Canadian HR Reporter

STRATEGIC CAPABILITY NETWORK'S PANEL of thought leaders brings decades of experience from the senior ranks of Canada's business community. eir commentary puts HR management issues into context and looks at the practical implications of proposals and policies. CANADIAN HR REPORTER April 18, 2016 EXECUTIVE SERIES 11 www.scnetwork.ca Join our professional community of Canadian HR & Organizational Leaders: • Connecting @ monthly events • Collaborating with peers • Challenging conventional thinking The Power of Human Capital CULTIVATING LEADERSHIP FOR 35 YEARS Great Leaders GROW www.scnetwork.ca Coaching a powerful leadership dimension Rogers, one of the largest diversified tele- communications companies in Canada, made a strategic commitment in 2013 to introduce coaching as a distin- guishing leadership approach. Not only has each national call centre ex- ceeded its performance targets year over year from that point, it has also been awarded the 2015 International Coach Federation's Prism Award. Congratulations. Having rebuilt the executive team with a new CEO, CHRO Jim Reid revealed Rogers is on a mission to regain a lead position in the telecommunications market- place and, "to turn this oil tanker around, they would need to go deep and narrow." e challenge was in shifting the inherent culture from a com- pliant culture to a behavioural one. Changing a culture from catching people doing something wrong to catching people doing something right is a stretch goal for any organization. Making the strategic choice to go from good to great convinced the executive team to focus on strengthening the culture shift with the coaching model, start- ing with the communications call centre leaders. With tight and measurable metrics, Rogers is proving to be a highly credible example of how leaders can drive accountability and ownership by building and reinforcing an "I can and I will culture." Rogers is in actual fact creating teams of skillful coach- ing leaders. e results to date speak for themselves. e call centre coach- ing leaders are already seeing the benefits of how building a positive workplace environment signifi- cantly improves customer satis- faction and, at the same time, ap- preciably impacts the bottom line. With this reliable example, it does beg the question as to "What it is it that continues to prevent or deter leaders, particularly HR leaders, from embracing and de- veloping coaching as a key lead- ership dimension for their own organization?" What reason could any leader offer for not wanting to positively influence the workplace environment and exceed overall performance goals? Show me any executive leader- ship team that is not interested in increasing revenue and improving employee engagement, alignment and retention. My own experience with this phenomenon is that too many managers and leaders argue they do not have the time and don't believe it to be a learned skill or effective art of communication. Some believe coaching is too soft an approach and they have no pa- tience or interest in seeking input or suggestions from others. Oth- ers simply do not see the need or believe coaching is a worthwhile leadership dimension. It's hard to understand why any leader would choose not to adopt this powerful skill as an additional leadership dimension and acceler- ate his personal effectiveness. Be- coming proficient with a coaching leadership style is not easy, never- ending and is certainly not a soft skill. We can all appreciate that not everybody is receptive to coach- ing; it involves difficult, sensitive and tough conversations. We have all experienced people who plainly resist change, have no interest in learning new skills or taking on greater responsibilities. en there are those who have no problem being perfectly content in doing what they have always been doing and have no intention of doing anything different. Primarily, though, many people are interested in personal growth, improving their performance, and they appreciate recognition and helpful feedback. People like and want to know that their manager believes in their skills and is genu- inely committed to investing time in their growth and development. Interestingly, I find that once managers or leaders begin to de- velop and practise their coaching skills, they find it takes up far less time than they thought and, more importantly, they welcome it be- coming a principal habit. e reality is that taking an in- terest in helping people advance their abilities, expand their bench strength and know what is expect- ed of their own and their team's performance in relationship to how they align with the overall business plan can only help in- crease any organization's results. Rogers is proving that coaching is a powerful leadership dimen- sion that helps drive bottom-line results. I so look forward to hear- ing its amazing sequel story. It will be interesting to see the company validate coaching as a strategic leadership competency and re- claim a lead position in the tele- communications space. Trish Maguire is a commentator for SCNetwork on leadership in action and founding principal of Synergyx Solutions in Nobleton, Ont., focused on high-potential leadership develop- ment coaching. She has held senior leadership roles in HR and OD in education, manufacturing and entre- preneurial firms. She can be reached at synergyx@sympatico.ca. Trish Maguire Leadership In Action Michael Clark Organizational Effectiveness Diving deep for organizational effectiveness Rogers' coaching initiative, breathlessly presented to SCN by a trio of Rogers ex- ecutives, was most interesting for reveal- ing how a dive into a single competency can be so deep it becomes an enabler of organizational culture and driver of organizational effectiveness. Kudos to Rogers for having the courage to experiment with coaching as a means of redirecting organizational culture to facilitate its three-year strategy to lead the market. At first glance, the focus on a single managerial account- ability versus "going a mile wide and an inch deep" is risky. But not as risky as it could be. If you take "coaching" beyond its narrowest definition — a perfor- mance conversation between a manager and a direct report — you have managers and directs having conversations, period. One presenter confessed his customer care function previ- ously had a "compliance culture." is may mean few conversations of any nature were being had by managers and their people. Could the Rogers' coaching initiative be mostly a "Sit down and talk to each other, already" initiative? By its nature, coaching puts a manager in conversation with her direct report. Conversation provides the opportunity to con- sciously or unconsciously mani- fest other managerial account- abilities such as context setting, task assignment and adjustment, monitoring, effectiveness apprais- al and continuous improvement. at covers most of, say, the Gal- lup Q12. And, as we know, feedback is a big "tick box" for millennials who make up, on average, 40 per cent of call centre staff. I would be very interested to find out how much ICF-trained Socratic dialogue is being deployed and how much is actually "Hey, we work together." e presenters indicated Rog- ers considers coaching an ac- countability: 30 minutes per week per direct is "non-negotiable." Re- call that the only foundation for sustainable behaviour change is to hold employees to account for using the new behaviour. Until such time as effective coaching is connected to a pay- cheque at Rogers, coaching will never "stick." Rather, its use will depend on each manager's sense of responsibility: Something sub- jective and varying wildly from manager to manager and from day to day. It has to be asked whether an organization can drive sustain- able effectiveness by a deep dive into a single competency. My concern is other vital managerial accountabilities are being ignored or at least downplayed. Are other drivers of effectiveness — such as role clarity, proper organizational levelling and effective strategy ar- ticulation and cascade — also be- ing neglected? Nonetheless, a tip of the organi- zational effectiveness hat to Rog- ers. Diving deep into coaching will, at the very least, create a cul- ture of dialogue (whether Socratic or not) and trust. at will go a long way toward organizational effectiveness. Michael Clark is director of business development at Forrest & Company. Forrest is an organizational trans- formation firm, with over 25 years experience in developing the organi- zational and leadership capacity in organizations. It has to be asked whether an organization can drive sustainable effectiveness by a deep dive into a single competency. It will be interesting to see the company validate coaching as a strategic leadership competency and reclaim a lead position in the telecommunications space.

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