The Coach Potatoes
A good coach will make people see what they can be, rather than what they are.Archive for Coaching in the UK
Coaching takes up too much time….
UK managers are too busy to coach, according to the latest research.
Nearly half of UK and Irish respondents to an international survey on the effectiveness of coaching say they find coaching employees too time consuming.
And nearly a third said their biggest coaching challenge was that they “didn’t have all the answers”.
Global consulting firm BlessingWhite conducted the survey among 2,041 employees and managers in 17 countries, exploring a number of business issues including the prevalence and effectiveness of coaching.
According to the findings set out in The Coaching Conundrum 2009, 42 per cent of managers in the UK and Ireland said coaching takes them too long and competes with other priorities. Thirty per cent said they didn’t coach because they “didn’t have all the answers”.
As a result, nearly two thirds (61 per cent) of employees in the UK and Ireland who took part in the survey said they received no coaching from their managers.
According to the research, these issues are global. Thirty two per cent of managers around the world cite lack of time as the major obstacle to effective coaching. In the US, the number was slightly lower at 29 per cent and in Asia the number was 38 per cent.
BlessingWhite’s UK MD Tom Barry said: “It can’t be forgotten that employees are a business’s greatest asset, even in the midst of the global financial crisis. Coaching is one of the most effective methods of aligning employees with organisational priorities. It can also boost performance, develop the leadership pipeline, engage employees and improve retention.
“Senior management must work to address this perception [that coaching takes too long], especially at a time of economic difficulty.”
Coaching could become time-consuming if managers got too involved in their subordinates’ work and felt as though they had to solve all the problems: “These managers don’t lack energy and commitment but they do lack focus and a clear understanding of what coaching is, and what it is not.”
Solution: Bring in an external coach to help solve the poblem! 🙂
The Coach Potatoes 