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Business Coaching in Malaysia
More
and more companies and organisations, both public and private, are
turning to business coaches to help them navigate through the constant
changes and demands to the marketplace. Business coaching is now a
widely accepted term, with increasing numbers of businesses
recognising its benefits and applications. Business coaching can be
applied to all types of businesses. It ranges from one-on-one
executive coaching and team coaching in large corporations and public
organisations, to coaching managers and owners of small-to-medium
sized companies in both individual and group formats. Our coaching
practice has a specialist business coaching unit.
Business
coaching has emerged as a critical activity to support individual and
team development and provide new directions in customer satisfaction,
productivity and overall organisational effectiveness. It is a
professional service for organisations wishing to master continuing
change and achieve their business objectives. Like other competitive
individuals, such as athletes who hire a personal coach to improve and
enhance their performance, players in the business game are
appreciating that they too acquire coaching in acquiring, maintaining
and updating their skills and competencies.
Coaching
is about change, and change entails learning. Learning is not just
about obtaining knowledge; it requires being able to demonstrate this
knowledge by taking action. The business coach’s role is to observe
and provide an objective perspective on the issues and problems on
what is working and what is not working. A coach is not affected by
internal company politics and can recognise patterns and anticipate
negative trends before the owner or manager does. The coach asks
questions in a manner that facilitates a discussion of possibilities
and opportunities, and guides and supports individuals through the
process of personal and organisational performance and development.
Business
coaches aim to develop more competent, effective and productive
individuals. Business coaching is transformational. Whereas training
impacts on people’s ability to do the job, they often continue to
push and pull the same ‘wagon’. Coaches move business owners and
leaders into an ‘adult’ mode of operation.
Self-knowledge
and self-awareness play a crucial role in being a successful coach and
a successful business person. Coaching is about developing character,
personal maturity, ethics and vision. It is about an individual
becoming the best human being possible. The foundation of the business
coaching experience lies in the coachee’s discovery of his or her
true self and building a sense of community within a company and with
clients. Applying such wisdom to business is likely to result in good
client and employee relationships, as well as increased market share
and productivity. Business coaching can play a vital part in
transformational changes and can result in:
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Increased
productivity
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A
happier, more creative work environment
-
Highly
satisfied customers
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A
trusting supportive climate
The
benefits of business coaching are numerous, and range from reducing
hours at work and developing relationship with clients, to expanding
and developing a wider market base.
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Some key business coaching applications
Business
coaching is applicable to all types of businesses and takes myriad
forms. The following lists are most frequently called on to carry out
coaching interventions.
-
Strategic
planning
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Goal-setting
and action-planning: companies frequently choose a course of
action but are unable to operationalise their goals. The business
coach is invaluable in helping business managers to clarify and
prioritise their goals, and develop strategies and plans to
achieve them.
-
Identifying
and coaching ‘hidden employees’: in the Information Age,
increasing numbers of ‘invisible’ technical and support people
are vital to many organisations. Coaches can assist managers to
identify and reward such workers, foster a sense of appreciation,
belonging and worth, and develop leadership principles that
encourage commitment and motivation among them.
-
Managing
in the computer age: previous styles of leadership were based on
the control of information. However, in an age when employees have
instant access to so much data, this approach is obsolete. Coaches
can assist managers to develop skills and competencies to meet the
challenges of the Information Age, such as working with or as part
of a virtual team, sharing information and acting as a resource
person.
-
Networking,
enlisting the support of other business owners and sharing ideas
and resources.
-
Identifying
and eliminating procedures and systems that stifle staff.
-
Helping
owners and managers interface with senior management, the board
and investors.
-
Improving
negotiation skills with both internal staff and external clients
and customers.
-
Identifying
new market targets and future investment opportunities.
-
Assisting
with effective time management by improving an individual’s time
allocation and encouraging them to become more focused and
organised.
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What is coaching compared with Counseling?
Workplace
counseling is often confused with coaching.
Counseling usually deals with the underperformance
by resolving a particular problem such as stress, anxiety, poor
quality work, absenteeism and frequently missed deadlines.
So the purpose of counseling is to get problem
employees to recognize the gaps between their actual and desired
performance, identify the source of problem and develop action plan to
address it.
Coaching
on the other hand, is a process
of continual development by which employees gain the skills and
abilities they need to develop professionally and personally and
perform better at work and in their personal lives. If counseling look
for causes, coaching emphasizes new competencies and new actions and
if counseling is need-based, coaching involves an initial ongoing
contract of three to six months.
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What is coaching compared to Training?
Training is implanting new skill and knowledge and then transfer them
into measurable performance improvement (or putting the skills into
practice). The
agenda is fixed by the trainer, thus changes come from outside.
In coaching, it is the individuals that set the agenda.
It is not fixed but
can be fluid and flexible. If
training results in changes coming from outside, coaching works
with the client to clarify values and enhance intrinsic motivation.
Training normally reinforce traditional, hierarchical
style of management, where as coaching is a more democratic,
collaborative process. Sometimes
the roles of training and coaching overlap especially when the
following principles are adhered to:
a) emphasize learner
independence and choice
b)
emphasize and develop intrinsic motivation
c)
encourage and develop natural curiosity
d)
develop higher order abilities.
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Coaching compared with Consulting
Both consulting and coaching aim to support organizational change.
But consultants tend to be expert within a specific industry or
business, where as coach’s expertise is in the domain of (strong in)
conversation, communication, interpersonal skills and emotions. The
coach does not have to be an expert in the business field.
So, if consultant’s services are information based, coach’s
services revolves around relationship.
Consultants are frequently expected to provide or prescribe
answers, where as coach evokes answers from the individual.
So in one sense, all
coaches are consultants, where as few consultants are coaches.
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Coaching compared with Mentoring
Mentoring is also frequently confused with coaching.
Mentoring is normally described as a natural way of passing
knowledge, skills, and experience to others by
someone who is usually older and wiser with a broad life experience
and specific experience. Therefore
mentoring is a hierarchical relationship involving a wise senior who
dispensed wisdom, knowledge but based on mutual, and collaborative
learning alliance. In this
way, mentoring invents a future based on the expertise and wisdom of
another, where as coaching is about inventing a future from the
individual’s own possibilities.
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