An insightful experience with an executive coaching client: 4 ingredients

 As a team, we have thousands of hours of individual executive coaching over decades and in dozens of organisations. One of the experiences we are experiencing now stands out for its positive nature. After hearing the enthusiasm of the CEO and HRD for the important  evolutions they observed in the coachees at the start of the coaching engagement , we asked ourselves what would explain this success. And we found 4 "ingredients":

1) Belief that they are already capable and will develop further (vs. doubt and correct): the request for individual executive coaching was made for two people in whom the CEO and HR believe and are very keen to help advance, to give them new and greater responsibilities. This belief is felt in multiple dimensions and makes the people we support feel very motivated to give their best and take advantage of the opportunity (this request contrasts with situations where we are asked to be someone's "lifeline", last chance before asking the person to leave... how do you get fully involved in a process when you have little hope of being able to reverse the perception the organisation has of you?) 

2) Very active support from their leader: the CEO (leader of our coachees) is very involved in the development of both leaders. He gives them support and feedback often:

• He accompanies them on the "ground" - visits them in the geographies they lead, is with them in meetings, spends time with them on each of these "visits", and celebrates the changes in behaviour in a genuine and focused way;

• He was very involved in the initial briefing of the coaches on the support he was seeking for these members of his team;

• He invested preparing a joint session with us in which he reiterated his appreciation for and his confidence in the coachees, gave them positive feedback on the efforts and progress he observed and shared what he considered to be the next stages of their development.

3) Deliberately planning development on the ground: before taking up their new roles, these people were prepared - put to work with others who did well what they were expected to develop.

4) New functions that promote development: our coaches have been given new - greater - challenges that have enabled them to test and overcome themselves. From the very beginning of the coaching engagement these people knew that the organisation and its management were committed to preparing them and setting the best conditions  to succeed in their new roles.

Coaching is one of the elements supporting these leaders, integrated in a set with other initiatives of the organisation (and not an isolated action, which often has a much lower impact). In our eyes, the success of our coachees results from the various development opportunities they have been offered, converging in the same direction: the positive look at their capacity and potential for development, the regular support of their leader, assigning them roles that enable them to develop further, deliberately preparing on the ground, and coaching.

As coaches, we live this relationship of partnership and mutual support with great enthusiasm, in which we complement other important internal efforts.  The various "ingredients" that the company has brought together have enabled us to work in an unusually favourable context, which has propelled coaching engagements with an equally unusual level of commitment, openness and results.

Joana Domingues and Teresa Oliveira 

*Photo by Ratul Ghosh on Unsplash