Coaching Your Organization to Championship Levels
It’s that time of year when professional football teams are chasing a championship, requiring peak performance by all players and coaches. Incredible amounts of time practicing, strategizing, and coaching are committed to this singular goal.
Similarly, organizations are looking for innovative ways to win and get their teams to perform at the highest level. Companies seek increased revenues and profits while maintaining, or sometimes reducing, levels of management and staff. Nonprofit entities seek excellence in delivering on their organization’s mission. They also look for ways to improve the collective performance of their executive management group and do that cost-effectively.
Not surprisingly, coaching of executives in the corporate world has exploded in recent years. Effective coaching can not only facilitate these desired outcomes but also accelerate them.
What can engaging an executive coach do for your organization?
A high-performance coach can raise the level of engagement and effectiveness of executive teams by creating an environment for trusting interactions, challenging discussions, and individual and group accountability. To maximize the positive impact, each participant in the coaching sessions is required to be vulnerable, honest, and transparent. One may quickly conclude that such a requirement from each person in their management team is not possible, or that some members would embrace the process readily while one or two others might not.
These perceptions are not uncommon but should not deter an organization from utilizing group coaching. In fact, the difference an experienced and skilled executive coach makes cannot be overstated in a case like this. An effective coach works to get each participant actively involved quickly in the process, facilitating engagement through group discussion and focused questions for individuals, leading to quicker engagement and accelerated performance.
Benefits of Executive Coaching
The effect of tailored coaching sessions for your executive team can be profound, including:
- Identifying critical issues that team members are individually and collectively confronting within the organization.
- Developing action steps for immediate implementation of solutions.
- Encouraging, challenging, and holding individuals accountable for immediate results.
- Increasing the level of trust and appreciation within the group.
Additionally, group coaching sessions can address specific areas of challenge, including individual productivity, how to be more influential, and being courageous in difficult situations. These skills are beneficial to participants in their executive positions, as well as their personal lives.
Coaching done well is a process that gets participants to essentially develop solutions and action steps they have determined can work for them and the group, collectively. This can produce impressive results for an organization and build tremendous momentum within the executive group. In turn, this can permeate throughout the entity and perhaps result in a championship season to remember for an organization!
About the Author
Gary is a Partner with McKonly & Asbury, leader in our firm’s Nonprofit Services, and a key member of our Affordable Housing practice. He has over 30 years of public accounting experience, including 8 years with an international firm.… Read more