| Q: |
Why
should we offer training to our staff?
|
| |
An
organisation usually wants to increase the skill set
of staff and prepare
recently promoted staff to “hit the ground running”.
However, many staff now expect their employer to include
ongoing development as part of their career, simply to
keep their skill set marketable in an uncertain world.
Therefore, the need to offer training is essential on
both sides of the equation: firstly to ensure that staff
competence
keeps up with the competition; secondly to recruit and
retain the best people. Staff want to know that
their intellectual capital will continue to grow
throughout
their career.
|
| Q: |
How
are your courses different?
|
| |
Traditional
training courses often produce a “ra-rah” effect
where attendees leave motivated and positive. However,
it is not an uncommon occurrence, on asking an attendee
a few weeks later if they have implemented any of their
new learnings, to hear, “the course was super. I
must get around to using that stuff some day, but I am
so busy...” By including coach training as part of
the skill set, not only do people learn the additional
benefits of the coaching approach, but they are effectively “coached” during
the courses to adopt the learning to fit their own style.
|
| Q: |
Will
your trainers have a practical background in the subject
being taught?
|
| |
Yes.
For example, our “Sales as Coaching” courses
are presented by successful and experienced sales people
who are also experienced and trained coaches. “The
Manager as a Coach” courses are presented by experienced
managers who have also trained in coaching and leadership
development. We believe that good coaching includes mentoring.
|
| Q: |
What
is the difference between coaching and mentoring? |
| |
In
our view, a mentor has “trodden the path”, and
seeing the qualities that make someone successful in
a certain
field is, in itself, a valuable part of the learning
experience. Mentoring also focuses on tasks. Coaching
is a specific
discipline that uses active listening skills along with
performance enhancement techniques.
A good coach will have had a significant amount of coach-specific
training as well as a lot of experience actually coaching
people.
|
| Q: |
So
what is special about your approach to training? |
| |
We create
programmes which integrate coaching and training so that the
attendees get performance improvements that actually happen.
Furthermore, as the trainers are also expert coaches, the
attendees also learn how business coaching techniques can be used
to improve performance within organisations.
|
| Q: |
“Coaching
Culture” is a popular buzz phrase at present.
What does it mean? |
| |
We
believe “Coaching Culture” means that once an
organisation embraces coaching it finds out that good
managers and leaders are effectively good coaches. In a
competitive business world, changing the core of an organisation
so that “getting the most out of people” is
seen as something that is done by supporting them, requires
a significant change as to how most organisations operate
in reality.
World
class organisations such as Microsoft have integrated
coaching into most parts of their structure. These organisations
know that we are living in a dramatically shifting period
of history. Without upgrading the culture that drives
them, organisations stuck in “old cultures” may
be doomed sooner than they think.
|
| Q: |
How
can we implement a Coaching Culture and what are the
benefits? |
| |
We
have devised a range of solutions with our clients for
this type of change management solution. Typically, we
design a bespoke solution for a client to fit in with
the company’s values and vision, along with any
recent training or change management initiatives.
One
multi-national company asked us to implement a coaching
culture in their global finance departments. This was
done by running a tailored version of our Manager as
Coach module, creating national project groups which
would design and implement a change process to present
to the Board two months later. During this period we
provided individual and team coaching and ensured that
the projects were conducted using a “coaching approach.” The
benefits included a significant decline in staff turnover
within the department and staff
becoming more self motivated, taking increased responsibility for their
work.
Another company asked us to facilitate their Board of Directors on a two-day
off-site event to focus on strategic direction for the next five years. We
then ran a one-day event for all UK staff, to present the strategy and get
feedback in the morning session, along with a values and mission workshop in
the afternoon. Staff surveys before and after these events showed an increase
in satisfaction and motivation; many of the staff said words to the effect, “we
now know where we are going and what we stand for.”
|
| Q: |
Do
you offer public programmes as well as in-house training. |
| |
The
Coaching Consultancy only offers in-house training solutions.
However, public courses are offered through our sister
organisations: |
