Enterprise Coaching
If you are looking to bring coaching and a coaching mindset to your business, organization or business teams – Cookstar’s Coaching can help co-create and develop a custom program to identify and uncover creative solutions to your organization’s most pressing issues. CookStar Coaching can guide you in identifying the most meaningful goals and then set and surpass such goals -all in the most cost-effective manner possible. Every Enterprise and Team is unique with its particular strengths, challenges and goals. Contact us if you would like to explore co-creating, developing and implementing a coaching program uniquely tailored to your Enterprise. Coaching can add value to and produce a significant ROI for your Enterprises. Most challenges and their solutions involve and require the participation of your organization's human capital to be successful. There is never a bad time to consider implementing a coaching program in your business or organization. Indeed, many times Coaching Programs can be implemented more efficiently and mitigate and prevent problems before they arise producing a substantial ROI and sustained benefits (such as increased ability to attract and retain talent, greater employee satisfaction, lower employee costs, increased efficiency and increased profits).
Generally speaking, Enterprise Coaching is a combination of leadership coaching and business team coaching. Great teams require great leadership. Great teams also require support and guidance to create a safe and trusting environment where team members can have authentic and candid conversations regarding all aspects of the team and its members. Coaching can support and grow the leadership competencies necessary for the creation and support of high performing and cohesive teams. Coaching can also support and guide individual team members and the team itself to flourish and create the organizational and leadership dynamics necessary for the creation of efficiencies allowing your enterprise to function and perform at an elite level.
Leadership Coaching:
In today’s world change occurs at an accelerated pace. The modern workforce has changed dramatically over the last decade. Employees are more educated, independent and sophisticated than ever before and managing knowledge workers requires a much different perspective, process and skill set than managing physical labor or processes. Yet leadership growth has generally not kept pace with the dramatic changes to the workforce and the changes to business that technological advancements have brought about.
Simply stated, the pace of change has accelerated exponentially and the need for exceptional leaders has never been greater. Yet leadership is not generally taught in MBA and business schools and we are not generally taught or mentored on the skills that are required to be an exemplary leader and executive. Indeed, various studies show that less than 1% of leaders are considered great by their teams. This is because the missing key to transforming from an average leader to an exemplary leader is emotional intelligence or soft skills (self-awareness, personal growth, self-knowledge and consciousness). Most, if not all leaders, have the intellectual tools, the analytical abilities, the experience and the subject matter knowledge to perform their jobs at a very high level, but few have the emotional intelligence (social skills or soft skills) to pair with their analytical skills to make them exemplary performers and leaders.
This is not surprising as analytical thinking is what is taught at institutions of higher learning and exceptional analytical thinking has historically been what is valued and rewarded in Western society and business generally. While emotional intelligence or soft skills are more challenging to quantify and measure, it is indisputable that they are essential drivers of productivity and profit - not to mention (and perhaps more importantly) career and professional enjoyment.
There is no denying the profoundly negative effect that below average emotional intelligence, internal conflict, mindset issues and unconscious thoughts and behaviors have on organizational well-being and, ultimately, productivity and profits. High performing executives and strong leaders must engage in personal and professional development.
Executives and Leaders desiring to improve their performance must commit to growing as individuals becoming increasingly more self-aware, emotionally intelligent and conscious.The numbers are shocking, a Gallup poll suggests that roughly 85% of workers are not satisfied with and are disengaged in their work roles.
The annual cost of this disengagement in the United States alone is estimated to be between $450 to $550 billion US dollars annually. Interestingly, studies and surveys show that employees value workplace culture, their relationships at work, the opportunity to fulfil their potential and purpose and the chance to learn and improve their skills above monetary compensation.
Yet, most organizations attempt to mitigate the employee disengagement problem by merely throwing dollars at employees.
Merely increasing compensation fails because the employees you can attract with financial remuneration alone are the employees to avoid. These employees typically just follow the money and are easy to lead away. Employee turnover comes with substantial tangible and intangible costs. The answer is investment in leadership and executive development to intentionally transform your business or organization into an elite place to work with elite leadership.
Executives and Leaders desiring to improve their performance must commit to growing as individuals becoming increasingly more self-aware, emotionally intelligent and conscious.The numbers are shocking, a Gallup poll suggests that roughly 85% of workers are not satisfied with and are disengaged in their work roles.
The annual cost of this disengagement in the United States alone is estimated to be between $450 to $550 billion US dollars annually. Interestingly, studies and surveys show that employees value workplace culture, their relationships at work, the opportunity to fulfil their potential and purpose and the chance to learn and improve their skills above monetary compensation.
Yet, most organizations attempt to mitigate the employee disengagement problem by merely throwing dollars at employees.
Merely increasing compensation fails because the employees you can attract with financial remuneration alone are the employees to avoid. These employees typically just follow the money and are easy to lead away. Employee turnover comes with substantial tangible and intangible costs. The answer is investment in leadership and executive development to intentionally transform your business or organization into an elite place to work with elite leadership.
Indeed, research demonstrates that leadership effectiveness is the primary competitive advantage and the primary determinant of business success. Simply stated, elite businesses have elite leadership. Yet few businesses devote sufficient resources or make sufficient capital investments in growing and expanding their organization’s leadership capabilities.
That’s the bad news, but the good news is that expanding and growing your leadership capacities and executive performance can result in a huge competitive advantage and, perhaps more importantly, lead to greater career and personal satisfaction. These elements all spread across the organization like wildfire and (aside from being the right thing to do and resulting in a better quality of work culture and life generally) increase productivity and profits by several multiples.
Being an exemplary leader is like being a conductor of a symphony. The conductor does not pretend to know how to play all the instruments or control the specific playing style of symphony members but rather guides and supports each member to be their best, trusting and respecting their unique talents, and coordinating and synchronizing the efforts and playing of all symphony members.
When done well the results are amazing, a harmonized beautiful whole that inspires all listeners. When conducted poorly it is like nails on a chalkboard leaving people running for the doors.
When done well the results are amazing, a harmonized beautiful whole that inspires all listeners. When conducted poorly it is like nails on a chalkboard leaving people running for the doors.
While most if not all leaders and executives are high performers. Each rose to the top by leveraging their analytical abilities and strategic thinking. These thinking skills are expected and most executives and leaders have strong, if not elite, analytical and strategic thinking abilities. Indeed, analytical skills are the primary focus of our education systems and higher education systems. What isn’t taught is emotional intelligence, self-awareness and self-knowledge that are required to be an elite performing executive or extraordinary leader. These are the skills that truly create elite organizations.
For the creation and continued performance of elite organizations - strong leadership is indispensable. An organization is only as good as its leadership. Strong leadership is not directing and managing, but guiding and creating a platform for individual and collective learning and growth. Employees want and need leaders that support and guide them, empower them to be their best, help them grow and realize their potential and improve their thinking (instead of telling them what or how to think).
Business Team Coaching:
Great teams require exemplary leadership to facilitate teams performing at a level greater than the sum of its parts. It takes an effective leadership team (one that functions cohesively and collectively) to achieve collective performance above the average level of performance of the team's members. Many times teams perform at the level of its lowest performing member. This results in under-utilization of your business’ most important resource, its human capital.
Strong leadership and a team coach can make a significant difference in the performance of the team. Together leaders of the organization and a business team coach can minimize the amount of self-interference among team members and increase the team’s utilization of their collective capabilities to learn and perform.
Business team coaching can support and guide teams to work collectively to achieve their goals and maximize their capabilities and potential.
Team coaching can provide a safe environment to have direct, honest, respectful and authentic conversations that facilitate lasting change and cohesion. Business team coaching can support and guide in developing and growing leadership capabilities, building trust and connection among team members, fostering learning and growth, resolving conflicts respectfully, setting goals and developing empathy and collective emotional intelligence.
Team coaching can provide a safe environment to have direct, honest, respectful and authentic conversations that facilitate lasting change and cohesion. Business team coaching can support and guide in developing and growing leadership capabilities, building trust and connection among team members, fostering learning and growth, resolving conflicts respectfully, setting goals and developing empathy and collective emotional intelligence.
Stated simply, business team coaching is the most effective tool to manage and address the most challenging and limiting element teams face – interpersonal relationships. Business team coaching provides a platform for individual team members to be authentic and have authentic and healthy conversation to create strong bonds and connections leading to elite performance.
In an internal research project Google learned that across all types of teams “who is on a team matters much less than how team members interact, structure their work and view their contributions.”Google’s researchers identified 5 dynamics of effective business teams: (1) psychological safety (most important dynamic), (2) dependability, (3) structure and clarity of mission; (4) meaning, and (5) impact. Note that missing from this list is analytical abilities and substantive skills. The significance is that the most important dynamics of effective business teams can be coached and most often these dynamics are not considered or fostered when creating and building teams, thereby greatly increasing the probability of a low functioning or dysfunctional business team.
By investing in the collective growth of the team (as well as the individual growth of its members), businesses can maximize the potential and capabilities of its human assets and achieve collective performance that is substantially greater than the sum of the individual contributors.
In an internal research project Google learned that across all types of teams “who is on a team matters much less than how team members interact, structure their work and view their contributions.”Google’s researchers identified 5 dynamics of effective business teams: (1) psychological safety (most important dynamic), (2) dependability, (3) structure and clarity of mission; (4) meaning, and (5) impact. Note that missing from this list is analytical abilities and substantive skills. The significance is that the most important dynamics of effective business teams can be coached and most often these dynamics are not considered or fostered when creating and building teams, thereby greatly increasing the probability of a low functioning or dysfunctional business team.
By investing in the collective growth of the team (as well as the individual growth of its members), businesses can maximize the potential and capabilities of its human assets and achieve collective performance that is substantially greater than the sum of the individual contributors.
Change Management
In today’s modern technologically driven economic environment, change is inevitable and frequently required to stay competitive. The pace of change has increased exponentially. The fact that change is challenging and becomes more challenging as we get older is unavoidable. Every change initiative creates stress and triggers a range of emotions such as fear of the unknown, insecurity, judgment, resistance, frustration, anxiety, doubt, distrust and anger, among others. While external realities change rapidly, internal realities change much more slowly without support and guidance.
The failure rate of change initiatives (70% - 85%) is alarming. Surprisingly, the substance of the change, the brilliance of the solution, and the severity of the problem that is being solved by the change initiative have little impact on the probability of success of the change initiative. The change management process itself is the key determining factor of its success. Change management is similar to a political campaign, it must connect with and change hearts and minds.
Change initiatives often fail because people cannot be forced to change, learn or think – it has to be their idea. This is where the benefits of a Change Management Coach can add immense value and increase the probability of success of a change initiative. Every change initiative is comprised of four broad challenges: (1) Motivational/Emotional Challenge – moving from reactivity to creativity converting fear and resistance into excitement, purpose community and buy-in; (2) Political Challenge – identify, change the perspective of, and align internal and external opponents; (3) Resource Hurdle – change requires people to perform their day jobs while also working on the change initiative – devote sufficient resources to the change initiative and support and guide people to focus resources and energy on what is essential and most valuable to the change effort, instead of the noise of resistance and fear of the unknown; (4) Intellectual Challenge – supporting and guiding people to acknowledge there is a problem that requires change and that the solution (the change initiative) benefits all stakeholders (acknowledging the problem while focusing on the solution and emphasizing specific benefits).
Change Management Coaching can be indispensable in ensuring the greatest probability of success of a change initiative. Change initiates are expensive -too expensive to not engage the right resources to ensure the greatest probability of success. Change Management Coaching can support and guide your business through the challenges of change and structure specifically tailored change plans to find creative solutions to your business’ unique challenges. Let CookStar’s Change Management Coaching help your organization ensure the greatest probability of success for its change initiative.