Coaching is a $1 billion industry in America. Organizations are seeing that coaching is a valuable asset and even a necessary fixture of the modern workplace. Marketing Sherpa’s 2008 survey of HR professionals and people who received coaching reported that 90 percent found coaching somewhat or very valuable. The survey found that the coaching paradigm is moving from an as-needed basis to regular meetings, and that coaching is becoming an integral part of leadership development programs rather than a shortterm tool to solve conflict.
The TRACOM Group recently surveyed 185 people who coach as part of their job, in an effort to determine current trends. All survey respondents had previously received training in SOCIAL STYLE, the behavior model developed by the TRACOM Group.
Coaching Considered Beneficial
Enthusiasm for the coaching process is confirmed by the fact that employees in a coaching or leadership position at work feel they are spending the right amount of time in that coaching capacity (57 percent) or would like to spend more time coaching (37 percent). Very few people (6 percent) wanted to do less coaching. In fact, 65 percent of respondents strongly agreed and 35 percent agreed with this statement: “Effectively coaching employees is a critical skill for managers.” Coaching skills are not only beneficial to the company, then, but to personal advancement as well.
Coaching with STYLE
SOCIAL STYLE is the world’s best-known behavior model. Individuals are evaluated according to their preferred behaviors, and are then categorized into one of four SOCIAL STYLEs. Identifying an individual’s Style helps them understand their verbal and non-verbal communication tendencies and how they are perceived by others.
Summary
People who coach as part of their job find coaching valuable and beneficial to their organizations. In order to coach well, it is necessary to build rapport with those being coached. Survey participants overwhelmingly agree that using their SOCIAL STYLE training helps them to establish that relationship and give negative feedback in a way that others can hear and accept, and that people are now more receptive to their coaching feedback. The ability to interact effectively and gain support of coworkers is positively and significantly related to workplace effectiveness. Thus, it’s not a person’s Style that determines success, rather how effectively each person uses their Style with others.
In short, almost all respondents feel that knowing and applying what they learned in their SOCIAL STYLE training makes them better coaches. That is why 93.9 percent of them believe that this training would help other managers at their companies to be better coaches. Understanding and applying Style can be a key ingredient in improving the effectiveness of communication and increasing the productivity of coaching efforts.