How to Maximise your Teams Performance through Coaching

Paul Fieldhouse writes:

A powerful discipline in which we believe that each individual has amazing capacity to grow, that like the acorn, all the ingredients are contained within the individual and it is the nurturing process that helps to develop and grow the person.

Some believe that we deliver about 30-40% of our true potential and that with careful coaching and nurturing we can improve this to at least 80%.

What would be the benefit to your business if we doubled the performance of your team?

But can anyone coach?

Look back at previous articles on emotional capital – to be a great coach you must have high emotional capital particularly in areas such as Empathy and Relationship building, together with integrity, detachment and of course an absolute belief in the coaching process.

Answer these questions:

• Do you regularly listen to your own feelings and reflect on how they affect your behaviour? Do you have a high regard for others?
• Do you have a genuine interest in others?
• Are you a listener and can be truly present?
• In subjects that you are passionate about, do you have the self-discipline to suspend your own feelings and beliefs and not to sit in judgement of others?

If the answer is truly yes to the above then you are perfect for coaching and should develop your skills through undergoing professional training.

Remember though, as a manager or leader in your business, you pay the salary, can promote or even sack and so potentially the relationship is in conflict with the key to successful coaching relationship which is one of a partnership, trust, safety and with no pre-conceived out comes from the Coach.

The agenda must be the coachees and so if an owner or manager is coaching a team member for sales success, is the focus truly on the individual or is the focus on meeting the sales target?

The integrity of the coaching relationship underpins any potential success, and implemented without this integrity can be damaging.

So why coach?

Through the coaching process, we can expect to increase the motivation levels of the coachee, we can become more effective at delegation and avoid the dangers of abdication but more importantly we empower our team members.

Problem solving becomes more effective, and we have a base on which to deal with any relationship problems that may occur in our workplace, the contrary in fact is true in that we can impact on team building, team working and team development.

Of course it also improves the whole performance management process, which results in us growing our business through growing our people not using them!

Do I need to have better technical knowledge than the coachee?

No, absolutely not, remember the principal is that the coachee has all they need within them, the coaching process is one of nurturing. Good coaching should take the individual beyond the limitations of the coaches own knowledge.

Mike Spracklen was the coach of Andy Holmes and Steve Redgrave, the famous rowing pair, Mike was quoted saying “I’m was stuck, I have taught them all I knew technically, however this opened up the possibility of going further as they can feel things I couldn’t even see”. He discovered a new way forward by working with their experience and perceptions rather than his own!

Is Rory McIlroy’s coach a better golfer than him? I guess not or he would be the one competing, the coaches role is to look from the outside.

As Galileo Galilei said

“You cannot teach a man anything, You can only help him discover it within himself”