The application of coaching as a business development and growth enhancing system has been well known in certain quarters, but not as well understood in others. In several African countries for instance, there is still a lot to be understood about the concept, practice and operations of coaching, especially in relation to business and/or organisational development. And, while there is increasing knowledge about coaching, its application appears to be largely limited to lifestyle improvement and personal development opportunities. That is perhaps why life coaching is more common.
The concept of business and organisational coaching, as well as the benefits thereof would seem to be quite a novel idea, which still needs to be well understood and professionally developed before being fully embraced. While this may take some time to happen, there is no denying the fact that it would eventually happen. Just as in sports, where professional coaches call forth the best in their players for optimum performance, business coaches aim to get the very best out of the organisation and business.
Generally, the coaching process involves working with the business owner(s) and top management to facilitate increased personal awareness, trust levels, technical capacity and energy, so that there is clarity about the potentials to awaken new visions that will reposition and transform the business. Oftentimes, the business owner(s) and top management get caught up with the everyday grind of keeping the business going that they fail to inject fresh energy, new ideas and creativity needed to give the business a lift, especially in tough times. Business coaching provides that opportunity.
In reality, there are several potential benefits of business coaching. Principally, the desired outcome of business coaching is the unlocking of inherent potentials to ensure that the business unleashes its competitive and comparative advantages in the marketplace. Coaching in this regard must be so compelling that it moves the organisation and business forward at the required pace and in the right direction to achieve this goal. Business coaching thus ensures that there is corporate realignment of the business with the market realities, opportunities and possibilities.
Apart from this alignment, there is also the benefit of business coaching in creating a stronger alignment between individual team members’ goals and the overall strategic objectives of the organizations. This is crucial because the best goals of any organisation are best realised when they offer the best platforms for the attainment and actualisation of individual goals. In such scenarios, it becomes quite easy to seamlessly facilitate the dovetailing of personal goals into corporate goals, such that “one is for all; and all become for one”.
Where business coaching is especially critical is its potential to significantly increase team working experience by facilitating strong interpersonal skills among team members, thereby enhancing their ability to work well together. This results in mutual impact, mainly because there is an amplification of the knowledge of leaning on one another. This in turn brings about mutual growth, as well as a more rapid transition to personal and corporate goal attainment.
What the business coach would be expected to contribute in this regard is the knowledge, experience and specialised tools that ensure that he or she continues to operate as an external sounding board. In this regard, the coach can be trusted to help ensure clear outcomes and clarity of purpose through the fine-tuning and enhancement of personal awareness. An experienced coach will thus support an organisation to build on the collective strengths of the team in bringing about business transformation, peak performance and sustainability.
Because of the potential of business coaching in accentuating high quality interpersonal skills within the organisation, there are greater prospects of creating mutual confidence and quality relationships within the workplace set up. This is a consistent message that coaches send out during the coaching process because there are fewer ways than this by which the organisation can initiate and sustain strong support for any major culture or process change within the set up.
Apart from the above, there are additional benefits of business coaching to organisations, such as the better development of an effective feedback system within the organisation. This is made possible because greater personal awareness, especially of the potential mutual impact of interdependence usually compels greater personal and mutual accountability. Consequently, there is increased generic feedback to the organisation, which ensures that issues that need to be tackled are easily isolated and systematically dealt with.
The understanding in this regard is that the benefits, joy and glories of individual and corporate success so much more outweigh the complexities of inherent individual differences within the organisation. Business coaching thus ensures that self accountability creates feelings that positively impact on the success of the business, as well as on the people that are associated with the business. You can read more about the transformational power of coaching at www.ceedcoaching.com
Emmanuel Imevbore
