Ewing Change Consulting Resource Centre

Prerequisites for a Successful Coaching Engagement

Executive coaching is an intensive one-to-one professional relationship that is structured toward improving the performance of the individual being coached and the results of the sponsoring organization. Executive coaching is a future-oriented relationship that is focused on understanding barriers to performance and designing strategies and actions to eliminate those barriers and improve effectiveness. Coaching is most effectively employed when it is used to do one or more of the following:

1. Address individual and organizational change, which will improve performance
2. Enable personal transformation and career-role transition
3. Support the development of future leaders
4. Address a specific problem area or challenge
5. Facilitate the creation of an organizational culture that values, learning, creativity, and continuous improvement.

There are some prerequisites or pre-conditions for coaching to be effective:

1. If the coaching is mandated by the organization the supervisor needs to lay out in very clear and certain terms the learning that they expect the person to acquire during the coaching assignment. In contentious circumstances, it is recommended that this be put in writing and given to the coachee so that they are able to refer to it from time to time. Regardless of whether it is written down, the clearer the supervisor can be about the change they wish to see and the growth they are asking for, the more likely the coaching assignment will be successful. This communication should not simply be left up to the coach.
2. The coachee needs to acknowledge to their supervisor and to the coach that there is work to be done and that they are willing to do it.
3. The organization’s management and the coachee’s direct supervisor needs to be willing to give the person time to make changes and to understand and expect some rough transitional times as growth neither happens “in a straight line” nor overnight.
4. The coachee needs to meet the coach and agree that they are comfortable working with him/her and make the acknowledgement to the coach of the learning they need to make. If the coachee is not comfortable with a specific coach, another coach should be engaged.

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