Human Capital Development

Singapore
Newsletter – July 2002

Welcome to the July edition of Human Capital Development

During the recent International Coaching Federation (ICF) Conference held in Sydney Australia,
attendees heard many speakers talk about success stories arising from their work as coaches.

One question to arise was - Who can become a coach? Keys to this include your own personal style,
your willingness to be a coach and opportunities to practice coaching. An answer offered is all executives,
managers and some supervisors have the potential to become coaches and learn more about applying
coaching in their daily work.

Let’s look at some of the highlights of the Australian Conference briefly though. At the conference we
heard from Margot Cairnes who coached the General Manager of Portland Smelter until his untimely
death from cancer. The results of this case were truly remarkable. They involve mobilisation of an entire
township towards award-winning environmental and social management. This was beyond the
remarkable achievements made within his plant, management team and staff.

Cynthia Thero shared her journey in becoming an executive coach. Totally results-driven, this lady
emphasises discipline, commitment and delivery from her coaches and coachees. Cynthia and her team
have coached over 2,500 senior managers annually.

One more remarkable speaker was Eva Wong. Eva shared her case of training managers and
supervisors in a State Owned Enterprise in Guangzhou to be coaches. Starting with an inspired
Managing Director she was able to achieve amazing bottom line results with a culture change so
dramatic even Frederick Taylor, father of industrial management theory, would be shocked.

Who believes coaching is a silver bullet that will fix all of your management skills challenges ahead? No
reader puts their hand up, I trust? Ok, then we can begin to define what it can do together.

TMP Retains Expert in Coaching Training

Dr Anthony Grant is Head of the Psychology of Coaching Unit, at the University of Sydney. He has been
retained for one year by our Australian operations where he enjoyed immense success conducting his
‘Coaching for Managers’ two-day course. TMP Worldwide will be extending this program to Singapore
and Dr. Grant will visit our shores in September. He will be here to deliver three days of coaching
programs.

If you would like to send any of your managers to this program, please contact John Read on
6430 5324 or email me at john.read@tmp.com. You can find out more about this program in the
brochure accompanying this Newsletter.

About Dr. Anthony Grant

He presented one of the most well attended breakout sessions at the ICF Conference. His paper
was titled ‘Understanding the Stages of Change - Coaching the Untouchable’. Dr. Grant was very well
received as he moved us all to understand much better the need for well researched and proven
coaching techniques, not motherhood statements. He has written a bestseller titled “Coach Yourself” with
co-author Jane Greene.
 Dr. Grant is a Coaching Psychologist. He holds a BA (Hons, 1st class) in Psychology from the University
of Sydney, and a Masters of Arts in Behavioural Science from Macquarie University, Sydney, where he
has recently completed his PhD. His thesis was on coaching for enhanced performance. His
groundbreaking coaching research and practice has been extensively reported in the academic press
and Australian and international media.

In January 2000, Tony established the world’s first university-based Coaching Psychology Unit at the
Department of Psychology, University of Sydney, where he currently teaches and coordinates the world’s
first post-graduate degree program in Coaching Psychology.

Tony consults to, and coaches a wide range of organisations and individuals, and conducts Coach
Training Programs for business and community organisations.

Why should managers and senior managers learn coaching skills?

Because coaching provides…

• Important primary skill in empowering staff to take ownership and improve their productivity
• Teaches another critical enabling dimension of interpersonal skills for management of staff
• Enables managers to be more successful in Team Leader and Project Manager roles
• Better coordination of regional work – better empowerment and management of regional offices
• Develop a more open culture at the workplace
• Improve the strategic relationship between the manager and the immediate subordinate. This is a
mission critical relationship for retention of staff.
• Provide managers with a useful and appropriate mechanism for giving feedback to staff and ensuring
those staff handle their improvements well
• Relieves managers of the responsibility for coming up with all the solutions
• Builds staff management capabilities
• Helps companies to implement succession plans based on readiness for promotion

In summary, there are three areas positively impacted by learning to coach others:

1. For the coachee – be better treated and valued for their input, gaining ownership of their
development and contributions
2. For the coach – as a manager, they can treat their staff more effectively and gain better productivity
and quality performance; transfer ownership of development and production to staff more effectively,
gaining commitment and performance buy-in of from their staff
3. For the business – build better relationships between managers and their staff, the primary
relationship affecting turnover and staff retention

Coaching is an empowering process guided by the organization. From issues and problems, coaching

What is the relationship between coaching, training, mentoring and

consulting, counselling and instructing…
This is important to help understand the differences between these different ways of managing staff. They
are not conclusive lists but indicate the nature of differences in goals and process:

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Coaching:
 Facilitates learning and performance through one to one dialogue and commitment, normally individual but can be
group
 Facilitates personal change and improvements
 Enhances self direction and self regulation
 Helps to clarify (business, individual and task) purpose and values
 Tailored to individual needs
 Helps to develop and implement action plans
 Gives focus and teaches how to maintain that focus
 Asks the right questions to help the coachee develop their own answers
 Develops productivity and capability
 Is action oriented, helps coachee to develop their own solutions
 Yields behavioural and business results
 Is the fastest growing learning mode used by management and senior management to improve their interpersonal
skills
 Teaches the coachee to ‘fish’ rather than giving them just one meal

Training:
 Facilitates learning and performance normally in groups
 Meets general skills, knowledge and attitude development
 Extends coaching learning by adding additional skills
 Skills learnt may not be easily reproduced in the workplace
 Can be limited in terms of individual needs
 Offers limited learning modes and specific fixed agenda
 Is used most frequently by companies to develop all levels of staff

Consulting:
 Source of solutions comes from the consultant rather than the individual
 Information-based supply, rather than relationship leveraging
 Relies upon consultant’s skills
 Transfers solutions, not skills
 Is objective and independent
 May provide hidden or unseen solutions

Mentoring:
 Commonly from an individual who knows the culture (the way things are done) to a less experienced individual
informing them of better ways to get things done
 Often internal but may be external
 May be structured on unstructured
 Built on hierarchical relationship older, wiser to younger, inexperienced
 Usually for grooming or assisting in performance development and acculturation
 May perpetuate dysfunctional modes of operating
 May inhibit new learning by organizations

Counseling:
 Uncovers causes of problems from an individual perspective
 May consider organizational perspective as untouchable
 Minimal assessment is used
 Reacts to problems after they occur
 Relies on facilitating individuals to treat their own perspective
 Can assist to re-frame experience and perceptions
 Is generally not action oriented or business results driven

Instructing:
 Specifies fixed ways of achieving goals or performing tasks
 Is not empowering but relies upon obedience and compliance
 Is hierarchical in relationship
 Is necessary is many cases to explain and inform about task performance to the minimum standard
 Is dependant on relationship between instructor and actor to succeed
 Most often fails because of poor interpersonal skills, and poor relationships between subordinate and instructor

Ideally, in a good coaching relationship, all of these can be used as appropriate as the relationship
between coach and coachee proceeds. Most importantly, when managers apply their coaching skills they
move out of command and control mode and into joint working relationships with their staff. These
relationships leverage staff knowledge and experience for the benefit of their team and their company.
To find out more about TMP’s Talent Development Solutions, please call
John Read at 6430 5324
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