people, gaining their discretionary energy

Coping with changing generational values, norms and expectations including the loss of automatic respect for titles, positions and roles

We work with five disciplines in the team coaching process. Teams need to know what high performance looks like, understand and apply consistently all the elements that apply to it, commit purposefully to their own journey in order to create collective transformative leadership that flows into the organisation. The five core disciplines that need to be worked through and embedded into the team dynamic in order to lay the foundation for sustainable performance, irrespective of external context are:

Five Principles of Team Coaching

Commissioning – being clear about what, who, why
Clarifying – alignment and commitment to own mission, purpose, strategic aims, values, goals, roles and processes
Co-creating – the team learns how to become more effective through collective working, co-creating generative thinking and action, which is greater than the sum of their individual efforts. This involves confronting individualistic tendencies, ego positioning and limiting mindsets and engaging with the greater good / higher purpose.
Connecting – engaging with stakeholders. Staff the team leads, customers, investors, suppliers, partners, regulators and local communities it relies on in its work. This is where leadership is the ability to transform relationships, consistently inspire, motivate and align the wider parts of the system necessary to maximise the contribution of the team itself.
Core and Continuous Learning – unless the team learns and unlearns at a rate that is at least equal to, or ideally greater than the rate at which the environment and context around it, it cannot thrive. There is the need for an absolute commitment not only to core learning, but also to double loop learning – whereby team members learn HOW to learn more effectively.
Meeting Facilitation and Delegated Meeting processes

Overview Structured Team Coaching Process - Generic Example

Coaching Capabilities, Feedback, Courageous Conversations and Conflict Resolution

The ability to hold coaching, feedback and courageous conversations within the context of not only our work but also our personal life, is a must have skill.

We offer one or two day developmental sessions that address the sub-component skills essential to dialogue for coaching, feedback and conflict resolution i.e:

Listening
Observing
Role of mindsets
Being present
Inquiry and advocacy
Questioning
Managing and expressing emotions
Meditation

And then pull these together into real time / real life conversations; where the participants get to analyse and understand what works and what doesn’t, get feedback real time on effectiveness of their approach. The intention being to take the learning and apply it in the real world circumstance based on the skills and insights developed.

Approaches use include – self reflection; teaching key concepts; pair/ triad/ small group inquiry; plenary and whole system work; process work; real –plays; fish bowl observations etc.

One of the essential developmental and performance tools for today’s effective leaders, whether formal leadership or self leadership is the ability to be authentic in our interactions around difficult issues, Thus Pathways to Performance also assists organisations who seek to set up their own internal Coaching Academy infra-structure to support the organization to develop all it’s people as Coaches, and establish a 360 degree coaching culture. This involves, as well as the design of an appropriate coaching protocol, also a ‘Train the Trainer’ component that will establish a cadre of internal trainer coaches to develop these skills across the organization.

“On – Up – Out – In” – Coaching for Transition

Pathways to Performance offers specialist coaching approaches that support Senior level individuals during role transition. These are :

On-Boarding

A typical Executive or Senior level hire costs anything from 50% to 200% of the total cost to company. Failure rates at Executive level has stood constant at around 40% for the last 4 years ( Forbes 2012 ). annual salary. And success or failure during the transition phase is a strong predictor of overall success in a new role. With 80% of new hires deciding whether to remain within the first 6 months, and 25% choosing to leave ( Aberdeen Group, 2013 ), there is a clear cost benefit to provide dedicated support in the early stages of the executives time in their new role. Some of the typical reasons for executive ‘drop out’ are :

Inability to establish key relationships and partnerships with key stakeholders
Failure to align with the company culture / values clashes
Ineffective people leadership and teaming skills
Political missteps
Lack of feedback about how they are going / performance

The focus of On-Boarding coaching is to accelerate success and aid transition ; with the focus on an agreed set of clear objectives agreed with the executive’s line manager or the Board Chair, for implementation over the first 90 days in the post.

Role Shifts

Executive coaching amongst other elements, builds on the strengths of leaders, develops new capabilities for complex and changing times, navigate obstacles and deal with crises, with the focus on their current accountabilities and leadership role. Often these relationships are established as a remedial action. Transition coaching for role shifts, has the primary intention of developing the individual for new roles - either at higher levels of accountability or within different functional roles. Ideally such coaching is established as part of succession/talent processes and/or immediately it becomes clear that the individual will move to the new role. The coaching process has elements that are similar to On-Boarding, but also involves the process of handing over, and creating closure from the current role and team/organsiation. Transition coaching is generally short term, intense and time bound. However, if it is part of a more generic talent management process it may be tailored for skill enhancement to shift from specialist, doing type positions - into more strategic and generalized leadership.

Stepping Out

The role of the coach when there is a ‘stepping out’ situation of either retirement, retrenchment or a mutually agreed resignation is to support the movement of the individual from the current reality of being an leader within the organization to their new life beyond. Each journey is tailor made around the individual circumstance and is highly structured, with the inclusion of hand-overs, closure in current role, dealing with legacy issues, exploration of the reality beyond the current world and getting focused on goals, and managing change.

Into Business

When moving from ‘paid’ employment into running a business for ourself, it is critical to do the appropriate business and financial planning, marketing - branding - promotion - customer research etc. There are a plethora of service offerings around these topics. What usually doesn’t happen however is a conscious focus on building the mindset, capabilities and behaviors necessary to make the transition from being and employee to being an owner. In ‘Into Business’ coaching relationships the focus is on providing a safe space and time to think ; gaining an understanding of the different perspectives and ways of operating that are needed from a personal and relational perspective and building those skills. This along with having a confidant to whom to express and mitigate any fears, and hinderances to ‘owning’ the new role of owner. This type of coaching is impactful as an intervention right from the initial crafting of the ‘dream’ through the build of the business infrastructure and also making the transition in reality.