What is coaching in the workplace?

In a world when we are all short of time, isn’t it just quicker to do it yourself?

When you think about your idol, your favourite athlete, musician or actor, what is it that makes them so successful? Is it raw talent, years of practice or perhaps something more. More often than not, behind each of these successful individuals is a great coach!

This is true in business too. Think about the most successful people in your business or network and the chances are they have a formal coach already, or they have had great experiences of being coached themselves during their career.

Coaching in the workplace is fundamentally different to what most people experience in their daily workplace diet. Coaching at work is really about helping the person to arrive at the answer, rather than giving them the answer. It’s about helping them to arrive at an answer that works best for them, in their situation.

There are many quotes that seek to describe ‘coaching’ and of course, it is only one of the many approaches successful leaders use.

This epitomises what coaching in the workplace should be.

In a world where typically someone more senior, older or more experienced feels the constant need to demonstrate to others how much they know by simply ‘telling’ others the answer, it is refreshing and sadly too rare to be effectively coached.

What people, and line managers particularly often don’t get, is that they can so easily disable the person they are trying to help just by ‘over telling’ them. If they just took a step back, and tried a little coaching technique, they would be so much more effective as an enabler of those same people.

There are many practical uses for coaching in the workplace.

Problem-solving in the moment, and helping someone to come up with the right solution to overcome the issue they are experiencing.

Helping someone to think for themselves rather than you doing the thinking for them, right up to thinking longer term and putting together a career plan.

However, coaching does take time and in my job, we tend to hear a lot of people saying “it’s quicker to do it myself“, especially when correcting mistakes or developing people. That may be true but if you don’t make them aware they are doing it wrong in the first place, you will be forever correcting their mistakes.

One of my recent sessions involved an audit partner from an accountancy firm who came to me with the problem of always being the last one in the office reviewing files and correcting mistakes, even though his auditors were experienced, well-trained professionals. This meant that he was missing out on time at home with his family.

After asking a series of challenging questions, he came up with the idea that the next time he found a file with mistakes, he would go back to the auditor and let them know how many mistakes he had found, but not where they were.

When he first tried this approach, the auditor was taken aback. However, he took the file back and managed to find five out of the six mistakes himself. The next time he presented a file to the partner, there were next to no mistakes.

What Are The Benefits Of Coaching?

The benefits of coaching are apparent both for the individual (the coachee), the coach and for the business.

Attraction, Recruitment and retention of top talent – investing in an individual coaching programme for your talented individuals not only allows them to develop further, but it also shows their value. Better still, train them in how to coach and they can then be your coaches for your next talent tier, developing your succession plan.
Increased innovation & alignment of personal growth with organisational needs – let your people solve your problems. Often bringing business improvement teams together and getting them to self-coach not only means that you get a wealth of innovative ideas but also you are starting to build cross-functional relationships and self-problem solving.
Increased employee engagement – an involved, listened to individual, that can carve out their own career path, not always vertically, will be more likely to stay with your business.

3 Tips For Being A Great Coach

Develop a coaching contract – make it clear to your coachee what to expect from coaching. Ensure it’s confidential and that they feel safe to disclose things to you but also if you disclose to them that it’s a two-way confidential contract. Let them know what is going to happen and that there is a purpose, it’s not just to have a nice chat and a cuppa.
Use a simple structure – There are many coaching models out there, just pick one that works for you. The most effective coaching sessions not only allow the coachee to come to their own conclusions but also gain their commitment to doing something about it. A great way to get them to explore this is to ask what might get in the way of them taking up their actions, and what would be the impact if they don’t do it. The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Ask the right questions – Of course we all know about open questions but think about some really useful opening questions such as ‘what are your life aspirations?’, ‘what regrets do you not want to have?’, ‘what are you put on this earth for?’, ‘how do you want people to describe you?’. The more challenging the question, the more thought-provoking. However, remember to ask your coachee at the start for permission to challenge.

If you feel like you still need assistance in answering the question “What is coaching in the workplace?” please contact us today and we can discuss how our truly unique behavioural workshops can transform the ability of your people to enable others, and therefore help you to create a truly high performing team.

I often hear myself say “Great opportunity to use your PDW skills” – or, in shorthand, just “PDW!” This has been the most effective training I have done in my career – and to call it training downplays it.

Vicky Sandry General Counsel

Particularly good feedback from the team on all the practise sessions as this really brings the theory to life – and a great team helping to do that.

Steve Howarth CEO

Good structure, very well facilitated and the combination of project and personal skills training meant that it was easy to see how the personal skills could be practically applied.

Richard Cheatham Project Manager

Vicky Sandry General Counsel

Particularly good feedback from the team on all the practise sessions as this really brings the theory to life – and a great team helping to do that.

Steve Howarth CEO

Good structure, very well facilitated and the combination of project and personal skills training meant that it was easy to see how the personal skills could be practically applied.

Richard Cheatham Project Manager

Download Our Free Guide: How To Build Outstanding Customer Relationships

Learn how to build strong customer relationships and keep them coming back for more with this comprehensive guide. Download now and improve your customer relationships!

Download guide

Noble Events What’s It Really Like ToWork With PDW?

We know that reading about PDW isn’t the same as seeing the impact our training has on your team, or taking part in a session, yourself. To help you get a feel for what’s really involved, and better understand how our approach could benefit your business, we’re talking to Sarah Cox, an MD who’s already taken the positive step of working with PDW.

Rhys’ Story How PDW Behavioural Training Has Helped My Professional Development

Rhys Davis from Armstrong Watson shares his story of how PDW helped him with his professional development goals, and gives some great tips on how you can start your own journey towards self-improvement!

Success Story A Prestigious Accountancy Firm Endorses Leadership Development From PDW

PDW Group specialises in developing new behaviours and habits for professionals via unique business training courses that allow them to prepare for new responsibilities, or to perform better in their current role. In this blog post, we look closely at how PDW’s training helped a top accountancy firm to transform the way they work.

Success Story Endorsement from Richard Bugler - Albert Goodman

At PDW we recently had the honour of receiving this glowing testimonial from Richard of Albert Goodman. He explains below how his partners thoroughly invested in our leadership development training and reaped the numerous rewards. Read on to find out more, in Richard’s own words…

Success Story What Coaching Did For Me

Coaching can significantly help your day-to-day work and have a positive impact on how you operate.

We talked to Sandra about her journey with PDW Group and her realisation of why coaching was the next step for her.

Coaching enabled Sandra to see some of the specific blockers that were preventing her from being the type of partner she wanted to be how it lead her to be a happier person.

Testimonial Fisher German

Fisher German’s partner of the future needed a more innovative and robust approach in order to be different. They wanted their partners to be suited for partnership. This means having the right skills and leadership ability, both internally and externally.

Testimonial Openfield

As a leading agribusiness, Openfield are one of Britain’s most successful and enduring cooperatives, committed to putting their members’ needs first.

Openfield are realising their vision to be an integral part of their farmers’ and customers’ businesses, building unique relationships that create value.

Testimonial Robson Laidler

Robson Laidler are a leading accountancy firm in Newcastle – upon- Tyne. They approached PDW Group to develop the leadership ability within the senior teams in the firm to improve overall performance and employee engagement.

Connect with PDW Group today for expert solutions tailored to your needs. Providing innovative strategies, our team is dedicated to your success.

Noble Events | What’s It Really Like To Work With PDW?

15th March 2024

We know that reading about PDW isn’t the same as seeing the impact our training has on your team, or taking part in a session, yourself. To help you get a feel for what’s really...

Learn more

Rhys’ Story: How PDW Behavioural Training Has Helped My Professional Development

15th March 2024

Rhys Davis from Armstrong Watson shares his story of how PDW helped him with his professional development goals, and gives some great tips on how you can start your own journey...

Learn more

View All News

What Is Coaching In The Workplace?