Thought Leadership

Budgets and the Cost of Coaching

If training budgets were story characters they might easily identify with Bilbo Baggins and be heard to say, ‘I feel thin; like butter spread over too much bread.’

There is never enough money to do all the things you know would be fantastic for your organisation.

Ali and I have been thinking long and hard about this, as coaching is definitely up there as one of the higher ticket items and tends to be reserved for a particular leadership tier.

This is entirely appropriate for coaching assignments where the requirements are for deep thinking, space to explore radical ideas without terrifying teams and being able to discuss personal development at a level of vulnerability that creates long term change.  They are best done with a professional coach.

But it does mean that the benefits of coaching cannot be experienced more widely in your organisation and for your very over stretched budget this is both a problem and an opportunity.

Research has shown that coaching is one of the most in demand and effective interventions available for personal development and fostering creative thinking, two things that organisations are always trying to maximise.

Leaders are also regularly looking for solutions to problems of change resistance, lack of proactive working or using initiative, needing more creativity and innovation, individuals that don’t seem to want to think for themselves or take personal responsibility and lower levels of productivity and growth in their businesses.

The problem with most models of leadership is that they place the focus on the value of the leader as the key player in getting team results.  They are looked at as the one with the vision, the answers, the best ideas and the only authority to direct the efforts of the team.

This means that leaders are frequently in a position where they feel they need to tell people what to do as it is quick and efficient, and that they need to come up with all the ideas to show that they are providing direction, or when asking for ideas, quickly shut down ones they ‘know’ won’t work.  Most leaders know this isn’t ideal and work hard to do things differently, but the toolkit is somewhat lacking.

Coaching would be a highly effective way to address these issues, but bringing in external coaches would definitely blow the budget for most companies.

But teaching and deploying coaching skills more broadly would bring many of the benefits without the premium price tag, we call this giving your people and organisation The Coaching Edge.

The Coaching Edge

At the very core of coaching is the premise that individuals, groups and teams don’t need to be told what to do.

They need a direction to head for and then they need to be supported to find the best ways to reach their destination.

Coaching respects all of this and most particularly focuses on never robbing people of their opportunity to exercise agency.

And that isn’t easy.

We all love giving advice and often believe that other people are floundering and in need of our unsolicited help.  And, as mentioned, leadership models and corporate environments encourage us to believe this, with the frequent outcome being resistance or passivity.

Preventing ourselves from giving into the habit of ‘telling’ is where coaching skills come in.

This doesn’t mean you need to become a professional coach.

Core skills can be learned and used by anyone to support individuals to think deeply and be valued for their ideas.

For example:

• Asking people what they think instead of offering our own ideas first.
• Approaching someone’s challenge with empathy but not making it about you.  ‘You aren’t alone in that. I’ve had a similar difficulty before.  How is it showing up for you?’
• When someone tells you they have a problem, listening and asking questions that enable them to ideate and come up with a solution.
• Listening and quietening your own internal chatter that wants to speak and be heard.
• Checking your judgement or irritation when someone says they don’t know or asks their own questions for clarity (when you are already streets ahead with the whole answer).
• Checking your judgement when people come up with ideas you think are ‘unsuitable’ and getting curious instead.

By doing this, the impact of a conversation is significantly greater than telling someone how to do a task or giving advice.

Using coaching skills colleagues can create the conditions that enable an individual to examine existing thinking (which may include unearthing excuses or beliefs that have prevented action) by asking questions that generate new, deeper thinking.

It’s this new, deeper thinking that is so beneficial in organisations today and why deploying coaching skills more broadly is great for your budget.

The Budgetary Benefits of Coaching Skills

Most companies are trying to solve problems that don’t have simple solutions or easy answers.  You need your people, all of them, to take their thinking to a new level.

Learning and deploying coaching skills throughout your organisation means that all colleagues can offer one another a space for deep thinking.

It also means that leaders have the skills to foster creativity, proactive working and inspire individuals to work at their best throughout the day, not just in a coaching session.

When your organisation trains all their people to use coaching skills microbursts of creativity or learning can take place in the moment.  There’s no waiting for an external coach or even logging into an AI platform.

Imagine your company being an environment where every individual was working with the belief that what they thought mattered, that their ideas and creativity were valued and where they were encouraged to challenge the status quo.

Coaching skills that enable these behaviours and many more are relatively easy to learn, compared to training to be a coach.  Training can also happen in large (ish) groups which means that it is budget friendly but also you get a broader spectrum of impact with individuals being able to support each other because they’ve had the same training.

Whilst there is no magic pill, or one size fits all approach that creates miracles we think coaching skills come pretty close.