Coaching Skills to Accelerate Your Change Agenda
In the future, an organisation’s success, and even survival, may depend on how effective it is in encouraging and developing personal autonomy, self-sufficiency, and a sense of freedom to act and deliver.
The most powerful and effective way to develop this kind of organisational culture is through coaching, which is a well-proven approach to creating and nurturing empowerment and accelerating change.
Through coaching, individuals and teams can become more committed, creative, collaborative, and resilient. They are more focused on learning and improvement which develops confidence, calculated risk-taking and adaptability. People feel more empowered and confident. These are all hallmarks for success in any organisation and it is these competencies that you will need if you are to accelerate your change agenda.
So, coaching is no longer a ‘nice to have’ it is an essential ingredient to your organisation’s sustainable development and long-term growth.
To achieve this way of working you must take a systemic approach, that is, it must be deeply embedded into the cultural fabric of your organisation, so that it becomes the ‘way we do things round here’, some call this a coaching culture.
To create a ‘coaching culture’ requires an approach that involves personal and organisational development on three key levels:
- Level One - Tool Set
- Level Two - Skill Set
- Level Three - Mind Set
Many organisations we speak with approach coaching development by training line managers in the use of specific coaching tools and techniques, often in a condensed one-day workshop. This equates to the Tool Set Level. This is certainly better than nothing, and some participants will be inspired to take their coaching learning and application into the workplace in earnest, with attendant results.
However, our experience of this ‘sheep-dip’ type of approach informs us that this is not enough to embed the change in behaviours you require to give coaching the effective traction you will need if you are to accelerate your change agenda.
The Skill Set Level is usually at least two days of training and starts to embed coaching practices that will lead to longer lasting and deeper behavioural change, but it is at the Mindset Level (at least three days of training over a period of several weeks) which is required to further deepen participants’ appreciation of not only the skills and techniques but also to create a shift in outlook and perspective of the power and value of coaching.
Coaching Focus is a coaching consultancy who work with global clients to co-create proven solutions that help accelerate your change agenda.
As part of this solution, we offer proven training programmes at each of these levels, as well as further enhanced training at ILM Level 5 (suitable for someone looking to become an internal coach) and ILM Level 7 (designed specifically for those HR&LD professionals who are seeking to understand how to leverage coaching to accelerate their personal and organisational change agenda)
An outline of our coaching programmes can be found below:
Level One - Tool Set
This is a basic one-day (3x two-hour modules) training programme which will give participants an understanding of why coaching is so important, when to use it, and a few basic tools to start coaching.
Leader As Coach (condensed)
This two-day (6x two-hour modules) programme builds on the one-day Coaching Fundamentals programme by introducing further techniques and skills development. The additional learning available will help to deepen participant awareness of effective coaching application in the workplace. This programme begins to develop a higher skill set.
Level Two - Skill Set + Mind Set
This three-day (9x two-hour modules) programme builds on Level One Tool set training and helps further develop skills to a deeper level. At this Skill set level, we see many participants beginning to shift their mindset as they begin to fully appreciate the impact that coaching can have on individuals and their performance. This shift towards a different mindset around coaching is the embedding shift required for coaching to become systemic and sustainable in an organisation.
Participants must submit a basic assessment and the ILM has Endorsed this programme for quality and consistency.
ILM Level 3 Manager as Coach qualification (Award in Effective Coaching)
This qualification programme is like The Leader as Coach programme outlined above, and also consists of 9x two-hour modules. This is an ILM qualification/certification and so there is slightly more rigour than the Leader as Coach programme. There is an enhanced coaching practice element, and further tutor input. Participants must submit a basic portfolio of evidence as well as complete several assignments. The enhanced rigour and submission requirements of this qualification give it added gravitas over the Leader as Coach programme and leads to an ILM Award in Effective Coaching.
Level Three – Mind Set
ILM Level 5 Certificate in Effective Coaching qualification
This is a more advance coaching qualification aimed at HR and L&D professionals as well as line managers and leaders who have been selected as potential internal coaches. This is a five-day programme (15x two-hour modules) which aims to create the mind set shift required for effective and sustainable systemic organisational coaching. Participants are usually training to be internal coaches in their organisation with the skills and capabilities to deliver effective 1:1 coaching either within their own line management or across the organisation as part of an internal coaching cadre. One major benefit of this qualification is that by using internal coaches trained at this level, external coaching costs can be very significantly reduced, allowing external coaching budgets to be re-directed towards high-value executive coaching assignments. This is an ILM qualification with an enhanced coaching practice element, significant tutor input and coaching supervision. Participants must submit a portfolio of evidence as well as complete three assignments. Successful candidates of this programme are awarded the ILM Level 5 Certificate in Effective Coaching.
ILM Level 7 Certificate in Effective Coaching qualification
This coaching qualification is the highest level awarded by the ILM. It is intended for senior HR/L&D professionals and senior managers or directors and is also suitable for individuals intending to enter practice as an independent coach or consultant. This programme consists of a seven-day programme (21x two-hour modules) which aims to give participants a complete base for their coaching practice. As well as covering skills and techniques, it aims to create the mind set shift required for effective coaching and helps develop a systemic viewpoint for participants, including coaching strategy, evaluation, systemic integration and developing a coaching culture. This programme is both challenging and rewarding and is ideally suited to developing organisational coaching ‘champions’ who have responsibility for running in-house coaching schemes.
This ILM qualification has an enhanced coaching practice element, significant tutor input and increased coaching supervision. Participants must submit a portfolio of evidence as well as complete three assignments. Successful candidates of this programme are awarded the ILM Level 7 Certificate in Effective Coaching.
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