Authored by: Maimon Md Arif

Should a non-profit organization (NGO) set a budget for the personal development of their team? As a funder, how would you want your donations to be spent? In a discussion on the roadblocks faced by NGOs in their personal developments, one particular feedback caught my attention and inspired me to write this article. The feedback read; “Attending training, or any self-development event, is not part of the job scope for someone working in a non-profit organization. If at all it is budgeted for, it should be done outside the organization’s paid time”.

 

I get it, NGOs are funded by the public, philanthropic organizations, or grants from foundations, corporate or government; and it is common for these funders to set restrictions to ensure the funds are efficiently utilized for the chosen cause. However, we need to be mindful that the program doesn’t roll out by itself, it requires dedicated, passionate, and professional NGO partners to execute it effectively and efficiently. A Malay proverb “Jadikan diri umpama lilin, membakar diri menerangi orang lain” (Be a candle, they burn themselves to give light to others) is noble but not sustainable. You can’t pour from an empty cup.

NGOs are faced with many challenges both at personal and organizational levels. Often unsupported and isolated – fueled only by passion and heart - they work long hours with stretched resources in uncertain and challenging environments to help the most disadvantaged or marginalized members of their communities.

They dedicated themselves trying to save the community, the environment, making the world a better place by performing ‘miracles’ with meager resources. Having to shoulder this demanding and stressful undertaking with very little time for self-care, it is not surprising to observe high incidents of burnt outs. NGOs are change agents and their journey is a marathon; and like marathon runners, as they pace themselves, it is instrumental to provide them with the support they need such as the water stations, cheerleaders, and running mates as they make their way to the finish line.

The benefits of investing in self-development through coaching for business leaders are well established. The coaching process creates a ripple effect, impacting people beyond the coach/coachee relationship. Through coaching, NGOs are given the opportunity to discover and rediscover themselves, allowing them to grow and elevate their impact to their community, helping them to do good better.

Authored by: Jeff Cheah

In her book, "Presence," Amy Cuddy says that people quickly answer two questions when they first meet you:

Can I trust this person?

Can I respect this person?

Psychologists refer to these dimensions as warmth and competence, respectively, and ideally you want to be perceived as having both.

Interestingly, Cuddy says that most people, especially in a professional context, believe that competence is the more important factor. After all, they want to prove that they are smart and talented enough to handle your business.

But in fact, warmth, or trustworthiness, is the most important factor in how people evaluate you.

But while competence is highly valued, Cuddy says that it is evaluated only after trust is established. And focusing too much on displaying your strength can backfire.

New behavioral science with research showed that "When we judge others - especially our leaders - we look first at two characteristics: how lovable they are (their warmth, communion, or trustworthiness) and how fearsome they are (their strength, agency, or competence)

So how does that apply to Coaching?

In Executive Coaching for Senior Leaders, we have what we called "chemistry check" where Senior Leaders will be allowed to choose the Coach they are most comfortable with. From my personal experience, it doesn't matter whether the Coach has 20 years of Coaching experience or has written 3 books or has been voted the Award winning Coach, it's how he come across to the Senior Leaders when he introduced himself, the warmth or friendliness he displayed, how he demonstrate curiosity, empathy and compassion.

Former US President Theodore Roosevelt rightly pointed out "People do not care about how much you know until they know how much you care"

So how do you show care and warmth?

1. Ask about them rather than talk about you. Make them feel special and unique

2. Seek to understand then to be understood, a mantra one of my Coachees holds dear to & one of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits for Effective People

3. Listen as if he is the only person in the room

4. Be vulnerable and be not afraid to embarrass or laugh at yourself. It shows that you are a human being afer all.

5. Be humble. CS Lewis said "Humility is not about thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less"

I will do better in my next chemistry check. While holding space for my confidence & competence, I'd have to show all the "care and warmth" behaviors as stated above.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

So the next time you go on stage, remember "before people decide what they think of your message, they decide what they think of you"

What do you think? Which comes first - Warmth or Competence? Think about the cavemen!

Credits: HBR article Connect, Then Lead by Amy Cuddy, Matthew Kohut & John Neffinger

Authored by: Ng Eng Hooi

Enhance Employee Experience with the Coaching Experience

A strong coaching culture will make an organization become the top employer in the employer market. Employees will be proud to share externally, and candidates will want to be part of the company. Top talents prefer to join a company with a culture of openness, creativity and innovation, diversity and inclusion, collaboration, and focus on development.

The employee experience is critically important in retaining employees. HR needs to look into the stages of employee experiences and enrich them with the coaching experience.

Attract

Millennials say that the “quality of the manager” is a top factor they consider when looking for a new job. Strong internal employer branding has successfully attracted not only young talents but experienced managers to join coaching organizations. Instead of investing in external employer branding, putting resources into building a coaching culture will position the organization as a better brand in the employer market.

Hire

Hire candidates who possess coaching traits. For example, a manager who is empowering and engaging, has the development mindset, challenges the status quo, and embraces diversity and inclusion.

Hire an individual with a coachable mindset, who is open to feedback, is open to collaboration, self-development focused, and loves to help people.

Onboard

It’s also essential for new employees to experience the coaching organization and the culture on the first day. The onboarding process is important to provide the first opportunity to identify a coaching opportunity, and it also introduces the coaching culture experience to a new employee as well as the company values and coaching culture direction, open-concept working spaces,
and diversity and inclusion practices.

Training

Incorporating coaching into the leadership program is one effective way of cultivating a coaching culture. It allows the manager and senior director to assess coaching knowledge
and skill.

Engage

Engagement plays a bigger role in cultivating a feedback culture where any employee (regardless of position) gives feedback to an individual constructively. Feedback giving is one of the most important skill sets for coaches and managers, and it will certainly help foster an open and transparent organization.

Perform

When the right employees are hired and receive the right expectation of their job during the onboarding process, given adequate leadership training, and engaged well with constructive feedback, he or she will be able to perform well.

Develop

Talents need to be developed through stretch assignments or a job rotation with provided mentors or coaches. A coach plays an important role in facilitating the talent’s career path, aspiration, skill set, and alignment to the organization.

Promote

Identify and promote top talents who are high performers with coaching traits.

Authored by: Jeff Cheah

How Can Leaders Become Coaches?
Or at the very least, adopt a coaching-leadership style in their day to day conversations?

First a quote from CS Lewis, Author & Poet

Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less.

Yes, Leaders can be Coaches if they have a Coach Mindset. So what does having a Coach Mindset means?

First, it's about HUMILITY. The openness to listen & learn even if you think you already knew the subject well.

The ability to accept feedback of any kind. Not be afraid to say "I don't know," to your colleagues.

Second, it's about having the COURAGE to change when one finds that the change is for the better. The willingness to accept that there is a better way.

Third, is the DISCIPLINE to take actions once the options have been identified.

Sounds simple, but never easy.

How do we motivate Leaders to modify their behavior so as to adopt the Coaching Mindset?

Start with small steps. Out of the few ideas that came about, get them to choose one that can be executed over the next 72 hours. the quick wins will motivate them to do more. Once they see positive changes happening around them, they will be more disciplined to take further actions.

Then as a Coach, the only thing left to do is to be their best Cheerleader!

 

 

 

Authored by: Jeff Cheah

On a really good day, when everything's going great, what do I enjoy MOST about the work I do?

I very often use this at the beginning of a workshop to warm people up & get them connected  with each other.

It will be done in groups of 5 so that everyone has a chance to share their reflections.

Yes, on a really good day, what I ENJOY most is facilitating a coaching workshop with enthusiasm, energy & engagement.

Talking about reflections, I was browsing through the evaluation forms that came back from the participants who attended the two-day Coaching Leaders program. Grateful that the ratings were high in all aspects & the participants gave me a perfect score for overall facilitator's performance.

I was pleasantly surprised by the comments & feedback about the facilitator.

I took an excerpt from two of the participants that said it all.  Jeff was very informative, welcoming and empathetic. He makes group fun and I always learn something new. I never felt left out. He makes everybody feels good to take part to open up for learning. Jeff has very thoughtful answers to my many questions. Other remarks include engaged, highly engaging, insights, interactive, experienced, hands-on, easy to understand, fun, knowledgeable, positive energy, proactive, organized, awesome, interesting, practical, structured, passionate,

What's the secret sauce?

1. Gear up the participants:

It's not just us who need to be prepared, we need to get the participants ready to learn.

Since it's going to be delivered over ZOOM  Virtual, we check with them whether they would like to familiarize with ZOOM features to get a better experience.

2. Make sure they receive the printed copy of the Participant's Workbook & other materials.

I'd have to thank Speedy for delivering a dozen of the documents to 12 locations in KL/Klang Valley. within one day.

3. Learn from the Best:

I've been facilitating workshops for 8 years and every time. I learn facilitation (in person or virtual) from the best in the industry. i.e. Juara.of NeOOne, and from Mindie, the team name & team cheer.competition. It's a way to keep the participants engaged.

4. Invest in the right equipment & facilities.

Very often, participants struggled with the office or home WIFI. For a Facilitator, a steady and strong WIFI is essential.

I've invested in an OMNIDESK table, a BOYA USB Microphone, a Sony Bluetooth Headphone, a Bose Mini II Soundlink Speaker and I've another Huawei Matebook besides my IBM Thinkpad. All this will complement my facilitation skills to provide the participants the best experience.

And finally, be 100% PRESENT, be INCLUSIVE so that no participants feel left behind, provide a SAFE place for people to share and make it FUN & INTERESTING!

And with that, I assure you that the participants will appreciate your being as a Facilitator while having fun learning.

What other secret sauce or tips can you share?

Authored by: Fennie Chong

Two years ago this time I left a company where I served for 13 years. I learned leadership nuggets from local and global leaders. I went through the entire cycle of the executive search process that I gained experience in helping organizations and individuals find the right fit for each other. What’s more fulfilling is to see organizational growth under the right leadership; and individual success in the right workplace. It’s beyond revenue achievement and career development.

Last year this time I left a company where I held a regional leadership position for its business expansion in Asia. In a start-up environment, I had oversight of sales, marketing, operations, people, and finance. I gained an insight into how a business should be run while facing Covid-19. I learned about making tough decisions and be assertive during trying times. What’s more meaningful is to prioritize personal well-being more than career achievement when health is affected.

I had a good 3 months break between these two jobs. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr says, “The time is always right to do what is right.” While I was pursuing my coaching certification program, I founded Chat Point with the idea of creating a safe environment for strategic conversations. On a personal note, I was able to spend a lot of time with my father before his sudden departure on the first day of my new job. It's a reminder about the importance of family. After accomplishing my mandates with the start-up, I left to focus on coaching. At the same time, I completed my lay counselling program. I also completed two leadership programs at both national and international levels while I was appointed to be a treasurer of an NGO. I was also part of an organizing committee and Zoom digital team for virtual programs.

It’s been a year since I became a member of ICF. I have learned so much through some of the great projects initiated by ICF Malaysia. I wouldn’t have the experience of assigning 97 breakout rooms during International Coaching Week 2021; I wouldn’t have the opportunity to polish my Bahasa and Mandarin for coaching, and I wouldn’t have come across so many professional coaches. Today, August is the start of my new role as ICF Malaysia’s membership director.

In March, I was engaged by a global talent mobility company to support clients with career transitions and talent development needs. This is meaningful as I work with candidates to help them see the possibilities in their careers. I thought I might have less work as compared to my full-time job. God opens new doors. He has been gracious. I don’t feel lonely as a solopreneur. It's been fulfilling as I get to work with many great people for a great purpose despite different channels. I’m glad that I can learn and serve in different capacities so that I can inspire, improve and impact others.

What is your purpose in this season? How strong is your sense of purpose?

Authored by: Jeff Cheah

In my work as an Executive Coach, very often the coaching conversation went by in a fleeting moment. Since I was fully present and focused on listening to what the client shared, very often I don't remember the questions I asked and the stories I shared.

This morning, there was an opportunity for my client to reflect on her seven months coaching journey. It was her defining moment and mine too.

This is what she shared. What she discovered, learnt and decided to implement, And this is what I am learning too.

Spend Time to Save Time: She relates a story about a direct report who was new to the job and always sends in questions expecting a response. My client used the coaching approach, asked her to not just bring the problem but also share the background and come up with some possible solutions. In that way, my coachee will have to spend time with her walking through the possible solutions and empowering her direct report to decide on the solution. This takes time but eventually saves lots of time as her direct report no longer comes to her on small issues.

Slow Down and Be Patient: She felt that in the office, she's always rushing, not enough time to have a good conversation. She decided to adopt a different strategy. Share key points ahead, let them think first, then allocate time for these important conversations.

I Am Not Better Than Others: As a Leader, I'm more exposed to coaching and mentoring skills. Even then, I may not have all the answers for you but I'll listen to you, ask questions, share experiences and unlock potential together

Meeting for the first time. The 1st Session: See this as a Session to get to know each other, learn from the person, ask "what do you want?". It's the coachee's Agenda. Find out their expectations of me. Something good will happen.

Put Myself In People's Shoes. Show Empathy: Learn from the journey. I may not fully understand the situation, so ask them what they think, analyse what they see.

Important to Provide a Safe Place: A safe platform, a place where people feel comfortable to share, not judged or penalize for saying things that contradicts

 

And what has she noticed about changes in herself?

Heightened Self awareness. Understand more how people see me.

Practice to pause & listen. The results? Get to hear more

Leadership is a privilege. Get comfortable to be questioned.

Connections & Relationships are important. Build them

Talk less, ask more, listen more

Be Vulnerable

Learn how not to take things personally

 

In a nutshell, I'm mighty proud of my client. She has the humility to learn from her direct reports and peers, be aware of her limitations, the courage to change and the discipline to take action.

And for that I'm grateful to be her Coach. I felt validated. And, most important of all, coaching works!

That's why I do what I do.

 

Authored by: Jeff Cheah

How Can Leaders Become Coaches
Or at the very least, adopt a coach-leadership style in their day to day conversations?

Today, we'd explore the Trust & Rapport building. I have always maintained that Trust is the foundation of coaching. Without Trust, the client will hold back information. Without Trust, we'd not be able to dig deeper and will only touch the surface. As Diamonds lie in ordinary rocks, even if they have the most powerful questions and the best active listening skills, we'd not be able to have an authentic, transformative conversation.

So how do we build Trust?

It's not about Us
.
In a coaching conversation, we focus on the client's Agenda. It helps to be curious. Start with small talk. Share about your personal life or embarrassing moments. Share unconditionally, When we go deeper into our hearts & feelings, we experience real emotions.  The key is to be vulnerable. Slowly but surely, the client will open up.

Be Present. Cut off all distractions.

One HR study quoted that one excellent way of building trust is "Ask how are you doing, shut up and listen".  Be curious about the person, be interested, be present, put away your phone & share your empathetic ear.

Provide a Safe & Supportive Place

....for the person to share their stories. Take away your judgement, give attention, have a beginner's mind (Shoshin), be open to new ideas and perspectives. Acknowledge & appreciate what they share. Even if you think you know and are an expert, be curious and find out more.

Be Self Aware.

All of us have different life experiences. As long as we have more self-awareness of our strengths & limitations, personalities, likes & dislikes, we would embrace each other's quirks & nuances. Nobody's perfect! We are all on a learning & growing journey. I found that when I have learnt something new, there comes more new stuff that I do not know.

How can we build on from here? I would love to hear from you stories and insights about how we can build Trust.

#trust #rapport #coaching #culture

Authored by: Ng Eng Hooi

Aligning the Coaching Culture with the Organization-wide Culture Change

Many organizations have failed to integrate the organization’s mission together, such as business strategy, structure change plan, people, and talent strategy. A coaching strategy can’t work by itself without clear people and business linkages.

Coaching without adding value to a business won’t be successful. It has to be linked to the business and organization’s plan. Ask yourself the questions below:

1. What sort of leadership culture do we need?
2. To build a successful coaching culture, what sort of organizational culture do we need to have in place to support or to link to the coaching culture?
3. How can we leverage coaching to maximize engagement, the learning and development of employees, performance management, motivation, and innovation?
4. How do we integrate our coaching strategy with our business strategy and talent strategy to ensure maximum synergy and effectiveness?

 

Many times, I have seen well-designed coaching plans that have no integration with the organization’s development strategies and no direct contribution to the organization’s vision, mission, and values. What would be the fastest and most effective way to make coaching widely practiced in an organization? The answer will always be for the coaching strategy to seamlessly integrate with the business strategy and moral compass of the organization. Without a clear linkage to the business and organizational development, the plan will struggle in being sustained and delivering the maximized benefit results.

Traditionally, coaching has been used by learning and HR practitioners for their learning and development programs, leadership competency frameworks, corporate values setup, and talent classification. It’s rarely used by business managers formally, although many managers are coach-managers who value coaching as part of their leadership trait. Therefore, it has to be led by the head who will lead the agenda of coaching, regardless of which division the head of coaching is from. He or she has to make coaching part of his or her responsibility as a people manager.

Chart 1: “Coaching-Business” Integration

Coaching Strategy – Learning Strategy – HR Strategy – Business Strategy
(Traditional Practice)

Chart 1 shows the many layers of strategy and the coaching strategy’s integration to the highest level, which means the coaching strategy is just a small part of the business strategy. It takes enormous time and effort to reach the coaching-business integrated or coaching culture level. Coaching has to be part of the learning plan first (budget could be shared and limited at this stage), then consolidated with the HR strategy and plan (focus could be diluted here). Then, the HR strategy could match with the business strategy (mismatch would probably happen in this stage).

Having said that, the plan in Chart 1 could still bring a certain number of coaching results to certain employees in the organization, such as a manager who has benefited from the “leader as coach” program deciding to be an empowering manager. An employee could benefit from her manager, who is a coach manager. The biggest concern is the sustainability of coaching activities and coaching culture. The coach manager could give up his coaching traits if not supported by his
direct supervisor.

Chart 2: Coaching Strategy – Business Strategy

Chart 2 The coaching strategy is fully integrated into the business strategy
(e.g., a coaching task force made up of different units and the coaching head is not from HR or L&D). In this scenario, coaching is embedded in a change of management, millennial leadership, engagement, leadership development, performance improvement, and skill development.

This hardly happens nowadays in business practices and structures, but it will probably become one of the more common practices in the coming future. By having the coaching strategy integrated into the business strategy in the first place, the organization strategy will be propelled to the next level in a shorter time compared to the strategy in Chart 1. In the scenario in Chart 2, the entire organization will use coaching in their day-to-day business practice. Everyone discusses issues openly, embracing openness as one of their core values as well as empowering people to make certain decisions, challenging people’s ideas with a dignified approach, asking massive questions to spark creativity and innovation, putting people development as the first priority, and many more. It means all these are driven by business, not HR nor talent management, and certainly not by the learning and development team.

“Coaching becomes the way we do business with all our stakeholders.”

As a HR/Learning Practitioner or coaches, how will you  / help your client align the culture change with organization wide goals and purpose?

Authored by: Ng Eng Hooi

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. You have all the plans in your mind, and it is time to draft a coaching strategy deck. The format of the deck should be clear by answering the why, what, how, where, and when of coaching in the organization. The most important point is to align the coaching plan and strategy with the organization’s wider plan, business strategy, and key directions.

Do consider putting the information below in your coaching strategy deck.

1. Global presence, head count, market share, revenue, and potential risk
2. Why a coaching culture? - Global Practice, Prioritized Trends, Diverse Customer, Millennial Growth, Disruptive Innovation, and Business Continuity Plan
3. Vision/Mission of a Company: Aligning the Coaching Vision to Company Vision
4. Coaching Philosophy: Aligning to Core Values, Leadership Competencies,
   360-Degree Leadership Evaluation
5. The Coaching Roadmap: Three Years, Five Years, and Ten Years
6. The Coaching Journey: Past, Now, and Future of Coaching Culture
7. Strategy Execution: Who, Where, How, Numbers, Testimonials from Internal
8. The Coaching Balance Scorecard
9. Coaching Measurement & Return of Investment

Why a Coaching Culture

• The global trends impacting businesses today and globalization have expanded markets beyond borders.
• Advances in technology have changed the way we work and interact with our colleagues, information, and work.
• Customer demographics, attitudes, and expectations are changing. Competition for talent is becoming a challenge around the world, and legislation is different in each country.
• The COVID-19 world pandemic and business continuity plan.

All these have made the coaching culture necessary, now more than ever, in meeting the ever-changing global needs.

You may need to consider beginning your coaching culture journey without having your finalized coaching deck approved or presented first. The logic is that it may take longer than you think to start the coaching journey. It takes time, effort, and motivation to build the culture, along with the buy-in of your stakeholders and employees. Furthermore, you may not know when it will be fully approved by the board of directors. You may consider starting to communicate your coaching plan during your leadership training, one-on-one coaching, talent engagement activities, or any coaching-related sharing session. So start first! Think and execute along the way.

Things to Do/Watch Out for When Crafting Strategy

1. Avoid massive changes in the first year, like putting coaching into KPI.
   Give time to allow people to have a mindset ready for change. Start with awareness activities, and allow managers to have more time to transition into new leadership styles for the first year.
2. Change is always difficult for a certain group of employees. Do not overemphasize/oversell/over push coaching as it will end up backfiring. Position coaching as “secondary skills” that a leader can choose to use at his/her preferred time.
3. Create multiple platforms for your employees to share their thoughts freely. During the sharing, do not judge and do not solve their mentioned problems immediately. Allow some time and space for digestion, and change will take place gradually.
4. Map out the goals and objectives with a detailed road map and strategy on how you will move together toward your desired direction despite many roadblocks along the way. People will have visuals in their minds and remember the goal and objective.
5. Clearly spell out the desired behavior indicators of each level of leadership. Let everyone see and feel that the coaching culture is owned by the people.

Articulate a Definition and Vision, Coaching Frameworks and Samples

At the very least, a school needs a simple, memorable statement that defines coaching. Without this, coaching endeavors will struggle. Coaching carries different meanings for different organizations, and your organization may want to define coaching to suit your company goals, values, and direction.  You will need to research many samples of coaching definitions, coaching culture definitions, coaching vision and mission, coaching models, and coaching competencies that were created by corporations and the authors.