Mark Dickinson of DONE! Hospitality Training Solutions discusses the new word echoing through the corridors of management today – coaching

Coaching is a relatively new skill and there is a lot of human behavioral information and research being developed that is helping organizations to grow and truly stand out from their competitors. With the availability of ‘Big Data’, where we have the opportunity to mine millions of people’s behaviors and habits, and analyze behaviors versus results, we are rich in knowledge that was previously unavailable.

The challenge is not the availability of information, but rather using that information with talent and skill to help organizations leap forward.

Welcome to group coaching for executive teams
Say you have a company that is doing okay; it has results that keep it going, but they are not growing like they used to; the importance of policies and procedures are taking over the focus on customer happiness, and organizational politics have replaced the focus on growth. You feel tired or weary and burdened. You are ready for group coaching. The question that immediately springs to mind is: “What is group coaching?”

Group coaching step by step
Step 1 – Meet the team that manages the organization for a half day of high-energy thinking about where the company is, discuss the existing mission, vision and values, and look forward to where the company could be. Challenge the group with outrageous growth suggestions and crazy, limitless thinking so that their imaginations are let loose on the possibilities that lie ahead. Then leave it to cook for a week or so.

Step 2 – Meet the team again and challenge them to develop mad dreams for incredible growth for the organization. Encourage the team to create loads of dreams and goals. While they are doing this, measure their beliefs. What is important to them? The coach will be able to suggest ideas, but it is always the team that is going to do the growth. You have now established Point A, the actual state, and you are working toward developing a point B.

Step 3 – A third meeting takes place, at which the members of the group get to discuss their dreams (the ones that they shared in the previous meetings), reflect on the beliefs that they have shared (as recorded by the coach during the previous sessions) and confirm that this is who they are and that the dreams are real. The coach now directs the group to take decisions about what it is they are going to work toward from here on out. This creates the Point B, the desired state.

Step 4 – The next meeting is about listening to the team to determine what goals they have decided to truly take up. Reaffirming the Point B, where the team are going. The coach’s job is to take the team visually forward to the day that goal has been attained, and to inspire the emotions that achieving that goal will create. The coach then walks backward from the goal to the present day, asking questions of the team to uncover the key milestones along the way to the goal. The coach will carry out the same process for each goal.

Step 5 – The coach is there to encourage and to help maintain accountability to the desired state by conducting regular meetings, though they become less intensive as time passes. After a period of time, the coach will then take the team back to the beginning of the process and create a new Point A and a new Point B.

What happens along the way?
It is magnificent. Teams become so focused on reaching Point B that internal politics dissolve in the goodness and wellbeing of a properly oriented team. Internal change becomes smooth as team members silently realign themselves with the newly emerging identity. Another significant development is that those who were hiding are exposed or quietly leave the organization.

This is a gamechanger. It transforms organizations.

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