Modalities of Coaching: Advantages and Disadvantages

What is a modality you might ask? It’s a fancy word for a form of coaching – And coaching can take place in many forms

In my book: Coach Culture: A Playbook for Winning in Business – I talk about what coaching is – why it works- and then start getting into the meat of it: The How

How you deliver coaching in the many forms it might take

Inside a company there are three main forms of coaching- Let’s take them one at a time

External: External coaches are not employed by the company they are providing coaching for. This is typically where coaching begins in an organization. Usually, at the C-suite level, Executives receive coaching to help round out their performance, whether enhancing existing talents or revealing blind spots – the focus on modifying behavior and habits.

This step of having executives experience coaching by a professional coach is key, as many executives believe they are coaches – in the sense that they help their subordinates perform but the difference being they are telling them what to do as a subject matter expert vs. being an expert in the Coaching process and helping others decide what to do.

These coaching experiences at the C-suite often last 12-18 months sometimes up to 2 years.

The advantages? The professional Coach knows what the exec’s peers are doing in the industry and what they are facing. They are not swayed by the politics inside the organization, and they have enough distance to ask fundamental questions and not make assumptions.

The disadvantage? Sometimes it does help to know the history and culture of an organization from the inside, to know how changes may be received. And of the modalities- this is the highest cost, perhaps because it is the most valuable. The habits and behaviors modified here affect the culture and the bottom line of the company.

Early in my career when I was coaching execs, I lamented I couldn’t reach more people – but a colleague reminded me that changes this one person made affected 1000 downstream. This made me appreciate every win with a client that much more.

The 2nd modality: Internal Coaches- These are people employed by the company they coach for. They attend staff meetings, comply with required training, and are measured by the KPIs that the coaching program is targeting.

Early on – companies used to – and still do hire credentialled coaches from the outside to become employees and coaches. Now I see many organizations take already proven leaders who have enormous emotional intelligence and a passion for people and send them to Coach school to become professionally trained. The advantage is /

Many internal coaches share coaching with other responsibilities – such as Organizational Development, Learning Organizations, or even Engineering. This allows the organization to flex for demands in coaching such as on the back end of a training event, or high-potential programs.

The third modality: Leaders with Coaching skills. These are leaders who have had some professional coach training – learning the skill essentials and a coaching conversation model but use the skills as part of their role vs. conducting formal coaching engagements with agreements or contracts. I’ve seen this applied in many ways such as Project Managers who coach aspiring project managers, but most often it is the leader using coaching skills with their direct staff in team settings and in one on ones.

Advantages? The benefits of coaching – clarity, excellent listening, better communication in everyday interactions not just scheduled appointments. By far the biggest bang for any organization’s buck. Caveat? These leaders need to have experienced coaching themselves to really get it, and they need the regular refresher to keep good habits and not slide into advising.

All three of these modalities can also apply terrific team coaching and group coaching. These applications allow organizations to address team goals, affinity groups, and desires such as productivity, career growth, and wellness. (we’ll talk more about these applications next week.)

So, If you’re interested in building a coaching culture- where should you start?

Start with experiencing coaching. Get the distinctions between what you think coaching is – and what it really is. As I have said before – I thought it knew it all when I went to coaching school “I’ve been coaching for years…” but then I learned there wasn’t giving advice – and I had to go and unlearn all that. Learn for yourself how it’s different to find someone listening without an agenda. They are completely focused on you. They want what you want – and they tell the truth about what they are hearing vs. observing – what incongruence they see- and without judgment ask what you want to do about it.

Until you really ‘get’ coaching you can’t assign it to your top talent or use it as a tool to solve your retention problem.

Coaching isn’t a feel-good perk – although it does feel good – it is a problem solver. It accelerates change with action aligned with purpose. When I consult with organizations, I highly recommend they assign the coaching intervention to solve an organizational challenge. Something they can measure.

Where is your organization in the coaching maturity model?

Are you beginners needing an overview and a revealing of the map?
Are you experiencing coaching and witnessing its benefits but not sure how to expand? Are you using coaching in all your interactions?

Let me give your organization an overview of what to expect in a Coaching Culture.

Our tool of the week is the coaching agreement. The coaching agreement for the professional coach is much like a contract for a single conversation. The coach and the client agree to a topic – and the desired outcome and the coach asks questions throughout the conversation, based on what the client has offered that help arrives at that outcome. This is much like a meeting objective and outcome, but how often do you do this for your one-on-one conversations? And how often do you have competing agendas that you don’t surface?

SO, HERE’S YOUR fieldwork –because COACHING WITHOUT ACTION ISN’T COACHIng – IT’S JUST ENTERTAINMENT Try to have an agreement for each business meeting you have this week – and the outcome may be as simple as your colleague feeling heard and supported. Note how often you can cancel a meeting because there wasn’t a clear objective and outcome and for those you did have- how nice it was to be transparent and clear. If you’d like to schedule a webinar learning how to design the agreement. Contact me at shawna@shawnacorden.com