A vast amount has been written about the competencies of coaches and mentors, and even more about the qualities of great leaders. Much of this is contradictory and dependent on circumstance or context.
Although overall spend on training and development has in many organisations been capped or declined during the recession, coaching and mentoring appear to have at least held their own and actually become a more critical part of the L&D offering.
The impact of power differentials on how teams and groups work is not as straightforward as it might seem. Having a mix of powerful and less powerful people in a team, or having a team composed entirely of powerful people can both have a negative impact on performance (Angus et al, 2016).
Since I first got ensnared by the world of coaching and mentoring, part of my learning has been to focus less on what is assumed and taken for granted and more on the question “What do we have evidence for and how valid is that evidence?”
Systemic Talent Management views talent management, performance management and succession planning as complex, adaptive systems -- unlike traditional HR approaches, which broadly treat these activities as if they were simple, linear systems.
It’s evident that a coaching and mentoring strategy – especially if the aim is to create a coaching and mentoring culture – requires the sustained support and energy of an organization’s leaders.
Arguably the most common cause of problems coaches bring to supervision is mismatch of expectations at the contracting stage of the relationship.
Just as happened with coaching individuals, as team coaching becomes more mainstream, the assumption emerges that it is some kind of cure-all for team problems. Of course it’s not, but team coaches increasingly bring to supervision issues relating to how they manage client team and sponsor expectations about what can and can’t be delivered.
There are thousands of studies and books on managing change or leading change. The former tend to focus on ways to work with and overcome people’s resistance; the latter on creating a vision that people can sign up to and engage with. Of course, both these perspectives are important and indeed implementing change usually requires both.
I had the privilege to meet David Clutterbuck, the father of coaching, at an in-depth three-day team coaching training in Lithuania. I was lucky to learn about the keys to successful team coaching and how to create sustainable, long lasting results for the organization. Inspired by his knowledge, I interviewed him on the importance of teams in organizations and on his thoughts about coaching on a global scale.
