Andrew Marsh, chair of Vistage for the North East and Northumberland, NED for numerous businesses and charities; and successful entrepreneur, spends his days helping business leaders achieve goals and find opportunity.
A good percentage of the Vistage meetings feature a leader of industry as a speaker on a particular subject for the invited few to enjoy. One of the latest speakers was Carole Gaskell – who focused on coaching being the new superpower!
Carole started running businesses in US and Australia, even working with the world famous Cindy Crawford. She completed a coaching qualification before coaching was even a buzz word and has now been excelling at coaching for over 20 years, and a Vistage speaker for in excess of 15 years. Andrew said:
“The session delivered by Carole was hugely successful, held at the Marriot at Gateshead MetroCentre, and I’d like to start this article by thanking Carole for her input.
“Attended by members and their guests, the room of business leaders listened to and processed challenges on how coaching their team, rather than managing, gets better results for everyone. I asked Carole what she thought coaching meant and her response was:
“Coaching is helping someone realise their potential, helping them realise what tools they have, whilst role modelling and best practice sharing. You are teaching them to fish rather than giving them a fish, giving them the tools and the thinking to approach situations. By helping them to think for themselves, through situations they don’t know how to deal with, you create a balance of support, help and challenge where they learn how to solve problems for themselves.”
“What I took away from the session and wanted to share in this article is that coaching is indeed an advance form of communication that should be applied throughout all levels of managing people, but especially by leaders. It is different to mentoring in that you are helping people find their own answers, rather than giving them the tips on what to do.
“Teams or Zoom, the telephone, face to face – these are primary vehicles to communicate through; and coaching is an adaptable, yet subtle, superpower which can be delivered through them all to unlock more possibilities in people. Coaching can also be used as an effective way to deliver 1-2-1’s, to help groups achieve targets, and can be used effectively with customers and clients to help you understand their pain points and requirements better.
“Through coaching, which is a fundamental part of what I do when facilitating both events and 1-2-1’s with my members, you can unlock a team member’s or entire team’s potential, maximising their performance, expanding their thinking, creating both light bulb moments and step changes in behaviour. And this is why I am confident that a good leader adapting their skills to coach their team can have a massive impact on a business.
“Like a personal trainer for the mind, a good leader can use coaching to stretch and challenge your teams thinking, getting them to consider new things and act upon them. You can even get them to do things they didn’t think they were capable of, which brings with it positive changes in confidence, motivation and belief in their own abilities.
“So now you know the benefits, you are wondering whether this is something you have the skills and personality to do. As this type of conversation can be initially awkward, to be successful you need to firstly apply common sense and 5 key skills: a positive attitude to growth, a clear focus, active listening, concise reflection and laser questioning.
“VITAL is a model that Carole touched upon which is used by many to successfully coach their teams. I personally like to avoid focusing on setting just resolutions, instead looking at the “five Rs”: results, reasons, reflections, resources and responsibilities. This also involves holding one another to account, which is all important for this style of management to have a positive impact on a business, its people and its results.
“There are of course barriers to simply just implementing this style into your existing team and business practice. Most of those barriers tend to be external, including time to learn and implement, fear of awkwardness, lack of skill in existing leadership team. However, what tends to hold leaders back from instilling this in their organisation is more internal. Their own self-doubt, emotional barriers, and fear of the unknown and change.
“If you can step out of that, maybe with your own coach, and get past it you will move onto something that will truly change so many things for the better. Possibilities include a better performing team, a reduction in staff sickness and an improvement in staff retention to name just a few. How can that not sound appealing? If you don’t have your own coach yet, it would seem it is time to find one. Some simple tips are find someone you respect, that has a career with a proven track record, that you can relate to and that comes with good reviews or recommendations.
“I’d like to finish by rounding up on some points that Carole and I truly agree on.
“Coaching is a great way of fulfilling our own potential (self-coaching), developing others, developing relationships, removing barriers of doubt, reducing challenges, creating a high-performance culture, and a thriving work environment through a non-directive system.
“It is proving to be much more effective than a directive form of managing, where people are simply advising others and being told what to do via suggestion. In an era where diversity, inclusion and engagement is premium in being a good employer, this is surely a step that will tick many boxes, as long as it is delivered and not just talked about.
“If you are interested in doing more than talking about it, and want to deep dive into how this change would positively impact on you and your organisation, do get in touch with me.”
Get in touch with Andrew by emailing him on andrew@marshbusinesstransformation.co.uk
More information on Carole is available at fullpotentialgroup.com