How to make lasting change in your business
1)Coach or Tell:
For an organisation to survive and grow in times of tough economic downturn and fierce competition, it is more important than ever to be agile, responsive and adaptable to the needs of your customers. One of the key differentiators between success and failure can be the level of drive and commitment displayed by business leaders and staff alike.
Coaching your teams is a highly effective way of improving morale and motivation throughout your business, this in turn help facilitate change and drive improvements at all levels within an organisation.
By using a coaching model rather than a classic training or telling approach, it will encourage independent thought and will empower people to achieve more. It is also important to consider how coaching can align teams, help managers to delegate more effectively and encourage people to solve problems at their own level. With a highly motivated and empowered workforce, truly outstanding performance can be achieved.
How does coaching differ from training? Coaching will always start with a goal in mind and work with an individual to help them achieve it. Coaching does not provide the answers or tell someone what to do, it simply asks questions that will challenge beliefs and empower people to develop their own solutions.
This approach promotes ownership and creativity and it is the role of the coach to encourage, support and challenge throughout the process. A coach will often help a person to create a vision and encourage them to take specific and measurable steps towards achieving it. A good coach will ask the questions that others are afraid to ask and it is through challenge and enquiry that huge steps can be made.
2)Making change happen
As a Business Improvement consultant I have often been challenged to introduce significant changes into an organisation, sometimes resulting in radical restructuring and altering roles & responsibilities. The success or failure of such activities is almost invariably dependent upon the people involved. You can design the best, most efficient process in the world, but it is unlikely to stick if the people using it have not bought into it. I have learned this to my cost and found that change is not always readily received.
It is therefore very important when deciding to embark on any improvement activity, to fully engage with your teams and seek buy in from early on in the process. I have often found that by understanding the needs of a team or individual before presenting a solution to be a very powerful method of gaining commitment and increasing the chance of making lasting change.
3)Coaching Your Teams
I have experienced many times throughout my career, businesses that do not engage correctly with their teams. Often the larger the business, the worse they are. I have seen costly improvement activities fail only a few months after implementation, fantastic business strategies lose their impact as they filter through the hierarchy and highly de-motivated teams gradually decline in performance. All of these things could have been avoided by coaching directors, managers and team leaders to work closer with their teams, encourage ownership and make people feel valued at all levels.
Numerous studies have been conducted over the years to link employee engagement with performance of a business. From early management theorists such as Hertzberg and Deming to large multi-national Organisations, they have recognised the benefits of having a highly motivated workforce to help deliver performance and change.
4)Making the change stick
Often when an organisation introduces a new process or way of working, if can forget that sustaining it can be the hardest thing. A manager may introduce a KPI to measure a process and track it with a graph stuck on the wall, however this is not the only part of sustaining an activity. Improvements can be and often are upheld while the manager or consultant are present every day, but if no one owns it beyond the individual who has mode the implementation, the change it is likely to fail when they cannot devote time to it or leave the business. It is therefore very important to understand the behaviour of those involved and work with teams to promote ownership, responsibility, encourage creativity and drive further improvements.
For more information regarding Coaching, Change management or Business Improvement activities please contact me at
[email protected]
Daniel Briscoe: Senior Coach & Director
