What is a coaching culture?

You will know you have a coaching culture when:

• Personal growth, team development are integrated and aligned with organisational goals and the links between each are clearly understood;
• There are effective mechanisms for enabling organisation learning and for overcoming barriers to learning;
• People at all levels in the organisation welcome feedback, actively seek it and more importantly act on it!
• People are able to engage in constructive and positive confrontation; Time for reflection is valued;
• Coaching is seen as a joint responsibility of managers and their employees;
• Coaching is seen primarily as a positive initiative rather than as a remedial intervention;
• There are strong role models for good coaching practice across the organisation.

What can a coaching culture do for you?

The growth of both external and internal coaching has led to most organisations spending a significant amount on coaching. At its best, a coaching culture can result in big improvements in performance and employee satisfaction. At its worst, unfocussed spending with limited clarity of the desired outcome leads to executives seeing coaching as a cost rather than an investment. Poor quality of coaching and ambiguous objectives can contribute to underperformance in delivering business effectiveness, performance and results. Furthermore, it can have a negative impact on employees and the organisation’s reputation.