Business Coaching

Business Coaching

1.	Introduction: Why Coaching?
2.	What Is Business Coaching?
3.	Coaching Is Not Training, Mentoring or Counselling
4.	Different Types of Coaching
5.	The External Coach or Coaching Consultant
6.	The Manager as Coach
7.	Coaching and Leadership
8.	Key Coaching Skills
9. The GROW Coaching Model
10.		Formal and Informal Coaching
11.		How Coaching Creates Creative Flow
12.		The Business Impact of Coaching
13.		Why Coaching Matters to Creative Companies
14. Recommended Coaching Books

1. Introduction: Why Coaching?
As a creative director, business owner or manager of a creative team, the chances are you already coach your people to an extent - and you may be better at it than you realise. But there's also a fair chance that you have received little support in developing your people management skills.
In the creative industries, so much attention is lavished on creative ‘talent’ and the products of creativity that vital aspects of the creative process are often overlooked. Such as the massive influence (positive and negative) managers and creative directors have on the creativity of their teams. While many individual managers are doing an excellent job of managing and developing their teams, there is little wider recognition of people management in the creative sector.
It’s hard to develop a skill that goes unrecognised. And you don't need me to tell you that managing temperamental creatives can be one of the most challenging jobs going.
So how do you meet the challenge? I'm willing to bet that you find most books on management a bit of a turn-off. You've probably left or avoided the corporate world because it's not an environment you feel comfortable with. I know how you feel. As a poet who moved from consulting for large organisations to specialising n the creative sector, I can clearly remember the day I walked into an ad agency and instantly felt at home. Call me superficial, but given the choice between cubicles and suits, or a colourful studio with electric guitars and table football on standby, I know which I prefer.
But creativity needs more than bean-bags and Playstations. And if creativity is your business, you know there's a lot more to it than 'thinking outside the box'. For one thing, you probably have to think inside a few boxes - such as the budget and brief, and your client or audience's tolerance levels. So while you need to encourage blue-sky thinking and risk-taking, you also need to make things happen on time, on budget and to keep the end users happy.
Give people too much creative freedom and they may have a blast working on the project - only to end up frustrated when the client or audience 'don't get it'. But if you play it too safe, your creatives will feel constrained and everyone will be underwhelmed by the final result.
Not an easy balancing act to pull off. Even before you factor in a few creative egos. Plus the fact that creative people are not satisfied with just doing the job - they want to be challenged and inspired on every project, every day. They want opportunities to learn and hone their skills. And if they don't get them in your team, sooner or later they'll start to look elsewhere.
A lot of it comes down to what you say and do with people day-in-day out. How well you listen. What questions you ask. How you deliver tricky feedback. How well you find the right fit between people's talents and motivations and the task in hand. How easily you pick up the subtle signals that alert to you to problems before they blow up in your face. In short, how well you facilitate the idiosyncratic creative process of everyone on your team .

Now 'business coaching' may not sound like the most inspiring activity in the world, but it does offer you an effective approach to managing and developing creative people. It's not a miracle solution, or a step-by-step model, but it provides practical answers to the following questions:

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  How can you allow people creative freedom while keeping a grip on deadlines and deliverables?
  
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  How can you develop people's skills while keeping them productive?
  
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  How can you stimulate creative thinking in others?
  
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  How can you avoid the temptation to micro-manage people?
  
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  Why don't people do what they're supposed to do?
  
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  How can you keep people motivated while giving them bad news?
  
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  How can you be yourself while adapting to others' needs?
  
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  When is it better to keep your mouth shut?
  

2. What Is Business Coaching?
Here’s my simple definition of business coaching:
A focused conversation that facilitates learning and raises performance at work
The ‘coach’ can be either a manager or an external consultant. The ‘coachee’ (yes, I know it’s a horrible word, I’ll avoid it as much as I can) can be anyone who wants to get better at their work.
While coaching sometimes takes place in designated coaching sessions it is also used by many organisations as a style of management, and takes place in a series of informal discussions between managers and their staff as they go about their daily business. In Eric Parsloe and Monica Wray’s words, this is coaching as ‘the way we do things round here’ (Coaching and Mentoring - see Chapter 13 for details of books).
There are many other definitions in the business coaching literature. Some focus on coaching’s collaborative, conversational style:
Coaching is a collaborative, solution-focused, result-oriented and systematic process in which the coach facilitates the enhancement of work performance, life experience, self-directed learning and personal growth of individuals from normal (i.e. non-clinical) populations. (Jane Greene and Anthony M Grant, Solution-Focused Coaching)
Other definitions emphasise the dual function of coaching - improving performance and facilitating learning. For example:
A manager’s task is simple – to get the job done and to grow his staff. Time and cost pressures limit the latter. Coaching is one process with both effects.’
(John Whitmore, Coaching for Performance)
• Coaching is an approach to management – how one carries out the role of being a manager
• Coaching is a set of skills for managing employee performance to deliver results
Being a coach means that you see and approach the role of a manager as a leader: one who challenges and develops your employees’ skills and abilities to achieve the best performance results.’(Marty Brounstein, Coaching and Mentoring for Dummies)
Here are some of the distinguishing characteristics of business coaching conversations.