Do I Need an Executive Coach?
You’ve crafted an amazing training program, featuring great trainers, and have both mentors and a senior leadership team ready to support the process – But there’s just one thing you’re missing. What’s lacking is something that would ensure the learning is transferred to the real-life work environment for your company to get the best return on investment.
The solution is coaching. By introducing coaching into your training programs, you are incorporating the “secret” ingredient of a truly successful development initiative. It makes sure that you will get the most improvement in behavior and performance of your people. Here is how.
Professional coaching provides ways for people to process the new information learned during training and apply the skills to real-life work situations while concepts are still fresh in their minds from the training. After the initial training, a coach can come in to maximize the results of the development initiatives.
Coaching is something that may not be obvious at first and that many companies are missing; they then wonder why training courses do not achieve the expected improvements.
Why is Training Not Enough on its Own?
For an employee, applying new concepts learned in training sessions is typically not an easy feat. Often it involves changing old habits that have been forming for years and have their support system in the brain as well as their benefits (any habit provides certain benefits). To change the ways of thinking, to enable the application of new skills and behaviors, is not a one- or two-day process. It requires time and a lot of self-work. Coaches support and facilitate the personal inner transformation and ensure not only that the actual change in behavior happens but that it becomes a long lasting one.
Preventing the Return to Old Habits
Without the appropriate coaching after training, it is easy for an employee to return to old habits. Coaching helps prevent this from happening by pursuing the employee’s embodiment of new skills learned during training.
Usually, at the end of training, the program participants develop personal action plans for goals they want to achieve and outline the steps to get there. Having a great plan is just one step towards the real change. There is a lot of work in between. A professional coach helps people to overcome internal obstacles or inner resistance to change old ways of doing, thinking, and being, and form new behaviors.
As a result, your business is more likely to see positive changes in the workplace and in overall productivity.
Ways to Integrate Coaching into the Training Curriculum:
One method is to embed coaching before the training and then offer post-workshop sessions with the coach. Alternatively, other companies prefer to offer coaching, training, coaching, training, and so forth. A coaching session can vary in size too, whether it be one-on-one or in small groups. It can also be structured or unstructured. The most important point, though, regardless of how the session looks, is that the coach emphasizes what has been learned in training and endeavors to create long-lasting change.
There are different ways that companies invest in coaching. Many businesses invest in coaching for leaders at all levels, from senior management to front-line workers. There are different ways to implement the coaching sessions, depending on what works best for your company’s needs and preferences.
Why Bring in a Coach Now?
The better question to ask is, why invest in training only to throw away the learned information because it has not been reinforced in the learner’s mind?
Coaching provides a way to support the employee in ways that provide long-lasting behavioral change, based on the principles learned during training classes.
To gain further benefit from coaching, link it with key initiatives taught in training and to leadership strategies. It is important to recognize that coaching takes time and financial investments to see results, unlike taking one or two training courses. The coaching investment is important though and well worth the resources. It is imperative to crafting future leaders and instilling more productive habits in employees. This process can give you an amazing return on investment.
To see how coaching can benefit training and development programs in your organization, please email us. I look forward to talking with you and your team about opportunities for integrating coaching into your existing classes.
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