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Organisational Coaching

Coaching is one form of development in which an experienced a coach, supports a learner or client in achieving a specific personal or professional goal by providing training and guidance. The learner is sometimes called a coachee. Coaches use a range of communication skills (such as listening, questioning, reflecting, etc.) to help their coachee shift their perspectives, thereby discovering different approaches to achieve their goals.

Organisational coaching focuses on supporting individuals to improve their skills, performance and capabilities, therefore their growth, within the context of their organisation. It is frequently used to help organisations achieve strategic objectives, enhance leadership capability, and create culture change. Broader organisational needs are placed front and centre, and the coaching is used to scale-up change across the enterprise. While there is overlap, this broader focus is in contrast to executive or leadership coaching which targets the individual’s development needs and more typically comprises standalone engagements.

From the perspective of organisational transformation, supporting leaders and key stakeholders with organisational coaching helps to align their personal development with the desired future state of the organisation, and enables them to lead themselves and others through transformation more effectively.

Pros

  • Unlike stand-alone coaching engagements, it ensures development in direct connection to the transformation.
  • Leadership capabilities are rapidly developed to engage and lead others through the transformation authentically.

Cons

  • Some organisations may be resistant to the concept of coaching due to previous experiences.
  • The organisation’s existing culture may not support changes in leadership behaviour achieved through the coaching.

Source: Institute of organisational Coaching

Organisational Development

Organisational development (OD) as a practice involves an ongoing, systematic process of implementing effective organisational change. OD is both a field of applied science focused on understanding and managing organisational change and a field of scientific study and inquiry. It is interdisciplinary in nature and draws on sociology, psychology, particularly industrial and organisational psychology, and theories of motivation, learning, and personality. Although behavioural science has provided the basic foundation for the study and practice of OD, new and emerging fields of study have made their presence felt. Experts in systems thinking, in organisational learning, in the structure of intuition in decision-making, and in coaching whose perspective is not steeped in just the behavioural sciences, but in a much more multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approach have emerged as OD catalysts or tools.

The objectives of OD are to increase the level of inter-personal trust, cooperation and collaboration among employees, and to confront problems by increasing organisational problem-solving and reducing conflict.

From the perspective of organisational transformation, it is worth considering whether a dedicated OD function could be an enabler to continually improve processes and offerings by helping to make strategic choices in all activities of the organisation.

Pros

  • The process forces introspection, which can be revealing, reinforcing things you suspected and exposing things you didn’t know existed.
  • It can point to better outcomes, often by showing how to make the most of existing resources and also how to take advantage of new strategies and tactics.
  • It can reduce business expenses. From getting a firmer handle on your budget to reducing waste and duplicity, organisationaldevelopment should influence your bottom line.

Cons

  • It can unleash a swift culture clash, especially if there is a lack of employee buy-in.
  • It can be easily foiled by weak communication. Employees must be kept in the loop about all phases of an organisationaldevelopment initiative, no matter how mundane the details.
  • It requires considerable investment of time and budget.

Recommended resources: What is Organisational Development, CIPD

Objectives & Key Results (OKR)

OKR is a goal setting framework used by individuals, teams, and organisations to define measurable goals and track their outcomes.

OKRs comprise an objective (a significant, concrete, clearly defined goal) and 3-5 key results (measurable success criteria used to track the achievement of that goal).

Not only should objectives be significant, concrete, and clearly defined, they should also be inspirational for the individual, team, or organisation that is working towards them. Objectives can also be supported by initiatives, which are the plans and activities that help to move forward the key results and achieve the objective.

Key results should be measurable, either on a 0–100% scale or with any numerical value (e.g. dollar amount or percentage) that can be used by planners and decision makers to determine whether those involved in working towards the key result have been successful. There should be no opportunity for “gray area” when defining a key result.

From the perspective of organisational transformation, it is worth considering, whether the implementation of an OKR approach to managing the change could support the definition of the new priorities and to reinforce new routines.

Pros

  • They focus individuals, teams and the organisation on goals that deliver business impact.
  • They encourage regular follow-ups and progress checks.
  • They are measurable.
  • They align everyone to shared objectives.

Cons

  • If OKR’s are added at an individual level they can increase complexity.
  • Updating and tracking can result in increased workload or the need to implement special software.
  • Organisations tend to set too many OKR’s, which negatively impacts the intended effect of alignment and focus.

Recommended resources:

Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs; Doerr John, 2018, ISBN 0525536221

Obeya

The Japanese term Obeya (great room) originated in the 1990’s and is considered a component of the Toyota Production System. The Obeya was instituted during the product and process development, where all individuals involved in managerial planning met in a ‘great room’ to speed communication and decision-making.

Conceptually akin to traditional ‘war rooms’, an Obeya will contain visually engaging charts and graphs depicting such information as program timing, milestones and progress-to-date, and countermeasures to existing technical or scheduling issues. An Obeya room can also be a place for software development, a command center, managing new business strategy, workflow and project management. This tool forces people to work together without distractions and creates a great atmosphere to generate new ideas.

From the perspective of organisational transformation, it is worthwhile for senior leaders to consider implementing their own version of Obeya, in order to achieve and maintain efforts towards the desired future state.

Pros

  • An Obeya (or War Room) aids communication between the key stakeholders of the transformation.
  • It can reinforce a shared understanding of the current status and where efforts need to be focused to ensure progress.
  • It allows for prioritisation and effective workload distribution.

Cons

  • Access to the visual components and information storage can be challenging for geographically scattered teams.
  • It carries with it the risk of placing too much focus on resolving issues and deflecting attention from causal links.

Recommended resources:

iObeya