“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where —” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

—————————————————————————————————————-

I often see organisations initiating multiple culture-shaping projects to shift the people and culture to the highest level of performance and productivity. However, some organisations may have chosen to develop a coaching culture simply because their rivals have started to do so, or they may feel that a coaching culture is a trend that their organisation shouldn’t miss. If this is the mentality, the “change strategy” will likely fail because the organisation has been unable first to determine its purpose and objective. Just as Alice, they don’t care where they are heading.

An organisation’s purpose should go beyond profit. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), 79 per cent of business leaders believe that an organisation’s purpose is central to a business’s success, and millennials who have a solid connection with their employer’s purpose are 5.3 times more likely to stay.1 So, it’s worthwhile to find out more compelling reasons why building a coaching culture is essential.

Before you begin your discovery, you should ask yourself these questions:

1. Why a coaching culture? Why not other cultures? Why not a high-performance culture, diversity and inclusion culture or creative and innovation culture?

2. What do you most want to get out of the coaching culture for your organisation?

3. How can a coaching culture impact your organisation’s performance?

To have a strong purpose

As a professional coach, it is always high on the agenda to coach my clients with the idea of identifying a purpose and objective. Having a vital purpose is not about achieving the goals or pursuing profit; it aligns your goals with your purpose. The purpose and intent are centred on you. As you decide to build a coaching culture in your organisation, having your intention in your mind will help, especially when you’re rolling out a tactical plan and communication strategy. Your true purpose will convince the audience (employees).

The coaching culture with other cultures

You will need to consider aligning the coaching culture with an organisation-wide leadership culture change.

Many organisations fail to integrate their business strategy, structure change plan, people, and talent strategy. A coaching strategy can’t work by itself without clear linkages to people and business. Coaching must be linked to the organisation’s plan to add value to a company.

Ask yourself the questions below:

1. What sort of leadership culture do we need?

2. To build a thriving coaching culture, what sort of organisational culture do we need to have in place to support it?

3. How can we leverage coaching to maximise engagement, the learning and development of employees, performance management, motivation and innovation?

4. How do we integrate our coaching strategy with our business and talent strategies to ensure maximum synergy and effectiveness?

Coaching-business integration

Often, a well-designed coaching plan has no integration with the organisation’s development strategies and no direct contribution to the organisation’s vision, mission, and values. Without integration, it will not be easy to sustain and deliver maximised benefits.

What would be the fastest and most effective way to make coaching widely practised in an organisation?

The answer will always be for the coaching strategy to seamlessly integrate with the organisation’s business strategy and moral compass.

Traditionally, coaching has been used by learning and HR practitioners for their learning and development programmes, leadership competency frameworks, corporate values setup, and talent classification. It’s rarely used by business managers formally, although many managers are coach-managers who value coaching as part of their leadership style. Therefore, it must be led by the head who will set the coaching agenda, regardless of which division the head of coaching is from. They must make coaching part of their responsibility as people managers.

When coaching and business are integrated

The coaching strategy is fully integrated into the business strategy (e.g. a coaching task force of different units and the coaching head is not from HR or L&D). In this scenario, coaching is embedded in a change of management, millennial leadership, engagement, leadership development, performance improvement and skill development.

This hardly happens nowadays in business practices and structures, but it will probably become one of the more common practices in the future. By having the coaching strategy integrated into the business strategy in the first place, the organisation’s strategy will be propelled to the next level. The entire organisation will use coaching in their day-to-day business practice. Everyone discusses issues openly, embracing openness as one of their core values and empowering people to make certain decisions, challenging people’s ideas with a dignified approach, asking questions to spark creativity and innovation, and making people’s development the priority. All these practices are driven by business, not HR nor talent management, and certainly not by the learning and development team.

“Coaching becomes the way we do business with all our stakeholders.”

Not all companies want to build a coaching culture because of many reasons. Some of the reasons could be:

• A company expects 100 per cent order-follow, with less room for deeper discussion. They see “fast and efficient” as the keys to success.

• A company director who prefers a top-down approach, expecting the company to follow his direction 100 per cent and ensuring they are up to speed with execution.

• A manufacturing-based company that thinks coaching doesn’t apply to their day-to-day routine job.

• A boss who believes employees need to go through hardship with absolute followership.

• Coaching is perceived as a slow communication style that doesn’t work in today’s fast-paced business environment.

It’s all right if the company doesn’t invest in creating a coaching culture. Maybe they don’t see the value of coaching yet, or they think this is not a good time yet for coaching culture.

What will be the most significant benefit gained from a coaching culture?

You or your organisation may want to build a:

1. Fun-filled and high-empowerment culture that attracts a young workforce

2. Culture that focuses on creativity and innovative breakthroughs

3. Culture that empowers employees to integrate work and life

4. Organisation that focuses on development and builds tomorrow’s leaders

5. High performance-driven organisation

Regardless of any objectives that you wish to achieve within your organisation through building a coaching culture, here are some of the benefits and commonalities of coaching cultures:

• Empower employees to take greater responsibility for their actions

• Communicate more effectively

• Work better with others to achieve a shared goal

Find out how building a future-ready coaching culture benefits your organisation and how your organisations use coaching to achieve strategic goals

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society.

Founded in 1995, its 50,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward the common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Ng Eng Hooi is the head of organisation development and global master coach for a major technology firm in Asia, where his key mandate is to develop talents and learning strategies for organisational development and also to create a coaching culture for future growth. He is writing a book called ‘Building a Sustainable Coaching Culture’, and believes coaching is the key enabler to achieving business success. He is also a Professional Certified Coach (PCC, ICF), a certified trainer, and a diversity and inclusion facilitator. He has more than fifteen years of corporate working experience as well as consulting experience.

Reference

1. www.pwc.com/us/en/about-us/corporate-responsibility/assets/pwc-putting-purpose-to-work- purpose-survey-report.pdf

The post Why a coaching culture and not any other culture? appeared first on HR Katha.

Managers are now faced with yet another challenge as they manage and navigate this change, not only for their organisation and teams, but also for themselves. An article in Forbes magazine1 referred to this as The Great Disconnect, where more employers than employees want to return to the office.

As I was reading through articles from around the world and speaking to clients and colleagues about the concerns and difficulties of returning to the office, it occurred to me that coaching can be of great help during this time. It is during such periods of change and uncertainty that communication is of utmost importance. And just as coaching is about partnering with clients, that same partnership and trust are needed for managers and employees to co-create new(er) ways of working.

Here are some tips grounded on the ICF Core Competencies that HR leaders and people managers can keep in mind while communicating with their teams about returning to the office.

Do a mindset check first

(aligns with the ICF Core Competency on embodying a coaching mindset)

• As a manager or HR leader, you yourself are also impacted by this change. Do check yourself first for any personal beliefs, perceptions, assumptions, or values that might be impacting the way you communicate or interact with your bosses or your teams.

• If you find yourself also experiencing confusion, anxiety, or stress about returning to the office, do seek support also for yourself.

• Prepare yourself before engaging in conversations whether it’s with your own boss or your team. Make sure your mind is clear and you are free from any strong emotion.

• Always engage in conversations with curiosity and an open mind. Try your best not to judge especially when you do not share the same viewpoint. Instead of preparing a rebuttal, silence your thoughts, pause and then ask questions out of curiosity instead.

Create a safe and open space for conversation

(aligns with the ICF Core Competencies on cultivating trust and safety and listening actively)

• Allow yourself to be vulnerable as well. Share your own thoughts and feelings too. This allows your employees to see and appreciate what makes us all human.

• Withhold judgment and show respect for what others are sharing. Remember that what they share reflects their own beliefs and values. Seek to understand more about where they are coming from.

• Acknowledge their thoughts, ideas and feelings. It’s not your job to make them feel better, but it’s your job to make them feel seen and heard. You can do this by non-verbal gestures such as nodding and eye contact. You can also clarify or paraphrase what they have said.

Co-create new ways of working

(aligns with the ICF Core Competency on Facilitating client growth)

• Though you are the manager, it doesn’t mean that you need to have all the answers and solutions. Encourage your team to share their thoughts and ideas too.

• Ask your team about what has worked and not worked for them in this setup. Ask them also about what they think might work and might not work. Brainstorm ways on how to address gaps that you’ve jointly identified.

• Ask them what resources might be needed to make the setup work. Technology? Transportation? Childcare support?

• Agree on ways to monitor progress and regularly check in.

There are many applications of coaching in the workplace, and the conversations around the return to the office is one of them. These conversations need not be formal coaching sessions like professional coaches do. These can be done as part of your regular team or one-on-one meetings.

Don’t carry the entire burden of this by yourself. More ideas and possibilities will open up when you’re able to tap the hidden gems that are in each of your employees. All it takes is open communication, collaboration and co-creation — all made possible through foundational coaching skills.

You got this!

You’re not alone! In navigating the return to the office policy, you can partner with ICF Credentialed Coach to get professional coaching services, which can be found using ICF’s directory of credentialed coaches spread in India and all over the world

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 50,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and maintaining the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Kurly de Guzman, is a Global Career and Leadership Coach who helps growth-driven leaders become catalysts for career growth and wellbeing for themselves and the people they serve. She also supports new coaches in building a thriving career in coaching. Coach Kurly’s coaching practice reflects the divergence of the different areas of experience and expertise she brings to the table both from the corporate world and as a coach and consultant. Her mission is to co-create a flourishing and thriving world of work where professionals love what they do and contribute to a higher purpose.

Reference

1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2021/10/05/the-great-disconnect-many- more-employers-than-workers-want-to-return-to-offices/?sh=24a079ec1ad3

The post How coaching can support leaders in managing the return to office appeared first on HR Katha.

According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace2 report, only 15 per cent of the employees are engaged at the workplace. But that was before the pandemic! Now, the numbers are better left unsaid.

Facing the challenge of employee engagement head on, is the human resource function in every organisation. Traditionally, HR has been regarded as the custodian of the ‘human touch’, helping employees grow and thrive.

What can the HR do differently to help employees be engaged at work?

What can they possibly “imagineer” (imagine + engineer) to help employees feel safe, included, heard and thrive?

The important contributors of employee engagement are:

1. Listening to the voice of the employee

2. Investing in their wellbeing, growth and development

3. Empowering them

4. Recognising their contribution

5. Offering them opportunities

6. Inspiring them to excel and grow

7. Providing them immediate managerial support

Townhalls, training, wellness sessions, employee recognition all contribute to enriching the above contributors. There is one intervention in particular which has proven to be helpful in employees’ progress towards becoming ‘anti-fragile3’, that is, ‘Coaching’.

The International Coach Federation (ICF) defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential.’

Coaching provides a safe space for employees to be heard. It also empowers them with choice. Once employees have choice, they are inspired to take actions towards their success, which, in turn, leads to organisational success. Coaching also involves the managers of the employees as stakeholders in their growth. This further enhances engagement.

The greatest value in coaching emerges from the process that helps clients to arrive at solutions that work for them, in their context instead of being given a solution that may or may not work for them. This is useful especially when we are facing a high level of uncertainty like now when no one has the silver bullet.

Is there proof of this working? Indeed. In the ICF-HCI 2016 survey (Figure 1) on ‘Building a coaching culture for increased employee engagement’, it’s been established that coaching has powerful outcomes not only on employee engagement, which is a leading indicator, but also on shareholder value and profitability that are lagging indicators.

As an executive coach, I have been a witness to this tremendous change in all my clients who are employees of Fortune 500 organisations. The last six months have brought in great lessons of resilience and courage for my clients across the globe as well as for me. During our sessions (that are confidential), many of my clients talked through the feelings of “anticipatory loss” of their loved ones, jobs and many of the privileges that they enjoyed before the pandemic. They talked about having no physical boundary between work and home. They sorted their feelings of being always “on” with child care, home chores and work. Many were frustrated at not being able to see the end in sight, while some were just scared.

While acknowledging their feelings, we went past from what is not in their control and what is. When my clients processed through what is in their control, they identified different things to keep themselves engaged including learning a new skill, exercising with remote support, having e-coffee with their team members at least once a week to stay in touch, being self-compassionate when something remained incomplete and so on.

Many of them were extremely thrilled that their organisation offered them the opportunity to not be “alone”. That they could speak of their fears and not be judged. They could generate “choice” amidst “may-day” which was not possible earlier. If not gratitude, what else could generate better employee engagement?

ICF Credentialed Coaches can help your organization to successfully embrace Work From Anywhere culture, contact them today!

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 50,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Priya Venkatesan is an executive coach specialising in leadership and teams. She is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) from ICF, with nearly two decades of total experience. She spent 15 years in the IT industry as a programme manager delivering multi-million-dollar projects with 100+ teams serving Fortune 500 customers. She also has five years of experience as a leadership coach, where she has enabled leading technology organisations to reach their strategic outcomes by coaching their key leaders.

Reference

1. https://hbr.org/2020/05/how-ceos-can-support-employee-mental-health-in-a-crisis

2. http://news.gallup.com/reports/220313/state-global-workplace-2017.aspx

3. https://www.amazon.in/Antifragile-Things-That-Disorder-Incerto/dp/0812979680

The post Employee engagement in a WFA world appeared first on HR Katha.

The role of a manager has long been to make sure things happen according to familiar patterns, often labelled as processes or plans in a business context. However, the world is changing. Organisations are more complex, with many connected teams and functions, and as a consequence, processes can be heavy and intensely bureaucratic, slowing everything down.

In the outside world, your customer wants to be excited by your product, wowed by the service you offer, and wishes to experience your business as agile and responsive. And, in addition, wants all this at a competitive price. It is no longer enough to have standard processes which people blindly follow, and it’s also not enough to expect a manager/leader to have all the answers when the standard procedure isn’t sufficient.

Your people need to think for themselves, take responsibility for their actions, and be flexible and agile while still delivering if they are to succeed. In this situation, the shift to leadership is to help people navigate collectively – aligning on the underlying need and direction but giving people space and coaching on how to get there. It’s been what we have seen from the best examples as people adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic. As we begin to transition towards a ‘new normal’, the need for this leadership capability is even more evident.

Get help in real-time coaching to enhance your leadership conversation with ICF credentialed coach today!

The shift to leadership conversations

The central aspect of the shift is to recognise that when we are no longer entirely relying on familiar patterns, two things surface – uncertainty and differences.

Uncertainty because there are no guaranteed solutions – if there were, you would already be employing them. Differences because individuals see things differently – this can lead to hesitation or, at worst, to conflict and blame.

Many people don’t handle uncertainty and differences well. If we don’t simply avoid talking about them at all, conversations often fall into one of three categories:

• We have a problem/opportunity – just fix it: This conversation focuses on the current situation. Sometimes that is required, but people become very reactive if you always use it and just look for fires to fight. They lose the bigger picture of overall direction, and don’t explore new solutions.

• Just deliver results: This conversation ignores the current situation and potential solutions and focuses solely on outcomes or results. It’s part of the picture, but focusing on results often leads to people doing what they already know, harder and faster, or picking random new ideas and hoping they work. Neither approach works well.

• I’ve got an idea: This conversation focuses on a solution, often the one suggested or approved by the senior person involved, without worrying too much about addressing the current need or what direction it will move us in.

All three types of conversations are useful – leadership join them together to allow the group to navigate the uncertainty and difference more usefully. For example:

Get people together to discuss the situation (A) and get different views on the actual need. You haven’t discussed solutions yet, just what problem or opportunity you are trying to tackle. And differences here are easier to resolve because if you have different perspectives, you should be able to look for facts and data to help clarify what is happening.

Then discuss what outcome or result you want to aim for (B), again using different people’s views. Some people will want to move only a small way, and others will want a more significant shift. There will be other differences, but this is about surfacing those differences and getting people to align around a shared direction of travel.

With those two stakes in the ground, it’s much easier to discuss different solutions – different ways to get from (A) to (B). It’s easier because now it’s less about people’s personal preferences – any solution can get tested against how well it moves you from (A) towards (B).

The other aspect of this approach that helps with fundamental uncertainty – when you aren’t sure what will work is that practising this shifts the discussion from having one big plan, which everyone has to agree on before they get into action, into a series of experiments. You start at (A), discuss, align around a fuzzy goal (B), agree on something to move you forward, and get into action. Next, you stop and have the conversation again: where are we now, what have we learned, have we adjusted our target and next steps? And so on.

As people get more used to this way of thinking, they need less direct control, just regular check-ins for progress checks and realignment.

This process is “coaching”, but it’s not coaching as it’s often understood. Most people connect coaching with personal development, and hence conversations about careers, changing style and behaviours – about the individual in general terms over time. This process is coaching real-time on a very specific situation – it’s much more practical and applied, and it’s more about getting different people connected and aligned. Looked at this way, every conversation is a coaching conversation if the intention is to move things forward.

Summary/tips

Simple discussions, where everyone agrees already, resolve themselves very quickly. This structure is to help when situations are uncertain and people have different opinions:

1. Ask if we are clear on what question we are trying to answer or what problem/opportunity we are trying to solve (A). In more detail, it’s questions like:

• What’s working now?

• What’s not working now?

• How do we know?

• What are we happy to stop or to let go?

• What do we want to keep?

• What’s the most important thing to focus on?

2. Ask what outcome or result we are trying to achieve (B). This question sets both the direction of change and the scale of the task (a big or small difference). In more detail, it’s questions like:

• What result do we want?

• How will we know it when we have it?

• What will we see, hear, and feel?

• What will be the same/different to now?

• What will other people see, hear, feel that’s different?

• What will our evidence be that it’s working/successful?

3. Ask what options you have to get from (A) to (B) – not just the top-of-mind options, but maybe some new or different ideas, too. At this time, solutions can be explored without it just being someone’s opinion, but with a clear context of how well they would help you get from (A) to (B). They can also be run as experiments or pilots to get more evidence.

You don’t have to ask all three sets of questions every time – just the ones where you think there is the most confusion or disagreement. Over time, people get used to the pattern and can move through it more quickly.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 50,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author Alan Arnett is a seasoned business leader and coach with 30 years of experience working across multiple sectors. Helping leaders tackle the challenges that come from needing to run the business and change the business simultaneously, is his forte. His work includes anything from handling new roles and/or new teams; to delivering strategy, change and innovation or improving personal influence, flexibility, and resilience. Whatever the situation, he focuses on helping people make tangible progress when things get messy. He holds a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) credential from the ICF and has an MBA from Cranfield School of Management.

The post Leadership Conversations appeared first on HR Katha.

As I meandered through my apologies and explanation of the reasons behind my decision to leave, my manager interjected with a question that changed the course of our conversation — what’s making you feel like you have to choose?

At that moment, it was clear that I had much more than a manager; I had a coach!

Together, we worked through the issues — what was making me feel stuck; the ‘stories’ I had created about disappointing her and the team; and the decision I had made to opt for a less desirable outcome rather than asking for what I needed.

My manager guided me through thinking about my values, acknowledging the great work I was doing, and how some of my limiting beliefs have caused me to jump to my conclusion.

By the end of our conversation, there was immense clarity. I knew what I wanted — to propose a new role that leveraged my skills and was most effective if operated from a remote location. The resulting career transition was the best I had ever experienced, and I credit it to a powerful coaching conversation.

Managers are often in their role because they are great problem solvers, but if problem-solving becomes the default response, it’s easy to lose sight of the full range of possibilities that team members will come up with if given the space to do so.

When I talk to managers about coaching, I often receive a confused look. “Manager/coach, coach/manager, what’s the difference?”

I like to think of coaching as a skill in the manager’s tool belt, when it comes to managing. Coaching is transformational when deployed at the right moment, but not necessarily the tool to use in all circumstances. There are moments when a manager needs to advise, course correct, or teach. I would argue that the moments to coach come more frequently than we may initially think.

In my case, I felt stuck. It was as if a decision had already been made for me. My manager’s use of a coaching approach unlocked new possibilities that I hadn’t imagined till then. A team member feeling stuck or at a crossroads is a perfect moment to ask powerful questions and help get them thinking more expansively.

It is also beneficial to flex our coaching muscles when sharing difficult feedback. As managers, it can be daunting to share insights into something that isn’t working. We may fear defensiveness, hurting someone’s feelings, or being stonewalled. If, however, we approach a feedback conversation with the coaching skill of curiosity, we can help someone overcome their resistance. We can help them hear a message that allows them to explore what’s getting in their way of landing their work or being perceived in the way they intended.

I once had to share difficult feedback with a report that her approach to project management wasn’t working. She was investing a lot of energy, and yet, was struggling to get her team on board with her method of tracking work. As a result, deadlines were slipping. This was not a new problem, but I took a different approach this time, instead of jumping in with a list of ideas on how to course-correct.

We visualised what a successful project would look like and where everyone was aligned. Then we imagined what she would be doing and how she would feel. Next, we looked at where she was today and what subtle things she could change to shift her closer to that feeling; the changes she could make to reach her vision of success.

The next day, her aura was completely different. By shifting her focus from looking at how to deliver an effective project plan, to how to do her job in a way that was authentic to herself, her influence became infectious.

Managing with a coaching mindset is about reminding ourselves that no matter how much of an expert we are, we can never predict the right path for another. They have to find it for themselves. The beauty of coaching is that it anchors to listening and curiosity, two skills that inherently allow us to be present with people and see the best in them. The more we shift our frame from solving to asking and from telling to listening, the more accountability we see in the actions of our team members and the more connected they are to their work.

Experience coaching yourself to see how powerful coaching can help your team grow

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 50,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work towards the common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organizations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Lia Garvin has almost a decade of experience working in some of the largest and most influential companies in tech, including Microsoft, Apple and Google. As a senior programme manager, Garvin leverages her leadership coaching and programme-management skills to examine the challenges holding teams back from doing their best work, and develop programmes, workshops and resources to help foster psychological safety, inclusion and effective team dynamics. As a CPCC-certified coach with an ICF ACC credential, she works with clients on how to reach their full potential by tapping into the power of reframing, and unlocking new possibilities and perspectives whenever they feel stuck.

The post Unlocking the potential of our teams through coaching appeared first on HR Katha.

Coaching services for internal marketing provide a practical, economic, result-oriented, sustainable and innovative approach to improving the organisational values of enterprises. Coaching improves employee commitment and increases customer satisfaction from inner to outer circles.

Sectors that offer services while experiencing globalisation and an increase in competition, can study internal marketing concepts and lead their sectors with their acquired understanding and assistance from coaching services.

Even though there are not yet enough scientific articles or studies about the implementation of coaching services, the area has gained attention during the pandemic.

The importance of internal marketing has become even more important for new employees and demonstrates their commitment to the enterprise in the presence of unemployment, poverty, and contraction in the sector during the pandemic.

The enterprise includes constructive internal marketing methods that are effective on superior- subordinate relations as well as in terms of employees adopting a sense of being part of the enterprise, maintaining an emotional connection with the brand, a tendency to adapt to the vision of the enterprise and adopting goals of the enterprise.

The enterprise also reinforces employees to interact with the management and services, including criticism.

Human resources in internal marketing

Human resources offer strategies and applications to track internal and external client satisfaction. In internal marketing, human resources must keep track of contributions of employees regarding development of new brands and products, as well as their interest in the area. The extent of the duty of human resources includes subjects related to the communications revolving around the enterprise as well as managing personal traits of employees and their ability to explain themselves on areas of service that suit them best.

Internal benefits of HR

Whitmore (2017)2 has listed the following benefits of human resources for both the managers and the employees:

· Increased performance and productivity

· Personnel education and increased education capacity

· Improved relationships

· Improvement in life quality of individuals

· Better time management for managers

· More creative ideas

· Better use of employee skills and traits

· Faster and more effective emergency response

· Improved flexibility and adoption to change

· Better motivated personnel

· Change of culture, and

· Improvement on supportive measures regarding developing life-improving traits

While defining internal marketing terms, some enterprises that present their products to their employees use the term ‘internal client’ for the employees, while calling their customer base as their external clients. Internal evaluations regarding production, by the HR, involve coaching methods with regard to present management practices.

Managers conventionally enable employees to join the processes of evaluating and releasing the product in the market. Opinions and acquisition decisions of employees regarding the product they produce together are important. New forms of demand and supply begin to take shape and are embraced from inside out.

The desires of all employees across ranks to be understood and their expectation to be understood by the HR department from a coaching perspective (Tekinsoy, 2019)3, can be summarised as follows:

1. Having employees feel they are listened to and understood by their managers

2. Having a secure, safe environment away from gossip culture

3. Setting short-, mid- and long-term company goals and policies from inside out

4. Clarifying target and action plans

5. Asking the right questions during the application process of the laid-out plan

6. Looking for solutions together for any issues encountered along the way and making sure employees take initiative

7. Evaluating, grading, and observing the devotion of employees towards their peers, their company and their assignments

8. Adopting an HR policy where feedback to every employee is provided

9. Making sure employees believe they will be evaluated fairly by the HR and the management,

10. Striving for managers to have the potential to ask strong questions and be open to innovation,

11. It is the final expectation that the strategies are adopted by the managers of the company at all levels and implemented in an understandable way.

12. It is necessary for the company to provide an environment where employees can freely defend their ideas in an open-minded environment and have their thoughts heard, for the company to realise their expectations. Disagreements, arguments, and differences of opinion between employees also contribute to an environment where criticism is allowed. All in all, HR should hold meetings where brain storming is encouraged. This way, employees can feel they are an important part of the work environment and their bonds with the enterprise are strengthened.

13. HR should provide in-house trainings for employees to have inner motivation and maintain it.

14. HR should provide quick and equal access to promotions and similar rights to all employees, while they are advancing through their careers, step by step.

15. In an enterprise where privileges are seen as an opportunity and risky divergent areas are considered as potentials for profit, owners of the enterprise should conceive their employees as one with their understanding of client and should pursue a management style that integrates this concept.

The development of employees who act with a common consciousness within the company, as well as the sustainability that supports the internal marketing production process are targeted. HR and management teams that demonstrate a consistent and sustainable approach to these improvements and continue to do so invest in their companies and help create a common culture around the company. These are the probable risks and approaches to avoid during the application of internal marketing (Tekinsoy, 2019)3:

Secure relations formed in the company may keep people in their safe zone. This is especially true for long-term employees who perform the same duties for a long period of time and develop an area of comfort. For these reasons, implementing internal marketing in already consistent and further developing safe zones could lead to creation of a blind spot for the company and may hinder its own development.

In case of a blind spot, the obstacles must be handled and be overcome professionally.

Coaching applications and approaches on how to incentivise a prolonged state of inaction that hinders the company’s potential and methods to use this as a means to energise the company should be researched.

A reason why internal marketing can be interrupted is the lack of cohesion between employees and the difficulties attached to it due to the constant change in personnel. Coaching allows this cohesion to be renewed again and allows these problems to be finalised, leading to easy and profitable company investments.

Coaching approaches in internal marketing

Coaching supports employees to respond rapidly, so that there is minimal burden or damage, to ask strong questions, to manage chaos, to strengthen their creativity, and to rapidly transition as per changing business demands. It provides an effective way to smoothly operate in an environment of constant change that we live in, while bringing flexibility to the situation.

Successful organisations have discovered that continuous training of their workforce is necessary to remain competitive. However, they also realise that these trainings, only when combined with coaching, provide permanent behaviour change. Coaching also enables both projects and people to progress immediately and with less effort (Tekinsoy, 2019)3.

Walt Disney’s quote reveals this fact: “If you are not good with your employees, you will never be good with your customers”.

To summarise, coaching in businesses, regardless of the task level of the employees, reveals the potential to change their position in the business while maximising their own performance. It aims to help businesses learn, instead of teaching their employees.

Want to take your business to the next level, and see the benefits of internal marketing, try coaching yourself!

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 50,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author Pelin Tekinsoy has been a qualified coach since 2008. She’s interested in career, relations, AD/HD, education, happiness and sports coaching, in addition to laughter yoga, hypnosis and NLP. Tekinsoy book, ‘Money Coaching, Completely Emotional’ was first published in 2013 and translated into English in 2019. She has been teaching coaching courses since 2014. She has been running Money Coaching since 2015 and Coaching Programme since 2019 approved from ICF.Having acquired Vocational Qualifications Authority (MYK) certificate in 2018, Tekinsoy can coach in EU as well as Turkey. While completing the two-year psychotherapy programme, she started attending group psychodynamic studies. She completed an MD in ‘Executive Coaching and Mentorship’ from the Alt?nba? University in 2019, and is working towards an MD in psychology from Arel University.

Reference

1. Ergan, S., Yıldırım, Y., Bayram, A., (2017). “Relationship Between Coaching Practices and Internal Marketing”, Conference: III. International Balkan and Near Eastern Social Sciences Congress Serie at: Edirne

2. Whitmore, J. (2017). “Coaching for Performance: Principles and Applications of Coaching and Leadership” (5th Edition). B. Erol (Trans.), İstanbul: Paloma Yayınevi.

3. Tekinsoy, P., (2019). “Use of Coaching Applications in Internal Marketing”, Altınbaş University Institute of Social Sciences, Postgraduate Thesis, Department of Management, Manager Coaching and Mentorship Postgraduate Program

The post Importance of HR in internal marketing & use of coaching approaches appeared first on HR Katha.

There is no point in providing employees with a coach when they need a mentor or vice versa.

At the workplace, the term ‘coach’ has a vastly different meaning than what we see in the world of sports. In fact, most of us would have first heard the term ‘coach’ at school. Coaching in the corporate world is way different.

Coaches: Coaches offer a partnering relationship to the clients to help the individuals become who they want to become and achieve a desired outcome. It is a creative process that empowers and inspires the clients to make choices and take action that will serve their goal(s).

Coaches do not give advice. Instead, they ask powerful questions, make observations, and offer assessments to help unlock and amplify the client’s awareness and commitment.

Mentors: They are experienced and trusted advisors with their only goal in the mentoring relationship being to support the professional and personal development of their mentees. Mentors are usually more senior and/or more experienced than the mentees and serve as an advisors, models, counselors, and guides to those with less experience. Mentors are responsible for sharing knowledge and providing advice and counsel to the mentees.

Mentoring vs Coaching

Mentoring is a long-term relationship based on mutual trust, respect and commitment. The relationship should have clear, mutual expectations, but it is generally less structured and has less frequent interactions than coaching. While some organisations offer in-house mentoring programmes, sometimes as a follow-up to a leadership programme, it is just as common for mentees to have mentors outside their organisation. When it is a part of an internal development programme, I recommend creating a clear process that spells out the expectations and responsibilities of both parties.

Coaching also requires mutual trust, respect, commitment and clear expectations, but it often spans a shorter period of time, typically lasting three to twelve months.

Coaching follows a more regular and structured approach. While coaching clients, the only objective should be to help the clients reach their goals. Professional coaches have no attachment to a specific outcome. Unless the outcome results from the client’s own motivations, it is a pointless exercise.

I often describe the role of a coach as that of a ‘tour guide’, while the client is the ‘driver’ on this journey. Coaches listen deeply and ask powerful questions, noticing, in the present moment, what comes up when the client considers those questions.

Clients consistently do a superb job in identifying what is really going on, and they figure out what must happen to achieve their goals. Within the safety of a successful coaching relationship, people evolve, make significant discoveries, and shift mind-sets as they are invited to tap into their own well of wisdom.

Both coaching and mentoring are relationships that require complete confidentiality and unconditional positive regard for the individual. This means, the coach or mentor is a confidant who is unfailingly supportive and non-judgmental.

We must remember that there is an adult on the other side of the relationship. The coach or mentor’s job is not to ‘fix’ anything or anyone; it is not to parent, enable, judge, or insist on a particular path forward. It is about helping the concerned adults understand their choices and how those choices relate to their goals.

Coaches and mentors are not therapists, trainers, or consultants. They provide a safe space and opportunity for individuals to discover what they need to know in order to reach the outcomes they desire. Mentors have the additional role of providing advice and guidance requested by the mentees.

Training vs Coaching

Training is not coaching. Training is focused on transferring specific knowledge or skills, such as what is or is not a legal question to ask when interviewing a candidate.

Coaching and mentoring are about enhancing and building upon an individual’s knowledge or skills for developmental purposes, by asking powerful questions and making observations that can lead to greater awareness, learning and change.

A comparison of ‘coaching’ and ‘mentoring’ is listed below. Employee supervision is not formal coaching, although supervisors may see better results when using a coaching approach and techniques.

Specific performance issues that arise, and the best way to address them, need to be identified, explored and put into action. Managing performance in real time, with clear expectations, clear measures, and clear consequences is part of every leader’s normal job.

When considering whether to provide a coach or a mentor, identify the goal you and your direct report wish to achieve. If you are wondering whether a coach or a mentor is the best fit for your need, here are some guidelines.

Choose a coach when you want to

1. Prepare a high-potential employee for advancement in the organisation.

2. Address a behavioural habit that is blocking or slowing professional progress.

3. Encourage someone to take on new responsibilities quickly.

4. Support leaders in addition to, or in place of, formal training or development programmes.

5. Inspire high-potential employees to maximise their talents.

Choose a mentor when you want to

1. Provide a role model for highly effective leadership or other important roles.

2. Transfer knowledge from more senior and/or departing staff to more junior staff.

3. Increase cross-functional interactions and collaboration.

4. Broaden diversity of ideas, people, and perspectives within the organisation.

5. Inspire high-potential employees to imagine what is possible in their career and life.

Prior to having an introductory coaching or mentoring conversation, the coach or mentor and the hiring leader or HR must discuss ethics and expectations and agree to an explicit agreement about confidentiality. The rules and expectations of these relationships must be discussed and agreed upon, and then a written record should be created for all parties prior to commencing with the coaching or mentoring agreement or contract.

No one worth hiring or assigning will share the content, tone, or outcome of these private conversations without receiving explicit permission from the client.

Being involved in a coaching or mentoring relationship can enhance one’s professional and personal life in ways one cannot achieve on one’s own.

If you have ever been coached or mentored, you know what I mean.

Whether you are the coach or mentor, or together you choose a coach or mentor for your employees, paying it forward is not only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do in your quest to retain top talent. People put a lot more energy into things they want to do than things they have to do. That means, as leaders we need to take the time to be present, observe, and ask staff members about their motivations. We then need to provide productive and appropriate opportunities to keep them engaged and wanting to continue to work for us.

Find the ICF-credentialed coach today and partner to maximize yours and your team potential

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 50,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward the common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards.

Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Roxi Bahar Hewertson is a leadership expert, Presence-Based® Certified and ICF Credentialed executive coach and organisational development expert. With over three decades of practical experience in higher education, business, and non-profits, she is the CEO of Highland Consulting Group, Inc. and author of two highly-acclaimed books, Hire Right, Fire Right: A Leader’s Guide to Finding and Keeping your Best People and Lead Like it Matters…Because it Does. Her no nonsense, practical insights have graced the TEDx stage and been featured by premier media outlets. She holds an MPS from Cornell University, where she was adjunct faculty and a senior administrator.

The post Coach or mentor – Whom do you need? appeared first on HR Katha.

While these others may be our families, friends and colleagues, they may also be mentors and coaches. The well-known batsman Sachin Tendulkar, for instance, has attributed his success to his coach Ramakant Achrekar. High-profile corporate leaders such as Alan Mullaly and the late Steve Jobs have had coaches who have helped them accelerate their business success. Coaches enable people to succeed in their pursuits.

In today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world, we are surrounded by a need to change. Both the external and internal business environments are experiencing rapid and exponential changes. Research has shown that 60 per cent of the existing Fortune 1000 companies will no longer be on the list in 10 years.

Artificial intelligence, new business models, biotechnology and cellular agriculture are already impacting how we are running our companies.

We know the ‘power of one’, and that individual people can create an impact, but only when an organisation transforms through systemic Change is the effect significant.

A study by ICF and Human Institute (2014) shows that 77 per cent of HR people state that their organisations are constantly in the process of change. “Change no longer happens once in a while. It’s a business constant now.”

There is a breathtaking opportunity for managers to make a difference to their organisation, to keep it agile and ready to adapt to change. The role of Leaders is to create a new outcome. How do we do this? We do this by enrolling people in new possibilities, enabling them to see things differently, changing their thinking and, therefore, behaviour and actions.

Unless each person in the organisation gears up to face the new, constantly- changing future, the organisation will keep on relying on just a few stars. A cricket team, for instance, needs each member to give their best for the common goal and vision. Each person needs to be encultured in the same purpose and build their capabilities. Therefore, when we create opportunities for coaching conversations that give space and time for people to reflect, it is not just the ‘top talent’ or ‘high performers’ we must serve, but the entire human capital of the organisation.

Corporations today are talking not just about hiring executive coaches for top talent but also creating systemic change through creating a culture of coaching in their organisations.

While many organisations have realised the power of executive coaching, access to coaching is sometimes restricted to certain talent pools and some grades. To unleash the full power of coaching, organisations need to foster and create a coaching culture. Culture refers to the way we do things, and when coaching conversations happen as a matter of routine – as a way we do things – organisations have created a winning culture of coaching. A culture where there are opportunities at all levels for employees to grow their skills, enhance their values and reach their professional goals.

A coaching culture directly creates more engagement at work:

“65 per cent of employees from companies with a strong coaching culture rates themselves as highly engaged.”

Coaching also has a direct correlation with better financial results for employees:

“60 per cent of respondents from organisations with a strong coaching culture reported their 2013 revenue to be above average compared to their peer group.

Coaching also enhances work performance and improves team effectiveness. Most importantly, we are creating future-ready employees who are autonomous and empowered to make decisions for the organisation’s good.

The International Coaching Federation identifies some aspects that are predominant in companies with a strong coaching culture. These are: employees-value coaching, senior executives value coaching, coaching as a fixture in the organisation with a dedicated line item in the budget, managers/leaders spend above average time on weekly coaching activities and managers/leaders have received accredited coach training.

Companies with a strong coaching culture, beyond hiring external coaches, invest in building the capabilities of managers and leaders to coach their internal teams and engage certified coaches, internally.

There is a strong business case for developing the abilities of line managers to coach their teams. Line managers need to balance the conversations with their teams between being performance oriented and development oriented. Being trained in the art of asking the right questions and creating an empowering work environment for their teams, they strengthen the culture and the capabilities of their team members to perform better. More importantly, they develop the capacities of their team to take decisions on their own and build a culture of conversations in the organisation. This then accelerates change, thereby creating a new future.

Some metrics that can be used to measure whether a coaching culture has been created are: the number of informal/formal leadership development coaching conversations held per team/manager/function; changes in the employee- engagement scores; attrition levels; improved employee relations; capability enhancement and so on. These aspects are measurable and quantifiable. Other qualitative metrics would be the level of trust, speed of decision-making, sense of empowerment, workplace dynamics and so on.

In today’s business context, building future-ready organisations is possible by building a culture of coaching and conversations.

Learn more about the impact of coaching and how to build a coaching culture through ICF Researches

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 50,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Anu Wakhlu is the executive director of Pragati Leadership and business head of CoachMantra, which is counted as one of India’s leading coaching solutions provider. Wakhlu is a MCC Certified Coach and has been coaching C-Suite for over 18 years. Her approach to coaching is based on the ICF principles. She is also a mentor coach for other budding coaches. She has written many blogs and articles on coaching. Apart from doing one-on-oOne coaching for senior executives, Wakhlu also has designed and conducted programmes for industry leaders on how they can be better coaches for their teams.

The post Coaching, reimagining organisational culture appeared first on HR Katha.

The story about a highly-anticipated innovation was of great interest to me as I had relatively recently left a position with a company to launch my coaching business.

After a couple of months, I received a call from a person who introduced herself as an HR manager of a company. She briefly explained to me that they had conducted a regular 360-degree assessment and needed a coach to provide support to one of their leaders. This leader was valuable to the company and was being considered for promotion. The company had not previously tried coaching, and so, at the beginning of our discussion the HR manager was rather cautious.

Finally, I was invited to a face-to-face meeting with this high-potential leader in the HR manager’s office. When the formalities were over, I realised, to my surprise, that the leader who required coaching was the senior manager whom I had met at the conference. She insisted I should be her coach. I was surprised because the person the HR manager had described seemed to be a different person from the one I had met. My perception had been of a self-assured and capable manager while the HR manager described someone overloaded and close-to-burnout—someone who needed support. The two images in my mind seemed incompatible.

At that time, I realised that the most successful leaders, who bear high responsibility for business outcomes and people, sometimes need support and partnership even more than their direct reports.

The main areas of the long-term coaching contract, which started immediately, were: coping with uncertainty in the future business environment, maintaining strategic vs operational perspective, and decision-making, adoption of the “right to make a mistake” for herself and her team members (perfectionism was an issue), influencing peers and upper management (strengthening her voice at board meetings, with suggestions and innovative ideas), as well as the very significant need to delegate responsibilities.

Businesses naturally focus on achievement of goals, financial metrics, revenues, and profits. These goals are the outcomes of people’s performance. Employees become a vital value of the company, provided there is a shortage of professionals on the market, people management based on appropriate leadership style (eg. Hersey-Blanchard situational leadership model or Sir John Whitmore’s coaching leadership style) is a core priority. Many companies focus their efforts on people development and retention. Yet, if the problem is at the deep level of values or is exacerbated by internal conflicts or a lack of life-work balance, and so on, the traditional motivational tools of salary increase, promotions, additional responsibilities, training and team building are unlikely to be effective. As leaders gain greater mindfulness, this can become a severe problem, particularly if that leader is in a top position with the company.

Reflecting on my own career path, I recall its stages and peculiarities. I have worked for more than 20 years in multinational companies in different managerial positions, from the bottom to top management. I am aware of company structures, business models, strategies, people management, recruitment, performance management, people development and team formation. From my own experience, I know that people management has its ups and downs, failures and victories, mistakes and right decisions.

Today I am confident that if I had been partnered with a coach during my career development, I would have had a smoother passage, with the support of an equal, provoking higher inspiration and greater insights.

Now, when I have a long-term partnership with a client, I closely follow their progress. I feel the strength of coaching when I see the client transform and the impact of that transformation on business results, as well as improvements in the leader’s personal life. I have learned to trust those I coach, the coaching space, and myself.

Serving clients, I understand that I am not alone. I have a sense of belonging to a professional community, I am inspired by my fellow coaches who share similar principles, competencies and values. Each specialty has professional standards and ethics. Doctors have disease treatment guidelines, and teachers have standards of pedagogy. My colleagues, ICF members from all over the world, adhere to Core Competencies and a Code of Ethics developed by the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

For more than six months, I worked with the senior manager from my story. She had been on the verge of quitting for several reasons. We covered a lot of ground in terms of coaching co-operation. Finally, she chose to stay with the company and it was not long before she was at its helm. The coaching leadership style became one of her favourites.

Watch Judy’s story and discover how coaching can help leaders and teams in your organisation reach new heights

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 50,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Victoria Marakina is an ICF Member and Associate Certified Coach (ACC), who has graduated from the International Institute of Coach Management, SLAcademy (Executive coaching, CCE). She has over 20 years of experience in managerial positions in business (pharmaceuticals, medical devices). She has secured outstanding sales results, introduced and managed changes, including crisis management. A graduate of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, she formed marketing teams from scratch and lead them to success. Using a coaching management style, Marakina educated and developed people. She also established a corporate school for marketers and HIPOs in sales and has her own lectures at the High School of Economics. Marakina is the author of the published manual for marketers in the pharmaceutical industry.

The post Coaching partnership as support for leaders appeared first on HR Katha.

Professionals used to travel internationally to establish rapport and solve problems with their global counterparts. These activities and numerous meetings are now conducted virtually or via email, introducing a significant potential for miscommunication, misunderstanding, and even missed business deals. The opportunity for coaches to make a difference in the success of such teams is ripe.

What is different about cross-cultural coaching?

Cross-cultural teams are work teams made up of employees located in or originally from different countries; thus, their national cultures may be different by varying degrees. It’s one thing to coach team members who speak the same language and are from the same country. It’s another thing to coach team members who speak different native languages, have different cultural references and experiences, and who grew up and live in different countries. In addition to a diversity of values, family structure, decision-making processes, educational systems, and sense of time, these aspects all have an impact on team effectiveness and efficiency. Different national and ethnic cultures may even define happiness and success differently.

Cross-cultural coaching takes all these factors into account with a deliberate intention to understand issues with which teams may be struggling. This conscious intent is also true when coaching teams from one’s cultural background, but it is incredibly complex when a team includes various and sometimes conflicting cultural dimensions and communication styles. Conflict occurs in most teams, but multicultural teams may be more prone to conflict. While leaders may have some tools to address conflict within their teams, cross-cultural coaches can bridge the parties by listening to and understanding multiple cultural perspectives.

In addition to national culture, cross-cultural coaching can encompass regional, corporate, and industry cultures. Even teams within companies can have their own culture.

To what do cross-cultural coaches need to pay attention?

While curiosity and emotional intelligence are essential in all coaching niches, cultural competence is also crucial when coaching cross-cultural teams. Coaches with a keen sense of curiosity about and interest in other cultures will notice nuances and cues that might easily be overlooked. They also have awareness about their own culture and knowledge about different cultures represented in the team they are coaching. They explore social and cultural identity with their coaching clients.

Coaches may need to assess whether a particular coaching model is appropriate and effective with people from cultural backgrounds different from their own. For example, direct questioning may not empower or encourage open responses from team members in countries where the communication style is indirect. Trust is often built at different paces in different national cultures, let alone across different cultures. Coaches must consider this when working with cross-cultural teams.

Coaches should avoid cultural-specific references and idioms that some team members may not know or misunderstand. Word choice must be thoughtful and precise. Active listening is also a crucial part of communication, and coaches can paraphrase to check that they have correctly understood non-native English speakers.

Why is cross-cultural coaching so important now?

The need for coaching and its benefits have been highlighted during the pandemic, and new coaching niches are emerging to address new challenges. Coaching global teams in communicating effectively with members from other countries, resolving potential issues, developing rapport, and working effectively together will become more critical with increased remote and hybrid work.

Communicating across cultures can be fraught with misunderstanding and frustration; it can also be an enriching learning experience from which the employees and companies benefit.

Communication coaching is part of coaching across cultures, especially when many nonverbal cues, which make up at least 70 per cent of communication, are absent in virtual interactions.

Cross-cultural coaching is becoming an essential niche as companies strive to establish cultures of inclusion and belonging in their remote and hybrid work models. Perhaps coaches and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) experts can work together to foster greater awareness and appreciation of the diversity in cross-cultural remote teams. Together they can help leaders create a work culture of inclusion and belonging for teams no matter the countries the employees live in, what languages they speak, and what beliefs they hold. An inclusive culture is especially crucial in remote global teams and will lead to greater job satisfaction, higher retention rates, and better productivity.

Strengthen your team with cross-cultural coaching, ask an ICF credentialed coach to help achieve your goals

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 50,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

A Founder and CEO of Karen Natasha Coaching, Karen brings over 20 years of corporate experience, intuitive insights and cutting-edge business strategies. Karen is an iPEC-trained Professional Coach certified through the International Coaching Federation and is a member of Womenmind an organisation dedicated to driving change for women’s mental health. She also serves on the Board of Directors for TAIBU Community Health Centre, a non-profit that provides health promotion programs for the Black community of the Greater Toronto Area.

The post Coaching cross-cultural teams appeared first on HR Katha.

Like osmosis, coaching creates an atmosphere in which, through gradual and unconscious assimilation, a leader begins to model what they have experienced. An executive director that I coached monthly for several years shared, “Being coached on a regular basis has had a tremendous impact on my leadership”. She commented that the personal experience of having someone who was committed to her growth come alongside her, helped set the tone for her leadership.

Another team manager whom I had coached for some time asked, – “How can I have conversations with my staff the way we do in coaching? What is it that you do?” After being impacted by coaching, this woman wanted to replicate this experience with her team. As coaches, we believe we are helping people develop around whatever topic they bring to the conversation, and we are! But we are also helping them experience and assimilate the coaching skills for their overall development.

A coaching approach is based on the philosophy of facilitated learning, listening attentively, asking powerful questions and drawing out the other person’s thinking. These are not intuitive skills for many leaders who believe, perhaps subconsciously, that they are required to be the expert and to have all the answers. In the Asian context, a leader is expected to lead by giving advice and solutions. After all, they assume, “Isn’t that what I am paid for?” It may even be a sign of weakness to ask the opinion of a subordinate. Sadly, this thinking and expectation fails to draw out the team’s creative ideas and may miss vital information that those closer to the ground possess. It takes a very secure and self-aware leader who has experienced the transformational power of coaching to be willing to adopt a coaching approach.

How are the principles of coaching assimilated by leaders who have experienced coaching? What creates this paradigm shift in a person’s leadership? I believe it is three things: –

The art of active listening – When people feel listened to and heard, it builds trust. When someone creates space for us to talk and reflect aloud, burdens feel lighter, creativity flows, and solutions become more apparent. In her book ‘Time to Think’, Nancy Klein suggests that ‘The quality of a person’s attention determines the quality of the other people’s thinking.’ Ponder that for a moment! Could you really raise the quality of a person’s thinking by the quality of attention you give them?

Klein goes on to say that “perhaps the most important thing we could do with our life and with our leadership is to listen to people so expertly, to give them attention so respectfully they would begin to think for themselves, clearly and afresh.” Leaders who have been coached resonate with how important creating a listening space is and its value to their leadership. It communicates presence and care and provides space for reflection. They seek to replicate this level of active listening with those to whom they relate.

The benefits of active listening go beyond the workplace. Two leaders recently shared how choosing to listen has also changed their marriage – “My wife is very happy with the changes in me,” shared one doctor in hospital leadership. Active listening has the power to affect all our relationships.

The power of questions – When I was learning to coach, my mentor coach would often say, “The presenting issue is not usually the main issue.” When we fail to ask questions, we often miss the heart of the issue and give solutions to the wrong problem. Blockages are not identified, assumptions are not challenged, and creativity is not unleashed. Asking questions creates an environment where people think for themselves. Leaders who have experienced this testify to the impact of a simple question on their thinking. They then seek to develop a mindset of curiosity which asks questions before giving answers.

The goal of growth – “I became interested in the growth of each of my staff, not just growth in their skills and work capacity, but holistic growth in them as people – something my staff truly welcomed,” was the comment by one leader after experiencing coaching.

The focus of a coaching conversation is growth, learning and greater awareness. When leaders experience the power of this, their desire for development goes beyond self and moves to the team and organisation. Using a coaching approach to mine the insights from every situation; success and failure, project or proposal, creates a culture of continual learning. Making space for reflection and learning is foundational to coaching, which also reaps significant rewards in the workplace.

So don’t be surprised when those who are coached begin to assimilate coaching principles in their leadership. The power of coaching can have ripples well beyond what we often anticipate.

Experience coaching yourself today to understand how it can transform you!

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 50,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Maree Scully is an experienced ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) based in India but originally from New Zealand. Her passion can be described as “helping people grow”. In addition to leadership coaching and mentoring, she facilitates practical management trainings, and flourishes working cross-culturally.

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My journey to becoming a leadership coach is probably not unusual. After four decades as a professional in the not-for-profit healthcare sector, I had been ready for my career encore. During the last 25 of those years as a C-Suite, I have mentored, coached, trained, and supported countless employees. I have coached leaders from across the organisation. It was my job and my joy!

While working, I pursued certification in coaching at one of the top programmes in my country. My previous employer engaged with me to establish a coaching programme based on my training and my reputation as a mentor and coach. I achieved my credential (ACC) from the International Coaching Federation and felt supremely prepared for this new role.

Despite my many years as a leader, it is the new skills and training that I learned during my training and certification that I credit with my ability to be an effective coach. Right away, I recognised a glaring gap in the leadership competencies of most of our leaders – no one was coaching. Or if they were “coaching”, it went like this: “I coached her on that behaviour”, which is code for “I told her not to do that anymore”.

Most organisations need to step up their game when it comes to coaching. It will make the difference between a high-performing organisation that can meet its goals and one that will limp along caught in the downward spiral of mediocrity, disengagement and complacency. How does one know if one’s organisation needs to create a coaching culture? Here are the signs:

Sign #1: Employees are leaving

In my first year, I was assigned 12 clients from my organisation and had a few clients from other organisations. Most of them were considering leaving their current employer. The truth is that during the pandemic, most of us were re-evaluating our situations. Each of my individual development plans written for clients was drafted with the caveat “note – coaching conducted in a pandemic environment”, because all bets were off. These were not normal times.

Employees, newly-minted managers and leaders were second-guessing; they were scared and feeling unsupported. After all, according to the US Department of Labour, during April 2021, four million people left their jobs. The media dubbed this as THE GREAT RESIGNATION.

If the organisation’s first-year turnover rate is on the rise, if crucial leaders are resigning, are their direct managers listening to them? Are steps being taken to identify the potential for them to leave well in advance of the resignation? Where is the coaching?

Sign #2: Nothing is changing

Even employees identified as high potentials have gap areas. Human resource (HR) leaders, direct supervisors, and peers can send these employees to the best training workshops but may not see improvement over time. Part of my process as a leadership coach is to insist that every client has a sponsor. The role of the sponsor, as detailed in a signed agreement, is to be an ally for their employees. The sponsors review the employees’ gap areas with them and co-create action plans to address those gaps. Direct supervisors should check in periodically on the employees’ progress towards reaching their goals.

In nearly 200 hours of coaching this year, I have reinforced with my clients the expectation that once I leave (my engagement is limited – 6 months, 12 sessions), they should get the same level of support from their supervisor. What does that mean? Their supervisor should listen, ask questions, partner with them to change behaviours, help them to show up differently, and reach their goals.

Sign #3: Newly-promoted employees aren’t delivering

Once one promotes the strong performers, one expects them to deliver. Without goals being reached, targets met, or results returned, one may scratch one’s head as each month goes by. “What happened?” The answer lies in the lack of coaching. If the direct supervisor is not coaching the newly-promoted employee, then one should give up the fantasy that the employees will magically deliver what one expects. Working in tandem with the direct supervisor, a coach can establish goals and identify barriers to achieving them.

Sign #4: When a leader leaves, no one is ready to step up

Every once in a while, one is caught by surprise. One’s star performer has resigned for several reasons: retirement, relocation, or a change in personal situation. On looking around, one finds noone ready to take the reins. Again, THE GREAT RESIGNATION is at play.

However, that doesn’t mean one has to be caught off-guard. A coach can identify who is waiting in the wings and what gaps need to be filled. This type of information will be uncovered through conversations between coach and client and should be happening between supervisor and employee. Ask the leader: if one wins the lottery tomorrow, who is ready to fill one’s shoes? If the answer is: noone – it’s time to jump into action. Get a plan to develop the next level. A coach can hone in on that and make sure it bubbles to the top of the list for attention.

Sign #5: Accountability for leadership growth and development is relegated to HR

Even the best HR departments with the most robust leadership training programmes can’t be all things to all leaders. I am not exactly sure why, but most people who manage, lead, and supervise employees do not understand that their role involves coaching. Or they resist providing coaching. Perhaps they don’t like to deal with complex issues or have tough conversations such as giving feedback.

As Marshall Goldsmith, the well-known executive leadership coach and author, says: “there are two things wrong with feedback: no one likes to hear it, and no one likes to give it”. Sorry to break the news, but managing employees means doing some things we may not like to do. It comes with the territory.

So, let’s agree that the HR department can help with workshops and seminars about how to be a better manager, but as leaders, let’s look in the mirror. It starts with us. EVERY leader is a coach. They should be trained in the skills necessary to develop and support their direct reports.

Trained and certified leadership coaches possess the skills to develop and support and display them in every coaching session; but this is not where coaching ends. A coach supplements rather than replaces what every direct supervisor should be doing.

When I transitioned from full-time employee to contracted coach, I asked my organisation, in the context of my engagement, what will you consider success? The answer: the creation of a culture of leadership coaching that results in the organisation meeting its goals. Tall order? Yes. Unreasonable expectation? Not at all. The only way we can create high-performing organisations is through leadership growth and development. Coaches deliver on that in every session.

All leaders must be coaches. All organisations need them; and most leaders need a coach at some point in their careers. Organisations should develop their leaders to be coaches and engage with certified coaches to help create a coaching culture throughout the organisation.

Professional coaching services can be found using ICF’s directory of credentialed coaches spread in India and all over the world

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 50,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward the common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai and ICF Pune.

A graduate of the Georgetown University Executive Certificate programme in leadership coaching, and an ACC credentialed coach by the ICF, Paula Widerlite puts her decades of experience to use by helping leaders improve their effectiveness and assisting high-performing organisations to grow and develop their leadership teams. Paula Widerlite is the former chief strategy officer at Luminis Health, a $1.1 billion organisation. Her 40-year background in healthcare and decades in the C-Suite combined with her training and experience make her a highly-qualified leadership coach. Widerlite has served on several community boards and has been recognised for her community service, among other contributions.

The post Does your organisation need a coach? Here are the Five Signs appeared first on HR Katha.

What must have happened there? Probably, after being moved around the company from one team to another until no one was left to take them on, the “problem people” got shuffled off to the HR.

When this happens, the HR is drawn into a classic interpersonal dynamic: triangulation.

Triangulation occurs when, rather than address a problematic situation directly (which is more likely to get the desired outcome), we turn to a third person who becomes a go-between or a sympathetic ear. Inevitably, this third party is not as well-positioned to get results, but they are much easier to talk to. We feel better. The problem is off our chest and transferred to someone else, but nothing has changed.

HR professionals can find themselves in this awkward, triangulated position. They are outside the line management of the “problem person” and don’t have the manager’s leverage. Yet, the manager feels good. From the manager’s perspective, the situation has been addressed.

The HR is a ready target for triangulation. Consider this situation. People are not following safety regulations, so we need an extensive training programme on safety. A new manager got the job because of his technical skills but cannot hear any ideas that differ from his own. Solution? Let’s get the HR to talk with him or carry out a 360-degree feedback survey.

Here is another situation. People are not being honest about progress on a project. Bring in the team builders!

I once had the experience of being asked by a manager to speak to a ‘problem’ employee when I was running a team-development programme as an external consultant. I neither knew the person nor the reason why she was a problem to her manager.

Triangulation displaces responsibility for handling a problem. Even more concerning is that triangulation displaces and disguises the location of the problem, and so we end up paying attention to the wrong place. The problem is not that people do not follow safety regulations, neither does the problem belong to the difficult person or a dishonest team member.

The real problem lies with those who head for the door. Issues not being handled effectively is the real problem.

What gets sacrificed is clarity —about the manager’s role, about expectations and about accountability. When we have clarity, we know that the managers’ job is to handle the problems that arise with individuals and teams in their purview. They are supposed to set expectations and hold people accountable. On the other hand, the HR’s job is to equip and support the managers in doing that job, and not to do the job for them.

But life is messy, and so are people. We are emotional and afraid to confront. Amid the mess, we can lose sight of the clarity we once had.

Triangulation happens when both the managers and the HR collaborate to perpetuate it. The managers need to confront the ‘problem’ to break the triangulation. If this doesn’t happen, the HR professionals need to confront the managers. So, what do you do when managers come to you wanting you to fix a problematic person, run a training programme, or bring in team builders? What kind of diagnosis do you make? How do you decide what is needed here? Do you take it on as the managers ask? Or do you determine that the managers are the ones who need help, and that tough love is required? What is appropriate?

Two main factors contribute to triangulation – lack of skill and fear. While lack of skill should not be dismissed, it is more easily addressed than fear. There are numerous training programmes on communication skills, critical conversations, and the like that do an excellent job of preparing people to deal with these issues. We learn what to do and how to do it. We learn how to be clear and specific and frame our message to be heard.

This framework of knowledge can reduce fear, but just as easily, fear can turn that same framework into an empty shell. We all know that people can go through the motions and still avoid the tough stuff. Even when we don’t avoid the challenges, fear has a pernicious way of undermining our intentions. It creeps in and weakens our words. It shows up as timidity or belligerence and muddies our message.

Fear challenges our ability to come across as confident, clear and in control. Managers’ skills and knowledge can be enhanced with training, but a different support is required to help people face the fear and not rush for the door. More profound personal change is necessary for them to hold their ground. Introspection is essential. It requires a real-time, recurring cycle of preparation, action and reflection to confront the real problems. This profound work is beyond the scope of training; it is the work of coaching.

The first step is to determine how much of the fear is real and how much is self-generated. Fear plays a vital role in keeping us safe and needs to be respected. So, our first task is to question if it is warranted, and if so, why? Who are the people with whom we have to work? What is the culture in which we work? What is the trust level? Is straight talk tolerated, or is clarity sacrificed? Without straightforward conversations, no one can know where they stand. Safety is illusory. Self-protection prevails. What we do must be tailored to these circumstances. Courage without wisdom can be recklessness.

However, many of our fears are self-generated, and when they are in charge, life can seem more manageable. Who relishes a difficult conversation? Falling into line with the way things are done doesn’t hurt any feelings.

Triangulation handles these troublesome situations, giving the appearance of doing the job. But how satisfying is all this? Do we want it to change? Do we want to override our fears? If so, we must get to know ourselves. We need to answer some questions such as:

· What triggers us?

· How do we handle conflict?

· What holds us back from doing what we know needs to be done?

· How do we relate to authority?

· How much do self-generated fears colour our judgement?

· How do these affect the way we respond to triangulation?

· How can we do better?

· How well will that ‘better’ go over in our working environment?’

All this prepares us to clarify what is real and what is self-generated and how both gain expression in our environment. This clarity does not come by easily. It is challenging to be a fly on the wall when we are immersed within our company culture and limited by our blind spots. It is here that coaching becomes so valuable. Coaching provides skilled, outside perspectives that enable us to see broader points of view and expand our capacity to take on the more difficult tasks of management.

Coaching does not set out to solve our problems but to enable us to become clear about what is and what we want. From there, coaching helps us to move into action. It provides supportive accountability. Coaching equips us to be both wise and courageous, make decisions with greater confidence and choose our battles. We can act.

Experience coaching yourself to learn how to stand ground and not run for the doors

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

After a long and satisfying career in training, OD, and coaching, Lou Raye Nichol retired in 2013 and returned to her first love – pottery. She continues to coach returning clients and non-profit leaders and mentors coaches seeking ICF Associate and Professional Certifications. She is an ICF Professional Certified Coach. She has established a training/profit centre in the North of England for an international non-profit. She co-founded/directed the NC State University Business Coaching Certificate Programme. Co-author of The Essentials of Business Coaching: the NCSU Programme textbook, she has taught and mentored over 400 aspiring coaches and is known for her award-winning porcelain pots fired with a carbon-trapping process.

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Having completed a college degree in information technology, which includes a combination of both technical and business classes and having worked with organisations that are undergoing agile transformation, my curiosity on the topic grew. As I dug a little deeper, I stumbled upon the concept of ‘people agility’, which got me even more curious upon realising that it aligns so much with what coaching is about.

But before that, let’s take a step back and define what organisational agility means.

What is organisational agility?

Aaron De Smet, a senior partner at McKinsey & Company, defines it as “the ability of an organisation to renew itself, adapt, change quickly, and succeed in a rapidly changing, ambiguous, turbulent environment.”

‘Rapidly changing’, ‘ambiguous’ and ‘turbulent’. These words seem to perfectly describe the world we’re in today.

Building an agile organisation takes more than just acquiring skills, tools and processes. According to McKinsey, “The trademarks of organisational agility include a network of teams within a people-centred culture that operates in rapid learning and fast decision cycles, which are enabled by technology and a common purpose that co-creates value for all stakeholders.”

1. Strategy – North Star embodied across the organisation

2. Structure – Network of empowered teams

3. Process – Rapid decision and learning cycles

4. People – Dynamic people model that ignites passion

5. Technology – Next-generation enabling technology

The people component must not be forgotten as organisations invest in digital transformation, more efficient processes, and a better defined and aligned strategy.

After all, the shift to agile is not just a shift in the way one does things but, more importantly, in the way people think and how they see themselves and the organisation.

This is where coaching comes in.

Coaching and agility

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential

Unlike mentoring, where the mentor tells the client what to do based on the mentor’s experiences or expertise, coaching puts the client in control. The conversation is a safe space to share and speak up, reflect, learn, create new insights, discover possibilities, and create accountability towards action.

And this is precisely what a people-centred organisation is like. People are engaged and empowered to more quickly and effectively work together in creating value.

As we dig deeper into coaching and agility, we’ll look into the agile people practices suggested by McKinsey and how they relate to some of the ICF core competencies.

Agile People Practice #1: Shared and Servant Leadership

Leaders’ mandate in agile organisations has shifted from the old ‘command and control’ to engage and empower. Pia-Maria Thoren, author of Agile People, describes the role of leaders as gardeners who create an environment that supports growth and abundance.

How?

Just as coaches cultivate trust and safety (ICF Core Competency #4), leaders must create a safe space for employees to think, speak, feel and act. Creating a psychologically safe space where one won’t fear being judged or making mistakes encourages curiosity, creativity and possibilities.

Leaders, such as coaches, must also listen, evoke awareness and facilitate growth (ICF Core Competencies #6, #7 and #8). What does this mean? It means, listening to employees and asking questions that allow exploration and new perspectives. It also means concretising learning through reflection, action design and accountability.

Agile People Practice #2: Cohesive Community

A cohesive community is built on a shared purpose and culture. While shared purpose is more closely aligned with the first agile trademark, strategy, it can only come to life through people. Culture, on the other hand, starts with leaders. A cohesive community can be fostered through leadership based on trust and respect. Again, this is closely aligned with how coaches create a safe and supportive environment (ICF Core Competency #4).

Agile People Practice #3: Entrepreneurial Drive

An entrepreneurial drive means having the necessary characteristics to succeed as an entrepreneur – ownership, love for one’s product/service, ingenuity and relentless pursuit of goals. It is a drive that comes from within. For organisations, this means attracting and retaining motivated people to take ownership and accountability not only to execute but also to create.

Intrinsic motivation can come from realising and understanding how one’s mission and purpose aligns with that of the organisation. Shared leadership by getting people involved in both plan and action gets the job done and increases the sense of ownership and accountability. This is enabled and amplified even more with coaching – through a space of trust and safety, active listening, evoking awareness to possibilities, and supporting sustainable growth. When employees are trusted, they do their best. When employees know that exploration and experimentation are encouraged, they are inspired to innovate.

Agile People Practice #4: Role Mobility

The fourth, agile people practice, is more about creating structure and process that allows people to easily move into different roles in the organisation. However, the method would only be effective if leaders play the catalytic role of talent managers, who acknowledge, respect, or even celebrate unique styles, talents, insights, and experiences. Again, these are all part of the ICF core competency on trust and safety. A manager who is unable to see and appreciate the uniqueness and talent of an employee may be a hindrance rather than an enabler of role mobility.

“Coaching is key to organisational agility”

Agile people practices revolve around trust, psychological safety, respect, learning and growth. All of these are aligned with what professional coaching is all about. Coaching, in this context, is not just a skill that leaders must have but is a way of being in an agile organisation.

It is even more crucial now for leaders to embody the role of a coach and experience being coached themselves. Through coaching, minds expand, perspectives widen and shift, and possibilities are created.

Coaching helps build organisational agility. Experience coaching now

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward the common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards.

Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

Kristine “Kurly” de Guzman is a career and leadership coach based in the Philippines. She is a Professional Certified Coach, by the International Coaching Federation, and a Certified Master in Career Services, by the National Career Development Association. Her coaching and consulting practice reflect a divergence of her strengths in strategy, empathy and appreciating individual uniqueness, plus her experience in coaching, project management, people development, leadership, L&D and IT. She is passionate about helping leaders and mid-career professionals thrive in their careers. She is a self-published author of a book on career transition towards the pursuit of meaning.

The post How coaching can help build an agile organisation appeared first on HR Katha.

Companies that still follow the traditional approach are at a critical point and risk losing their employees to companies that adapt to the future. The ‘Great Resignation’ trend, while not as apparent in India as in the US, is still affecting some companies. They are struggling to find and retain top talent, putting themselves at risk of falling behind competition and becoming irrelevant in the long run.

How can organisations future proof themselves against this trend? Start by adopting a coaching culture.

What is coaching culture?

Leaders develop a coaching culture when they use coaching skills to facilitate daily conversations. Engaging in active listening, showing curiosity, asking questions that invite other perspectives, and providing feedback objectively and without judgment are examples of these skills.

Taken in isolation, these skills may not seem important at first glance. As a result, they are underestimated and often overlooked. At a deeper level, however, when leaders apply these practices consistently in all their interactions with the employees, they build a psychologically safe and trusting environment in the workplace.

Employees who feel safe at work are more engaged. Trust leads to teamwork and collaboration.

By adopting a coaching culture mindset, you can create a climate of psychological safety and trust that fosters transformation and growth both on personal and organisational levels.

Why is coaching culture important?

Traditional workplaces rely on clearly-defined roles, responsibilities and organisational structures, which feel rigid and siloed in today’s world.

Change is driven from the top down, and leaders are expected to know what is best for the organisation. Relationships are based on command and punishment/reward systems. Performance is measured through annual reviews that focus on the things that don’t go well and the areas that require improvement rather than the strengths each employee brings to the table.

This environment is no longer appealing to many employees today, especially the younger generations that enter the workforce. Nowadays, employees seek purpose, autonomy, opportunities for personal growth and work-life balance. It is these factors and the overall culture of the company that heavily influence their selection of employers. According to Korn Ferry’s 2017 Talent Forecast survey1, culture is the top reason great candidates choose a company.

Embracing a coaching culture can create a competitive advantage that attracts and retains the best employees.

Employees will benefit

Having a coaching culture signifies the corporate values to the present and future employees. It demonstrates that the organisation:

· respects other perspectives, opinions, ideas and experiences;

· encourages individuals, in a supportive way, to push the limits of their thinking

· promotes forward-thinking mindset by focusing on solutions;

· promotes creativity and experimentation;

· believes in a growth mindset;

· values, celebrates, and nurtures each individual’s unique strengths and talents.

The organisation will also benefit by creating an atmosphere of respect, support, continuous learning, and appreciation for the employees.

Adding value to your organisation

Embedding coaching in your organisation’s DNA is powerful for the following reasons:

Easier goal setting: Setting and achieving goals becomes easier. Providing your employees with the power to set and achieve their own goals will increase their sense of purpose, contribution, and autonomy, which will result in increased accountability, productivity, and performance.

Learning promotion: Learning, cited by Deloitte’s 2017 Global Human Capital Trends Report2 as one of the most critical attributes of modern workplaces, is actively encouraged. Employees who feel empowered to think creatively and experiment and learn outside their comfort zones are more likely to be engaged.

It is easier for employees to share ‘outside the box’ perspectives without feeling judged. New ideas are inspired, embraced, and implemented more readily. Coaching can boost a company’s performance in a fast-paced world by driving innovative thinking.

Current and future leaders can develop social and emotional intelligence skills to enhance their interaction with others inside and outside of their organisation, resulting in greater collaboration and stronger relationships.

A coaching culture can genuinely transform your organisation and create the platform for positive change, while actively supporting your vision and long-term strategy.

It’s time to shift to a coaching culture

The pandemic has further accelerated employee experience trends that have developed over the past few years. Offering substantial compensation packages to attract talent in your organisation may have been a good tactic in the past, but it is now unlikely to be as effective.

By adopting a coaching culture, you can become the employer of choice for top talent. As your culture shifts to a coaching approach, you will notice the benefits for your company and your employees.

Developing leadership skills and empowerment in the workplace contributes to increased performance, productivity, engagement and innovative thinking.

With a coaching culture, you send a clear message that your employees are at the heart of your business. In this way, you are creating a resilient organisation prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.

But remember that a mindset shift from clearly-defined roles, rules, norms and expectations of a traditional workplace cannot be achieved overnight. Change requires time and effort.

When done correctly, it is a win-win situation for all parties involved.

Find out about building a future-ready coaching culture

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Olga Valadon is an ICF-accredited coach, a business strategist, and a change manager. During her 25-year career working with global organisations, she has found that alignment and cohesion between the three pillars of leadership, strategy, and culture is the key to long-term success and can be achieved through more profound knowledge and appreciation of human behaviour in the workplace. Olga is the founder of Change Aligned, a consulting and executive coaching business offering services on all three pillars. She helps leaders navigate change, generate momentum, and drive growth with innovative tools.

The post Coaching culture – Why organisations need it now more than ever appeared first on HR Katha.

The same question can be asked about leadership, and the same conditions apply. Information on leadership abounds. We have a wide variety of theories on leadership behaviours and their results at our fingertips. Companies will have no problem finding training programmes to teach the theories and associated skills they want to encourage.

In leading, as in tennis, this provides the baseline. And as with tennis, our character – our motivation, our ability to take feedback, our stress response – makes the difference in how and if skills and information are put into practice. No matter how good we are, leadership constantly challenges us personally. It demands empathy, wisdom, courage, tolerance of ambiguity, good humour and much more.

Skills can be taught. Ideas and information can be taught. Character cannot. Our character is integral to who we are. It is a product of who we were at birth and our experiences through life. We are drawn to certain activities and interests. We have values and priorities. We have found ways to relate to other people that we are comfortable with, whether they work well or not. All this and more contribute to habitual ways of dealing with others and the world in general.

So here, we have a human quality central to our ability to put desired skills and knowledge into effect but is not readily receptive to teaching and may require considerable unlearning. With the best of intentions, old habits are strong and hard to change. Add to that the fact that the change may be perceived as alien to our construction of self – our character – and we actively resist.

This deeper unlearning and relearning is hard but not impossible and requires patience. Success depends on several factors, which include:

We recognise the benefits of changing within the context of our own values – not those of others. Real character change comes from within and aligns with who we are. Those in a helping role need to make sure they are in touch with our value set – what matters to us, not to them. For instance, an HR professional was given the task of talking to a young man who wanted a promotion but was unlikely to get it because he was so difficult to work with. He was focused on product and was fixed on the importance of his own ideas. He had little sense of the people around him. Her approach to him was that he was holding himself back because people didn’t want to work with him. She got nowhere. Why? Because he couldn’t care less about that. What he wanted was for his ideas to prevail.

Change begins with awareness – recognising what we are doing and the consequences. If we want to change, we have to catch ourselves at the old behaviour. That is enough to start with. We are collecting data that roots us in the reality of where we currently are.

· We reflect on this data with the intention of learning. We look at our experiences, how we respond to them and what our behaviour achieves. We make decisions. What is useful? What is not? What are the alternatives? What holds us back? We correct what we need to and build on what we have done well.

· We are kind to ourselves. Change is not easy, old habits are compelling, and we may backslide. That is not failure, but a step in the process and something to learn. Something triggered us to revert to default, and we can expand our capacity by becoming aware of what it was.

· We are open with others who have a stake in our learning. One thing that can hold us back is that others develop expectations about how we will behave based on how we have acted in the past and relate to us as if that were true. This can prevent them from noticing any change in us and can make it more difficult for us to change. When they know what we are attempting, they can relate to us in a new way, and as an added benefit, they can give us valuable feedback.

This is personal work. It is the work of coaching. Doing it on our own is possible but limited. Without an outside perspective, we are constrained by the boundaries of our character as we have constructed it. With a skilful outside perspective that seeks both to understand us and challenge us, we can see ourselves for who we are and whom we want to be. And we can gain support in doing something about it.

Professional coaching services can be found using ICF’s directory of credentialed coaches spread in India and all over the world

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

After a long and satisfying career in training, OD and coaching, Lou Raye retired in 2013 and returned to her first love — pottery. While making award-winning porcelain pots fired with a carbon-trapping process, she continues to coach returning clients and non-profit leaders, and mentor coaches seeking ICF Associate and Professional Certifications. She is an ICF Professional Certified Coach. She established a training/profit centre in the North of England for an international non-profit. She co-founded/directed the NC State University Business Coaching Certificate Programme. Co-author of The Essentials of Business Coaching, the NCSU Programme textbook, she taught and mentored over 400 aspiring coaches.

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In this article, I explore the impact of coaching on building emotional intelligence in leaders and harnessing momentum in teams. I also suggest two tools that can be used to recognise emotions, start non-judgemental conversations, support behavioural changes and open communication.

Impact of coaching on emotional intelligence

The emotional intelligence of leaders heavily impacts the success of a company and the extent to which its employees thrive. Research supports this and illustrates the impact of EI on employee satisfaction and bottom-line revenue.

It almost goes without saying that without understanding and working with their own and other people’s emotions, leaders stifle success.

Coaching brings thoughts and feelings to the surface, creating an understanding of emotional currents that lie under the surface. From here, leaders can learn to influence behaviours and outcomes.

Accessing emotions

Self-awareness is the first pillar of emotional intelligence. Being conscious of one’s own emotions allows one to consider how they impact those around one. This was exemplified to me by a client I recently worked with.

Jo found herself working hard and putting in long hours, despite the available resources to prevent this. To separate her tangled web of feelings, I asked her to create “a wheel of emotions.” This is a simple circle divided into eight segments, each labelled with a particular emotion. Considering them individually, Jo could rate their strength on a scale of 0 – 10.

The ‘wheel’ created a visual representation of how she was feeling, allowing her to engage other areas of her brain and begin to find practical solutions. Her highest-rated area was anxiety, wherein which she scored nine, and the lowest was energy, rated as three. Once the wheel was completed, we considered the causes and set goals to make small behavioural changes between our coaching sessions.

While reviewing after three months, Jo could see real progress had been made. She re-evaluated her energy levels at five and her anxiety at seven. She could also see that her behavioural shifts had set off a ripple of changes throughout her team.

Influencing relationships

Part of the power of coaching lies in its ability to allow one to place oneself in someone else’s shoes. It can allow one to think and feel as another person does, rather than just observing their perspective from a distance. I’ll illustrate the potential of this with another case study which presents the tool of ‘Perceptual Positions’.

Kerry was part of a high-potential leadership programme. Whilst incredibly keen, her confidence was brittle, and, as a result, she felt the need to be ‘across everything.’ This resulted in her working longer and feeling anxious, with the potential to cause early leadership burnout. A key area of anxiety was her relationship with Evelyn, who had been in the department longer but seemed reluctant to contribute ideas or take any responsibility.

How the Perceptual Positions tool worked

Step 1 – Standing in position 1, I asked Kerry to describe her thoughts and feelings about her role as vividly as possible. I asked questions that took her below the surface of events to uncover her emotions without getting into the narrative.

Step 2 – I asked Kerry to physically move to stand in position 2, dissociate from herself, and adopt Evelyn’s physical space and perspective. I now addressed my questions to Evelyn and asked what she was experiencing, thinking, and feeling.

Step 3 – When Kerry felt she had exhausted the position of Evelyn, I asked her to move to position 3 and adopt the perspective of a detached, objective observer. She chose to be Rahul, her immediate line manager. In this position, I asked her to comment on what had been said and his thoughts on the situation. Did Rahul have any insights to give to Kerry?

Step 4 – Finally, I asked Kerry to walk back to the first position, bringing all the new knowledge she had gained. I then asked her to look towards the second position and talk through what had changed in her thinking.

By coaching Kerry to ‘be’ the other person, she could change her perspective on her behaviour. She realised that her need to feel that she was covering everything was intended to give her confidence in case she was asked what was happening in her team. However, she felt micro-managed and untrusted when standing in Evelyn’s shoes and experiencing Evelyn’s thoughts and emotions. In a beautiful ‘a-ha’ moment, she understood that Evelyn likely saw little point in taking the initiative —she may as well wait for Kerry to tell her what to do.

Perceptual Positions is an incredibly valuable coaching tool because it gives insight into how it feels to be another person, and it offers a new perspective on the motivations for their actions.

It was important for Kerry to recognise her emotions first before she could understand what Evelyn was feeling. Through coaching, Kerry increased her emotional awareness, which had a ripple effect within the team. Evelyn started to feel valued and became braver to take action and contribute ideas.

This is just one example of how coaching can truly develop emotional intelligence and change how people work together. It is also a tool to pinpoint and resolve problems before they erupt.

Individual leaders can substantially impact the success of a company and the extent to which its employees thrive. Emotional intelligence can be increased at all career stages and is pivotal in productivity, retention, and business success. As we move towards a future in which work is more remote, keeping teams connected, engaged and creative means ensuring that employees feel seen and understood. Having a high level of emotional intelligence will become an increasingly important part of successful leadership; one-to-one coaching has been proven to deliver significant and long-lasting benefits in developing this crucial skill.

Employees managed by leaders with high emotional intelligence are four times more likely to leave their company. Coach your leaders today to improve productivity and the retention rate

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Helen Burgess is an executive coach and expert in leadership development. She has first-hand experience in training, consultancy and coaching within various public, private and not for profit organisations. Her mission is to make ‘fulfilment at work’ possible for everyone to maximise their potential and go on to deliver great things. She started her career on the Marks & Spencer graduate-leadership scheme before establishing her own travel business and becoming director of membership for a large travel consortium. On Point Coaching was established in 2016 after Burgess completed her PG Cert in business and personal coaching.

The post Coaching for emotionally intelligent leadership appeared first on HR Katha.

With many businesses returning to the office, it is clear that not everyone will physically return for the full five days a week. As a positive outcome, this allows employees to enjoy more flexibility and balance in their lives, not to mention the tremendous knock-on impacts of reduced travel from an economic and environmental standpoint.

However, these leaders will face challenges navigating leadership when some team members are physically present in the office and the rest are not. Inevitably, this difference threatens to create an ‘us and them’ culture.

As someone who has had the privilege to lead incredible teams, be a member of some amazing groups, and coach both leaders and teams, I can foresee the negative impact on leaders who are ill-prepared to tackle this new frontier in leadership.

Culture within a team sits on a dynamic spiral that can either spin upwards and create positive, thriving relationships or descend into a toxic environment that is detrimental to all who exist within it.

In this new era of hybrid working, coaching can provide a lifeline to leaders and help them support their teams to not only thrive but to relish the opportunity to lead and truly come into their own.

Post-pandemic leaders will need to lead with inclusion and compassion at the forefront of everything they do. Ensuring that team members feel included and heard, and have a sense of belonging, whether they are physically in the office or not, will be one of the biggest challenges for these leaders.

Leading with compassion is often overlooked, yet the pandemic has given employees a virtual window into the lives of their peers, allowing them to display a level of humanity from which we must not retreat. To close the curtain on reality and detract from the imperfect human interactions we’ve all experienced during the extended period of remote working would be a significant loss to the relationships formed.

Of course, there are other opportunities there for the taking if the leaders possesses humility and are open to learning more about themselves during this upcoming period of hybrid work environments.

The term ‘Psychological Safety’ is being thrown around so often that it’s becoming a buzzword in the world of organisational and personal development. Many understand that creating a psychologically safe environment lays the foundations for an innovative, creative and thriving environment, where relationships grow solid and individuals feel safe to challenge one another with respect and freedom to explore ideas. However not many understand that, according to LeaderFactor1, there are four levels to creating a psychologically safe working environment. The first level, is Inclusion Safety. Without inclusion safety as a foundation, the team stands no chance of reaching the heady echelons of the high-performance culture that psychologically-safe environments can enable.

Having inclusion safety within a team means that individuals feel accepted as human beings, are included within the group and share a sense of belonging with the team members. Leaders may hold it within their remit to prioritise inclusion safety. However, they can only achieve this by demonstrating specific behaviours that ensure that this environment is created.

Coaching is a hugely powerful way of creating an awareness of problematic behaviours, and supporting and championing a leader to move forward by helping them shift those behaviours.

What’s more, as is often the case, coaching creates a ripple effect. In this context, it positively impacts the rest of the team when a leader adapts their behaviours to promote inclusivity. When team members feel included, the bonds within the group are strengthened, and it can open the door to the next level of psychological safety, which enables individuals to feel safe to learn.

As my twin 5-year olds tell me, the only way to learn is to make mistakes, and this ethos — that not only is it safe to learn, but that it is also ok to make mistakes — is something that needs to be granted by the leader. This means, the leader is demonstrating vulnerability to generate trust within the team. Once granted permission to show vulnerability, team members will do the same, which then solidifies the level of trust.

It may sound simple but trust me; this is no mean feat. Most organisations don’t even achieve the first level of psychological safety. Only about 36 per cent of business professionals believe that their companies foster an inclusive culture2. But for those that do manage to make it up the ladder to achieve learner, contributor or challenger safety, the results can lead to improved innovation and sustained success, not to mention a more engaged and happier workforce.

Changing the behaviours of leaders is the fastest way to effect this kind of culture change, and coaching supports this impact. Coaching holds up a mirror, creating accountability and championing the leader along the way! When you add a positive psychology lens within the coaching and focus on what is right with individuals rather than what is wrong, the coach can quickly lend support to the leaders to leverage their existing talents to shift their behaviours and lean into what will work naturally for them. This also enables the leaders to shift their behaviours in a more authentic manner, which will naturally be received more positively.

As with all transformations, there will be highs and lows, but the leaders who have the support of a coach will be better equipped to deal with these challenges and be in a stronger position to support their teams to thrive.

So, while the hybrid working pattern is likely to become the norm, the new behaviours that leaders will need to embrace will also need to become the norm, and, as we know, coaching is the best tool to support this shift!

Watch Judy’s story and discover how coaching can help leaders and teams in your organisation reach new heights

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Michelle Horgan is a leadership and team development coach with over 12 years of experience leading business development and organisational change. She is passionate about helping businesses optimise their culture and helping individuals realise their full potential. A retired Premiership rugby player, former scientist and business transformation specialist, Horgan draws on an eclectic mix of skills and knowledge to support entrepreneurs, athletes, organisations and professionals to achieve their goals by leaning into their natural spheres of excellence. Along with her ICF Accreditations, Horgan is a Certified Strengths Finder Coach, Certified Psychological Safety Coach, NLP (with Neuroscience) Practitioner and Co-Founder and Executive Director at Captivate Coaching and Consulting.

The post How coaching leaders through the tumultuous times ahead will make your organisation stronger appeared first on HR Katha.

Over these extraordinary 18 months, we will have continued this accumulation and developed new habits, emotions, and mechanisms for coping with fear and uncertainty. Perhaps, we have been eating more comfort food or have started a new hobby (jigsaw anyone?), or learned a new skill, or worked longer hours increasingly, or found ourselves ‘languishing’ (a state that gives a sense of stagnation, of emptiness). And this ‘pandemic-clutter’ created a new layer of stuff in our lives.

Clutter is not intrinsically a bad thing. Far from it! Who would we be without our inner world of thoughts, feelings and emotions, or the items that make up our homely cosy spaces or our ideal work environments? Some of our newly-developed habits may be useful — a shift of perspective can help us focus on the more significant and strategic priorities, making choices around where to direct our energy in a far easier manner. Maybe we have honed our selective skills and started to say ‘no’ to what did not matter in the grand scheme of things.

When clutter stops us from doing our best work, being our best selves or leading our best life, it needs our attention.

As the planet slowly moves into its next stage of post-or-mid-COVID ‘normal’, much is being written about how businesses, office life and ways of working may be affected. We recognise that a hybrid work style is probably the way forward. Thinking about how this may be implemented and operate best for various sectors and industries, generates much debate.

So how about the individual? What does it all mean for us? It would be easy to flow into this new world and carry on without much thought about stepping into a new phase, not only in terms of our work but also personally.

Now is a great time to reflect on the ‘clutter’ that we have accumulated while living in various degrees of lockdown, to pay attention to how we have shifted our behaviours, activities and thought processes. Let’s notice how these changes affect us and decide what will serve us in the future and what we may want to let go of and declutter from our lives. While doing this work, we may also want to notice what ‘pandemic-clutter’ our colleagues, managers and employees have accumulated.

As coaches, we know that much of the value of our work lies in the space we create for others to stop, pause and reflect. Competency 6 of the updated ICF coaching core competencies, ‘Listens Actively’, invites us to pay careful attention to what our clients are saying and not saying. We create a space for them to be themselves and be heard.

Competency 7 of the updated ICF coaching core competencies is, ‘Evokes Awareness’. This encourages us to reflect what we are noticing, seeing, and hearing in our clients. We can also invite clients to consider what changes they have witnessed and how this may impact their lives and the system they operate in before choosing a path forward.

In the workplace, using coaching skills will allow a manager to be more receptive to the finer nuances of their team. This may be with individual team members, collectively or observations of the broader system. Coaching skills allow a manager or leader to take the time to be inquisitive and then reflect on the collective experiences. This will help identify what may need to be cleared for a more effective and productive future.

And just as we may look to evoke awareness in others, we all benefit from increased self-awareness. Whether we want to create healthier eating or work habits, be more understanding of and have empathy for others, have the confidence to trust our teams as they work remotely, build brilliant relationships with others through the medium of a screen, quiet the ‘inner critic’ or learn to be sociable all over again… whatever is getting in our way, let’s pay attention and notice it. And then, let’s find ways to declutter the unhelpful and create space for what we want instead.

Letting go and decluttering the unhelpful creates space for something new. What could that new thing be for you, your team or your business?

About ICF

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward the common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards.Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

About the author

After a 16-year career in corporate IT and a lifelong interest in the organising space, Ingrid Pope now works as a professional coach in both the private and public sectors. She also runs talks and workshops on reducing the clutter, the ‘busyness’ and ‘noise’.Pope runs her coaching practice, Creating Space, which focuses on decluttering all aspects of clients’ lives. She is particularly interested in uncovering the mental and emotional clutter that can hold clients back, especially self-confidence, and the feeling of being overwhelmed.

The post Decluttering: Creating space to process our COVID experience appeared first on HR Katha.

Having been in the business world for almost 33 years, I write directly from my business experience. During the last ten years, I incorporated coaching skills as part of my professional toolkit and advised all my HR colleagues to become coaches. Providing professional coaching sessions is not mandatory for HR professionals, but accessing the tools and practices of coaching and the fresh insight they provide allows a new HR function to be created that top management and employees adore.

A coaching mindset supports employee engagement and ownership, which positively affects business performance.

With a coaching mindset, HR business partners, as part of the leadership team, become the architects of a brilliant HR strategy which:

• allows employees to understand the connection between their role and the purpose of the company

• includes more creative HR policies and practices that are directly connected with company vision, strategy, and values

• improves change-management initiatives

• creates more humane workplaces

How it all happens

Coaching has many benefits, and the nine ‘virtues’ detailed below critically support the strategic functioning of HR by enlarging the thinking path of HR professionals. With the help of these virtues, it becomes easier to develop systems that support employee engagement and employee ownership. A coaching mindset brings the awareness of these virtues to HR professionals’ agenda.

Holistic approach – The coaching perspective focuses on the entire picture – seeing the whole without overlooking the details. If there is an issue to be solved, or if a new policy is to be issued, the best possible result can be achieved by viewing the big picture first, exploring the real need and expected outcomes and then working on the solution or approach.

Future focus – the coaching mindset allows us to take today’s baseline and turn our attention to the future. This brings the opportunity to put the past experiences to one side, keep an eye on lessons learnt from them, and focus on things to be done towards future objectives. In other words, we do not spend much time crying over mistakes or flaws.

Solution focus – The coaching mindset teaches us to focus on solutions instead of problems. It widens the angle of the binoculars when looking for alternatives and solutions, increasing the possibility of identifying previously undiscovered ways of solving problems.

Visions and dreams – A coaching mindset helps to define vision more clearly, in three or even more dimensions. It encourages vision to be like a dream. The dreamer imagines the future like a movie, sees the colours, hears the sounds, and feels the feelings. Through this process, the brain accepts that the vision is achievable. Defining vision in many dimensions makes creating the pathway much more manageable.

Meaning, purpose, and value awareness – Before taking action, the coaching mindset creates a habit of questioning the meaning, purpose, and value of every system, procedure and practice. That is a straightforward one-word question – ‘Why?’. With the answer, it becomes easier to move into action. We find ways to create and implement systems, procedures and practices. As Friedrich Nietzsche said: “He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear almost any ‘how’.”

Potential and strengths – An Ericksonian principle is: “People have real resources; They have many more resources than they know.” The basis of coaching is built on a belief in unlimited human potential. Coaching and potential are, therefore, two inseparable concepts.

The coaching mindset keeps human potential and strengths at the top of the agenda, allowing systems to be developed that nurture people’s innate talents and abilities.

In Conclusion

I hope these nine virtues will encourage HR professionals to investigate coaching and the benefits of developing a coaching mindset. Professional coaches may like to reflect on how they see these nine virtues and how they appear in their business.

Curious how coaching helps HR professionals see their job from a different perspective? Experience coaching for yourself!

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

After completing her MSc in economics in 1991, Nazli Ermut moved to corporate life as an HR professional and spent 24 years in multinationals, mainly as a manager. She has run her own business as a management and HR consultant and coach since 2012. A graduate of Erickson Coaching School, she now provides supervision support to student coaches at Erickson. Ermut shares her experiences in her blog and Harvard Business Review Turkey Blog. Her first book Pollyanna Mutlu Muydu? (Was Pollyanna Happy?), a synthesis of her knowledge and experiences about happiness, was published in 2020.

The post New HR strategies with the help of nine coaching virtues appeared first on HR Katha.

At times we struggle to find the incentive to keep going. It’s easy to concentrate on what’s missing from our personal and professional lives. Those challenges can often introduce negativity in areas we didn’t previously feel insecure in. Misery, indeed, likes company.

How can we eliminate this negativity before it spreads in the office? You’ll be surprised to know that one specific ‘trick’ works magic to resolve any challenge. It’s truly a blessing to see that one can change one’s mindset by producing positive action from harmful conflicts.

There is a specific question I encourage all my clients to focus on each time they feel stressed about a professional or personal challenge in their lives. After all, coaching is all about asking powerful questions. Questions enable fruitful thinking and generate the desired outcome when the client feels passionate about change.

Whenever employees feels things are not going according to plan and nothing is working for them, ask them to use a small but powerful exercise. Ask them to write this quote: “What would have to happen in order to…” and encourage them to complete this phrase with whatever feels right to them at that moment. Nurture openness, so they don’t become shy or think twice. Support them to complete the sentence with what needs to be done for them to overcome the challenge.

They mustn’t concentrate on the challenge itself as an adverse event. Instead, they must choose to clarify and reflect on the desired outcome they want to invite in their professional life. This way, they will have the chance to face the challenge through a positive spectrum. This advantage is all they need to escape the stress of the situation quickly.

For instance, rather than writing: ‘I don’t want my company to impose pressure on me anymore’, they may pose the question: ‘What would have to happen in order to feel safe and appreciated by my company?’ Even if one doesn’t have a specialist executive coach to take employees through this process, an experienced HR head can deduce this information. Allow questions and answers to remain private if the employees so wish, but encourage them to submit them, even anonymously.

Why does this question work? It has a lot to do with human psychology and how we reflect on a challenge. By focusing on the positive feelings we want to embrace, we simultaneously abandon negativity and start overcoming resentment. This is a big deal for companies.

Resentment and bitterness tend to build as years go by. Eventually, these stored feelings can be significant enough to lead to a lack of motivation or resignation. By asking personnel to perform this simple, cost-free exercise, resentment can be diffused by showing that you care and value your people’s opinions. Additionally, you gain valuable insight into their views. Sometimes it’s not something pleasant to hear (or see written), but justified or not, they are entitled to their opinion and feelings.

This question aims to attend to the specific feelings and actions we want to experience rather than their lack. It invites us to train our brains to focus on what’s coming rather than what’s missing. Once we engage our brain muscles to step up the changing process, we elevate all efforts to succeed. No matter how often our Ego keeps undermining our self-trust and self-confidence by pointing out shortcomings and inabilities, we must enable intensive communication with our higher self that knows we can have it all. There is nothing that we can’t have once we’ve set out to get it.

If there is one thing standing in the way, it’s time and nothing else. From the time we answer the powerful question, ‘What would have to happen in order to…”, an avalanche of events is about to happen. We need to complete all the proper requirements and be straightforward about what needs to be done to align our wishes with our actions. ?mbracing the feelings that get us closer to happiness invites us to go deeper into our intimate thoughts and desires by launching a valuable self-discovery journey that involves every aspect of our lives.

“What would have to happen in order to…”, is the question your employees NEED to unlock the correct answer to, that will eventually get them to an advanced performance level!

Experience coaching for yourself to see how powerful questions could help transform lives

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF

Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai and ICF Pune.

The author, Jill Douka is an MBA and Master Certified Coach. She is a women’s business & leadership coach, a Master Certified Coach (MCC), and the only Greek bestselling author coach enlisted to the four per cent of coaches worldwide by International Coach Federation. She is an accredited mentor coach and awarded business mentor from the European Union. Douka is the director of studies at the Global Academy of Coaching, the only Academy of Coaching in Greece and Cyprus with an exclusive English-speaking and Greek-speaking online curriculum, certified by the International Coaching Federation (ICF). She has collaborated with companies such as Microsoft, Piraeus Bank, Bank of Cyprus, Mondeliz, and Iberdrola.

The post The number one question that resolves any challenge! appeared first on HR Katha.

During the last two years, so many things have changed rapidly. The effects of the pandemic have seen some companies suffer severe financial losses while others seized new opportunities and thrived and flourished. We have seen business winners and losers – some shine while others barely breathe. We can confidently say that adaptive leaders who acted early benefited, and change management has become a critical factor in business success.

Talking about performance, being a good decision maker alone doesn’t make one stand out from the crowd. As a leader, coaching is one of the best ways to transform one’s potential into limitless performance. It’s also the best tool to develop one’s team into a high-performing one, a crucial step towards success. Coaching benefits the individual, the team and the institution.

Let’s take a look at what will change in an institution from a coaching perspective;

· Coaching provides a different perspective – it allows individuals to see what’s below the waterline, understand the whole iceberg and what may be next. Many conflicts occur because of misunderstandings or insufficient information. Most opportunities are missed because they are not fully understood, or inadequate action is taken.

· Coaching makes a huge difference in communication skills, and active listening is one of the indispensable elements of coaching. Listening without judgment improves creativity and reduces stress levels at the workplace.

· Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, said, “Great things in business are never done by one person. They are done by a team of people”. Individual coaching of team members combined with coaching of the entire team results in a high-quality approach from the team.

· Almost every business has its mission and vision written in a document, collecting dust on a shelf. It is worth reviewing the way one works as well as one’s targets to ensure the work is aligned with the mission and vision of the business. Coaching is like a good friend calling one back to the right path. When a strategy meets a goal, it is working!

Surveys and researchers show us the effects of coaching in tangible and visible ways.

In 2013, Stanford University and the Miles Group polled over 200 chief executive officers (CEOs), board directors, and senior managers of North American public and private enterprises.

The CEOs responded favourably to coaching, with almost all of them enjoying the process. The CEOs as well as the directors identified team building as an essential leadership skill and one that they are currently developing. Team building is one of the most critical areas for their leadership development. And yet, two-thirds of the CEOs and about half of the senior managers polled were not receiving outside or external advice on team-building.

Research released by the Association for Talent Development in 2014 revealed that coaching:

· Improves communication by 69 per cent

· Raises engagement by 65 per cent

· Enhances skills-to-performance by 63 per cent

· Stimulates productivity by 61 per cent

In summary, utilising coaching creates more effective leaders and can be a driving force in business. For 360 degrees of success and happiness, I recommend hiring a coach for oneself and one’s team. It is a golden key that returns golden standards.

Take the first step. Experience coaching for yourself

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards.

Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Dilek Kıroğlu is on a mission to touch people’s lives and unleash their potentials to fulfil their dreams. Trained as an engineer and equipped with an MBA, Kıroğlu spent ten years in corporate life. After experiencing coaching, she made a significant career change and recognised coaching as his life purpose. Dilek has, from that time, worked passionately to improve her coaching career/life. She has trained in NLP, breath technique coaching, team & executive managerial coaching. She holds an ICF ACC credential and works with individuals and corporations. She is a fan of chess and also plays the piano.

The post Powering performance with qualified leadership appeared first on HR Katha.

It got me thinking about how often an underlying coaching issue turns out to be due to miscommunication.

The Oxford Dictionary defines communication as ‘The imparting or exchanging of information’. Simple! So how does exchanging information so often end in complex, emotional and uncomfortable situations?

Communication skills develop from birth and are constantly affected by the many different and vastly varied elements of the environments we experience during our upbringing. Add to these skills a lifetime of personal experiences and lessons. The result is a very individual, complex ‘reality’ of assumptions, expectations and perceptions through which we filter the meaning of the words we use. Try asking someone to define one of their core values. Chances are, they have a different take on what the word means to them. At any point in any communication, words can be misunderstood or filtered differently, impacting the original message.

Multiply this misunderstanding by the number of people taking part in the communication, the differences in their upbringing and personal experiences, and you have some idea what a mine field communication is. Now consider that the words make up only seven per cent, the tip of the communication— the iceberg — and one has some idea of the complexity of communication. The other 93 per cent hiding below the waterline includes assumptions, expectations, intentions, body language, tone, values, feelings, past experiences, ideas, interpretations, beliefs, culture and gender.

So, what can you do?

Simply having an awareness of these difficulties helps one communicate more carefully and to listen for better understanding. One can develop one’s communication skills by practising my LORDS model to deliver one’s message as clearly as possible. This model allows one to check-in along the way and better understand. Others will hear, feel and appreciate this communication style.

• Listen actively

• Open questions

• Reflect and reframe

• Define intention, words and expectations

• Summarise

Listen actively

We have a tendency to decide what we are going to say next while someone else is talking. We quickly assume their meaning through our filters and wait for a pause to say our part. Listening actively means listening to understand what we do not already know while being conscious of our assumptions trying to fill in the unspoken gaps.

Open questions

Asking questions to which we don’t know the response is an excellent way of supporting active listening. These open questions also make the people we are communicating with feel heard and understood. Ask questions to get as much previously unknown information as possible. For instance, rather than asking, ‘Is that okay with you?’ try ‘How do you feel about that?’

Good open questions often begin with ‘how…’ or ‘what…’. Try to avoid asking questions starting with ‘why…’ as this little word can give a well-intentioned question a personal and accusatory sting.

Reflect and reframe

When listening, be conscious that one seldom gets 100 per cent of that person’s ‘truth’ first time. Using open questions and active listening to take the person’s answer, reframe it and reflect it back to them helps clarify meaning. For instance, say, ‘What I’m understanding is…’ or ‘So, what I’m hearing is…’ to give the other person an opportunity to rephrase or clarify information. Using reframing and reflecting in communication picks up on gaps in information or different assumption filters. Notice how often one says something to someone, especially when one is in a hurry, assuming they have gone through thought processes similar to one’s own, beforehand. This is also very powerful in making the other parties feel heard and valued.

Define intentions, words and expectations

Consciously define three critical areas in conversations, especially in difficult circumstances:

1. Intention – what is the intent behind the words?

2. Words – do we have the same definition of the key words being used?

3. Expectations – what is being assumed or expected but not said?

Summarise

Summarise the key points for yourself out loud when someone has finished explaining something. Ask others to summarise their understanding of what you said. Ask, ‘What else? ‘What’s missing?’ ‘What hasn’t been said yet?’ then offer a summary of what you think they said.

The two most important questions for clarification for yourself and others are, “So the Purpose here is…?” and “So the Question is…?” Getting and giving clarity on expectations, meaning, reason, obstacles and the core ‘why’ of what you are communicating keep everyone focused positively on the purpose and meaning.

Try it, and I guarantee that you will be surprised at how much potential miscommunication and misunderstanding you uncover!

Miscommunication can come from unconsciously filling in gaps in our understanding with assumptions based on our past experiences. This model uses five simple lenses to view communication from different focus points to offer new perspectives. Use active listening and open questions throughout the conversation to bring reflection, definition and summary into your interaction. Notice the difference in how you interact with each other and understand the meaning behind the words. Notice for changes in levels of trust and respect between you.

Feel free to share my LORDS model. Imagine what life would be like if we all got a little better at communicating with each other!

Be more socially confident through improving your communication gap and get your idea across clearly with ICF Credential Coach today!

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Gillian Walter, who is English / Swiss and has lived on Lake Zürich with her Swiss husband and two children for almost 18 years, is a self-employed coach and coach supervisor, as well as an ICF Board Member responsible for memberships in Switzerland. As the communication link between the ICFS Board, the Chapter Leaders and our members, connections and conversations fascinate her. She enjoys encouraging and supporting the Chapter Leaders in building connections, growing their local coaching community and getting members involved in great volunteering opportunities, learning, collaborating, growing as professionals and most definitely for having fun together. She believes that if coaching professionals can come together to connect, share, learn and co-create in a fun environment, there’s very little that cannot be achieved. All they need to do is, communicate like LORDS!

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I do not envy the business and HR teams charged with answering that question in a way that makes everyone happy. Opinions I hear first hand, and those I read about, are all over the map, but plotting a pathway forward may come from one of the most valuable lessons we learned over the past 15 months.

When closures first struck, every business leader jumped into action. Solutions born from pure survival often iterated into something surprisingly functional, if not effective. At times, iterations were even more efficient than the ‘old’ way of working. Those who adapted the fastest and best, experienced legitimate productivity gains.

James Allen, a partner at international consultancy, Bain & Co, recently shared research conclusions that suggest ways to maintain an edge in a post-pandemic world. Extensive conversations with CEOs and other executives revealed two types of success stories during the pandemic:

1) Getting the hell out of the way so your people can do their jobs, and

2) Acting like the agile entrepreneurs we are supposed to be to maintain an edge.

Tenable solutions did not usually happen overnight. Particularly in those early days, a new strategy or plan was created almost daily. For those who were part of the team designing and implementing those experiments, it seemed that just when they thought they had something workable figured out, the rug was pulled from under them. For those at the receiving end of all those ‘adjustments’, it often felt like whiplash.

Those early solutions had short horizons — “we just need to get through these next few weeks.” Eventually, gradually, painfully, we all resigned ourselves to something much more indefinite. And here we are!

As I think back to my crisis coaching calls during those days, I remember a four-part refrain I shared with one client after the other:

1) There is no playbook for this.

2) What new thing do you need to create now?

3) Don’t beat yourself up for not getting it right the first time; and,

4) Repeat.

Unfairly, many folks did beat themselves up; this is pretty much what we all did.

Resilience. Adaptability. Invention. Prototyping. Iterating. Improving. These life-saving principles have led workplaces through the pandemic in ways we could not have imagined.

Our modern economy has never been in a pandemic before — we had no choice but to redesign.

Our modern economy has never rebounded from a pandemic before.

This realisation could be the wake-up call we need to continue leaning into our ability to reinvent and innovate.

What will ‘office life’ look like…now? I don’t know. And if I were to give you some free coaching, I’d look you in the eye and ask, “Do you? I mean, really?”

When this topic comes up around my long table, the responses are diverse, and opinions mainly express how we would like ‘office life’ to look. The self-described introvert now cannot imagine being a team player if he isn’t cultivating trust in a face-to-face office. The hyper-energetic extrovert now cannot fathom relinquishing the massive productivity gains she has experienced through working from home.

So how do you navigate that as a leader or HR professional trying to herd the proverbial cats?

Ironically, the same stylised wisdom that has helped us through the worst of the pandemic may also be a powerful coaching style at our fingertips for the future— Resilience. Adaptability. Invention. Prototyping. Iterating. Improving.

Maybe what the folks at Bain & Co. uncovered was spot on. We need to stay out of the way so our people can do their jobs, and we need to keep acting like the agile entrepreneurs we are supposed to be. And somehow resist the temptation to reach for dusty relics on yesterday’s style.

In short, this is all about leadership, isn’t it? More of a ‘how’ than a ‘what’. How would you respond if I were to ask you, ‘What kind of leader do you look for to guide you into, through or out of uncharted territory?’

Would you go for someone who suggests they know exactly what to do, or someone who empathically rolls up their sleeves and works tirelessly until they get it right?

The folks around my table and my clients are pretty smart. They claim to have found liberation, productivity, job satisfaction and renewed life by following companies that embraced the unfamiliar during these past months.

With steely intensity, they will look one square in the eye and tell anyone who claims they have it all figured out that they are full of something other than wisdom.

Maybe we can imagine tomorrow’s workplace. Perhaps it’s more like today’s workplace than yesterday’s.

Resilience. Adaptability. Invention. Prototyping. Iterating. Improving.

Experience coaching to become the leader who leads the way out of the pandemic gracefully today with ICF credential coach!

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai and ICF Pune.

The author, Dan Parodi is an executive coach based in Silicon Valley, California. He brings more than 30 years of experience as a serial entrepreneur, investor and social innovator to his practice, drawing on radical highs and lows as a ‘been there’ framework for client empathy. His coaching is holistic and focused on helping clients live the best version of themselves—professionally and personally.

The post Reinventing tomorrow’s workplace appeared first on HR Katha.

In reality, however, we prefer not to have these important conversations. We put them off, and in the process, lose an opportunity to solve the issue, seize an opportunity, resolve a conflict, or advance an idea. We put our life on pause, lose days, months, sometimes years, as we tell ourselves, we’ll have that conversation “someday…”

What makes some conversations difficult?

Why do we put off certain conversations? What’s so challenging about them? It has all to do with the uncertainty of outcomes. We have something in our mind that we want to achieve or get from the conversation, but our major fear is that the result will not meet our expectations.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We can leverage other tools at our disposal to make difficult conversations no longer something to be feared, but something to be embraced; just another aspect of moving through the world. To shift this thinking, we need an actionable plan that can help us to get unstuck and overcome the fear of having uneasy conversations through planning and preparation. A tool that exhausts all possible situations and outcomes would be challenging to navigate, so here, I’d like to offer a universal framework that can be easily tailored for each unique situation.

Preparation: What can be your win strategy? What do you do before the conversation?

A few simple questions have helped my clients design a flow to support them through this type of conversation:

• How can you reduce stress during this type of conversation, amplify the benefits, and minimise the risks of negative effects?

• How can you stop postponing a tough conversation and start acting?

These questions can provide a starting point to guide through the preparation process, which can include the following:

Clarify intent: Get clear on your intent and what you want to accomplish through the conversation. What is the purpose of the conversation? Be honest with yourself, it will help you discover a possible hidden agenda and make sure you understand possible outcomes.

Research your counterpart: What do you know about this person? What kind of personality do they have? What ruffles this person’s feathers? What is their value system? It’s important to understand how to build the conversation, whether to use more data, present the material in a more structured or less formal way, appeal to emotions, or use metaphors and so on.

Plan: Be aware of your own emotional triggers, needs and fears. Create a plan for how you are going to centre yourself if things go out of your control. Be clear on the personal boundaries that you’d like to keep and see respected.

Draw a list: Make up a checklist of topics/ideas/aspects you want to discuss. In a hard conversation, the increased stress may play with your memory. Having a list of key points to cover will help you stay focused and ensure you don’t miss anything important.

Consider the risks: Consider the best-case scenario. It will keep you motivated and engaged. Consider the worst- case scenario. It will help you evaluate risks. Ask yourself whether you can tolerate a possibility of the worst-case scenario. Through this work, you may find out that there is nothing to fear. In some cases, the risk of the worst-case scenario may outweigh the desired outcome, and the best way to act is to hold back the conversation and reconsider your options.

Rehearse. Practice makes perfect. Sometimes, you have very clear thoughts and ideas in your head, but when it is time to speak you cannot articulate them. Having challenging conversations is a skill that can be developed. Choose a person you trust (this can be your coach, friend, or mentor) to rehearse your part of the conversation. Ask them whether your intent is clear, whether your words deliver your message and how they feel at the receiving end.

During the conversation

While begin the conversation, stay positive, keep in mind the desirable outcome, believe in yourself. As Stephen Covey wrote in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, first seek to understand then to be understood.

· Listen carefully as new information intake may help you adjust your strategy, shift your perception, or change your perspective. Listen not to respond, but to understand. Do not interrupt and let go of your immediate reaction. Reflect on what you heard by paraphrasing your partner’s arguments, use key words that your partner uses to make sure that you really understand them.

· Do not assume, ask. Assumption is a killer of relationships and conversations. Stay centered, keep your integrity. Acknowledge your partner’s point of view, but don’t allow anything to break your boundaries. Brené Brown in her book, Dare to Lead, writes, “leaders need the grounded confidence to stay tethered to their values, respond rather than react emotionally, and operate from self-awareness, not self-protection.”

· Stay curious and open-minded. Don’t seek to be right, seek to get right.

· If you’re stuck, brainstorm. Invite your partner to brainstorm to find the best win-win solutions.

· Breathe. When you breathe deeply, it sends a message to your brain to calm down and relax.

· Smile. People reflect each other’s emotions. What do you want your partner to reflect?

What if something goes wrong?

Even with all the planning in the world, you cannot script out the conversation’s outcome. Something may not go as planned.

• Don’t take a rejection or a verbal attack personally. As one of my teachers taught me: It’s not about you, and they will never stop.

• Don’t burn the bridges even if everything is greased for the skids. Give an opportunity to all other parties to calm down, think again, and try to find a win-win solution again, next time.

The good news about difficult conversations is that another one will be right around the corner, offering you an opportunity to continue to hone and develop in this area.

I hope that this step-by-step approach will help you to start an important conversation that you didn’t previously dare to have. Don’t wait for the next time or “someday…” to come (what if it doesn’t?)…carpe diem.

Sources on nurturing relationships and strategies for tough conversations that I have found insightful are as follows:

• Brené Brown, Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. (2018)

• Mark Goulston, Talking to Crazy (2018)

• Nicole Unice, The Miracle Moment: How Tough Conversations Can Actually Transform Your Most Important Relationships (2021)

• Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (originally 1989)

P.S. A friend of mine said that it looked like the preparation takes more time than the conversation. Yes, it’s true. Sir Richard Branson, spent nearly 17 years on Virgin Galactic development to achieve his dream and reach space; his flight lasted for just 90 minutes.

Ask ICF-credentialed coaches how to prepare for a tough conversation. They can help you master your communication skills!

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Maria Wade is an executive coach and consultant, specialising in coaching leaders who are responsible for creating and impacting organisational cultures. With her clients, Maria works to create more spaces where people feel they belong, desire to contribute and are valued for who they are. Her career has included legal services and project management in mergers and acquisition, asset management, paper, electricity, and heat production, gas and oil, and consulting. She’s providing services across the world both in English and in Russian. Maria holds master’s degrees in law as well as business Administration, and a coaching certificate from Columbia University’s coaching certification programme.

The post It’s time to talk: How to prepare for tough conversations appeared first on HR Katha.

While institutions and their human resource management teams did their best to confront the new environment by developing the best technical systems, enabling remote business and maintaining the continuity of work, they faced a new challenge. How would they manage human capital in the new work-from-home culture?

Several issues challenge human resource departments. HR professionals must redefine jobs, set performance measurements, and find ways to keep workers motivated to achieve strategic objectives. The same quality of work is necessary from home as in the office. Human resource teams also wondered: How can institutions enhance self-control to efficiently achieve optimal use of time and resources to complete the required tasks?

The Covid-19 pandemic conditions highlighted individual differences among workers in their ability to deal with a new work system and their ability to monitor and motivate themselves to accomplish the assigned tasks and work effectively and efficiently. Some harmful individual practices appeared among a group of employees at different levels of management and specialties.

We have witnessed employees who do not adhere to the official working hours and delay handing over assigned tasks, resulting in the accumulation of tasks on the next employee, who is waiting for their colleague to complete the job. We have also witnessed managers who deliberately assign their employees tasks late, often past their working hours, as they believe that an employee at home is available, not considering the employee’s family and social obligations.

The culture of remote work is a new corporate culture for managers and employees. Some managers are oblivious to the social and psychological challenges experienced by some employees. Women in particular may have a multiplicity of roles that often require them to balance work, supervise children studying remotely, and manage household affairs. Opening direct dialogue channels here appears to establish an appropriate work mechanism that helps create a stimulating and productive work environment for all.

Employing the philosophy and methodologies of coaching is one effective strategy in dealing with such challenges. Coaching creates a constructive dialogue between managers and employees, either individually or collectively.

When the leader or manager asks their employees questions that will allow them to evaluate the situation and come up with alternative solutions, whether in group or individual sessions, the manager motivates them. Innovation is allowed to flourish in the workplace. This working method entails accurately identifying the problem first, then analysing the available options that will help tackle this problem, and then finally setting measurements and indicators of performance, which is the core of the GROW methodology in coaching.

The success of the business environment in these pandemic-stricken times depends on the smooth flow of communication between managers and employees, and the convergence of their viewpoints to serve the achievement of the objectives of the institution. Here, the importance of listening skills increases for managers in general, including human resource managers, as they play an essential role in maintaining the organisation’s human capital. Deep listening, while showing empathy and understanding, and then asking conversational questions to come up with common solutions to make the work environment more appropriate is at the heart of the coaching philosophy.

This article calls organisations to adopt the coaching method in institutional work, whether in planning processes, human resource management, or any other challenges that the institutional environment may face.

Want more support in maintaining the human capital in your organisation and navigating new work-from-home culture through coaching? Ask any ICF credentialed coach!

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaing the highest ethical standards.

Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Ahlam Saeed Al Lamki, is a quality management and empowerment expert, with a cumulative vast experience of over 25 years varying from economics and business, to quality management and women and adolescent empowerment.

The post Coaching’s role in enhancing institutional performance appeared first on HR Katha.

Traditional managers are people of unquestionable authority and power, purely focused on performance, ensuring that work is done in a timely and proper manner. This approach neglects the individual’s potential and consequently suppresses the inner drive of the employees to improve. COVID-19 only acted as a catalyst. Managers have increasingly asked themselves how to unlock the potential of each employee, seeking to understand what makes an individual perform better, or how to get the best out of a team.

The progressive managers understand the shift in the workplace and the difference between employees being motivated to work, and employees being controlled and ‘bossed around’. While there is a significant shift in management styles and focus, managers still need to meet objectives and targets, and employees still need to perform. Many of today’s managers involve employees in the problem-solving and decision-making processes, creating an environment for personal development. This collaborative approach is conducive to the application of coaching methodologies.

The rise of managers who use coaching skills is evident in the 2020 ICF Global Coaching Study2. The study reports an increase of 46 per cent in the number of managers and leaders using coaching skills in 2019, compared to 2015. Organisations with a well-developed coaching culture encourage managers to empower themselves with coaching skills, making a shift from directing towards a coaching conversation.

As the benefits of coaching in the workplace become more evident, there is a growing demand for leaders to use coaching skills with their employees. However, it is unknown how much training support managers receive to meet this increased demand. Research shows that organisations could benefit from supporting managers with tailored coach training that develops a clear coaching leadership style.

It goes without saying that employees will perform better if they feel they are valued and appreciated. Managers who take an interest in their employees are in a better position to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and are more able to provide the development opportunities that best meet the employees’ needs. It would be hard to imagine how managers can sustain expectations for ongoing peak performance, and the ability to adapt to ongoing changes and adjustments to market forces on their own. The only way is to engage and take the entire team on the journey.

Managers will only be successful if they can influence employees to commit to the organisation’s vision, connecting the organisation’s vision and the employees’ values. Research shows that managers using coaching skills are one step ahead of others. Should they wish to improve their competitive advantage further, organisations have a good reason to invest in training their managers as coaches.

Want to invest in your managers? Take the first step — experience coaching for yourself!

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 35,000-plus members located in more than 140 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaing the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. Visit coachingfederation.org for more information.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The authors, Slaven Drinovac, PCC, is a coaching business owner, an academic and the current president of ICF Australasia – Queensland. His passion for coaching started while he was working in the finance sector. He developed an evidence-based coaching philosophy, which manifested in his role as director of training at the Australian College of Applied Psychology. MindHous was born from Slaven’s passion for leveraging the power of coaching to enable individuals, businesses and communities to shape their own futures. The Australian Business Journal has named Slaven as one of the top twenty Australian leadership experts and coaches to watch out for in 2021.

The post Taking a coaching approach to management appeared first on HR Katha.

As usual, our initial coaching sessions focus on the ‘who’ rather than the ‘what’, and the ‘being’ rather than the ‘doing’. This helps evoke acceptance and generates awareness of new behaviours in the coachee.

Devising action plans around these new behaviours is almost always about seizing an opportunity to practise them. To do this, I invite the coachee to pick a critical ‘business’ project on which they must deliver to further organisational goals. This project becomes a live opportunity to deploy new thinking and behaviours. The coachee can use this project to test their hypotheses around new ways of working and to practise and understand what works and what doesn’t.

In any organisation, such projects, by their very nature, have tangible and measurable outcomes. With the client identifying a live project to work on, we link the success of the coaching intervention to the delivery of a tangible and quantifiable result. If coaching is about facilitating the client’s growth as an individual, employee, and leader, there is no better way to show this than through a live project. The project’s success is evidence that the work done through the coaching engagement delivers demonstrated value to the organisation.

One thought that may be crossing your mind is whether we are overstepping the boundaries of coaching. I don’t think this is the case, as long as we are mindful and ring-fence ourselves within the ethical framework of coaching.

Let me take an example from one of my coaching engagements to explain better what I am suggesting. When I was coaching a senior finance leader, and he became aware of the need to improve his ‘collaboration skills’, he needed a playfield to practise new behaviours. Around the same time, he kicked off a project about ‘improving customer service of the finance function to its internal customers’. He concluded that this would be the perfect opportunity to try new behaviours and to introduce a new way of doing things.

The project was successful. This is, of course, important. However, more significant was the opportunity this project provided to improve his collaboration skills. The project gave the leader an excellent opportunity to initiate new ways of ‘doing’ from the state of his ‘new being’.

Our coaching sessions now focused on the intersection of the ‘new’ competency and the project. I supported the coachee to discover for himself how re-imagined behaviours around collaboration can favourably influence the project’s delivery and results. Some of the questions I asked to help him focus on this intersection of ‘collaboration skills’ and ‘improve customer service of the finance function to its internal customers’ were along the following lines:

• How can you work cooperatively with others across the organisation to achieve significant improvement in customer service levels? For this to happen, who would you require to be in your role?

• What is possible for you to achieve ‘together’, which none of you can achieve by yourselves? How would you do that?

• How can you leverage your resources and interests (functional mindset) while being fair to others and their requirements concerning customer service?

• What could you do as a leader to facilitate an open dialogue with various contributors and stakeholders relevant to this project? How will you need to turn up to be that kind of a leader?

• What could you do to promote higher visibility of shared contributions for this project? How are you showing up currently and how should you be showing up from your stakeholders’ point of view?

• How would you balance being collaborative, yet realistic (and a little stretched) with your commitments on service levels?

• What kind of collaboration can you build within your function to deliver on improved and agreed-to levels of customer service?

• What could you do to onboard your team in the early part of this exercise and leverage all your external stakeholders to co-create the journey towards improved customer service (rather than this being an individual or a functional project)?

It is true that organisations often talk about behaviours, but we should not forget that what they value is outcomes. Behaviours are valuable for organisations only if these help them deliver higher and better outcomes. Live projects should be seen as a playfield for the leader being coached to use their new behaviours to drive better outcomes, and hence, should be seen as an intrinsic part of any coaching engagement.

Focussing on the ‘who’ rather than the ‘what’, and the ‘being’ rather than the ‘doing’

A professional coach helps demonstrate tangible results from coaching. Find the right coach for yourself now!

If you need support on your organisation’s and/or leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organization leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai, and ICF Pune.

The author, Sandeep Jain, ACC, is a finance professional by qualification with diverse experience in finance and business leadership roles in multiple geographies across the Asia Pacific. He has worked in industry segments such as FMCG, media, pharmaceuticals and lifestyle products. He is now based in Delhi NCR, and runs his consultancy outfit, Value-Unlocked Private, which operates in the strategy consulting and leadership-development space. Jain is a Marshall Goldsmith Certified Coach, Peter Hawkins Certified Systemic (and team) Coach, ACC Credentialed Coach, ICF Member, Qualified NLP practitioner and a certified HOGAN Assessor.

The post Demonstrating better ROI in a coaching engagement appeared first on HR Katha.

Our aim in this article is to share insights into the second question and explore how EQ models can be used to coach the client effectively. Let’s review three different cases:

Self-awareness: Bhaskar coaching Sai – a CXO with spots

Self-Awareness is knowledge of oneself and of how others perceive one. It is demonstrated by having a deep understanding of strengths, weaknesses, needs, and drives and recognising the effect of one’s feelings.

The CXO, Sai, whom I began coaching in June 2019, perfectly demonstrates the importance of self-awareness.

Six months earlier, Sai had joined a sizeable billion-dollar organisation spread across forty countries. His candidature was referred by none less than the current CEO of the organisation. They had worked together in another organisation twelve years prior. When I was called upon to coach Sai so soon after joining the organisation, I was surprised and curious. The chemistry meeting between us was smooth; Sai wanted to know about the coaching process and how we would ascertain progress.

To begin with, we decided to use a 360 degree feedback tool. While most of the respondents mentioned his technical excellence, they also had scathing remarks on his EQ. They described him as rigid, curt and abrasive. He did not allow others to speak and argued in leadership meetings, much to the embarrassment of the CEO and the country head.

As Sai read the report, his facial expression started to change. His scowl was unmistakable. He remarked defiantly, “None of these people know me well. They have interacted with me only for six months; how can they reach these conclusions?” I challenged him, “What about the remarks from the CEO?”

We had also agreed on the Hogan Development (HOGAN HDS) Survey, which evaluates 11 forms of interpersonal behaviour that can cause problems at work and in life. Behaviours associated with elevated HDS scores can be strengths, but they may also derail relationships and careers if overused. Individuals who understand their performance limitations have more successful careers. I shared Sai’s report with him. It indicated a high-risk score on ‘excitable’, which meant he lost his cool and reacted angrily under stress.

Both instruments identified the same challenge. Sai became more defiant, and it became apparent to me that his level of self-awareness was low. Even with his brilliant technical skills, his lack of self-awareness could get in the way of his success. About 55 per cent of the team had left ever since he joined. He believed they left the organisation because of compensation issues rather than his leadership style. However, most of the exit interviews revealed that his team members could not handle his abrasive behaviour and had decided to move on. It was clear that Sai could be dominating, insensitive, arrogant and listened only to himself (especially under stress). He was beginning to reveal a self-serving bias that did not help him nor those around him.

While his self-awareness level was choking him, my challenge was to help him figure out how not to get derailed.

Self-management: The journey continues

Self-management is about managing one’s behaviour as emotions start to hijack us and the decision-making process. It requires placing momentary needs on hold to pursue larger and more important goals.

In the case of this CXO, the emotional hijack was happening more frequently and with an increasing number of people. He was struggling to be in control.

Sai practised several self-management strategies to start managing his emotional triggers positively. Methods included: being ‘in the moment’ – pausing, breathing and thinking; seeking feedback from mentors he trusted; and listening to employee exit interviews. His demeanour started to soften over the subsequent two sessions, and he was amenable to move forward. Some of our conversations were about the following questions:

• What do people say or do that makes you angry?

• How can you slow down?

• What would you like to say ‘in the moment’?

• What do you need to believe about the other person ‘in the moment’ to keep it safe?

Social-awareness: Sandeep coaching Kabir, the new managing director

Leaders with high social awareness have a highly sensitive radar with keen insight into interpersonal and organisational dynamics. They are strong on empathy, astutely read the political environment and know how to build coalitions.

The board of directors approached me to work with Kabir, the new managing director (MD). My brief was to help him land the new role. He was heading a key function in the global position and was now earmarked to land the India MD role. Sponsors and stakeholders’ expectations of the appointment were collected. There was concern. Two earlier MDs had lasted just two years, and things were not the way they should have been.

In my first interaction with Kabir, I asked, “What is the goal you want to pursue?” Kabir responded, “Sandeep, everything is sorted”. I asked him what he meant, and he explained his thinking and plan to change the company with great enthusiasm and charm for the next 50 minutes.

When I asked, “Where is your team in this plan of yours?” he responded that he had already set a meeting and would lay out the plan for them there. I probed further, asking questions such as, “What if they don’t agree with your plan? What is the scope to change the plan?” His answer was, “Very little”. He was clear that he was not there to make friends or give people comfort to do their own thing. His attitude set off a ‘social-awareness’ alarm in my mind, and I could sense that he was walking into a minefield. We spent 20 minutes going over the natural consequences of him taking this path. He sensed the repercussions quickly and chose to modify his approach. He decided to have one-on-one conversations to listen to any concerns that any of the team had with his plan.

As you may see, social awareness is not about agreeing with what others have to say, but about listening.

Relationship management: Sandeep coaching Ashok – the boutique offer

While working with a large consulting organisation, I had to face a classical coach’s dilemma. I was coaching one of the directors, Ashok, who looked after a vertical that could become a practice area. Ashok was in an excellent position to become a junior partner in the firm.

The managing partner (one of the stakeholders) was very enthusiastic and a robust advocate of the prospect of my client growing to the next level. The client had a dotted line relationship with the global practice head. When I connected with the latter, I asked him a core stakeholder question, “Will you sponsor my client to the next-level role?”. After a pause, I heard a quiet but firm “No”. The stakeholder explained that “networking is a core skill as a partner”. Based on past experiences, the stakeholder did not believe Ashok was ready.

To Ashok’s credit, he acknowledged the reasons behind the stakeholder’s perception. We then set out to improve Ashok’s relationship with the practice head and to build the latter’s confidence in his capabilities. Three months into the process, on our eighth coaching session, my client says, “Sandeep, I need help from you to evaluate an option that is now available to me. I have an offer to become a partner in a boutique firm, where my dream of being a partner and my own master can come true?”

So here is the problem statement: The client needs to become a partner in the current year. His managing partner (country head) requires him to be ready for the next-level role. However, his practice head (in the US) does not believe he is ready.

While using relationship-management skills, the coach’s job is to drag attention away from a binary, ‘either/or’ thinking towards ‘and’ thinking. The questions I used in the conversation were:

• How can you create solutions that satisfy your needs and those of your firm and stakeholders?

• What can you do to be fair to your current role and your future options?

• If you were mentoring yourself, what would your advice be?

The outcome of this conversation was that Ashok decided to approach the India managing partner and map a transition into the next role within the firm (or as a plan ‘B’ outside the firm). By taking up the offer from the boutique-consulting organisation, he effectively bought time for the next six months to make the right choice for him.

Realise your potential today with ICF Professional Coaches, and take your career to the next step!

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering the role of coaching as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 35,000-plus members located in more than 140 countries and territories work toward the common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning, and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. Visit coachingfederation.org for more information.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Hyderabad, ICF Mumbai and ICF Pune.

The authors

Sandeep Budhiraja, ACC is an executive coach. He is the chief evangelist at Coachwale.com and executive director at the BYLD Group. He works with leaders to realise their potential, and has helped leaders land the roles they wanted and deserved. An active mentor coach, he currently mentors more than 75+ coaches who have ACSTH training in India, Europe and China.

Bhaskar Bhattacharya, ACC is a leadership coach and talent-management professional with 20+ years’ global experience of organisational and leadership development aligned to strategic corporate goals, across diverse industries and in over 30 countries. Over the years, he has partnered with senior leadership to enable the greatest possible results through people. He has also led large-scale change-management initiatives across multiple countries, training, and mentoring initiatives, and provided value through enhanced organisational effectiveness.

The post Coaching with emotional intelligence appeared first on HR Katha.

To illustrate, I was recently approached by a large firm’s human resource department about a leadership coaching assignment for their executives. During the short but intense discussion, my interviewer and I stumbled into an apparent block. They, at HR, understood the need for leadership coaching, but could not see life coaching as a part of it. They were, in fact, vehemently and flat out against it. One can easily bring this question to semantics, so the first step is to explore the meaning. Often, ‘leadership’ is seen as a professional version of self, while ‘life’ is a more personal part of the ‘self’. There may be other definitions, I am just providing one example for our purpose here. Asking a client to bring their own definition/s to the session will also allow for opening a space on new perspectives.

In this particular case, it turned out that HR thought of ‘life coaching’ as therapy!

From there comes a possible lead to how one separates the ‘leader’ from the ‘person’.

The core question is not ‘WHAT do we coach?’ but ‘WHO do we coach?’ Circumstances, places, or things are not coachable; they often cannot be changed or controlled.

We coach a person, we coach the WHOLE person, the full identity of an individual, be it a leader or any form that such identity takes.

One of the goals of a coaching conversation is to bring our client to a certain emotion or emotions that will lead to increased awareness.

As we follow the core competencies, we cannot help but be brought to such awareness by our client themselves.

Imagine a scenario where a client comes to the session asking to be “more strategic during the pandemic crisis”. It seems, at first glance, like a leadership issue with all its language traps — strategy + crisis. How does a coach navigate this?

Let us turn to the core competencies for practical steps

• Creating trust and safety

Encourage the client to fully express themselves in a safe space, and explore all meaning brought to the call. Reflect back on what is said. The use of the ‘client’ word does provide a safe space. The Coach’s presence in ‘a no-judgement zone’ does as well. The coach’s comprehension of the client’s language is paramount to ensure both trust and safety. What is the essence here? What is most important to the client about this topic?

• Active listening

Explore who is the client in this situation, their use of language, their associated energies and emotions in the present context. What does ‘strategy’ mean? What is the impact of this ‘crisis’ on their business? On them?

• Powerful Questioning

Challenge the client and allow them to reflect on what they are saying, thinking, feeling and perhaps bring in different perspectives. What makes this particularly challenging for you today? What stands in your way?

• Direct communication

Share your observations of where the client is at in the session and in their body, mind and soul, taking all into account. When you say the word ‘crisis’, I notice you cringe. What would help you? What do you need? When you say this out loud, how does it land for you?

• Create awareness

See if anything has shifted, and identify possible areas of learning about the client. So, given what you just shared, what comes to mind?

In checking with the client about the original agreement to where they are as we come close to the end of the session, it is not unusual to see the shift in the client’s approach of the topic and a new vision emerging. From the starting point of strategy in crisis, we may now have moved to fear about the unknown, a desire to control, a lack of reference points or past track records creating a sense of loss, to a renewed commitment to growth, understanding, compassion, possibly to revisiting attainable goals, or new expressions of support, of mattering or belonging. The directions are endless and no size fits all, actually.

So what was this session about? Strategy? Crisis? Leadership or Life?

Your leadership or your life is not the question: YOU, the person, are the question! Given the choice, I will always choose YOU.

What do YOU think?

Reflect on your objectives for the coaching engagement. Being clear on your goals will enable you to find the coach best suited to help you reach them

If you need support on your organisation’s and/or leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organizations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Valérie Del-Sol is a Master Certified Coach by the ICF (MCC), an active member of the ICF New York Chapter and a Hogan Assessment Certified Coach. In the past two decades, Valérie has supported high to mid-level executives at US and international major firms, both in the private and the non-profit sectors. Her main focus is on leadership, culture, branding, communication and management skills in cross-cultural environments. She brings a holistic approach to her partnership with clients. Valérie holds two BA from the Sorbonne University in Paris. She studied coaching at Coach U with late Thomas Leonard, and is fluent in English, French and Italian.

The post Your leadership or your life? appeared first on HR Katha.

Awareness is fundamental to the existence of every human being in their respective evolution journey. As they evolve (grow) from infant to child to youth to adult to seniors, awareness is central to the learning process for each individual. Awareness is also central to changes in the behavioural aspects of the individual. It is because of awareness that an individual changes (transforms) from one behavioural state to another.

What is awareness?

We are not what we do, what we say, what we think, or even what we feel. Whilst these things may define our experience of life, they do not define who we are. To train the mind is to witness this for ourselves.

The mind is bigger than this. Life is bigger than this. There is something beyond thought, beyond feeling, beyond speech and beyond action. It is a place of awareness. We can call it by any name we like. We may attach it to a particular way of thinking, a philosophy, a faith or have no name for it whatsoever.

Awareness, consciousness and states of mind

Robert de Quincey, a noted philosopher, gives a list of what would be considered the marks of consciousness, including ‘experience, subjectivity, sentience, feeling, or mentality of any kind’. Associated with awareness is ‘sentience’, which requires special elaboration in the context of awareness. Sentience is defined as the ability and capacity of an entity to perceive, feel or experience subjectively.

Does state of mind impact awareness?

Michael H Ballard is a psychologist and calls himself Positive Outcome Specialist. His answer is “Awareness is in effect change of ‘state-of-mind’ for an individual”.

He further goes to elaborate seven states of awareness as follows:

1. You Don’t Know, You Don’t Know Unconscious Incompetence
2. You Know, You Don’t Know Conscious Incompetence
3. You Know, You Know (L1) Conscious Competence
4. You Don’t Know, You Know Unconscious Competence
5. You Know, You Know (L2) Conscious Competence
6. You Think You Know, You Know Unconscious Incompetence
7. You Know, You Will Never Know it All Partial Conscious Competence,

Incompetence with humility

I used my coach-specific training and coaching experience to analyse it a bit more in the context of coaching.

The first four states represent the clients’ transformation with each coaching interaction, whereas the last three states seem to represent the growth path for the coach.

Discrete or continuous

In relation to seven states of awareness proposed by Michael Ballard above, one is left thinking, whether these states are discrete or continuous.

Robert Arp, a philosopher, in his paper ‘Consciousness and Awareness — ‘Switched-on Rheostats,’ proposes a continuum theory just as a sliding rheostat.

Thus quoted: “I question whether it is completely accurate to think of the philosophical meaning of consciousness as being switched-on or switched-off. It may be that, once consciousness is switched on, it is then found in degrees in animals we deem conscious. In which case, consciousness is more like a switched-on rheostat, rather than a simple on–off switch.”

If the states were discrete, it would be possible to: one, switch-on and off any state and second, a subject would jump from one state to another (like an electron changing the orbit of revolution around the nucleus after gain energy).

It is rather observed that with each introspection, first the degree of awareness/consciousness increases continuously and then unknowingly subject transcends from one state of consciousness to another.

Create awareness: Is there an associated process?

As ICF coaching core competency is phrased ‘Create Awareness’, it implies an act of doing — a verb. Every act of doing must have an associated process. So what is the process of creating awareness?

The process is intuitively suggested by bringing in two types (not states) of consciousness in a paper titled ‘On a confusion about a function of consciousness’ authored by Ned Block and published in ‘Behavioural and Brain Sciences (1995)’.

Quoted from the abstract: “Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different ‘consciousnesses’. Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action”

Ned proposed a distinction between two types of consciousness that he called phenomenal (P- consciousness) and access (A- consciousness).

P-consciousness, according to Block, is simply raw experience: it is moving, coloured forms, sounds, sensations, emotions and feelings with our bodies’ and responses at the centre. These experiences, considered independently of any impact on behaviour, are called ‘Qualia’.

Quoted from Ned’s paper: “P-conscious states when we see, hear, smell, taste, and have pains. P-conscious properties include the experiential properties of sensations, feelings, and perceptions, but I would also include thoughts, desires and emotions.
A-consciousness, on the other hand, is the phenomenon whereby information in our minds is accessible for verbal report, reasoning, and the control of behaviour. So, when we think or reason or rationalise or introspect, information about our thoughts it is access conscious”

Intuitively, this process seems to be inherent in every person and it seems that a person is quite capable to creating consciousness by self-using the faculties responsible for P- and A- consciousness.

Consciousness, thus seems to be a two-step process

Step 1 – comprises perceiving (P-conscious) also termed as ‘Pre-reflective self-consciousness’ in a paper called ‘Phenomenogical Approaches to Self-Consciousness’.

Step 2 – builds on pre-reflection to analyse and report, termed as reflective self-consciousness. This seem to be encompassing A-consciousness.

Pre reflective self-consciousness leads to reflective self-consciousness sequentially. Though sequential, reflective self-conscious may be triggered in different instance because of the temporal nature of pre-reflective self-consciousness. Temporality contains an internal fracture that permits us to return to our past experiences in order to investigate them reflectively. Thus, the time difference between the two instances may be anything from a few minutes to few years.

To study the process further in context of coaching, we may have to deliberate around an important question: ‘Can consciousness be externally induced?’

In light of above discussion on self-consciousness, pre-reflection is very personal and intrinsic to a person. Reflection, on the other hand, involves investigation around the subject of pre-reflection. Every individual is capable of pre-reflective and reflective consciousness. Yet, some may seek assistance to attain reflective consciousness.

This external help comes in the form of a professionally-trained coach, who professes ‘creating awareness’, as embodied in the ICF coaching framework.

The role of a coach is to enhance the capacity and ability of an individual to dwell in an A-Conscious mind, before responding to the stimulus. This is done by breaking barriers, investigating feelings and emotions, exploring the unknown and envisioning the future et al.

Thanks to coaching, people from around the world have been able to surpass their limitations and achieve their personal and professional goals.

Find your ICF-credentialed coach today and partner to maximise your potential

Anyone can call themselves a coach. ICF-credentialed coaches have met stringent education and experience requirements and have demonstrated a thorough understanding of the coaching competencies that set the standard in the profession.

If you need support on your organisation’s and/or leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society.

Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward the common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Alok Sharma is an ICF ACC credentialed practising coach for leadership and life after spending 35+ years in corporate roles in IT industry. As a professionally-trained coach, within an ICF-accredited training programme, Alok aims to partner with individuals in their respective growth journey as a leader and a better person. A postgraduate in physics and an EMCC senior practitioner, Sharma practices basic yoga for physical and spiritual well-being. He is an ICF member affiliated to the ICF Delhi NCR chapter.

The post Relevance of awareness in coaching appeared first on HR Katha.

Once someone decides to embark on the coaching journey, the process starts with chemistry meetings with a few coaches. I had already had a chemistry meeting with the CEO in question, Venkatesh. We had had a good meeting and hence, the introductory meeting with Sen!

Soon, his secretary informs me that Sen was ready to meet me.

Dr Sen looked older than his photo on the net. He was very calm and polite. We exchanged pleasantries, after which he asked me to share something about myself other that what was shared in my profile. I rattled off details about my coaching work, the coaching process and some of my corporate achievements, also mentioning some personal details.

He looked satisfied with what he heard. We moved on to discussing Venkatesh — the challenges Dr Sen saw in him and the shift he preferred to see in him.
Then he asked me, ‘Whom do you coach more, CEOs or CXOs?’ I replied, ‘CXOs’. His next questions was, ‘Why?’ I said, “As there are more CXOs than CEOs”. He laughed and said, “I agree”.

The meeting concluded with Sen announcing his pleasure at having me on board, to coach Venkatesh.

On my way back, I reflected on Sen’s questions – ‘Whom do I coach more?’
Does it make a difference? Does it change my coaching approach? As I have coached people across the hierarchy, I went over some of my coachee case studies. Interestingly, I realised that few coaching objectives continued to appear frequently.

The ones ranking high were improving active listening, delegation, interpersonal relationship, collaborative working and assertiveness.
If the coaching objectives are similar across hierarchies, then whom are we coaching? Is it the manager, CXO or CEO?

This thought made me think deeper. Is it designation or the person?
And, then it became clear to me that we are coaching the ‘being’ of the person who has a designation.

First, we help him find out where he is as a human being today. Then, we help him identify the shift he should make within him to become a more effective human being as demanded by his circumstances.

This brings us to the question. ‘Why is there a difference between the nature of the shift required from one person to another?’

The reason lies in the circumstances which have brought him to this position. All of us have gone through a series of influences, right from childhood that have left behind imprints and developed our worldview, our mind-set, attitude, behavioural patterns, and so on.
Some of these include, influence of parents, impact of education, teachers, sibling interactions, friends, and pressures from society, friends, peers and bosses in early stages.

The corporate world puts a different demand and accentuates a person’s mind-set, attitude and behaviour. This becomes more demanding if they are in a leadership position. To meet this demand, they must make a shift in these attributes. But how?

This is where the role of leadership coaching comes in.

We show the coachees the mirror, to make them realise what they look like today and how they should grow and develop themselves to achieve their objectives and look like ‘being’.

This shift is about themm and not about their position. It must come from within them. What will they do to bring this shift? What is the plan of action?

Focus must be on the individual and that is what decides the coaching approach.
So, does the designation change anything? What difference do I notice?

The main challenge I usually notice is that as the people go up the hierarchy, they become more obstinate, rigid in their ways and have an enlarged ego. This is because they have tasted success by behaving in a particular way. It is like deep engraving in a stone. This makes it more challenging to bring about a shift in mindset!

For this, the coach must connect at a deeper cognitive level to bring about a shift.
Therefore, a leader who is supposed to be actively listening and performing collective problem solving, becomes directive and does not delegate. His past success makes him think ‘I know it all’, and therefore, he starts providing solutions even if he has a team capable of giving better solutions. His ego comes in the way of collaborative working.

This and many such obstacles inhibit the team’s growth and subsequently his growth.

This is the time when either the person or the organisation seeks a coach’s help. The focus of the coach is the “being” of the person and not the designation. Designations may change but if the person has made the shift at the ‘being’ level, then it is long lasting.

From here, the coachee’s transformation journey begins.

Thanks to coaching, people from around the world have been able to surpass their limitations and achieve their personal and professional goals. Get ready to be inspired by true stories of profound change at experiencecoaching.com

If you need support on your organisation’s and/or leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of professional coaches in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organization leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards.

Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.
In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Pramod Gothi is a Master Certified Coach by the International Coach Federation (MCC), with more than 3,000 coaching hours under his belt. He possesses an unrivalled depth and breadth of coaching experience and has worked with entrepreneurs, CXOs and top teams across a wide range of industries from chemicals to banking. Gothih’s 38-year corporate career, spent mostly in leadership positions, allows him to have a highly empathetic and pragmatic approach to coaching. He is quick to connect with client situations and has strong skills of active listening, probing, challenging and identifying the blind spots.

The post Whom are we coaching and why? appeared first on HR Katha.

As a leader, presence is important because you want to inspire confidence in your team. If they doubt your abilities or even worse your motives, then you’re not going to have a successful working relationship with them.

Unfortunately, sometimes, in an effort to have ‘presence’, the importance of actually being present is ignored or forgotten. Leadership presence is really about connecting and engaging with others authentically. This authenticity comes from your motivation to bring something positive, inspiring, and valuable to your organisation, team, or clients.

Great leaders know how to stay open to possibility and create trust with the people they are leading. How can you be fully present with others so that they sense your commitment and engagement the minute you walk into the room? Take a look at the following recommendations:

5 Ways to be present and motivate your team to excel

1. Listen

When someone is talking to you, do you listen? I mean, really listen — without looking at your phone, or thinking about the next conversation you’re going to have, or without nodding even when you don’t know what they mean? People can tell when you’re actively listening. Ask questions and listen attentively to understand and learn. Lean forward. Let people sense your interest in them as a person.

Listening isn’t just about showing the person you care but also respecting them. It helps you be a better leader. As Marilyn Atkinson and Rae Chois tell coaches, “Everything in coaching hinges on listening because what we are listening for affects where we are speaking from and unfolds how we are being with and for each other.” Change is only possible when people feel fully heard and accepted.

2. Be curious

Leaders tend to focus directly on performance. They walk into a meeting feeling like they already understand the problem and know what needs to change to enhance performance. This is not the way to find the best solution or to motivate change.

Instead, take an indirect approach and be curious about each individual involved. As already mentioned, listen carefully and take the time needed to develop a trusting relationship. When you’re curious, the person you’re talking to becomes curious too! This can inspire reflection, introspection, and transformation on their part and that’s where real and longer-lasting solutions can be found.

3. Embrace conflict

How do you feel about conflict and confrontation? For many of us, our natural tendency is to avoid conflict. However, as a leader, that’s dangerous because unresolved conflict can fester. What if you started to view every disagreement as an opportunity to discover yourself and others more deeply?

Carl Jung said, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” What if an employee is constantly pushing your boundaries? How would you respond? Is she disruptive or creative? Is she challenging your authority or trying to make your company better? Pay attention to your reaction without judgment, and examine why the situation pushes your buttons. Try to see every side of the issue.

4. Be approachable

How easy is it for others to approach you with a problem? If you wear the facade of always being perfect, you won’t make it easy for them! Being vulnerable is a sign of strength and is the quickest pathway to trust. People want to work with someone they can relate to.

If your focus is on helping others to shine, and you’re willing to show your humanity and even laugh at your own mistakes, then people will willingly follow you. Look for ways to personally connect, not by being their ‘friend’, but by being someone who ‘gets’ them and helps them excel at their jobs. Strong leaders work at staying humble, considering the value each person contributes.

5. Be confident

For others to see you as a leader, you must first see yourself as a leader. As a leader, you are in charge and you have to make sure the right things happen at the right time. It takes strong decision-making skills, plus flexibility and energy to get others to deliver.

Build your confidence in your decision-making by doing your homework. Get the data you need from multiple sources, ask for others’ opinions. Remember that asking for advice is evidence of your confidence. It’s when you’re feeling unsure of your leadership that you hold back, thinking you ‘should’ have all the answers. But once you’ve done your homework don’t be wishy-washy with your decision. Make the best decision you can with confidence, and your team will back you up.

Finally, remember that being present is about staying in the present moment. It may sound easy, but it isn’t. Many leaders have found that developing a mindfulness practice helps them avoid being dragged down by the past or overwhelmed by the future.

I encourage you to choose one of the five recommendations and take a week to try to mindfully integrate it into your daily life. Then move on to the next. You’ll begin to see positive changes in yourself and your team.

According to the Building Strong Coaching Cultures for the Future, a 2019 study from the International Coaching Federation and the Human Capital Institute (HCI), developing coaching skills for leaders is an ongoing process in organisations with strong coaching cultures. Download the ICF study report now !

If you need support on your organisation’s and/or leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organization leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards.

Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author Maria Connolly is a somatic coach, clinical psychotherapist, and a Master NLP Practitioner. Having lived on three continents and studied six languages, Maria’s diverse background has made her open, insightful and fearless. As a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation, she brings together a number of approaches to create a unique working model for each client. Through group trainings and one-on-one coaching, she helps her clients take an embodied approach to self-leadership.

The post How to motivate your team to excellence just by ‘being present’ appeared first on HR Katha.

Re-entry anxiety

Most people experience anxiety and resistance when there is a need for change. While some people may think we’ll go back to the way things were before the pandemic, for most of us, it will not be the same ever again. There’s a complexity surrounding the emotional and psychological support of workers that needs to be addressed in re-entry plans. Since no one has done this before, no one really knows how to do it well.

Meanwhile, anxiety is at an all-time high. A national survey by Weber Shandwick and KRC Research shows that nearly half the employees are worried that employers will make them return to work before it is safe to do so. More than half are worried about the future of their company, and their job specifically.

I’ve had coaching clients recently express to me their concerns over:

• How safe their workplace will be

• How productive they will be in the office

• Feelings of increased stress

• Cost of going back to work, both financially and with time considerations

• The Delta variant and possible future variants considering the low rate of vaccinations in the country

• Co-workers who don’t share their views on the pandemic and health-safety measures

• Possible protocols at work regarding mask and vaccination mandates, and who will police this

There’s also anxiety around whether to look for a new job if one doesn’t want to return to the office and remote work is not an option.

An April 2021 survey by FlexJobs found that 60 per cent of women and 52 per cent of men would quit their jobs if they were not allowed to continue working remotely at least some of the time. Many people have established routines and lifestyle changes that they now prize in their work-from- home life, whether that’s increased productivity, regular exercise or spending more time with family. They feel like they would be giving up a lot in order to return to work, so they may be forced to look for other remote alternatives. Considering a career change at any time can be stressful, but it’s especially hard right now, given the volatile economic climate.

How to help reduce anxiety

Even though not much focus is currently being given to the individual’s mental well-being amidst return to work, we can change that by incorporating it into the re-entry plans.

Here are some core areas that company leaders should target:

1. Make employee well-being number one priority

People need reassurance, especially right now during these difficult times. The survey shows that 72 per cent of workers feel that their employers are putting safety above profit. Continue to demonstrate that commitment to your workers through your actions.

2. Communicate regularly

Research shows that employees who receive regular updates from their employers tend to trust their employers more and have faith in the system. Communication is very reassuring and helps manage anxiety, which invariably reflects in better work.

3. Follow the science

Companies should follow public health guidelines issued by the Centre, and inform employees how and when measures will be implemented, monitored and enforced.

4. Provide training and guidance

This is an ideal time train the workforce, even if it means taking external help. Coaches can be engaged to guide employees on ways to work in and lead hybrid teams. Now is the time to learn to manage wellbeing, and identify the signs of emotional distress early on.

5. Be flexible

Now is the time to listen to individual employee needs, and refrain from designing far-reaching rigid policies. Be generous with the employees and encourage them to take time off. Many organisations have given their employees leave to relax and distress, and these special leaves are independent of any other ‘time-off’ request. The advantage of such special breaks is that everyone takes the break at the same time, and therefore, there are no official e-mails and meeting requests piled up or waiting when they return.

6. Choose the right health insurance plan

The pandemic made most companies relook at their health-insurance plans, and become more generous in terms of incorporating mental-health components.

7. Educate yourself on the ROI of mental fitness in the workplace

When someone is anxious, it affects their capacity to be effective and efficient at work. Anxiety contributes to lack of focus, disengagement, fatigue, poor executive functioning, procrastination, ineffective communication and increase in self-medication, be it drugs, alcohol, tobacco or even binge-watching Netflix. This lack of performance directly affects the company’s bottom line. Therefore, it is essential for employees to be mentally healthy for the business to be successful.

How to support mental fitness in the workplace

So, how can you help your workplace become mentally fit? The first step is to help them recognise the emotional state they are in. Lessen it by simply identifying and naming it. Take a step back from the situation, remove some of the emotion and perhaps reframe the perspective with a different lens.

Building emotional intelligence also brings a sense of control to the situation. We tend to worry, or ruminate, but that habitual way of thinking is ineffective. It doesn’t push us toward a solution that makes us feel in control. Focus on the things that can control be controlled instead of those that cannot be controlled.

Empower yourself to take action on what you can do to manage your anxiety and stress.

If you cannot control something, breathe through it and let go. Diaphragmatic breathing calms down the racing mind and has an amazing impact on the body. When you start to feel stressed, take two minutes for this exercise:

1. Sit in a comfortable position. Lying down or sitting against a wall works as well.

2. Breathe in through your nose, concentrating on filling your belly completely with air.

3. Hold your breath for a count of six and exhale slowly through your mouth.

4. Repeat until you feel your body relax and your tension release.

Take this one step further with meditation. When you meditate, you are strengthening your prefrontal cortex, which is your rational brain – it allows you to think through situations and process things more effectively while reducing your heightened fight or flight responses.

Meditation and diaphragmatic breathing is a one-two punch for managing anxiety and building resilience.

Having a resilient workforce is more important now than ever before. There will be more disruption as we continue to see the pandemic situation change this year, and it’s not going to go away anytime soon. Now is the time to demonstrate agility and adaptability in your leadership.

While leaders craft re-entry plans, it’s important to keep the psychological health of employees on top of your mind. Not only will helping them deal with stress and anxiety affect your company’s bottom line, but it’s simply the right thing to do. Paying attention to all aspects of employee well-being will have positive consequences for years to come.

At a turning point in their personal or professional lives, the clients in season 2 of #ExperienceCoaching turned to ICF-credentialed coaches. Watch their stories to discover how turning to an ICF coach can help one find clarity and take the next step forward on one’s own journey

If you need support on your organisation’s and/or leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards.

Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Jody Michael is an ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC) from Chicago, USA, who brings insights from over 20 years of coaching and 15 years of corporate leadership in the finance industry. As an executive coach, career coach, master certified coach, board certified coach, trainer, author, international speaker and University of Chicago-trained psychotherapist, she is passionate about facilitating organisational, team and individual change.

The post Make mental health a part of your return-to-work plan appeared first on HR Katha.

The perspective

We’re constantly told that we are in a competitive world, where we are supposed to be in competition with someone or something all the time. We are so conditioned to believe this that we are blind to perspectives and possibilities beyond this conditioning. We don’t realise how very limiting it is, if not patently untrue.

In ‘competing’, the direction is not bad. In fact, it can be a great drive which challenges us to bring out the best we have and pushes us to progress and excel. It is the perspective – who do we see as ‘competition’, that can act either as a constraint or an advantage!

Being competitive is an advantage

In an organisational context, competition provides a benchmark to measure against – there is something visible and specific to chase, poses challenges and puts pressure to perform better, raises standards of operation, pulls in efficiencies and brings out the best in one, prompting us all the time to seek and scale higher peaks.

All of this is supposed to benefit each of the players and the society at large. What is true for organisations is also true for individuals.

The flipside

Taken to the extreme, it’s a rat race as they say – each attempting to outdo the other and in some cases, even ‘undo‘ others. It’s a kind of a war, whether we like it or not. It’s a blacker side of ‘competing’ where anything is considered ‘done‘ as long as it gets us ahead – be it in the job market or pacing ahead of a fellow motorist (at mutual risk) in a busy traffic. We don’t realise how the focal point shifts from the self (winning) to the ‘other person‘ ( defeating him/her). The goal degenerates to equate with the person (opponent) and the passion turns (against) personal. That is where negativity starts, where the opponent becomes an enemy and ‘eliminating‘ seems synonymous with ‘defeating‘.

This ‘negative’ pursuit takes its toll on our energy, mind and importantly, ethics! Beyond the possibility of degenerating into a hateful, destructive mindset, there are other important disadvantages of ‘competing with someone’.

• When we peg our success to someone/something pre-existing, it can at best be relative, and hence, misleading. If in an academic group, we are number 2 to a topper with 60 per cent score ….what would we consider a success — surpassing 60 per cent or holding distinction with 85-90 per cent? Taken to the extreme, if we are conditioned to surpass someone, we will be utterly directionless when we become number 1!

• Such outlook can constrain our thinking. Fighting for the same pie and grabbing a piece instead /ahead of someone else (an outlook of insecurity) blinds us to the possibility that we can actually make the pie bigger (an outlook of abundance) so that each one has plenty. It’s challenging the assumption that those competing have to be on the opposite side of a table.

Competing with self – an alternative perspective

Wouldn’t the world be more progressive if we hold all advantages of being competitive, sans the ‘blacker side’ of competition?

As I said earlier, it is not the ‘purpose’, which is bad, but the ‘perspective’ that needs to change. There is a Sanskrit saying (Subhashit) which says that ‘You’re your best friend and also worst enemy’. In corporate context, it means, the best competitive challenge and worst competitive threat to one is from within.

Competing with self – the advantage

In a competition, the closer we know our ‘opponent‘ the more successful will be our strategy to achieve our competitive goal. Among all people, who would we know most inside-out, than ourself and vice versa?

When we mistake a rival for an enemy, negativity overtakes us, which can be destructive. Competing with the self can only be constructive, since pursuit will be focused on the goal — not the person, and ‘elimination’ is not on agenda.

Surpassing ourselves — where today’s us strives to exceed yesterday’s version, every day — is an unending pursuit in excellence, like in reaching ‘perfection’. Regardless of who succeeds – our previous best or our current best, WE are the winners! Being conscious about the need for continuous self-improvement to get better, everyday – makes us seekers (like Ekalavya in Mahabharat), which is the biggest form of empowerment.

• Abraham Lincoln apparently used to stand in front of a mirror, every day and ask: ‘Am I a better person today, than I was yesterday?’

It has two implications

• You get outdated everyday

• To upgrade, is one’s obligation

From my own experience, I can tell that there is no better challenge and inner drive than to outperform ourselves. ‘Competing with self’, not only pushes us to excel – putting us on a much higher platform when competing with the external world — it also provides an absolute and never- ending benchmark.

Philosophical Outlook

Each of us has our own combination of strengths and idiosyncrasies. God has taken care to see that no two of his human models are identical, physically, psychologically or in combination, which makes each of us as a unique offering. We’re not like tomatoes or potatoes that look alike and trade as a commodity. Philosophically speaking, therefore, each of us forms a unique proposition and none logically is in competition with anyone else.

This realisation opens our minds and gives us a healthy outlook to the world and ourselves, with greater respect and no hatred. There is no enemy!

Choice is ours

There is nothing more compellingly constructive than competing with oneself. It is the most beautiful and progressive concept. From my experience, if we compete with our own self, our competitive spirit will never exhaust! It finally comes down to making an individual choice! We need to decide if we want to be the follower — who is defined and measured vis-à-vis someone else — or the leader, who will set standards for others. Either we believe that we are a commodity or are unique. If a commodity, then compete with all others like us. If, instead, we believe we are unique — compete with the self!

The choice is entirely ours.

Ask an ICF-credentialed coach to help you take the next step forward on your own journey to develop new leadership skills

If you need support on your organisation’s and/or leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering the role of coaching as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning, and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Yatin Samant is an ICF PCC-credentialed coach with more than 34 years of corporate working career across a diverse set of industries, nationality/geographies and culture in different function areas. He has previously been the P&L head and SBU head/CEO. He retired early to dedicate himself to the cause of leadership development and human leveraging in general, pioneering the ‘Inside-Out’ learning pathway vs the conventional ‘Outside-In’ pathway. He has over 1000 hours of coaching experience and has been on the board of Education Organisation in India as an independent director. He has published two poetry books and over 100 articles in English / Marathi.

The post Competing with Self appeared first on HR Katha.

Stress has always been an inescapable part of human competitive endeavours. Without an exception in corporates, mental and emotional strength is the yin to the yang of physical prowess.

These days, the HR not only have to operate on their usual clocking and explicit KRAs, but also have to act as demi-god aka coaches to their people. This is needed to ensure that the organisation —in other words, its workforce — has a healthy body, peaceful mind and centred soul.

Motivational talks, stand-up meets or wearing a counsellor’s hat cannot make people accept responsibility or deal with stress. However, if the HR wears the coach’s hat, they will be able to help people make peace with their inner demons, tap into their inner potential and sense their stress triggers to come up with clear solutions.

While work has become helter-skelter and work–life balance has gone for a toss, it is the HR that handles maximum distress calls from its people – some asked and some unasked.

Any victim frame at work can jeopardise the temperature of this ‘new normal’ era organisation, and HR cannot simply ignore the lack of ‘toughness’, ‘weakness’ and ‘choking’.

Much has discussed about what HR has to do to keep the organisation in high spirits. Now the million dollar question is, ‘How can one do it’?

The answer is, by practising emotional intelligence (EI) at work, with oneself and with others.

Emotional Intelligence is the ability of a person to know one’s own emotions in the moment, be able to regulate it and also be aware of the other person’s emotions in the moment and be able to manage that too. While one practices EI, it must be known that it is an individual perspective first, that behaves as per the air-borne rule, ‘Wear your own masks first before helping others’. Once one’s mask is fixed, that is, self-awareness has been raised, then one can definitely help others with one’s social awareness.

Each emotion carries a message in itself. For instance, ‘anger’ tells the bearers that some of their values are violated in the context. Disgust draw the bearers’ attention to the fact that there has been a big compromise with what they believe to be of significance, such as hygiene at the workplace.

If HR personnel can work on their personal competencies to recognise emotions in themselves and accept the same to regulate them, then they certainly qualify as being centred, open, authentic and honest catalysts (coach as catalyst) to help others in the organisation to see their real issues.

Such an HR can partner with the employees to know what exactly they are looking forward to and then help them steer their thoughts, feelings and beliefs in the direction of change so that the employees achieve satisfaction.

Satisfied employees tend to be happy, since happiness is a state of mind in which they are more open to being self-aware, and receptive to being socially aware.

Therefore, listening to emotions in and out is a great competence that the HR must have to not only be able to lead themselves but also groom others as leaders.

This path pushes HR to guide others beyond perceived obstacles and let them discover what they really need and want, which often is not the initial desire they voiced.

To conclude, emotions speak a lot. Therefore, it is important to be aware of an emotion when it is emerging; be in the know of what it is and also deal with it, for oneself and others. Only then can meaningful, consistent and long-lasting results be achieved that impact other aspects of people’s lives in a positive manner.

Ready to develop coaching skills to empower your employees at work? Have a look at ICF’s roadmap to help you on chose the right path for you

If you need support on your organisation’s and/or leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 40,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards.

Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organizations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Anju Chawla is an internationally certified Emotional Intelligence Coach and an ICF PCC certified coach, with almost two decades of experience. She is the author of the book The Emotionally Intelligent Coach and works closely with high-potential leaders. She helps people identify their blind spots, which hold them back from creating meaningful relations with work teams. Recognised as one amongst the top 10 women in life coaching by Women Entrepreneur India in 2020, she conducts global workshops to impart training in EI and well-being.

The post Hear out emotions in & out to be an effective leader appeared first on HR Katha.

This has been the signature feeling of A’ren since she became aware of herself.
She is oblivious to the fact that she landed in this profession as a result of her subconscious beliefs about herself and her instinctive survival mechanism that she adopted to keep herself safe, guarded and unscathed. While she over-expressed certain aspects of herself, she under-expressed certain others to get where she was. She is a reliable giver but avoids standing in her light. She can be relied on to take care of everyone at the cost of her own needs and wants.
‘People pleasing’ came naturally to her but asserting her needs and priorities were a challenge.

Juggling different facets of herself in her role drained her and disconnected her from within — all that she was and truly is. Every gift has a shadow to it, which we get to realise only when we want to create a different reality for us.

What keeps you stuck?

You get stuck because of three things:

• When you don’t know who you are
• When you don’t want to know who you are
• When you believe every outside voice and are unwilling to follow your inner compass

Your decisions and choices are then not based on truth, but just facts. A’ren was stuck and listening to statements like, “HR is a support function”. Such statements made her question her worth again. Always living with this feeling of being second, or not a priority anywhere, made her wonder what she needed to do to be a priority, be taken seriously and not clubbed into categories such as ‘secondary’ or ‘tertiary’.

She ran after certifications and accumulated a wealth of knowledge. This satiated her for a while, but again left her with a feeling of not inadequateness.

Finally, one day, she decided to quit her HR role once and for all and to really listen to her inner voice and be with it. She did fear losing everything that she had built, but as the saying goes, “You’ve got to be willing to lose everything to gain yourself.”
For the first time, she decided to discover the truth about who she is.

Thus began her own journey of self-awareness and transformation.

THE JOURNEY

When you want it, you make it happen no matter what. That desire helps you raise your vibrations to a level that you will be a match to people, things and experiences that will guide you to your path.

The universe is abundant and conspires to make your deepest desires come true. Everything will work in collaboration to help you fulfil your deepest intention for you to grow and evolve.

A’ren crossed paths with a renowned professional coach and had a conversation with him only for an hour. That conversation shook her from within. It left her questioning herself. The question that opened the doors to her deep inquiry was, “What do you want?”

As a giver all her life, this question was very discomforting to her. Receiving was a challenge! Sometimes, when we give even with the best intention, if we struggle to receive, then our giving isn’t very impactful.

That day, A’ren learnt that she needed to work on her blind spots. She needed to work on herself, her limiting patterns and beliefs which attracted all that she detested in her space.
Her egoic mind did try to trap her with thoughts such as, ‘I don’t need to change’. ‘Is something wrong with me?’ ‘I am no good.’ ‘What will others think of me when I own parts of me that I am unfamiliar with?”

The discovery of some aspects in her that needed attention and awareness, came as a blow to the self-concept and image that she held on to and how others saw her.
This very resistance is what she needed to walk through to embrace the breakthrough that she wanted to bring about. What you resist, persists. The only way out is to embrace it.

“How did I create this in my space? What needs to shift in me to create a different reality?” She finally dared to ask these questions to her without blame, shame or judgement, but with a deep sense of responsibility. This willingness in her to find the radical truth and take responsibility for her creations thus far, is a sure and subtle sign that she is destined for a purpose bigger than herself and what she was doing so far.

“I am A’ren and I am here to serve, be a force of unconditional love for self and others, touch lives, and enable transformation and healing in self and others”, she said to herself with a smile, as if she was talking to the Source.

She first completed her coaching certification, got accredited by the ICF as a professional coach and then there was no looking back. There was a massive transformation in her, and the way she perceived people and the world around her. That shift led to exponential growth, internally and externally.

In this journey, she not only supported others but also massively grew every time she coached her clients. In a noticeably short span of time, she got recognised as a powerful coach. She received awards and got featured in elite magazines, got trained in various modalities and also gave flame to that part within her that she had suppressed all this while. She authored books, started her YouTube channel, sang to inspire and heal herself and others, travelled across countries to explore the possibilities in her, not just as a coach but as a human being. She became authentic, a powerful giver, a fearless coach.

She also discovered that she is a ‘Multipotentialite’. She believes that we all have limitless possibilities in us but we are caught up in our own fears, veil of ignorance and survival mechanisms. Only when we experience possibilities in us, can we see the same in others and evoke the same in others. And that feels authentic. We can then say, “I have been there, I have worked on myself.”

A’ren is none other than myself, Priyanka, author of this article!

In her words, “I invite all the CHRO’s to look within and embrace self-transformation if you want to be a giver with a purpose beyond self. I believe that the HR profession is not just a support function, but a function that requires highly self-aware and self-actualised individuals to come together to lead and model the way forward for a better culture, world and legacy.”

Wishing you all a life of freedom from your own shackles and successful fulfilment of your incarnation.

Ready to become a qualified professional coach, and develop the skills and competencies to transform the lives of your clients? Have a look at ICF’s roadmap to help you on your journey

If you need support on your organisation’s and/or leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organization leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 39,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Priyanka Dutta is a PCC-ICF certified Life and Organisational Development Coach. She is the recipient of the award, ‘101 Most Fabulous Coaching Leaders, India’ by the World HRD Congress, ET NOW & Canadian University Dubai in 2020. Trained in psychodrama, NLP and Reiki, she got featured in Forbes India Marquee in May 2021. Prior to transitioning as a coach, Priyanka worked in the corporate world for more than a decade as an HR professional and was known for her contributions. She travelled internationally to get coached by amazing coaches and deepen her inner work.

The post How an HR professional’s transformative journey was enabled by coaching appeared first on HR Katha.

Active listening in the true sense of the coaching competency, as defined by the ICF core competencies, means that the coach focuses on what the client is saying (and is not saying) to fully understand what is being communicated, in the context of the clients’ systems and to fully support clients’ self-expression.

In simple words, as coaches, we are not just hearing what our clients are saying but also fully grasping the underlying message and their emotions. To listen actively, I, for one, empty myself before each session. I show up fully present, tune in and sense what the clients are going through as they are recounting their stories.

By the way, coaching clients worldwide, have time and again reiterated in their testimonials the benefits received due to the strong intuitive presence and deep-listening skills experienced in their coaching sessions.

Yet, I have a confession to make. I found myself wanting in these areas of being present and listening deeply in my personal life. I was in a telephonic conversation with an elderly friend who has a tendency to be quite anxious and is also on medications for a couple of chronic lifestyle diseases.

I have often been in an advisory mode reminding her of the various relaxation practices, including simple ones like deep breathing and chanting which she enjoys and benefits from. She started recounting how a person very dear to her is going through a challenge at work. She sounded anxious, and naturally so. However, I kind of immediately jumped to put on my advisory hat and suggested that she relax and that all would be well.

Later, in my reflections, I wondered if that was all that was required.

Could I have dealt with the friend’s dilemma differently?

Could I have lent her the space she may have been looking for?

Could I have been there for her, just as a silent witness?

What made me treat this conversation as different and why could I not be in my coaching mindset with a friend too, if that can be of help?

I would have definitely dealt with it with a lot more empathetically and non-judgmentally had it been a coaching conversation with my clients.

Is my coaching mindset limited to coaching conversations only, despite working on my “being” a coach rather than “doing” coaching?

For me, the needle has moved quite a bit in the professional space in the last six years, since I first learnt the Art and Science of Coaching back in 2015. I suppose it is still work in progress, in terms of application in personal areas of my life.

Personal mastery is a self-development journey. It is about taking one step at a time. The destination is far away. Many miles are to be covered. Yet, I am content in reaching some milestones. I am indeed grateful for the awareness that’s started to trickle in, the blind spots that are being uncovered. I am even more grateful for the ego, which has started to make way for light to shine.

Wonder what are some of the areas of your life where you are struggling to let the light shine?

What are you planning to stop doing for your self-development journey?

What are you willing to start for your own personal growth?

Take the first step. Experience coaching for yourself!

If you need support on your organisation’s and/or leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering the role of coaching as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 39,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work toward the common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards.

Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

As an ICF Professional Certified Coach by the ICF (PCC), author Nidhi Aggarwal, is now a Life & Leadership Coach, who capitalises on her top five strengths —belief, connectedness, developer, empathy and responsibility in partnering with her clients. Her true calling for spreading happiness, harmony and prosperity pulled her out from a successful 25-year stint in leadership roles in finance to coaching. Using her calming methodology and positive structured support, she works through the natural strengths of her clients and empowers them through higher levels of awareness, bringing alignment in their natural way of being. She creates possibilities where none seemed to exist, enabling clients to lead a life they want.

The post Personal Mastery – Letting the light shine! appeared first on HR Katha.

• Hope refers to persevering toward goals and when necessary, redirecting paths to goals in order to succeed.

• Efficacy is to have confidence to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks.

• Resilience is the ability to bounce back and beyond to attain success even when beset by problems and adversity.

• Optimism is making a positive attribution about succeeding now and in the future.
Having high psychological capital is positively related to performance, attitudinal, behavioural, and well-being outcomes at the individual, team, and organisational levels, as well as desirable organisational citizenship behaviours.

Psychological capital is actually needed more in today’s times to survive, grow and thrive.
During COVID and post COVID, leaders and professional coaches will be required to provide more support to their team members and clients. They can boost people’s psychological capital for achieving their goals and maintaining high well-being.

Coaches can raise their own as well as their clients’ psychological capital by enhancing the understanding around the four constructs of psychological capital, that is, hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism, and working towards the development of these constructs.

Enhancing hope

Coaches can help their clients in effective goal setting with an emphasis on contingency planning. Coaching questions around challenges in implementing the planned actions and thinking around alternative pathways can really raise the hope levels of clients.
Mental rehearsals of goals, proposed actions and pathways can boost hope and commitment. Exploration around resources and support required will also raise clients’ hope levels.

Enhancing (self-) efficacy

According to renowned psychologist, Dr Albert Bandura, setting smaller goals and experiencing success can really boost the efficacy of an individual. The conversation around setting small achievable goals can boost the confidence of the clients and move them forward.

Efficacy can be enhanced through learning by observing others. Coaches can support the clients by asking questions pertaining to the learning of clients from observing other relevant people who may have achieved goals in similar situations, or who may have possessed effective mental states in similar situations. Clients may be invited to plan observing relevant others’ successes, mistakes and failures. The technique of modelling relevant others is highly used in sports. Using humour and enhancing positive emotions in the conversations during coaching sessions can boost efficacy levels of the client.

Social persuasion and positive feedback also raise the confidence of people. Acknowledging clients’ efforts in the coaching session and appreciating them for their hard work, successes, and high self-awareness can boost their confidence. Exploration around persuasion from other relevant and significant people can help clients make strategies for receiving persuasion from those people.

Centring or calming the clients in the beginning of the coaching session and at appropriate moments during the session is also helpful in raising the efficacy levels of clients.

Enhancing resilience

Having positive and close relationships with other people is considered a prominent factor for boosting reliance in people. Exploration around having close and positive relationships with people in family, work and community can help clients make plans to boost their resilience.

Conversation between coach and client around distracters and prevention factors helps the client in bouncing back in case of derailment from the designed actions and agenda.
Exploration on resources and support required, and planning around that also boosts resilience levels.

Joining training programmes around new skills and having smaller groups for peer learning is a great tool to promote resilience.

Enhancing optimism

According to famous psychologist, Dr Martin Seligman, optimism is how we explain what happens in our lives. Optimism is an explanatory style that attributes positive events to personal, permanent and pervasive causes. It interprets negative events in terms of external, temporary and situation-specific factors.

The explanatory style has a strong association with what we achieve in future. In a coaching session, the coach may invite the client to explore the factors responsible for achieving success in past events. Exploration around how much credit the client would like to give to self and environment can also enhance clients’ awareness about their explanatory style. This awareness can give an opportunity to the clients to see the outcome and its causes from a different perspective and try to derive an alternative explanation to the outcome and factors responsible for the same.

Having conversations around positive aspects even in highly unfavourable situations or outcomes may also help clients boost their optimism.

Along with the above strategies, providing unconditional positive regard to the client will boost all four elements of psychological capital. According to Carl Rogers, the proponent of humanistic psychology, unconditional positive regard is the positive regard given without conditions or strings attached.

Due to the pandemic, coaches need to do this more than ever before. They need to show great confidence in the clients’ capabilities which will boost the clients’ psychological capital.

Being fully present, listening actively, and acknowledging clients’ work, awareness and talents may really help the clients build psychological resources and achieve their goals.

“We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope” said Martin Luther King.

Professional coaching services can be found using ICF’s directory of credentialed coaches spread across India and the world

If you need support on your organisation’s and leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 39,000-plus members located in more than 145 countries and territories work towards common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards.

Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. Visit coachingfederation.org for more information.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Badri Bajaj is a leading expert in emotional intelligence, leadership, coaching and well-being. He has 20+ years of experience in research/writing, teaching/training and coaching. He has conducted training for IT organisations, Henley Business School in the UK, NASSCOM, IIM Udaipur, Indian Navy, Mindful Leadership Summit, International Coaching Federation and many universities and schools. An ACC-credentialed coach by the ICF and an active member of the ICF Delhi NCR Chapter, he has published articles in reputed peer-reviewed journals and newspapers. He is a faculty member of the Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida. His work on mindfulness, emotional intelligence and well-being has been featured in the media in many countries.

The post Coaching for ‘psychological capital’ – Why it matters and how to do it appeared first on HR Katha.

What can tech leaders do differently to handle attrition?

1. Analyse and find the devil in the details

The reasons for employees to leave post COVID are very different from the ones known before.

Some employees want to shift to tier-2 cities to be closer to their hometown/extended family, and they prefer a lower cost of living. Others wish to leave because of a surge of opportunities, COVID fatigue, need for change, lack of travel, and the inability to balance work and home and so on.

Analysing the top three reasons why employees are leaving the company, finding out how one can control them and taking focused efforts towards the same can help one enjoy better results in three quarters.

2. Dusting outdated policies

Our HR policies were written for a pre-COVID world and may not hold true for the post-COVID one. This is the right time to relook at those policies, drop the ones that are irrelevant, such as half day leave cut for not logging on time, and introduce new ones that are suited to the times, such as ‘no meeting’ Fridays.

3. Re-imagining talent acquisition

We are at a point in history where tech companies no longer need to be confined to geographies for talent acquisition. The world is the limit. Explore how to hire differently to sustain the talent pool. Not all people get motivated by high salaries, a corner office or a leased car. Some may prefer flexibility of schedules over a beach resort and so on. Enlarging the vision to adopt the ‘hire from anywhere’ (HFA) model will help.

4. Talent engagement

There are several things that one can do to engage existing talent:

· Listen to the voice of the employee: Since most tech workers are now remote, HR practices such as climate surveys, walk the floor, townhalls and so on are not enough to know the pulse of the employees. Better and more frequent activities, such as timely anonymous mood surveys, random surprise calls to check in on employee well-being, and so on can help gauge the morale of employees.

· Plug into informal networks: There are powerful informal networks in organisations. One has to be trustworthy enough to be part of them.

· Care enough: Sometimes, all one needs is to know that someone cares enough. Care can be shown in many appropriate ways and means that are aligned to the culture of the organisation.

· Invest in employees: Be it coaching through credentialed coaches — who can help with employee transformation and growth — or training or employee assistance or mental and physical well-being, invest in employees should be much more now than before.

· Recognition: We live in a world where it is hard to belong. Find ways and means to recognise, timely, the good work of employees so that they feel nice about their contributions.

5. Accept and anticipate

· Know that over 15 per cent of the employees are going to leave anyway. Therefore, one has to ensure that is well backed up for business.

· The trend will continue for a long time. Therefore, proactive hiring efforts need to be stepped up.

· Know that both sides are hanging by a thread of integrity. So, it is important to keep one’s word.

· Make ‘planning for leaving’ a normal part of business so that employees are comfortable giving enough time to prepare replacements.

· Lead with trust. People find it harder to leave leaders that are invested in their growth.

· Send off employees with a good taste in the mouth. Let them be alumni ambassadors for the company.

While it’s hard to be a leader in these times, it’s also an opportunity. Choose to be an employee-retention magnet!

Create a difference for the organisation by implementing a strong coaching culture, which will help you thrive!

If you need support on your organisation’s and leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering the role of coaching as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 39,000-plus members, located in more than 145 countries and territories, work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. Visit coachingfederation.org for more information.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Priya Venkatesan is a leadership coach, certified at the PCC level by the ICF. She works with business leaders and their teams to achieve organisational and personal outcomes. In her career spanning 21 years, she has worked predominantly in the technology sector, leading 100+teams before becoming a coach.

The post Thriving amidst the attrition Tsunami appeared first on HR Katha.

Let’s take a closer look! The caveat to this law is that it is applicable to closed systems. Our bodies are both open and closed systems. The respiratory and digestive systems are open but the circulatory system and the system that controls body temperature are closed-loop systems.

In the natural sciences, an open system is one whose border is permeable to both energy and mass. In thermodynamics, a closed system, by contrast, is permeable to energy but not to matter.

We all hold energy in the form of thoughts, beliefs, emotions and memories. Therefore, even with respect to our bodies, the energy needs attention. If we are being consumed by anger, resentment, jealousy, greed, lust, hate and so on, obviously, it is serving us in some way but we know within our hearts that we can do better.

Being stuck internally can lead to a number of diseases and ailments, while being stuck externally impacts our relationships, finances, professional career, and so on. The best way to deal with this, then, is to transform or transmute the energy from one form to another and just as the law says in the process, “no energy is lost”.

Unleash your energy and positivity by experiencing coaching for yourself or your team

When one transforms the energy:

· Anger becomes peace

· Resentment becomes goodwill

· Greed becomes contentment

· Lust becomes detachment

· Entanglement becomes involvement

· Hate becomes acceptance at first and then love, so on and so forth, and in the process, life gets transformed.

So now, the question arises as to how does one transform this energy?

There are many approaches to do this such as yoga, doing exercises, consuming chemicals, through diet, acupressure, chiro-practice, meditation etc., and different practices affect different people differently. However, for those who are analytical and like to find logic for everything – Gratitude is the simplest way to transform energy.

Let’s consider another law – Newton’s third law of motion states that “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” Let’s apply this Law to the concept of gratitude which will then read as:

“Whenever you are ‘Giving’ gratitude in the form of a heart-felt ‘thanks’ there is an equal and opposite reaction of ‘Receiving’.”

This means, every time we revel in genuine and deep gratitude, this action sets off an equal and opposite reaction of receiving. Therefore, the more we give the more we receive. The more we are thankful for what we have, the more we are ready to receive.

Many of us may say: “I get into this vicious cycle of starting with a negative thought, and I forget about all my blessings. One negative thought leads to another and another and another, and then, I am back to being my miserable self.”

Basically, we are saying that once a negative thought sprouts, it repeats itself and catches momentum and then it is difficult to stop the process, which lands us in a state of negative emotion or emotions. So how do we bring about a change in our state?

Let us understand this with Newton’s first law of motion which states that “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”

There are two parts to this statement – one that predicts the behaviour of stationary objects and the other that predicts the behaviour of moving objects. The behaviour of all objects can be described by saying that objects tend to “keep on doing what they’re doing” unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

If the same analogy is extended to thoughts, which are a form of energy, once the negative thought grasps us, chances are it will gather speed and continue in the same direction. This i because, as a habit of negative thinking or processing, it gathers speed, as an unbalanced force (within us or in the environment) has triggered it.

What is needed then is to apply the brakes immediately. The moment one becomes aware of the rise of a negative thought, one should nip it in the bud and tune into something that makes one feel thankful or grateful.

Unbalanced forces — be they negative or positive — cause acceleration. Acceleration of positive thoughts makes us feel good and acceleration of negative thoughts makes us feel bad. It is for us to decide as to which part of the continuum we would like to be.

Now let us understand the concept of Momentum and how it applies to us.

The equation for Momentum=Mass x Velocity

Scientists have begun to find ways to measure the activity of thoughts and now realise that Thoughts have Mass. From EEGs to Delta or Theta brain waves, we are now able to measure some form of thought waves. We all produce magnetic wavelengths. The latest Magneto- Encephalography or MEG and Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices, or SQUIDS, register the mass brain activity as it is broadcasted out into its environment.

Velocity in this equation is simply used to define the rate at which something changes its position through time — meaning, ‘How often does it happen?’ or ‘How often does one think the thought’?

The directional Momentum in Life = Thoughts (Mass) x the number of times one thinks them (Velocity).

This is how we all can essentially change, or add momentum to whatever we desire or want. Our momentum allows our orchestration and the more we fine tune our thoughts the better the orchestration. Specificity allows fine tuning. Therefore, the clearer the intention — the clearer we are about what we want, how we want it, where we want it and when we want it – the easier is the manifestation. If the desires and wants are not fine-tuned it is just noise.

One can get excited with a thought or get pumped by it, but often it fizzles out. If the thought is not repeated, it gains no momentum. Both Mass and Velocity cannot build momentum alone.

Words (affirmations) or Mantras repeated (Velocity) all day long, without emotions/thoughts (Mass) behind them, don’t get momentum that can manifest our desires. And the day the positive, radiant, confident and constructive thoughts hit the ratio 3:1 vis-a-vis destructive, self-weakening thoughts, one gains the momentum of an upward spiral. With practice, we can use our energy to have clear intentions (Mass) and then add velocity (repetition) to them for a happier and fulfilling life.

Gratitude is the positive emotion that can help us spiral up. In the darkest moments of our lives, we can at least be thankful for being alive. Being grateful for anything or just one thing allows us to receive more. This simple practice, when it gathers momentum, transforms lives. As we cultivate a sense of being in gratitude, we also cultivate the feeling of being loved as we start appreciating the gifts in our life, which also allows us to develop an emotionally-generous disposition.

As Gratitude becomes our way of life, life unfolds so much more easily.

For support on coaching journey — organisation’s and leader’s — do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 35,000-plus members located in more than 140 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. Visit coachingfederation.org for more information.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Shivdasini S Amin is a Master Certified Coach by the ICF and is currently an associate professor with Mahindra University. She seeks to discover, grow and nurture human potential, to augment talent through inner examination of beliefs, patterns and emotions, while being involved with life and breaking inner glass ceilings. She truly believes that humans co-create ideas and solutions by developing their body, mind and spirit, therefore the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual areas of life need to be enriched and enhanced simultaneously.

The post Understanding thoughts as energy appeared first on HR Katha.

This article is the story of ‘D’ – a talented leader who was in in the throes of indecision, beset by contradictions that were weighing him down. The article describes how coaching helped him, and more importantly, offers key insights that would be helpful to coaches and HR leaders alike.

D, an immensely talented professional, was at a crucial juncture in his life and his career. He was at the crossroads searching for direction, not only at work but at home with his family as well. This case is about how coaching helped him come to terms with his dilemmas and facilitated decision making.

Professionally, his job was demanding and expectations were high. Personally, the fact that he was in his late forties meant that time was running out for him. His wife had been supportive, but she too had her expectations and his son was very much like him, which only made matters more difficult for him.

I found this case challenging because of the layers of complexity involved. It was very important to address the ‘Who’ in this situation, given his personality. He is an introvert, very intense with high self- awareness. He lives by a clear set of principles which defined his inner world and he also expects others to abide by his standards. He speaks in paragraphs, which are at times quite convoluted, as he tries to describe his thoughts in as much detail as possible.

An important element of his personality is the fact that he is a perfectionist at work. This was readily acknowledged by his peers and his boss.

Additionally, with regard to his relationships at home, he sensed that things could be better but did not know what he could do.

In executive coaching, it is imperative that all stakeholders are involved from the outset. The process involved an interview with his boss, followed by a joint meeting with D and his boss where the broad directions of coaching were specified. In this case, the directions were very general and not at all specific.

His boss made it very clear to D that coaching was a choice and not a compulsion and if he did not feel comfortable with me or the process, he was free to discontinue it. The ICF Coaching Core Competencies formed the foundation of the coaching process.

The competencies that worked well with D were questioning, listening, direct communication and the skills of establishing the coaching agreement in every session along with measures for success.

I have shared some excerpts of the real-time conversation that took place and how the coaching agreement was established based on any one of the challenges faced by D. For me, this was the most challenging part of the coaching.

D was highly self-aware and could fathom the contradictions that arose from how he ‘saw’ things and the reality of his work situation. To take his coaching forward, it was important to help D articulate these contradictions in a way that he would accept them.

– “That’s a conflict which always remains. On the one hand, I don’t want to give up my identity, which is why I could kind of get to where I am. On the other hand, I also don’t want to be known as a non-team player”

– “I was probably best at times when I was either alone or I was with a known set of people. How do I get to the point where I can decide, whether I should change myself or other people? That’s my dilemma”

– ”I have to be very meticulous in what I want to do. For example, I hate walking into a meeting unprepared, and when I see people walking into meetings unprepared, I just give up — because I think every second is important. I don’t want to waste any second of my life”

Each of these agreements formed the basis of my conversations in different sessions with D.

Key Learning — the Coachee leads; a coach can’t force the process

While it is important to identify goals and work with clients to help them achieve their goals, it doesn’t always work that way. It is important to let the clients lead the discovery process and use presence and strong active listening skills to help them open up. It’s always about the Coachee.

D liked the fact that I listened intently and did not offer judgement. He also liked the fact that I did not direct him but allowed him to take his time to peel the layers of understanding through his own process of reflection. This helped him think through his situation.

He also appreciated that as a coach I challenged and pushed him to ‘see’ his situation more deeply. In my view, what can be transferable in any situation is the willingness to practise direct communication with the clients and not be afraid to ask questions out of curiosity.

Effective coaching is not about getting it right from our point of view as coaches, but letting go of our need to get it right and being there for the clients in the moment — either with a question or an observation or simply a reflective silence.

A professional coach helps clients clarify their thoughts and ensures maximisation of their potential. Find the right coach for you now!

If you need support on your organisation’s and leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 35,000-plus members located in more than 140 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. Visit coachingfederation.org for more information.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Prasad Deshpande is an executive coach credentialed by the ICF at the Master Certified Coach level (MCC). He heads a consultancy firm focusing on strategic planning, leadership development and organisational processes. He is also the founder president of the ICF Pune Chapter. With over 30 years of experience working in India and internationally, Prasad’s passion lies in coaching and helping executives and their teams transform the way they think.

The post Dilemmas and decision making – How coaching can help leaders at the crossroads appeared first on HR Katha.

You would sign up for it, for sure!

As an ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC), I often work with HR managers and CEOs who express a difficultly in retaining talent inside the company. Usually, at this point, we can feel that a shift must be made: A talent doesn’t have to be motivated or retained. If so, it means that the organisation paradigm may be wrong.

So, before we work together, usually they tend to believe that incentives and benefits are key assets to attract talents. After engaging in coaching, they realise that there are much more options to recruit and develop talent within the company.

Through this article, I am inviting you to hack the code of Human Resources fulfilment. So, get into the rocket and fasten your seat belt.

State of flow

Before we go further, please consider those activities that you enjoy, either personally or professionally, and would even do for no pay. Then, ask yourself, why do they offer you so much happiness and fulfilment?

One of the founders of positive psychology, Mihály Csíkszentmihály, idefines the ‘state of flow’, as moments when you are totally absorbed in a doable task.

In this state, you can feel that you are stretched to your limits working voluntarily on something difficult, worthwhile and meaningful.

There are 8 characteristics of the flow estate:

1. Goals are clear

2. Feedback is direct and instant

3. There is a balance between difficulty and skills

4. There is control over the task

5. Focus and concentration is deep

6. One may lose track of time

7. One transcends to a state of losing self-awareness

8. There is effortlessness and ease.

Usually, you can feel it casually but in fact, corporations can easily create such auspicious environments that facilitate the state of flow.

Let’s look deeper into the causes of such fulfilments:

Key of fulfilment

Congruency (or alignment) is the constant adequation between values, words and actions. It allows you to receive emotional gratification and develop virtues and talents (soft-skills, inner qualities, strength of character…). You could say that congruency is the skeleton key for a tailored happiness. When you go towards the opposite of your values and needs, you will feel emotions such as anger, sadness or fear. You may also feel cognitive dissonance, that is, an inner tension when your thoughts and actions are not consonant.

I have had the opportunity to coach managers and employees who had burnt out. I could observe that the common denominator was that all of them were pushing themselves too hard and following the opposite of their core values. Basically, at some point, they felt a contradiction between their own values and the corporation’s.

They stayed there because of systemic loyalties, inner contradictions or personal constraints.

Working for a company can be perceived as a successful love marriage. In such a case, sharing common values that promote meaningful goals is the secret of long-term partnerships and relationships.

Values not only offer the opportunity to feel happier and more fulfilled, but will also bring a sense of purpose.

As the psycho analyst Viktor Frankl discovered, there are three ways to feel a sense of purpose in life:

1. Ethos: To serve a higher purpose beyond yourself. This usually happens within NGOs or organisations that are committed to their raisond’être.

2. Eros: To build up sustainable and personal relationships with specific people (partner, family, friends, colleagues)

3. Pathos: To engage in projects that allow you to create things and get visible results.

All these paths of meaning are sustained by your core values.

What is fascinating is that as HR people and managers, you have here a code to develop efficient and meaningful organisations. Indeed, the long-term commitment can be developed though three levers:

1. Develop the pride to belong: It means that the employees identify themselves with the company’s values, and they can recommend its services. This is key for employer branding.

2. Develop attachment to the company: The employees develop a sense of attachment to the teams, its members and to the manager. There is a high level of trust among the employees.

3. Strengthen the will to do: This refers to interest in the role, the work, the missions and meaning of the company. It refers to the energy and enthusiasm that the employee brings to the work.

There are many ways to strengthen this feeling of long-term commitment, but remember that all the actions have to be aligned with the core values of the company.

Organisations that are driven by authentic, shared core values and “reason for being” will defnitely attract the talents they need. Purpose and values are the fuel of organisations — their motivation. With an aligned environment, an organisation offers the conditions required for the employees to perform, be fulflled and find meaning at work. The values define the organisation culture — rituals, ways of functioning, leadership, symbols, codes and practices.

We do understand at this point that the first step for the modern organisations is to accept to have an inner audit and check with their team what the real core values they share are. Based on this, they can develop an efficient and meaningful HR strategy that will not only achieve the goal, but also raise performance, well-being and meaning at the workplace. With such work, the organisation can make a real shift and include ‘Employer branding’ and ‘Corporate social responsibility’ in their DNA.

The investment is worth it, not only in terms of RoI but also because of the fresh energy that emerges within the company.

The first step is really an inner one — the boldness of the CEO, HR and board to make the shift of paradigm, to choose performance, fulfilment and meaning.

Paradigm shift in HR and leadership

This may be the legacy of the industrial period, but today, we still tend to think that employees’ performance is the balance between skills and needs. In a global and connected world, it becomes false. If they are not happy or skilled, people just leave the company.

To get high and long-run commitment, the HR should not recruit based on hard skills and experience alone. In fact, they should also recruit employees based on shared values and soft skills. Values will guarantee natural motivation, commitment and the will to learn.

Soft skills will facilitate the inclusion of the new recruit in the team, and they will value the corporation’s DNA. In the long run, soft skills can be developed in different hard skills, adapted to different roles.

As an example, let’s say that through an assessment process, you could hire a trainee sharing the company values of benevolence, entrepreneurship and stimulation. You were able to check his motivations, style of leadership and soft skills so he could be included easily in the team. During the interview, you could check his awareness, emotional and relational intelligence. Then, the direct management and the HR manager identify his natural talents to learn at a fast pace, to manage people, and his adaptability.

Rather than accepting that the employee may leave the company at some point, they decide to build a developmental programme that offers an auspicious environment to express his talents, and different roles where he can perform with his talents plus develop skills. Training and coaching can be offered to empower him, so that he may become a board member one day.

ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential. The process of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity and leadership.

What makes it work is that through the learning process, trust and recognition, the employee develops strong bonds with the corporation: with the purpose, values and services, with the team, with the management.

In a way, naturally, the employee becomes the ambassador for the company.

Here is a reminder — Human Resources is the refiection of the company’s practices. Congruency is the key to creating inspiring, healthy and sustainable organisations. At any step of the HR process, be sure that you have your “soul in the game” and “walk the talk”. Trust and commitment will be reinforced. Then, Coaching may help you to empower talents within the organisation.

Are you ready and bold enough to make this paradigm shift? Find an ICF certified coach now to walk this path with you

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 35,000-plus members located in more than 140 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. Visit coachingfederation.org for more information.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

Glossary

• Values: These are core motivations or belief systems that drive our thoughts, decisions, judgments, actions, behaviours and attitudes. They are the keys to team cohesion, performance, commitment, fulfilment and a sense of purpose.

• Talents: These are soft skills, natural abilities and qualities. They could help to develop hard skills. The characteristics of talents are that they are personal, pleasurable and effortless to use, impactful, innate and recognised. They define the personality. The challenge for the companies is to offer environments where talents could express and evolve.

• Life orientations: They are natural tendencies to be focused on for satisfying one’s needs, accomplishing oneself for looking for a deeper meaning and higher purpose.

• Hard skills: These are specific know-how that offer direct results and satisy the company needs.

The author, Bertrand Beauregard is an ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC) from France with over 10 years of coaching experience with hyper-growth companies, CEOs, entrepreneurs, executives and teams. What is common amongst his clients is that they all have their ‘skin and soul in the game’. As an enthusiastic and passionate person, Beauregard’s coaching DNA is to allow inner talents to be revealed, to promote awareness and congruence, and to unlock true potential. Beauregard is the author of the book ‘Revealing HR 4.0 source code: Recruiting, managing and coaching talent through values and meaning’. He often gives talks on topics related to HR, management and coaching.

The post How to recruit, manage & retain talent with a sense of purpose appeared first on HR Katha.

This article will give you the answers in a very simple and lucid way based on personal experience.

Being a CEO myself, before becoming a Coach, I could relate to the benefits very deeply.

Read, reflect and enjoy!

Just a few days before the lockdown, I was sitting in the coffee shop waiting for a client. I had reached early and was reading a book. Someone tapped on my shoulder and said “How are you, Sir? ”I turned around and saw Anuj standing there smiling broadly.

“Prem, meet my Coach, Pramod,” Anuj introduced me to his friend. He further added, “Prem, you know he changed my life?”. I smilingly retorted, “I hope it was for the better” and everyone laughed.

Anuj was my first coachee way back in 2010. I was meeting him after a gap of almost a year and was happy to catch up. With still some time before my client meeting, I asked them to join me for coffee. They happily agreed.

I was keen to listen about his progress. Instead, he was keen to share with his friend the coaching experience he had with me— How he had felt the pressure from his family members to take a back seat; what had stressed him out; the transformation he had witnessed within while going through coaching; and how it had helped him.

As an experienced coach, I actively listened to him and made some mental notes. After about 30 minutes, my client arrived, and we decided to continue our conversation another time.

Later in the evening, as I was recollecting my interaction with Anuj earlier in the day, I ended up reflecting on my own coaching journey. Anuj was my first client after completing my coaching certification from ICF and CFI. Since then, I have coached several executives and family business heads.

What has transformed in me in the journey from my ?rst hour of coaching to about 3,000 hours today —first client to now over 175 clients —from an ACC to an MCC credential with the ICF; from being CEO to now, CEO Coach. The stories are many and I realised that I would love to share my experiences with others.

How to go about it was the major question. I had not written anything in the past nor was I an accomplished storyteller, so how could I proceed?.

Let me begin with some baby steps and start from the beginning, that is, the first day I experienced a transformation within myself.

In 2008, when I told my Super Boss (AGP), who was also my mentor and guide, that I will not be continuing in the corporate role, from the day of my superannuation, he wanted to know why. I told him that I wanted to share my knowledge of almost forty years of corporate life with others who needed help.

His second question was “What will you do”? I told him I would think about it once I moved out of my current role. I had two years left before the move.

His response was “Don’t wait for that date.” He went on to say “I have watched you with people and you should become a coach.”

Back then, I used to associate coaches with sports or tutors who trained students for competitive examinations.

So, my obvious question was “What has coaching to do with this?” He asked me to google ‘executive coaching’ and check it out myself. I did just that, liked what I read and joined a certification course at Hong Kong. It was a new experience!

The first day, the facilitator, Belinda, talked about coaching and the ICF Core Competencies, which all professional coaches should have and use. It all looked quite simple to me. The next day, we were told about active listening. There was also a video to watch.

After that, we were asked to practise active listening. I was paired with a lady from Hong Kong and we were given a total time of 40 minutes (20 minutes each). This was our first coaching assignment. I asked the lady to coach me first thinking I’d gather some tips about what to do. At the end of the first session, the facilitator congratulated her for doing a good job.

Now it was my turn to coach her. I asked her what she would like to work on and she said she had been getting frequent back and neck pains, while working.

I smiled as I knew the solution and gave her a ten-minute ‘gyan’ (lecture) on Yoga, and even made her practise it. She looked happy. As the session concluded, I expectantly looked at the facilitator for a favourable comment. Her comment was “Pramod, you followed the 80:20 principle very well”. Before I could gloat, she added “But you were speaking for 80 per cent of the time and listening for only 20.”

This shook me. I was quite disappointed. She realised that and shared that many people have similar experiences when they start off.

That evening, sitting in my hotel room, reflecting on the episode and my other practice sessions, I realised that whenever I knew the solution of a problem, I became directive. However, in cases where I did not know the solution, I was a participative leader.

It was a big realisation for me and for the remaining six days I worked very diligently on all the competencies.

On the last day of the training, Belinda concluded that I had reached a 70:30 stage, where I listened for 70 per cent of the time. The comment made my day. I also felt that something had changed within me.

After returning from Hong Kong, I did some pro-bono coaching with my colleagues to test my newly- acquired coaching skills.

In my first session itself I was aware about the need to improve my active listening. Earlier, whenever someone spoke, my thoughts would already starting looking for the response I would give to him.

Now, I was paraphrasing, acknowledging, saying ‘OK’, etc. I was also listening from my heart. I was expressing my feeling whenever I saw any specific emotion on the coachee’s face. This helped me connect with the coachee and also showed my coaching presence. I started reflecting and keeping a score of how I was progressing on active listening.

I also realised that active listening in a confidential environment of coaching helps the coachee share his story very freely.

This is how my journey of becoming a CEO Coach and helping leaders to achieve their full potential started.

According to the Building Strong Coaching Cultures for the Future, a 2019 study from the International Coaching Federation and the Human Capital Institute (HCI), developing coaching skills in leaders is an ongoing process in organisations with strong coaching cultures.

Take a bold step and start developing coaching skills or become a coach yourself!

If you need support with your organisation’s and leader’s coaching journey, do contact us at ICF and our team of volunteers in India will be happy to help.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 35,000-plus members located in more than 140 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. Visit coachingfederation.org for more information.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Pramod Gothi is a Master Certified Coach by International Coach Federation, with more than 3,000 coaching hours under his belt. He possesses an unrivaled depth and breadth of coaching experience and has worked with entrepreneurs, CXOs and top teams across a wide range of industries. Gothi has 38 years of corporate experience in leadership positions. His corporate experience and more than 10 years of coaching experience, allow him to have a highly empathetic and pragmatic approach to coaching. He is quick to connect with the client and client situations and has strong skills of active listening, probing, challenging and identifying the blind spots.

The post From CEO to coach appeared first on HR Katha.

This article is focused on some coaching methods that can create a positive shift in your relationships as a leader or HR manager.

Coaching is a structured methodology to change conversations to make them serve us more productively. Start with some simple tips to see how it can change your relationship with others.

Don’t worry about applying everything at one go, pick anyone that sounds easy and get going.

Remember, professional trained coaches practise these techniques for years to make them part of their way of being. Hence, don’t be disappointed if you find it challenging to apply any of these techniques immediately. Just try and try again.

Before indulging in a conversation with anyone, just pick any one tip and see how you would like to change the conversation. Take it as an experiment.

1. Talk less, listen more

Try talking just five per cent of the time. Deliberately pause to listen to the person and their context. People engage when they find they are heard. Most of the timewe tend to be in a hurry to respond and close the conversation. In doing so, we miss important information from the speakers, leaving them feeling unheard.

2. Validate your listening

Replay to confirm and validate what you heard to acknowledge what the speakers said. This helps themknow that you were paying attention to what’s important to them. This certainly helps them trust you more.We all think we listen well but actually we don’t. Use nudges like ‘hmm’, ‘ok’, ‘alright’, ‘really?’,‘that’s great’, ‘I understand’, and so on, to stay in the conversation.

3. Tell less, ask more

When someone comes to you for advice, try brainstorming with them by asking questions to allow them to think about their own ideas. Create space for reflection. When people find their own answers, they are more committed and responsible for the same. At the same time, when you provide them the space to explore their own solutions, you move forward on the trust and relationship with them.

4. Find a reason to appreciate

Whether it is punctuality, a good e-mail, a good way of handling conflict or a good habit, there are several reasons we can find to appreciate and acknowledge. Createan intention to appreciate something in someone in each conversation, no matter how small it is. Your small observation about someone can create a big impact in their minds, and of course, in your relationship with them.

Acknowledgment and appreciation encourage positive behaviour. Acknowledge what you want to see more in your environment. The same happens with negative feedback. What we focus on grows.

5. Contract each conversation

Contracting is not always legal or formal. Just understanding clearly ‘What’s expected out of me in the conversation?’ and ‘What is the other person expecting? ’is also called contracting.

In daily conversations, we do not contract and the result is that we find it hard to conclude the conversations in our minds. Common signs are multiple conversations nested in one conversation, lack of clarity, misunderstandings around accountability and multiple conversation threads thereafter.

Once you start contracting in the conversation about what exactly both you (as the listener) and the speaker want from each other, you will notice that you are not only saving time and energy, but also creating more clarity in your relationships.

6. Watch your inner voice

While listening to someone, notice how your internal dialogue is interfering withyour listening. Take a pause, see how you are making meaning of the conversation based on your judgment and try rationalisingthat to ensure your biases are not adding to the content of the conversation.

Being a human, we all have biases, what gives rise to judgment is our permission to mix it with the conversation outside. When you consciously keep them separate, you create space to see people as they are, a great way to create acceptance and relationship. Next time, the moment you feel judgmental about someone, think about their family, children and overall system to know where they come from. Only you can work with your judgment that’s creating a long-lasting perception about someone you barely know.

7. Practise re-framing versus contradicting

When someone says “I don’t think I can do this”, the reframing means “Does it mean you haven’t tried or have you tried but you couldn’t succeed?”

This helps conversations stay positive and allows some of the experiences define our future. Another example is when someone says “This is not at all possible based on my experience“. Reframe this to say “This seems impossible yet due to tested methods. How about creating new ways of doing things that have not been tried before?”

Reframe your conversation each time it sounds negative or impossible. Use the word AND versus using BUT. Everything can be reframed. Do it for yourself, do it for others.

8. Know your role in the conversation

We all perform several roles in our lives and every role has a different expectation from us. However, our daily schedules do not allow us to think about the expectations at that moment and our autopilot gets us to apply standard responses, most of the time,like applying our boss, like Parent, like temperament with our teams. Just a short pause and contracting with ourselves can hugely help decide the type of response we would like to give in a particular situation.

In COVID times, this is very essential as there are hardly any boundaries between professional and personal space. Just ask yourself ‘What’s my role in this conversation? How would I like to be here?’ A boss, a friend, a partner, or even a kid can help you set the right mode for your conversation.

9. Gift attention intentionally

Attention is the most precious and inexpensive gift you can give to people who are important to you. Be it team members or family. Paying attention to their needs and finding time to share a bit of your space in your own way, goes very far as relationships are concerned.

Remember, the most important feeling for someone to authentically contribute is to feel valued and heard. Create intentions to give attention.

In coaching relationships, intention is the foundation of every conversation.
Our focus is always to positively support and develop people and work towards finding a solution versus finding faults. As professional coaches, we are trained to keep our judgments and biases in check to keep the conversation clean and contamination free.

Most of the conversations are contaminated due to a cocktail of several judgments we hold for people, our own fears and fixed way of thinking. The good news is that, a real clear and open conversation is possible by changing the focus. When you change the conversation, you change its outcome as well.

As a strategy, choose the outcome before you start the conversation and enjoy healthy relationships around you.

Having the intention to support, develop and be non-judgmental produces an environment of trust, rapport and positivity, which is an essential ingredient to breed innovative and creative cultures and teams.

Ask an ICF-credentialed coach to help you take the next step forward on your own journey to develop new leadership skills

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 35,000-plus members located in more than 140 countries and territories work toward the common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. Visit coachingfederation.org for more information.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Jaya Bhateja is an ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC) and a director on the 2021 ICF Coach Training Global Board. An expert at leading global coaching practices, such as Stakeholder Centered Coaching, Social and Emotional Intelligence and Personality assessments, she brings over 16 years of experience in leadership development, executive coaching, consulting, coach mentoring, coaching skills and coach supervision. Bhateja has led the Capability Development function for India and Global Strategy business for Accenture Consulting. During her stint with Accenture and Siemens, she has headed L&D and lead HR respectively.

The post 9 coaching tips for daily leadership appeared first on HR Katha.

That is about sincerity, though it may or may not reflect ownership. There is a difference between the two terms ‘sincerity’ and ‘ownership’, which is similar to the difference between doing a task and achieving a set goal. The former is sincere, while the latter means ownership of the said task.

Ownership begins with acknowledging the task at hand, taking responsibility for its resolution and finally delivering. Deviations and mistakes happen along the way, but as long as the sense of ownership is alive, course correction will happen, and the desired goal will be reached – No excuses, no explanations, just delivery !

The criticality of having the ‘right’ person

A business may have strong infrastructure and efficient systems in place, but the ‘right’ people who take responsibility are missing, things will eventually drop off.
That is why, the right selection and subsequent right absorption or induction, are fundamental processes for business success. This is the first gate or level of the quality-control process in employee interaction.

The right people are distinguished by their inner constitution and not as much by external acquisitions, such as academics, knowledge or skills. The attributes of what constitutes the ‘right person’ for an organisation differ based on the type of organisation and its business context at that point in time.

As an example, I share below five attributes we defined for the organisation I recently worked for:

1. Independent thinking

2. Ownership

3. Self-management

4. Learning ability

5. Problem-solving ability

Is sincerity a synonym for ownership?

Many often consider these two attributes as interchangeable. Some of us who subliminally know that there is a difference, find it difficult to articulate it, as the line between the two may appear blurred to them.

Compared to insincere people, the sincere ones will readily accept when they are wrong, because they possess an ‘honesty of mind’. Other people respect that honesty. It builds confidence and trust, which is essential for a good relationship.

Ownership is about taking initiative and being responsible for the quality and timeliness of an agreed outcome, even when there are factors beyond you which impact the outcome! Taking ownership is making a definitive statement – “You can trust me to do the right thing”.

In a successful outcome, both attributes —sincerity and ownership — seem to merge, however real. The acid test is in a failure outcome — those who are merely sincere, but without ownership, will ‘explain’ why things did not happen and how they are not responsible for it. There is no “explanation” from those with ownership. They take complete accountability, do not indulge in any blame game, and quickly rededicate themselves to getting things back on track.

Focus of people with ‘Ownership’ is on ‘How’, that is, on resolving the issue. On the other hand, people with ‘sincerity’ focus on ‘Who’ – on blaming and self-absolving, to an extent that they believe that as long as they have put in sincere efforts , they deserve ‘full marks‘, regardless of the outcome.

While sincerity is about honesty, ownership is about accountability.

If you remember the ‘Just Do it’ slogan of Nike, ‘ … Do It, is about Ownership.

In my well-known analogy of Maid/Mother, a maid can be insincere or sincere, but lacks ownership. Ownership is always associated with a mother.

Analogy in brief: A Mother is driven by a ‘cause’, a maid does a ‘job’. Therefore, a maid is more caught up in the ‘what‘ aspect, and hence, busy performing activities or tasks, which are her focus. She is unconnected with the result, whereas for a mother, the ‘Why‘ of what is more critical. She will remain more focused on achieving the end result than taking activities as a destination. A maid represents the ‘labour’ aspect, while a mother embodies ‘care’.

The essential difference

• Sincerity is an intrinsic attribute of a person. Ownership exhibits externally in the outcome.

• Sincerity is about what you are. Ownership is about what you achieve.

• Sincerity is to do with effort. Ownership is about the result.

• Sincerity is often exhibited in a reactive manner. Taking ownership is a proactive step.

If you have heard about the necessary and sufficient conditions in mathematics, by conclusively establishing an observation, you will realise that being sincere is fulfilling the necessary condition of dependability in any relationship – work or life, as no one consciously wants to associate with an insincere person.

Though taking ownership, which completes the story, is the sufficient condition for (dependability) relationship.

Professional Coaching can help your team to go from good to great and unlock previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity and leadership. Because of coaching, people from around the world have been able to surpass their limitations and achieve their personal and professional goals.

Get ready to be inspired by true coaching stories of profound change!

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 35,000 plus members located in more than 140 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. Visit coachingfederation.org for more information. In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Yatin Samant is an ICF PCC credentialled coach with more than 34 years of corporate working experience across a diverse set of industries, nationality/ geographies and culture, in different function areas. He has previously been the P&L head and SBU head/CEO. Samant retired early to dedicate himself to the cause of leadership development and human leveraging in general, pioneering the ‘Inside-Out’ learning pathway v/s the conventional ‘Outside-In’ pathway. He is affiliated with the ICF Bangalore chapter.

The post Ownership: Being sincere is not good enough! appeared first on HR Katha.

Finding a balance between work and home life can be difficult, but it’s well worth the effort!

Ask yourself and answer honestly, to know if you’re out of balance when you…

1. Have multiple e-mail sitting unopened for days if not weeks
2. Think you have more on your plate than you can chew
3. Constantly keep declining invitations from friends/family/peer
4. Cannot recall the last time you talked/spoke/interacted with your siblings
5. Forget appointments/commitments
6. Stop writing/reviewing your task lists for the week and are free flying
7. Haven’t synched your calendars/appointments in weeks
8. Don’t care or feel upset/overwhelmed if you’re not on track with your plan of action
9. Can’t remember what’s in/on your plan of action
10. Don’t answer your phone/text/message/DMs **or** you’re always on the phone for a long time

But how is it possible to achieve that balance and still excel at one’s job?

Now, let us focus on how you can get yourself back on track. But first, it would be mindful to ask some thought-provoking, creative and inspiring questions.
Grab a pen and paper and start answering the following 10 questions, which will help you to reflect upon your choice to channelise your actions:

1. What according to you does it mean to be completely fulfilled in your life and work?
2. What are your values that you must become aware of to have a fulfilled life?
3. How would you honour the values you have written down, and how would these values impact your experience of work-life balance?
4. What are you committed towards in changing your current work-life style?
5. What are the different actions that you feel are currently giving you the least joy?
6. What two or three actions can you take right now to create the most impact on your wellbeing?
7. What four/five things would you start doing in your daily life so that you have absolute work or life fulfilment?
8. What things/activities are you willing to stop, going forward,to achieve fulfilment?
9. Most importantly, when are you ready to commit to honestly answering all the aforementioned questions?
10. Now, seriously answer: When will you commit to taking responsibility for the choice that you make in your life?

If you are still pondering where to start, do try to use these strategies to create the work-life balance you seek:

1. Avoid checking work e-mails outside the office

While in the office, you’ll probably check your work -emails often to ensure that all meetings and deadlines are met. However, checking them when you’re off work allows your work life to encroach on your home life

• Set boundaries for yourself and your work colleagues regarding e-mails, so that you can take care of work communications only while at work.

2. Learn to say ‘No’

You may love your job, but it’s usually unnecessary to be available to your boss 24/7. We all need a break occasionally, and there is nothing wrong with saying ‘no’ once in a while, especially outside of your allotted work hours.

3. Work smarter, not harder

Instead of working all hours of the day, with very little rest, work smarter. You’ll actually get more done in a shorter period of time.

• Prioritise important tasks and do these tasks first each day.This way, the most important things always get done.

• Avoid unproductive activities, such as unstructured meetings or constantly checking your social media accounts

4. Leave work at work

This may be hard and may not always be possible, but when you clock off for the day, make a mental note that work has finished.

• Perhaps, take a moment to acknowledge that work has finished by stopping and taking a deep breath before your commute home. The reason for this is to ensure that you are not bringing the work and any stress associated with it home.

5. You don’t need to be perfect

Have you ever been on your way out of the office, only to turn back around because you thought of a way to make a report or task perfect? Sometimes, it pays to remind yourself that you and your work are good enough.

6. Focus on things outside work

For some of us, our work is our life, but what happens if one day we lose our job? Where does that leave us? It may be a scary thought, but it’s important to have a life outside work.

• Develop some hobbies that interest you. Spending time doing something that you love reduces stress and energisesyou while relaxing you and uplifting your mood. Add some “happy time” to your life!

7. Make your own rules

There has been a shift in work attitudes, especially among younger workers. More people – even bosses – are recognising the value of work-life balance. Come up with your own ideas that will help you separate your work from your home life and run them by your boss. They might just agree!

As you read through this article, take a moment to reflect on your learnings.

Turning to an ICF-credentialed coach also can help you find clarity and take the next step forward on your own journey to find a good work-life balance

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 35,000-plus members located in more than 140 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and upholding the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organizations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. Visit coachingfederation.org for more information.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Aditya Sisodia is an ICF ACC certified coach, author, serial entrepreneur, mentor, corporate trainer, keynote speaker, talk show host and psychologist (Associate with American Psychological Association). Sisodia is passionate about Leadership Career Transition and Business Strategy. He loves supporting executives and professionals from Fortune top 50 to overcome obstacles to achieve self-regulation, goal-directed persistence, task initiation, planning/prioritisation, role transition, organisationand time management. He has a strong determination to offer something different, with the intention of helping others succeed in their life/business. He is a member of the ICF Delhi NCR Charter Chapter.

The post Create a work-life balance that truly works for you! appeared first on HR Katha.

Most leaders believe that it is their job to think and strategise while it is for others to implement.

Even if leaders want to include others in the strategic thinking process, they are never sure if they will get honest and unbiased views or will everyone only play to the gallery.

One great way to challenge this mindset and help leaders discover what their people genuinely believe in is by resorting to facilitation, which I often do across my consulting and team coaching engagements.

I am always amazed at the wisdom that members collectively offer to solve the organisation’s problems when provided an opportunity. Almost every workshop ends with better-than-expected results, which speaks volumes for any organisation’s hidden talent and the effectiveness of the facilitation process in discovering this talent.

What is facilitation?

Facilitation in the context of business and organisational development is the process of designing and running a meeting or a workshop, or a series of multiple events according to a previously-agreed set of requirements. Facilitation serves the needs of any group, meeting with a common purpose, whether it is arriving at a decision, solving a problem, or simply exchanging ideas and information.

Why does facilitation work?

The value of facilitation lies in its ability to create and sustain an environment where everyone participates and every voice is heard. Each participant gets to contribute, irrespective of rank and status. The process helps guide the group to appropriate and useful outcomes in a collaborative and consensus-driven manner. Everyone walks out of the workshop feeling empowered and owning the decisions.

Any effectively conducted facilitation intervention should offer the following takeaways:

· Liberate leadership.

· Tap the collective capacity and wisdom of a group.

· Build inclusive participation.

· Engage everyone.

· Fuel bottoms-up innovation.

· Empower.

· Unshackle outdated ways of thinking.

· Unleash creative destruction.

· Get everyone to own the outcome.

The exciting thing is that one can conduct facilitation workshops with groups of any size, as small as 8-10, which is the typical size of a leadership team and large groups with 100 or more participants. Typical facilitation workshops usually start with an exciting check-in and some ice-breaking activities. It is incredible to discover how little people know about their colleagues despite working together for years and how delighted they are to find how much they have in common.

These initial activities help with rapport building and lower everyone’s defense shields, preparing them for the creative process to follow. The following sessions give people an opportunity to think individually around the central theme or burning question for the facilitation intervention. They then get to bounce off their creative ideas in a smaller group, build on each other’s ideas and finally arrive at some common ideas. Eventually, each group gets to share their ideas with the larger group. I like to end my facilitation workshops with a voting process so that participants get to list the group’s collective priorities.

So far, I have had the privilege of running facilitation workshops on very diverse outcomes, such as:

· What might we do to create new revenue opportunities?

· What more can we do to live our company values?

· What might be our enterprise-wide strategic priorities for and beyond?

· How do we operationalise our company values into specific actions and behaviours?

· How do we get to be a more inclusive organisation?

· What might our incremental, exponential and disruptive ideas look like?

· What can we do to become more customer-centric (as against being product-centric)?

These seemingly simple and straightforward outcomes emerge from a series of discussions with the CEO or the leadership team members.

The trick is to sum up the organisation’s most pressing challenges or priorities in a simple question to which everyone can relate.

As a facilitator, our job is to set in motion a process and create an atmosphere where people can contribute without being constrained by their roles and positions. The more cross-functional the participants are, the more value we get out of any facilitation process.

I genuinely believe that when it comes to facilitation interventions, the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts.

The only caveat is that group thinking should not hijack the facilitation process and a facilitator knows precisely how not to let this happen!

We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves – Galileo Galilei

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 35,000-plus members located in more than 140 countries and territories work toward the common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. Visit coachingfederation.org for more information.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi NCR, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Sandeep Jain is an ICF ACC credentialed coach, affiliated with the ICF Delhi NCR chapter. After spending 25+ years in various finance and business leadership roles across the Asia-Pacific, Sandeep is now based in India and works as a strategy consultant and leadership coach, while also mentoring startups. A chartered accountant and a certified internal auditor by qualification, he has pursued various executive-management education programmes. He is also a Marshall Goldsmith certified coach, a Peter Hawkins certified systemic and team coach, an NLP practitioner and a certified Hogan assessor. His company, called Value-Unlocked, partners with organisations and people to help them own change and create a better version of themselves.

The post Facilitation, a leadership tool that cannot be used enough! appeared first on HR Katha.

What is also changing is the make-up of the workforce. Millennials – the new ‘power group’ are well educated, skilled in technology, self-confident, and full of energy. They have high expectations of themselves, and many prefer to work in teams, rather than as individuals. Millennials seek challenges, yet work – life balance is of great importance to them.

Millennials are changing how work gets done, as they work more in teams and use more technology. Their social mindset, however, is also a significant factor. One of the characteristics of millennials is that they are prepared and willing to do well by doing good. Almost 70 percent say that giving back and being civically engaged are amongst their priorities.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is not a new thing. Defined as a type of international private business self-regulation that aims to contribute to societal goals of a philanthropic, activist, or charitable nature, by engaging in or supporting volunteering or ethically oriented practices, CSR is a fixture for many organisations. In some countries, reporting on CSR is one of the most highly anticipated corporate communication. In publicly- traded companies, stakeholders have started asking more questions about the impact or possible impact of such initiatives, and they make their purchasing decisions with that information at hand.

In fact, the United Nations Organisation (UNO) adopted the Global Co mpact (UNGC) —an international initiative proposed in 2000 by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan —to call for stronger corporate social responsibility in the four areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption, and ten principles in respective areas.

This not only brings a challenge but also a big opportunity for the leaders – to ensure that the business/enterprise they are spearheading is an attractive one to the workforce and stakeholders of tomorrow.

Benefits of CSR programmes are multiple, but four of them are commonly cited:

1. Increased employee satisfaction
2. Improved public image
3. Improved customer/stakeholder loyalty; and
4. Increased creativity

Not every organisation has resources to build complex and sophisticated CSR programmes, but everyone, from an individual to the entire enterprise, can participate in some way. Yet, many leaders are still waiting for permission to bring up social responsibility in the boardroom discussions. Not too many leaders and boards are familiar with the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. An even lesser number know how the actions of their own organisation or corporation can support them.

Working with an ICF professional coach can bring clarity in terms of goals that promote the organisation, as well as its mission and vision; meet the expectations of the stakeholders; and satisfy the expanded views of the employees about the value they offer. A professional coach is a person who partners with you and is committed to your accountability.

Professional coaches help improve lives, relationships and business performance, client by client. They make a real and measurable difference in people’s lives, which is why we’re passionate about making sure our ICF Professional coaches and the institutions that train them are well equipped to do their jobs.

Take the first step. Experience coaching for yourself

ICF has taken the lead in developing a definition and philosophy of coaching and establishing ethical standards among its members, while setting professional coaching standards and also giving consumers a venue to file ethics complaints.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering the role of coaching as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 35,000-plus members located in more than 140 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Magdalena Nowicka Mook brings experience in fundraising, coaching, as well as consulting and association management. She is the CEO and executive director of the International Coaching Federation(ICF), where she acts as a partner to ICF’s global board of directors. A trained professional coach and systems’ facilitator, she is a frequent speaker on trends in coaching and leadership development as well as regulation and ethics. Having completed an MS in economics and international trade —from the Warsaw School of Economics, Poland —this graduate from the Copenhagen Business School’s Advanced Programme in International Management and Consulting, is a member of the Women’s Foreign Policy Group; Forbes.com Council on Non-profits. She also serves as a Chair of the International Section Council of ASAE, and isa member of the Advisory Board for Institute of Organisational Mindfulness.

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In the past 16 months, COVID-19 has impacted us all and upended our lives. The threat of illness and the loss of loved ones has engendered an atmosphere of reflection. The isolation and inertia of lockdowns has given us the space to consider the way we live our lives and whether we would like to bring about change.

We shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, that the number of people exploring a new career as a professional coach has boomed during this period, either by choice or necessity.

In order to understand what’s driving this move towards a career as a coach and how new entrants are breaking into the profession in these exceptional circumstances, I spoke to Virginia, who is just embarking on her journey towards becoming an ICF credentialed coach.

Anyone can call themselves a coach, but ICF Credentialed Coaches are professional coaches who have met stringent education and experience requirements. They have demonstrated a thorough understanding of the coaching competencies that set the standard in the profession. In addition, ICF Credentialed Coaches adhere to strict ethical guidelines as part of ICF’s mission to protect and serve coaching consumers.

After an accomplished career working in the design and luxury fashion industry, Virginia had moved into working as a business consultant in the sector, as well as lecturing. When the pandemic hit, that revenue stream evaporated overnight.

“I took some time to think about my work, how best to invest in the future and what my legacy would be” says Virginia. “I reflected on my career and realised that the most interesting and fulfilling area was managing people. My instinct was that if one puts humans and their professional and personal fulfilment at the heart of one’s organisation, it will ultimately feed into the success of the company”

“I believe that everyone has the potential to become their best selves, to follow and realise their dreams and aspirations but sometimes don’t reach their goal” she continues. “This can be for many reasons, but sometimes we simply need a guiding hand to help us create those opportunities for change and growth. It became clear to me that my skills and experiences should become the foundation of my own new journey and so I set my goal to train as a Life Coach”

We’re all aware of the number of ‘gurus’ offering insight and affirmations, but often people at the junction of a career-change are more cautious with their cash and want to ‘try before they buy’.

Virginia explains, “I enrolled in one of the $199 a pop online lecture courses. It was enlightening, but slightly alarming that, after listening to several hours of tutorials, I was being encouraged to try out my new ‘skills’ on an unsuspecting fellow human!

I was aware of the regulatory bodies for counselling and therapy and so explored the equivalent for Life Coaching and came across the International Coaching Federation (ICF), which I discovered also offered accreditation to organisations offering Life Coaching Courses. I chose to work towards the ICF accreditation as it seems the most rigorous. With reference books, note pads and new pens adorning my desk, I enrolled with an ICF-accredited training provider and started my training in October 2020.”

Virginia is currently working towards a Certificate in Professional Coaching Practice under the ICF Code of Ethics and Competencies, which will allow her to apply for membership of the ICF. She will then continue her learning and practical journey towards becoming a fully certified ICF Coach.

For those preparing to transition from a ‘job’ into a career, time and finances may be tight.

The flexibility of the training was a strong draw for Virginia. “The attraction of scheduled live learning sessions was massively important,” she says. “I was juggling my life; trying to earn a living with two jobs, supporting myself, friends and family through the pandemic and joked about all the different hats I had to wear so it was valuable to have set times, when I had to stop and focus totally on the training.”

Interacting virtually has become part of the process of continuing our personal and professional lives during the pandemic and has made off-site learning less of an obstacle to those wanting to become coaches.

“It’s been exciting to meet virtually and interact with peers across the globe and it was surprising that deep connections could be made during our training sessions despite the barrier of the screen,” continues Virginia. “The one disappointment was missing out on socialising at the end of the study days, which can prove so interesting and beneficial. To compensate, we’ve set up peer-to-peer check-in groups and we meet online monthly to catch up with each other.”

Coaching is a multi-disciplined, non-hierarchical practice and embraces personal or life coaching, corporate or executive coaching, team or performance coaching to name a few. However, ultimately, the goal of coaching is universal; to support and empower the client to unlock their goals, leverage their strengths and realise their full potential.

Whilst it may be of benefit to have professional experience within a sector if that’s where one is going to pitch one’s coaching business, personal skills and qualities are more powerful.

Successful coaches have a strong belief in human potential, a high level of integrity, can connect to their intuition, are objective, intelligent, focused, flexible, enquiring and non-judgemental with a wiliness to go on their own coaching journey.

“The most important attribute for me is that the coaches adopt a committed approach to a coaching mindset not only in their practice but in their life and that they coach under regulated and controlled guidelines,” comments Virginia.

There’s no doubt that the enforced changes to work patterns the pandemic has imposed will have lasting effects, as employers value the productivity over presenteeism.

For Virginia, the flexibility in terms of hours and location offered by a career as a life coach was an appealing aspect of embracing this path as a career. “It feels inevitable that the current situation is giving people the impetus to live a life that has more purpose,” she says.

There’s no doubt that the fallout from the pandemic has resulted in an increased need and demand for coaching. Companies have had to pivot their businesses and manage change, teams have been fractured and revaluated, people have been working under intense stress; enhanced leadership skills and support for the humans affected are key. It feels more important than ever that leaders understand the key benefits of harnessing the power from within by unlocking their potential and that of those around them.

My conversation with Virginia made it clear that individuals have also experienced unprecedented, unexpected challenges and that disruption has provoked a change of thought about where they want their life or career to go. It seems that everyone is trying to cope with more than one change, and this can be overwhelming even for the most balanced person.

Coaching provides a supported space in which the coach works in a thought-provoking way with the client to unlock and set a goal, whatever it may be, and then encourages the client to create a manageable path to achieve that goal unpicking any limiting beliefs and blocks along the way.

So, what are this beginner coach’s thoughts about a post-Covid future? “There will be a long-term effect on wellbeing within the workplace and at home, but the full effect of this will not be known for some time,” says Virginia. “Many people are living in constant ‘fight or flight’ mode which, in the long term, erodes our natural resources and leaves us emotionally and physically depleted. Coaching will have a fundamental and essential role to support people to establish a new and solid internal ground from which they can step forward.”

Professional coaching services can be found using ICF’s directory of credentialed coaches spread all over the world

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is the world’s largest organisation leading the global advancement of the coaching profession and fostering coaching’s role as an integral part of a thriving society. Founded in 1995, its 35,000-plus members located in more than 140 countries and territories work toward common goals of enhancing awareness of coaching and upholding the integrity of the profession through lifelong learning and maintaining the highest ethical standards. Through the work of its six unique family organisations, ICF empowers professional coaches, coaching clients, organisations, communities and the world through coaching. Visit coachingfederation.org for more information.

In India, ICF is represented by six vibrant chapters, all led by volunteers — ICF Bengaluru, ICF Chennai, ICF Delhi, ICF Mumbai, ICF Pune and ICF Hyderabad.

The author, Rainer Pratl has joined ICF Professional Coaches in May 2020 as the strategic development director for EMEA. Rainer develops and implements strategies that strengthen ICF’s presence and influence. He focuses on member growth and deepening member engagement with the goal of establishing and growing healthy chapter communities. Rainer has a wealth of experience working with volunteers in non-profit membership organisations. An experienced leader of international and virtual teams, he is skilled in building and leading cross-cultural teams and complex projects. Originally from Austria, Rainer has lived in London for the last 15 years. In previous roles, he worked as a corporate development manager at Walgreens Boots Alliance, and as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. Rainer has an MBA from the London Business School and a PhD in finance and accounting.

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