Here's what you can expect from the coaching process.
The BMDP program has three components:
Online leadership learning
Projects
Coaching
I want to explain how the coaching works to benefit you, how it adds value to the other two components and also how you can get the most from it.
I’ve been an executive coach for around 15 years, working with many global businesses. I’ve been working with Rockwell Automation since 2015, delivering coaching programs and also leadership, management, customer service, sales and mentoring programs. Before I became a coach and leadership development consultant, I worked in the technology sector, for telecoms and IT companies, as a service engineer, in technical support, service design and solution sales. I understand your business environment and your market, and I also know that you and your team are unique, and you have your own needs and challenges.
Coaching gives you a chance to reflect and be challenged on your recent experiences. It’s an opportunity to reflect and take time out to learn from what’s happening around you. Every day, you’re in new situations and solving new problems, but if you rush from one problem to the next, you don’t stop and learn. You solve the same problems over and over again, and that holds you back in your development.
Coaching is a way for you to explore your unique potential. There is no common agenda or set of rules, and each of you will have a different experience of the coaching relationship. My job is to quickly discover what you need and adapt so that you get the most value from the sessions. Please note, in coaching you get what you need, not necessarily what you want, and not what feels easy or comfortable.
The coaching sessions are confidential, so I won’t discuss the details of what we discuss with anyone else. What I will do is report back to HR and senior managers on any common themes that are coming up, as a feedback mechanism to support any organisational changes that might be needed to support you. I’ll also contribute my impressions of you into the leadership review process, and I am happy to share my observations with you too. I’ll also report back each month on the number of sessions booked so that the HR team can keep track of utilisation.
You’ll reserve coaching sessions yourself using an online calendar, you’ll first need to create a username and then you can add or change your own reservations within the dates available for coaching. You can access the calendar here and the instructions for using it here.
Each month, I will email you to let you know that new dates are available for coaching sessions. They will usually take place within a 2 week window to fit around your vacations and other commitments.
The general routine for our sessions is that we’ll review any previous actions and any recent events that have been important. We’ll then explore the underlying patterns that cause you to create any issues, or any recurring problems that you face, and finally we’ll talk about the actions that you can take to make the changes that you want in your work and in your life. Coaching doesn’t just affect you, it touches all the people you work and live with too.
In the coaching sessions, we can talk about anything that you feel is important for you and which is affecting you. Your life is not neatly divided into work and home, and the issues that affect you at work will have much wider connections for you, and we can explore all of that.
I’ll challenge you, and I’ll also support you. I have copies of your Caliper and 360 reviews which we can use as a reference, but what I’m most interested in is getting to know you.
It’s most important to understand that coaching is not a passive process, it’s not like being at school or on a training course where you can sit back and maybe listen to what’s going on. Coaching is about action, and it’s your action that counts. As a coach, I wont be doing anything for you, I won’t be making introductions or setting goals for you. Most importantly, I won’t be chasing you up. If you set a goal or action for yourself, it’s not my job to chase you, because it’s for your benefit, not mine. If you don’t arrange a coaching session, I won’t be chasing you. I will email you every month to let you know that coaching dates are available, and it’s up to you to use the online calendar system.
The coaching is an important part of the overall BMDP program, and it also supports the other parts. The online learning will give you valuable leadership knowledge, but the most important learning comes from when you apply that knowledge. You might find that the theory works for you, you might find that it doesn’t. We can explore that in the coaching sessions, and that will help you to get more value from the online learning.
As well as individual coaching sessions, we also have some set aside for your project teams. It’s very common that your team will find it difficult to make time for the projects, because these are real business problems that no-one is working on right now. For you to do anything new, you cannot find some spare time, you have to make time. The easiest way for you to make time is to delegate, and that is also how you manage succession planning and team development. In the past 3 years that I’ve supported this kind of program in Rockwell, the pattern has been the same - project teams have taken a long time to get started, and have then rushed to try to deliver something in the time available. I can support your project team, and I can also support you as you work within your project team. My advice is to start right now, and to always think about your final presentation, about what you want to be saying you have achieved in your project. Focus on that, and delegate to make the time to deliver something that you can really measure.
If you have your own questions about the coaching process or anything else that I can help you with, you can email me at any time.