Coaching executives into form
Business news Sunday times
Marcia Klein and Adele Shevel
Businesses are devoting more time and money to human capital, recognising that unlocking this resource is good for the bottom line. Life coaches - often referred to as executive coaches - help people set clear goals and work towards achieving them within a clear time frame.
A review by Harvard Management says coaching can have a positive influence on performance, though it is not a short-term process.
Cathy Joy, a San Francisco-based coach, is quoted in the Harvard paper saying coaching taps people’s creativity. It encourages them to be more flexible and adaptable, which can have a substantial effect on the bottom line.
Karin Osler, an executive director of the Centre for Conscious Leadership, based in Cape Town, says coaching is best integrated into leadership development processes: how should people grow as whole beings and then operate as more transformational leaders? It’s about acting with awareness, with greater choice and insight into one’s behaviour and its effect on others, she says.
Craig O’Flaherty, director of the Centre for Coaching at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, says executive coaching is a new trend in South Africa going back three years. In the US it’s been a profession for about 20 years and in Europe about 10 years. But O’Flaherty says the reaction from corporate South Africa has been positive. Executives are realising there may be more effective ways to operate and they recognise there may be a smarter way of thinking and doing things. The process involves facilitating people to get beyond that which is holding them back, building competencies or more fundamental life or career changes.
Executive coach Margaret Jenks says a coach should not be taken on because it’s the “in thing” to do. “If it’s a bit like a fashion accessory - I have a Beamer and now I have my executive coach - that doesn’t work. It takes a lot of work.”
Zweli Manyathi, chief executive of Branch Delivery at FNB, says there is value in employing life coaches to groom executives at both middle and upper-management levels. “While MBA programmes are quick to teach the intellectual skill, there is another side to the equation that provides executives with the skill to walk the talk and this cannot be taught at university.”
Jenks says coaches need empathy and real objectivity. The relationship between a coach and trainee can last from a few months to several years. There has to be mutual trust and respect.
O’Flaherty says research shows that up to 50% of American Fortune 500 companies now use coaching as part of their management intervention. There are about 10 000 coaches in the US.
Executive coaching in South Africa is being used by a diverse range of industries, including insurers and banks, retailers and oil and energy companies. Some of the companies include Shell, Standard Bank, Nedcor, FNB and Sanlam.
Life coaches tend to come from a background in consulting, are retired executives or they enter through the avenue of psychology.
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