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Online coaching
The Team Coaching system launched by coaching specialist Apian allows teams to evaluate their performance quickly and simply on an individual and group basis. Teams log onto the Apian web site weekly and answer a series of questions concerning direction, morale, spirit and productivity, a process that should take no more than a minute. The team is guided through a step-by-step on-line coaching system. As they enter information onto their site so they develop data scores on which to base discussions that lead to better performance. 'Businesses often concentrate on a short sharp one-day hit of team building - and expect things to miraculously change,' said David Tinker, Apian's director.
'They then feel the disappointment and frustration when very little impact is seen back at work. A longer teem coaching process gives them the chance to work out how to tap into a team's full potential, move away from old limiting habits, and really enhance performance. Plus they will see a return on their investment of time and money.'
Apian reports that Vodafone is trialling the system.
Article reproduced courtesy of the ‘News/What's New section’ - October 2004 issue - HR Business.
How to boost performance in your staff; Teacher, Trainer, Mento, Coach - What they are and what they do?
Attracting, developing and retaining good quality staff in an economical way has become the mantra of anyone who has made the shift to realising that the future success of any business depends on the harnessed ability of their people.
To increase ability is one thing, applying it successfully is another. Coaching has arrived on the HR development menu.
Consultants have become coaches overnight, and managers are being sent on coaching skills courses. There is a need for continued education and training in order to increase the capability in our businesses, yet there can be confusion about how best to use the coaching approach.
The teacher
The educator will teach you new things and introduce your staff to new concepts and theories - enabling them to make sense of the business world in which they are expected to perform.
The business educator might give you a presentation on sales statistics and trends that will give you new ways to understand how your sales are, or are not, performing..and why. In principle, an educator will impart knowledge although we generally only retain a small percentage of available learning from formal education.
The trainer
A trainer will teach your staff new skills (skills being something that you can do to a high standard), new types of behaviour or actions. Writing plans, selling, delegating or even building a wall are all skills that can be acquired through training.
The classic training method is for the trainer to explain and demonstrate the new action, and then the trainee will imitate this. Part of the training process involves education, but the larger part is hands on learning.
We become truly 'skilled' at new behaviours when we practice until they become second nature in any situation.
The mentor
The mentor is someone who has done what you are planning to do, and is prepared to share their experience. This experience shows that these people are worth their weight in gold - they can reassure you that how you are feeling is okay and give you tips on how to take the valuable short cuts. They 'wear the T-shirt' and can give you the big picture enabling you to see how things fit together.
They can make connections and introductions for you, and all this for the price of a lunch. Everyone can benefit from having mentor, especially when doing something new.
The coach
The coach has a quite different role: Assuming that you are your own 'expert' and that you know yourself pretty well. They believe in your ability to be truly creative, powerful and excellent at what you want to do.
A coaching process will guide you through the thinking required to set some clear goals for yourself, know what you need to do to get there, and recognise what it is about you that might prevent you from making progress.
The trouble with 'coaching' has been its relationship with 'therapy.' Therapy assumes that there is something to be healed, or a deep psychological problem to be solved, whereas coaching assumes that we have the capability to be and do much more.
So, coaching can enable an individual, or group, to raise their level of performance through the application of existing knowledge and ability learned from education and training.
Engagement with desire, determination, skill, knowledge and dreams is the territory of the coaching process with an acknowledgement of limiting habits, misplaced power or the fear of success.
The leader
A leader is a mentor, trainer, educator and coach.
There are many leaders who are unaware of which of these roles they are in and how to best use their talent, and many leaders will give most time to the activity in which they are most confident, no matter what the situation demands.
The easiest roles are the educator (telling someone how to do it), the trainer (showing someone how to do it), and the mentor (telling someone about how they did it). These may also be the most comfortable roles because the individual has been promoted as a result of their skill and expertise rather than leadership capability.
For some leaders the most challenging role is to take the time to coach - listening to someone, helping them set their own challenges, enabling them to work out how to succeed, and then providing them with support.
If only business leaders knew that the return on investment for coaching is around 60% more than training or education courses. (Ref: Olivero, Bane, Kopelman, Executive Coaching as a Transfer of Training Tool: Effects on Productivity in a Public Agency, Public Personnel Management Journal, 24(4), p.461).
Imagine what might happen if the managers of your business invested 10% more time to coach their staff.
David Tinker, Director of Apian Coaching Limited, has researched and developed a new Team Coaching System (TCS) which he recently took online.
Article reproduced courtesy of Recruiter magazine
Issue No 23 - January 2005 - Business Review; Build your teams into effectively connected units
By David Tinker Director of Wantage-based Apian Coaching Ltd. In addition to online coaching tools, Apian provides team and one-to-one coaching to organisations across Europe.
Team building has taken on different guises over the years from potholing and team-hugging, to in-depth group personality analysis. Today there is still a need to work in groups on specific tasks and it is clearly acknowledged that the 'chemistry' of some groups produces stronger, more productive and healthier performance.
Teams these days move very quickly. New technology means that we operate in an 'immediate world' and that information exchange is accurate and complete.
When email first appeared in offices there were some who feared the impact it would have on their working environment; send an email rather than cross the office and talk face to face.
Today we seem to spend more time looking at a computer screen or listening to our mobile 'phones than in interaction with humans. The impact on our teams is that there can be a 'disconnection' between people leading to poor communication, stress, sickness, low morale and 'just good enough' productivity. Our research has shown that 30% of staff thinks of 'throwing a sickie' each week just because they are not 'engaged' in their employment.
At the very core of teambuilding is the ability of a group of people to get connected with purpose, goals and a common way of working. Connections made between people about their hopes and fears, along with an understanding of personal strengths and limitations, will create a bond and a sense of belonging.basic team spirit. Without these connections we are simply a 'work group', the output of which is only equal to the number of members - when 'connected and engaged' we can operate as a team with far greater productivity.
In the past the HR department has often co-ordinated team building with the support of an internal or external coach. These events or programmes have been managed by the 'experts' who produce profiles and agendas. It is no wonder some team leaders think that they do not have the responsibility or the tools to do their own team coaching.
The process of team building need not be expensive and complicated. When groups of people take the time to hold conversations or 'dialogue' then new learning will emerge that will prompt different behaviours which, in turn, will lead to improved team performance. To create a new conversation take the team into a different environment - the same old venue will generate the same old conversation.
Encourage talk (no alcohol needed) by getting the team to create the agenda. Ask everyone to act as 'chair person' - take responsibility for quality and quantity of their contribution.
Encourage dialogue (flow of meaning) rather than debate (beating down) or discussion (breaking things up).
The spirit of dialogue is to be collaborative, fair, hopeful, candid, receptive, enquiring and expansive. It encourages appreciation rather than criticism - if the team always talk about problems it will become a 'problem team'.
We have all experienced the really useful team meeting where a list of actions or promises was created on the flip chart..and there it stayed! The process of applying learning into everyday life takes time, effort and support. Make the time (give the new plan a high priority), get motivated (be clear about the payoff of success, and the risk of inactivity) and find some ways to support each other.
As a final thought, notice how team building is positioned in the company: if it's currently the responsibility of HR - move it to the team. If team building is seen as an 'event' change it to everyday practice, if it's a 'nice to have' - start looking seriously at the lost potential. Give your team some attention and you may be amazed.
Article reproduced courtesy of the Berkshire Regional Newspapers
