5 Reasons You Need a Coaching Culture in 2019

As you ponder what’s ahead in 2019 for you and your organization, what comes to mind? Along with the hope that a fresh start brings, there may be concerns about the increasing unpredictability of the world we live and work in. Rather than fearing change, let 2019 be the year that you prepare yourself and your organization to greet change as an opportunity to learn, reinvent and thrive by instilling a coaching culture.

Here are five reasons we, at Cylient, believe you and your organization will benefit from cultivating a coaching culture in 2019.

Reason #1: The Conversations People are NOT Having are NOT Helping.

If you think about it, the conversations people avoid are likely the ones they most need to have. Consider for a moment what the sound of silence is costing your company.

What would life look like in your organization if people:

• Routinely chose to address their differences in productive ways?
• Shared their most original thinking with infectious enthusiasm?
• Enjoyed building on each other’s ideas, rather than tearing them down?

By instilling a coaching culture, you give people the tools to engage in the essential conversations they are currently avoiding. And perhaps more importantly, when the goal of leadership is redefined as coaching others to realize more of their potential, you will give people the permission and purpose to use those tools consistently.

People need to feel that it’s safe to change. Coaching cultures provide the platform and the purpose for establishing a culture where people have productive, appreciative “in the moment” conversations that facilitate finding shared paths forward. Wouldn’t that be a great gift to give your organization in 2019?

Reason #2: Is it Time for Coaching 2.0, or 3.0…?

Is 2019 the time to rejuvenate your coaching approach and take it to the next level?

Everything needs to get updated from time to time, including how your organization approaches coaching. In the same way that sales is always exploring new ways to attract clients, and IT keeps sending out new updates to keep software current, your enterprise-wide approach to coaching may need updating too.

Not sure if you need an update? Consider:

• Are people using your established coaching approaches like they used to, or have they lost their enthusiasm for coaching as a leadership style?
• Is the current coaching approach so prescriptive that it only works in a few situations? Or is it so complicated that no one can remember it?
• Or perhaps your organization doesn’t have an enterprise-wide approach to coaching yet. Maybe 2019 is the year to put that in place so your organization will have a shared coaching language that enables people to resolve issues and build connections throughout your organization.

If it’s time for a refresh, we hope you’ll consider our Untying the Knot® approach to coaching. It can take coaching-based leadership to the next level in your organization by:

• Instilling a simple, comprehensive, memorable approach to “in the moment” coaching and feedback that works at all levels in your organization, for all coaching situations.
• Giving people tools that go beyond just asking questions, so that coaching conversations happen faster and are more effective.
• Providing a methodology that enables people to partner coaching and feedback in a seamless, effective way.
• Creating a shared global language that unites people across any kind of border or boundary.
• Reinforcing the learnings with a suite of offerings including our digital learning, a reinforcement email series, our Coaching Moments^® mobile app and more.

This approach doesn’t negate your current approach, it just takes it to the next level.

Reason #3: A coaching culture will keep your millennials happy, so you can keep them.

The kind of coaching that many millennials are receiving now is not the coaching they want. When managers “coach” millennials by telling them what to do and then correcting them when the manager thinks what they are doing is wrong, millennials will choose to leave your organization.

By 2025, it is estimated that millennials will comprise 75% of the global workforce—which means you can’t afford to lose them. Millennials have some really amazing gifts, skills and talents that bring innovation and positive change to organizations when encouraged and supported. We don’t just want to keep them, we want them to flourish and contribute because that’s good for all of us.

Your millennials will stay engaged with appreciative, “in the moment” feedback and coaching that will help them realize their potential. They don’t want to know what’s wrong; they want to know what’s possible.

Keep your millennials happy by exploring our Coaching in the Moment® and Feedback in the Moment® workshops, which demonstrate how to provide the coaching that supports millennials in their careers.

Reason #4: Coaching Unravels Complexity

More and more often, people are faced with challenges they’ve never seen before. And neither has anyone else. As a result, your team may need to co-create together quickly to address these problems. In order to thrive in an increasingly complex world, we need to reimagine how we work, and how we lead.

Translating complexity into opportunities requires people with different perspectives and agendas to learn with and from each other. To do that successfully, they need a whole new set of skills such as appreciating how others see the world, listening for the emotional context in situations, and igniting insights for others in ways that invite them to consider new ideas. Those are the kinds of skills that coaching-based leadership is founded on.

When “in the moment” coaching becomes a way of life, people can confidently step into new challenges because they have the skills they need to imagine and realize new possibilities, together.

Reason #5:  Coaching Creates a Unifying Language

In an often divisive and polarized world, it can be challenging to talk about our most pressing issues in productive and appreciative ways. Cylient’s Untying the Knot® approach to “in the moment coaching and feedback” can serve as a shared, universal language that helps people to find common ground.

Effective coaching conversations are founded on appreciating how others see the world and helping them to discover positive paths forward when they encounter limitations of any kind. You can’t judge someone and coach them; it isn’t possible. When coaching becomes a way of life, people must choose between holding on to their judgments or engaging in coaching to constructively address shared challenges.

Make 2019 the year you give your people the tools they need to build a more unified and unifying culture in your organization.