Musings from

Beyond Bad Coaching: What Leads to True Leadership Transformation?By Mindy Millward

Two hours into a fi ve hour fl ight home, I fi nally ended a conversation with the person sitting next to me. Mutual signs of “OK, I’m done” were rendered, though my signals hadn’t quite transmitted as clearly as I’d hoped. I was more in the mood for a short, 20 minutes chat, but she apparently wanted to talk. You’d think by now people would know the unwritten rules of seat mates – don’t talk unless it’s clear someone wants to have a conversation. That’s what the noise-cancelling headphones are for – to send a message! The greatest irony was when she started lamenting about her executive coach. She was fl ying home from a workshop he’d suggested she attend, that included a 360 feedback assessment. One of the areas suggested for development? “Reading people”

around her. She scoffed at the idea, and I scoffed at the irony of the situation – had she “read” me more accurately, I’d be 30 minutes further into my Netfl ix. We shared a healthy skepticism about some of the latest 9-steps-to-this and the 12-secrets-to-that leadership fads promising help to valuable senior executives. When she’d talked about some of the things her coach had suggested, it was clear he had a knack for the latest fads and books. Not a shock that a good deal of her feedback hadn’t yet sunk in.

As I thought about this later in the fl ight, I was again struck by the stark differences between my conversation partner’s hopes and needs for her leadership transformation and her actual experience – little impact after spending lots of time, effort, and money. And she still couldn’t see that she wasn’t making progress! She had said, “Our organization has used different executive coaches at different times over the years. They were typically semi-secret attempts to rectify the career path of a once-rising star turned performance management problem pretty

Musings from Gate 44 is a series of papers written from one of the most sacred refl ective places in a consultant’s life – the airport. As we depart our client’s cities, we are often decompressing, celebrating, venting, strategizing and refl ecting on behalf of those we serve. We’re inviting you into our private thoughts about….you. “You” means those of you leading complex organizations trying to grow, change, improve and compete. These “musings” are stimulated by patterns we see over and over again as we work. Our hope is that letting you into our inner thoughts will help you grapple with the issues that frustrate your noblest aspirations and thwart what you seek to achieve. (We hope we’ll also have a chance to laugh gently together at some of the silly things organizations can do.)

s of papers written from aces in a consultant’s life

high up in the organization. Our top HR leader was the only one closely involved. The coach was around for six months or so. She observed meetings at the beginning, put the executive through a battery of tests and psychological profi les, spent time behind closed doors with the executive, and then vanished at some point. Yet not much ever changed in terms of the leader’s behaviors, practices or results. Some leaders left, others just hung on.” Hardly the marquee endorsement for executive coaching. I’d wondered if she entered her process already concluding that not much would change. Sure, not every executive has the capacity for fundamental change, but it sounded like her organization had institutionalized failure as the outcome of steep investments into their executives’ leadership capability.

Over the years, as we have worked intensely with hundreds of executives in the service of strengthening their ability to lead and deliver results, we have repeatedly observed clear patterns that often determine the difference between the success and failure of efforts aimed at developing them. We’ll take a look at what often goes wrong – and how it can be done differently.

Coming Up Short: Patterns of Practice That Inhibit Leadership TransformationSometimes organizations need to fi ne tune performance in their executive leadership ranks, while in other instances dramatic change in a leader’s behavior – a leadership transformation – is required. Depending on the organization, some portions of leadership transformation efforts entail providing executive coaching. Companies in the US make an immense investment in executive coaching, spending almost two billion dollars in 2011 according to a recent ICF Global Coaching Study conducted in conjunction with PwC. Committing substantial resources often has not yielded substantive results. We’ve heard many clients lament their frustrating experiences with “coaches” that have left them with “tips and techniques”

at best, and more commonly, confused and feeling as though they wasted their time. Over the years, we have observed three consistent patterns of practice that contribute to executive coaching results falling far short of aspirations to support leader transformation. Our intent isn’t “coaching debunking” here, but rather to help you consider a more robust set of criteria when looking to procure the support of resources to invest in the development of yourself, or the executives with whom you lead.

Pattern 1: Coaching Out of ContextIf you begin with the assumption that leadership is primarily an individual act, you’ll focus coaching support on changing an individual leader’s behavior. One problem is that this basic assumption about leadership is itself fl awed. Leadership is largely about achieving desired outcomes with and through others, so executive coaching approaches meant to achieve leadership transformation have to work within the broader organizational context that any leader operates in. All organizations are complex constellations of histories, strategies, people, tasks, structures, processes and cultures. Leader effectiveness in any organization system stems from three primary domains – within the leader (their individual strengths, challenges, beliefs, practices), between themselves and other leaders (their strengths and challenges, quality of interactions with peers, subordinates, bosses, customers, etc.) and among the organization (the dynamics that shape leaders’ broader impact on the business goals and challenges of the organization to which they and their teams need to be adding value). Ironically, the last category often gets the least attention in executive coaching having some of the greatest potential impact for leader transformation. (For a more detailed look at each of the domains you can read Leading Transformation in Organizations, An Owner’s Manual.)

There are three quick ways you can tell whether executive development work is connected to the broader business context. First, is the upfront diagnostic work structured to provide substantive insights at all three levels of leadership (within the individual leader, with others, and amongst the broader organization)? The more individual-centric the instruments and data gathering are, the less likely leadership transformation will be supported. Second, if the executive coaching work is too narrowly focused within and down the direct line of reporting to the individual leader, then the critically important relationships up to the boss and out to other peers and stakeholders are unlikely to get the focus needed as part of the coaching work. That misstep alone can be a huge obstacle to leadership transformation. Typically, the higher up a leader is in the organization, the more critical the lateral relationships

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and the relationships up with superiors become in terms of infl uencing an executive’s career trajectory. And third, if the executive coaching is largely a “stand-alone” offering provided to an individual vs. part of a larger systemic leadership capability building effort across the organization, then dramatically improved leader effectiveness – real leadership transformation – is much less likely.

The best executive development results we have seen come from collaborations with line leaders and the Human Resources and Leadership & Development communities that integrate the executive coaching work into a larger strategy for developing leaders in the organization, which in turn is linked to the drivers of growth for the business. In one organization where we worked, an enterprise-wide functional leader was struggling to deliver results in a way that ensured collaboration and engagement. She consistently hit the results piece – but how she went about it left her at risk of being fi red and the organization at risk of losing a highly accountable performer. Her boss and their HR support team asked us to spend four months with the leader, teaching her how to “do” things differently: not to be so abrasive, to better engage her peers in her work, to let her team take the lead, and to be a better listener. Their standard approach had been constructed around a series of individual coaching meetings using a standard survey instrument to collect data. We proposed an alternative approach that leveraged their corporate learning programs, as well as involved role defi nition and governance redesign with her peer leadership team including her boss. We included stakeholder mapping and relationship building work with both her immediate peers and those key infl uencers that she would touch in the broader organization. The work of many people, and her sustained effort, has enabled her to rise to one of the organization’s most valued leaders seen as having long-term high potential for broader leadership.

Pattern 2: Weak MooringsA precursor of failed coaching interventions is often weak or non-existent links between the work itself (and individual being coached) and the boss and business. Evidence of these missing linkages can be found in three ways. The fi rst signal fl are is when the executive coaching effort does not include direct involvement of the leader’s boss – both in the contracting discussions that defi ne what the coaching work will be and in terms of the boss’ role as an active participant in the coaching process. Leaving the boss out of the coaching work removes a central aspect of the executive’s reality and cuts off a vital lever for leader transformation. In some organizations it can be challenging to separate leadership development such as executive coaching from evaluation (performance reviews). Additionally this may amount to colluding with what could be a

larger organizational problem (e.g., confl ict avoidance, abdication of executives’ roles in developing their subordinates, etc.). Sustainable leadership transformation often is determined by how the leader is coached and mentored over the longer term once the coach leaves the building, and this is almost solely the purview of the leader’s boss. Transformation of an executive’s leadership practices will be better supported if the boss also learns how they must coach differently and where they can help their subordinate behave differently to achieve better results. Whatever rationalization is offered, leaving the boss out of the coaching work is usually not consistent with aspirations for achieving sustainable leadership transformation.

Second, coaching that does not suffi ciently leverage the leader’s day-to-day work as a primary source for learning and skill acquisition risks coming unmoored from the business context. Namely too much time and focus spent inside an artifi cial “bubble” created either by the content orientation of the coach (approach, models, tools, techniques) or by the focus of the sessions with the coach creates the risk that leaders being coached will not apply what they are learning. This risk increases geometrically with the amount of time spent in the “coaching bubble.” Our tagline for that problem is “lost in translation” and is much like what happens in between the lecture halls of the Executive MBA program and the day-to-day practices of the executive on the job. We believe fundamentally that most of what the coach and executive need to work with is already in the room. Anything that isolates the executive being coached from their true context should be minimized. Taking a step back to refl ect and observe is one thing. Being cocooned in an isolation chamber, even with the best of intentions, is another. A leader’s role, their business goals and metrics, their accountabilities and their daily routines and interactions provide a fabulous and rich learning lab with no artifi cial additives required. It does take a lot of consulting and business experience and proper training for the executive coach to be able to provide that high-context and multi-level support, but that’s partly why great executive coaches who are able to support leadership transformation are harder to fi nd.

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Finally, and at the risk of stating the obvious, the value and positive impact of the coaching should closely refl ect the business and organizational improvement goals for which the leader is accountable. It’s good for the coach and good for the organization when line leaders are able to draw a direct connection, without any mental gymnastics, between the coaching support and the improved business results. Executive coaching work tethered to business outcomes (metrics and consequences) is more likely to contribute to leadership transformation.

Pattern 3: Organizational HypoxiaIf organizations at their most basic level are groups of human beings trying to achieve outcomes that they cannot bring about as individuals, then the “oxygen supply” for healthy organizations is the strength of its working relationships. Strong working relationships in organizations fuel increased creativity and insight, support more informed risk taking and speed, and provide greater energy, productivity and greater resilience in the face of adversity – in short, better sustained performance. The reverse is also true. Dysfunctional working relationships are a stressor on the system in the same way that hypoxia (lack of suffi cient oxygen) rapidly leads to tissue damage and ultimately death for the human body. Broken working relationships destroy value in myriad ways, both visible and invisible. While it is not currently a tangible asset tracked on most balance sheets, our work suggests that the strength of working relationships of the top team should be.

Find a high performing agile team and you will see strong working relationships that help nurture and sustain that performance, even in the face of major challenges and confl ict. By extension, effective leaders need to be exceptional in establishing, building and sustaining relationships at many different levels. It is surprising then that over the years we have repeatedly seen executive coaching that was ineffectual in helping leaders increase their ability to establish or strengthen their critical working relationships both

in their immediate and their adjacent organizational neighborhoods.

The results of this neglect show up in numerous ways. We have seen many senior teams struggle to execute on their strategy because they are ineffective in collaborating across the silos of their organization. In one particular situation, the business unit’s structure was repeatedly overhauled to fi x the problem and a coach was brought in to work with the business unit head. All of this time and effort was expended while one key root cause, namely poor working relationships among the senior leaders, remained unaddressed. Not recognizing the costs of the dysfunctional working relationships was a blind spot for the business unit leader, and the HR and coaching resources also missed it or were unable to support major change at the working relationship levels.

In another instance, we saw a COO attempting to corral the heads of the two largest geographies in his company into a more effective working relationship. Sadly, he was unable to develop good relationships himself, and despite both blandishments and threats, the two regions refused to cooperate with one another, to the point of undercutting work with clients. This was a disastrous situation, which compromised the company’s reputation and revenues. We have also seen the inability of new CEOs and their senior teams to have effective discussions about controversial new strategies. In two large publicly traded companies we have knowledge of senior team mutinies and the ousting of the CEOs ended up reducing share value tenfold and even several years later the relevant brands have not recovered their former value. The lesson is that weak or dysfunctional relationships at the top of the organization can have fi nancial cost that range into literally the billions of dollars and human costs that can’t be quantifi ed by the same fi nancial yardsticks but are equally tragic.

Organizational hypoxia can take several forms. For example, we have seen senior executives who are “nice to people” and seem to have good relationships but create chaos in organizations because they avoid tough decisions, don’t confront non-performing people on their teams constructively and don’t set clear expectations about effective leadership practices. Another key aspect of strong working relationships that many overlook is that strong working relationships get stronger through confl ict. Dysfunctional working relationships present a business risk to organizations precisely because confl ict as an inherent part of organizational life can break the thin ice that people are skating on. Trust is often mentioned as a culprit for weak working relationships.

At the other end of the spectrum of hypoxic organizations, we all know leaders who deliver the numbers but trash the work climate, and who get

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passed around to various departments because no one is willing or able to help the struggling leader improve their ability to develop and maintain effective working relationships. Clear diagnosis of the pattern and the requisite high integrity conversations about potential lack of fi t are typically avoided. Shuffl ing the problematic leader off to other areas rarely resolves the issue. The examples of business leaders who lack suffi cient relationship skills and thereby destroyed value are innumerable. For every one of those train wreck stories, there is often the accompanying footnote about the organization’s lack of effective support to help leaders develop suffi cient relationship capabilities.

If strong healthy working relationships are generally in short supply in an organization, then a struggling individual leader typically has a scarcity of resources for getting help that compounds their personal challenges. There are often few strong role models and mentors, the support systems available may not address root cause relational issues, and peers usually don’t talk at the level of “quality of working relationships”. In this type of environment, “parachuting in” a coach to focus on changing one individual leader is much less likely to yield leader transformation. Nor is that tactic likely to alter the directional inertia of the undesirable organization climate. This reinforces the point we made earlier about the importance of an executive coach’s orientation to working at multiple levels at the same time and having the boss fully engaged. The central idea is that executive coaching aimed at transforming leadership has to be grounded somehow in fostering, enabling and developing strong working relationships with all the key stakeholders of the leader being developed. Coaching work that misses working at the various relationship interfaces of a leader’s role is limited in its ability to support leadership transformation.

Finding Valence: A Holistic Approach to Leader TransformationAs we’ve worked to ensure that such unfortunate and completely avoidable obstacles don’t befall our efforts to develop executives, we’ve structured a process we call Executive Development Intensives (EDI) that dramatically departs from traditional “coaching” efforts. Figure 1.0 on the next page describes the phases of an EDI initiative.

Phase 1: Defi nitionIt’s stunning how many efforts intended to help executives improve begin in a relative vacuum. Sure, someone is paying for it, and presumably the executive

has some desire for help. When the intervention is “corrective,” the vacuum is larger because the leader has an additional motivation to keep the work a “secret” so no one knows they’re “getting fi xed.” In terms of how to successfully begin an EDI assignment, an experienced colleague of ours once observed that “how you start out largely determines where you will end up.” For starters, approach your entry into the organization or unit as the fi rst opportunity to model the type of relationships and the type of work you will be doing. Also critical to the key positioning issue is to ensure you start at the right altitude. If leadership transformation is an objective, then it is important to scope your work with the key stakeholders properly to ensure you are positioned to help at the individual, team and organizational levels. Try to avoid being prematurely pigeonholed into someone else’s idea of solutions and process without thorough dialogue about the strengths and trade-offs with key stakeholders. Since you typically don’t know exactly what the highest leverage points for transformation will be in the broader system at the beginning, the conservative approach is to scope your diagnostic work to start broader and then narrow down later as consultant and executive learn more.

Consider this – right or wrong, organizations just love to pin complex problems on one person. Yet it is more common that the executive team, some combination of functional hand-offs, or certain organizational practices (e.g. measurement and reward systems) or even the leader’s boss are all contributing to any presenting problems. The key question then is this – are you positioned from the start to gain enough altitude to see and constructively address some of the more systemic issues you might uncover?

If step one is to ensure the right altitude to enable transformation, step two is to ensure the work is anchored solidly in the reality and context of the executive’s job and role(s). That means the boss needs to agree upfront to be actively involved in the coaching work. It also means stakeholders (like HR, L&D, key peers, etc.) understand that the executive’s day-to-day work will be the primary raw material for the coaching support. Finally stakeholders should understand that

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the tangible and intangible results that the business expects from the executive will be a key part of how the impact of the coaching will be measured.

A thoughtful and well executed entry and contracting process (shared understanding on desired outcomes, roles and approaches) with the leader and key stakeholders that includes the above points will help ensure you enter the system set up to support leadership transformation. Our experience suggests that a thorough and well-planned defi nition of success sets the stage for a great experience for the executive and those that stand to benefi t from their development.

In summary the key steps for Defi nition include:

• Comprehensive and collaborative contracting. Start by defi ning the role of the sponsor (boss) in the

process as well as the executive being developed. Establish the confi dentiality of conversations and data; set up guiding principles about how the sponsor, client and coach will engage.

• Determine need, focus and motivation for the engagement. Is the work focused on performance vs. potential vs. fi t (proactive vs. reactive)? Or a combination? Test for the executive’s self-awareness, commitment to process, and deepen trust by asking the leader to conjecture on what you can expect to hear in the data and what they personally hope to gain from the experience.

• Defi ne key metrics as guideposts for growth and development. Be clear about desired outcomes, including results and behaviors, which will signal the intervention has been successful. Ensure that potential alternatives for outcomes are discussed and explored.

• Assess readiness for change and critical stakeholder support. Gain a strong understanding of the current state of relationships with critical stakeholders; remember the process of data gathering is an intervention in itself and ensure an early foundation of support that can be leveraged throughout the engagement and beyond.

Phase 2: DiscoveryOur approach to executive development in some ways makes the term “coaching” a bit misleading. We strive

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Figure 1.0 – Executive Development Intensive (EDI)

Phase I Phase II Phase III Phase IV Phase V

D fi iti Di I t ti I t ti R fl tiDefinition Discovery Integration Intervention ReflectionDefining Trajectory

• Stakeholder Identification & Context

• Aspirations & Outcomes(self report)

Integration, Insights, and Priorities

B S lf Self Boss

Validation, Internalization, Prioritization

• Assess

• Adjust

• RespondLeading (self-report)

• Leadership Effectiveness (stakeholders’ view)

• Organizational Context(stakeholders’ view)

Boss Self Self Boss

Team

p

• Define internal on-going support

Self

Leading Others

Leading Organizations

Shared Clarity ActionContextualizationFoundation Formation

Alignment on Alignment on Alignment on Alignment on Alignment on

Ongoing Advice, Counsel, and Planning with Sponsor/Boss

Ongoing Coaching and Support

Data/The Story Interventions & Metrics SuccessStakeholdersNeed & Motivation

g g , , g p /

to help clients understand the dynamics of the larger system (the business context, the organization, the senior team, the individual’s strengths and challenges, key stakeholder politics, etc.) and effectively navigate their system’s inherent interdependencies and idiosyncrasies. Without that context, and the ability of the executive coach to be effective working at all three levels, we don’t believe leadership transformation is likely.

As mentioned earlier, a key principle behind this approach is that the coaching work most closely approximates the domains in which the leader needs to be highly effective. They need to have (or develop) a high degree of self-knowledge. They need to be able to build, develop and sustain strong working relationships that enable high performing teams and cross-unit collaboration, and they need to be organizationally savvy, understanding how organizations function, how the inherent interdependencies impact performance at the individual, team and organization level, and how the importance of being effective politically in the organization increases with altitude. The higher up you go, the more important it is to be able to infl uence and advocate effectively outside of your chain of command and domain of expertise and to get work done with and through others.

A key outcome of Discovery is ensuring that the work to develop the executive is deeply anchored in the business. There are three principles that ensure this happens.

Principle # 1: Connect the executive development work to measurable and well-understood outcomes. The tighter the connection is to what line leaders measure, the better. That means developing a deep understanding of not just the organization’s metrics, but how they are linked to the strategy and the growth of the business. Be specifi c from the outset about what success will look like – what are the key metrics that your client’s boss wants to see move? What are some key milestones you need to reach? What are some measurable early wins you can help your client reach? In a very real sense, where you’re going is how you will get there – understand how to measure success from the outset and embed that into your work from day one.

Principle #2: As much as possible, coach in-situ (i.e., on the job using live situations when possible). Use the stuff that is happening in real life right now in their role – their daily routines, their stakeholders, their revenue targets, their performance problems, their confl icts, etc. – as the “source material” and context for the coaching. The risk of leading one’s coaching work with prescriptive leadership models or off-the-shelf tools is that it potentially puts distance between your support and the real-life challenges of your client. Best practices and constructs derived from research are all

fi ne, but they have to connect as directly as possible to what the client is dealing with day in and day out. If you can stay closely connected to their space, your ability to help them transform their mind-set and their leadership practices is much greater. In practice, that requires a familiarity with both the business challenges facing the company and the ways the company handles them in both a formal and informal sense. Understanding the organizational systems will enable you to both help your client reach better outcomes and get cues as to which examples and best practices you can introduce.

Principle #3: When possible and appropriate, link your work with on-going HR and L&D efforts to establish synergies and sustainability. A good example of this can be drawn from a couple of years of work with the manufacturing organization of a leading consumer packaged goods company. When we began, the chronic performance pattern was that line leaders typically worked one or two levels below their formal role in the company, creating collateral lack of attention to issues like clearly articulated strategies and effective and timely development of the next generation of leaders. The client encouraged me to reach out to the Corporate HR and L&D organizations, and within nine months we collaboratively designed and rolled out a leadership experience that could be offered widely and that helped leaders lead at the right level. What began as a solution provided by an outside fi rm for one leader was integrated into the HR and L&D organizations to meet a broader leadership development need.

In summary the key steps for Discovery include:

• Explore personal and career history and desired trajectory. How a leader thinks about their career and what got them to where they are is as important as where they hope to go. Understanding their own “version of the story” is a critical step and gives the coach initial hypotheses to explore and assumptions to understand and challenge.

• Build the appropriate stakeholder picture/map. In the Defi nition Phase we took a look at the current state of stakeholder relationships. In Discovery we focus on the critical stakeholder relationships that need to be built or repaired through this work. Engaging a stakeholder in the Discovery Phase

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co-opts them into being an active participant, even advocate, in the executive’s growth and development.

• Understand needs/goals of business and implications for leadership. What type of organization is this leader being asked to lead? What challenges will they face and what context around them will impact their success or failure?

• Assess current state of the leader in the context of team and organization. Explore real data that provides objective perspective on a leader’s results, personal leadership style and preferences, role and implications for effectiveness.

• Observe real time leadership. Just hearing the story from those involved isn’t enough. Real time observation of the leader in-situ will help to uncover patterns and insights otherwise unavailable and provide richness to feedback that can’t be gained only through instrumental data gathering.

• Find the right data gathering tools. Instruments are just that – tools. Not “the answer” and as each situation varies (in terms of what a leader most needs to explore, what an organization has found to be useful) we don’t believe that there are a fi xed set of instruments that assess a leader. Our process does involve a rigorous set of one on one interviews, but is always supplemented by a set of instruments that will generate the richest set of insights, given the context.

Phase 3: IntegrationBy this point in the process, the various efforts to collect diagnostic data are winding down, and being synthesized into a set of insights to enable the executive being coached to look into a full mirror refl ecting how their leadership is experienced in the context of their organization. The art and science of diagnosis in organizations spans several fi elds and over forty years of research and experience. Several key points arise from this work. For starters, the executive consultant should use some model of the organization as a system to guide initial data gathering and synthesis of the patterns you will help your sponsor/client discover. Different from individual-centric models like the MBTI or other often-used tools by executive coaches, using a

framework of organizational effectiveness that provides a systems perspective will help you and your sponsor/client take the right approach to understanding the full context of the leader being coached. A more complete picture of the situation serves both the consultant and the sponsor/executive. Second, use the principle of guided discovery when possible. Rather than having the executive coach gather up all the data, go into a dark cave and re-emerge with all the answers, the consultant and executive should share the learning journey. This not only increases their buy-in to eventual solutions and actions, but further enhances their own capabilities to make sense of similar data in the future.

We typically spend up to 6-8 hours in an initial session accompanying executives through the comprehensive story the organization has stitched together about them and the work they have done. While intense, it is necessary to secure the necessary commitment to change the executive will require to see their efforts through. We do similar, shorter sessions with them and their boss as well as their team. This broadens the ownership of the results beyond the individual executive and into the hands of the key stakeholders that will ultimately support the executive’s successful efforts to change. Ultimately the foundational debrief session leads to shorter concentrated work to explore particular aspects of the development plan (based on the fi ndings from the Discovery phase) and skill building.

In summary the key steps for Integration include: • Analyze multi-sources of data and insights and

potential implications for leadership. The key is developing a multi-faceted view of leadership and the leader, in the specifi c context in which they live.

• Create alignment with leader, then boss, then appropriate stakeholders on the “story” and meaning in the data. The debrief and feedback sessions are not a chance for one-way communication but more the opportunity for dialogue and building shared interpretation and meaning. A leader’s development opportunities and plans are only effective if there is shared perspective about the criticality and impact they will have. Part of what has to happen is the “old tapes” playing in the organization about a leader have to be rewound or erased and the opportunity for new behavior to be seen has to occur.

• Prioritize data and insights and integrate data with motivations/needs. Again, fi nding the “truth” in the data isn’t as important and developing true connection to what is being asked. There will be many pieces of data and feedback uncovered – fi nding the key to ones that will have the most impact is critical in Integration.

• Identify and interpret the disconnect between Intent and Impact. One of the most important things that happen during the process is for an executive to

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understand, regardless of what they intended to happen as a result of their action/style, that what matters is the impact it had. Quite often the key to processing through diffi cult feedback is admitting that while we may have had the best of Intent as an executive, for some reason our behavior missed the mark and either intent wasn’t realized, or worse, negative intent occurred.

Phase 4: InterventionIn typical coaching engagements, true work doesn’t begin until Phase 4. But if the consultant has missed the opportunity in Phases 1-3 to truly engage, begin working with the executive on the data and insights from the kick-off, and isn’t deeply into helping the executive understand patterns of behavior and their implications by now the intervention is likely to fail. Instead, in productive partnership with a consultant, this Phase is focused on targeted interventions that lead to detailed skill development, fi nding news ways to utilize strengths, and exploration of deeper beliefs and underlying assumptions that can get in the way of true change. Many coaches make the mistake of bringing interventions to leaders, usually comprised of generic exercises and techniques that then need to fi nd an application. Great consultants tend to draw interventions out of the executive’s daily responsibilities. A day in the life of any executive is chock full of any number of opportunities to focus on deepening capability. For example, an upcoming Annual Operating Plan presentation provides opportunity to work on infl uence skills, analytical capability, collaboration with adjacent functions, developing others in preparation for the plan and executive communications. Similarly, a staff meeting, a budget update or an angry email from a colleague each hold potential to help an executive sharpen their skills.

Conventional coaching wisdom suggests you start with what’s most broken and process through a serial fi x-it list. We have found however, that aligning the executive’s developmental order of battle with his or her business priorities is a far better approach and tends to stick more once the “coaching” is done. This is because it prevents development fatigue and doesn’t ask the organization to become absorbed in everything the leader is weak at, as opposed to the issues that will truly impact performance. When you align the battle plan to the needs of the greater organization everyone becomes vested in the success of the executive.

In summary the key steps for Intervention include:

• Establish development goals and actions and be clear about magnitude. Quite often a leader has goals that are both changes in behavior and more a matter of technique and those that are truly

developmental. Understanding the requirements of both types of change and building differentiated development paths for each will ensure success.

• Sequence, plan for and debrief specifi c opportunities and challenges to exhibit new behaviors and learning. As we’ve mentioned before, there will be no shortage of feedback, and subsequent development focus areas if the Discovery Phase is done well. The challenge is to prioritize those – which ones will truly make a difference for how a leader leads and the impact they have in the organization? And as the saying goes, if a tree falls in the middle of a forest and no one is there does it make a noise? The leadership equivalent is if a leader doesn’t have specifi c “stages” on which to trial and exhibit new behaviors, and hone their expertise in using them, the organization will fail to recognize growth.

• Identify measureable impacts and outcomes. Tying a development plan to specifi c visible and measurable outcomes is crucial for true change. This will also provide the organization and Boss with mileposts for measuring growth.

• Plan and conduct deep dive skill building interventions. It’s not enough to spend 3 minutes a week by phone asking ‘how is it going this week with your development?” Sadly this is where most coaching relationships go, becoming more of a friendly, supportive voice than a true challenger and developer of talent. It is critical during this phase that the coach provide tools, models, frameworks, techniques, and resource materials for development, as well as actually work with the leader to practice and acquire important skills. Regular sessions of actual practice with executives, especially prior to critical meetings, presentations or decisions, goes a long way to ensuring that what an executive learns in their development process gets put into practice in their day-to-day leadership.

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Phase 5: Refl ectionPhase 5 is most often neglected or assumed to have happened in Phase 4. Leaders (and poor coaches) assume that because they have engaged in a series of “developmental activities” that learning automatically took place and behavior actually changed. But that’s not the way human behavior works; people don’t learn from experience contrary to conventional wisdom, they learn from the analysis of the experience. It’s the refl ection on the experience that consolidates sustainable change and helps secure new behavior.

One of the greatest misses in most individually based coaching interventions is the blatant ignoring of the system in which the leader has changed their behavior. For the same reason people who leave unhealthy family systems, and enter recovery efforts, regress terribly upon returning to those systems. If the environment isn’t as prepared to accept the change as the executive is who made it, it will likely fail. Executives who become more inclusive need teams who want to be more included. Executives who need to be more decisive need peers who more prepared to support those decisions. Just because those surrounding an executive can readily point out what needs to change doesn’t mean they are banking on what is required of them to support that change.

In summary the key steps for Refl ection include:

• Refl ect on learning and how to sustain and extend awareness and new capability. The easiest time for a leader to exhibit new behaviors is while a coach is watching – the constancy of refl ection and focused exploration make sure a leader becomes great at self-observation. But slowly after the end of an engagement it is easy to let those new behaviors (which are diffi cult to change) slip

s

Figure 2.0 – Optimizing Investments in Executive Talent

Traditional Coaching Executive Development Intensive (EDI)

Area of Focus Behavior Change• Typically focuses on “fixing”

b h i

Holistic Change• Focuses on holistic change for the leader – both leveraging strengths and understanding

d dd i th t d i t d t i d b th t t i hi hbehaviors and addressing areas that need improvement as determined by the context in which the leader is working, not necessarily just how “others feel”

• Change in mental models and thought patterns to drive different results

Context for Learning

Classroom/Artificial• Done apart from the context in

which the leader must lead

In Situ• Interprets and leverages the context in which the leader must lead• Dynamic, organic and focused “where the leader is”which the leader must lead

• Sequential and “cause and effect”Dynamic, organic and focused where the leader is

Level of Integration

One Dimensional• Most frequent is “how others

experience this leader” (interpersonal); ignores leader’s self

Multidimensional• Multidimensional to ensure change is sustainable; operates at integrated levels of

leaders in organizations (individual, team, and organization) and systemic orientation

perception (intrapersonal) or systemic influence (organizational)

Approach Expert Model• Often attached to the coach’s

“stock shtick” or specialty – a favorite instrument a formula a

Collaborative Model• A process customized to the leader and her organization – the consultant guiding the

process has multiple levels of skill and perspective• Work is relational not transactional in naturefavorite instrument, a formula, a

leadership model, or a recipe• Work is relational, not transactional, in nature• Data collection is an intervention in itself - building relationships beyond leader to drive

change in stakeholders; setting expectation of stakeholders for change

Sustainability Dependency• Can create dependency on an

outsider for change

Self Sufficiency• Builds leader’s self-sufficiency for ongoing formation

End State One Time Fix• Ends when leader is “cured” or

terminated

Continuous Transformation• Formation is life-long

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away. It is critical that the coach and executive, in conjunction with the organizational support network (Boss and HR/L&OD resources) have a plan of action for what happens past the end of the engagement. This involves realigning critical stakeholders around continued development objectives and feedback loops that will become part of the ongoing landscape.

• Understand impact of individual leader’s change on the rest of the system. Real change in a leader will lead to true change in the system. Understanding those connections and how to plug a leader back into the system will be an important step. Quite often the track they may have been on for career may have now changed trajectory and have opened up possibilities not before considered. This is why building strong coalition of support around the executive as part of the development is so critical. Too often executives make great strides in their developmental changes, but the system around them hasn’t been prepared to incorporate and embrace them, and the great work to build strong leadership is sadly met with “organ rejection” when the implications for everyone else’s changes are left unaddressed.

• Assess need or opportunity for broader intervention. If done well, this intensive will have led to the discovery and exploration of patterns that exist far beyond the leader – across the team or organization. The context uncovered will be useful for a Boss thinking through their own impact, and how they bring together the disparate pieces of the world they lead.

One-Hit Wonder vs. Sustained Change: Know the Difference

As you work to distinguish between approaches to developing yourself or a key executive, or as you consider employing the services of an “executive coach,” there are some criteria we suggest you consider as you work to optimize the investments you make in your executive talent. (See Figure 2.0.)

A fi nal test to making sure you are getting the right return on your development investment is to ask yourself, and those executives who have been through the process, have we gotten the following things from our work:

• New distinctions about the world and what it means to lead

• Insights about who you are as a person and leader and the language for the aspects of that world

• Preparation for bigger scenarios than the one facing you now

• New choices and forward thinking to push beyond where you are to be prepared for “next”

• A rigorous look at your business as your development happens in the context of your business

• New capabilities, improved effectiveness, new leadership strategies, new awareness; concrete opportunities to try that out and work on it

• Improved relationships and consequent results• The unvarnished truth• Support and challenge, not judgment or collusion• Greater alignment between what the organization

needs from you and your leadership strategies• A plan for building your capacity, capability, and

impact

If the answer is no, and its highly likely that some of them will be no, we urge you not to settle for what may be mediocre work. Choosing “a little bit of change is better than nothing” shouldn’t be the standard to which you resort. An executive that oversees a large budget and leads dozens of people has the potential to make an enormous impact for better or worse on enterprise performance. Compromising on the quality of their development is a license for them to compromise on the quality of their results.

I am about to land so I’m shutting down my laptop. Hopefully, I’ve given you a clearer picture of what needs to happen for leadership coaching to be truly transformative. If you make sure that any coaching work is informed by a systemic view of the context of the leader, is integrated with larger capacity building efforts of the HR/L&D resources, and is focused on relationships, you’ll be ahead of the game at the outset.

If you want to hear more, drop me a line atmindy@navalent.com

© 2013 Navalent.All rights reserved.

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