Start-Ups Should Add An Embedded Coach To Their Early Team
Transforming culture and leadership
Posted on 12-29-2023, Read Time: 5 Min
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In August 2017, I accepted a position as an 'Embedded Coach' at Sonder—an experimental role born from Co-Founder and CEO Francis Davidson's passion for creating a feedback-driven and coaching culture. This role, typically unheard of in other startups, especially in the early stages of growth, ended up having a profound impact on the people, business, and culture at Sonder.
For those unfamiliar, an Embedded Coach operates as an employee of the company and usually reports to the CEO or Head of HR/People. This multifaceted role is designed to increase leadership capacity across the company, improve cross-functional communication/collaboration, and contribute to cultural development.
In addition to providing structured leadership coaching, I began offering rapid-fire 'spot coaching' to help equip people with the ability to execute change more effectively across complex, chaotic, and diverse systems.
I would often hear ten different perspectives on the same issue in any given week, allowing me to offer an alternative approach or help people gain a shared reality instead of operating from assumptions. I'd support all sides in having difficult conversations, better understanding each other's worlds, and responding with compassion and understanding. Many of my conversations focused on teaching people to assume positive intent and provide helpful feedback instead of shutting down or getting stuck in a victim mindset.
Over the next six years, the company grew from 150 to 2500 employees, survived the pandemic, and went public. I led over 6,000 coaching sessions with employees at all levels of the company, customized six types of coaching, expanded my team, and partnered with HR leaders to develop the next generation of leaders at Sonder.
Here is why this role is critical to integrate into early start-ups to drive impact, increase efficiencies, improve employee engagement, and ultimately impact the bottom line.
Embedded Coaches (ECs):
- Act as cultural ambassadors, integrating the company principles and leadership values into each session, and empowering people to live our values in the moments that matter most.
- This role transformed the way people viewed our growing HR function, creating a safe space for people to do 'their work' in the workplace, as opposed to one that only focuses on liability and compliance.
- While all coaching sessions are confidential, ECs can escalate issues that would have otherwise been detrimental to the culture and business.
- ECs become a trusted source of truth, able to offer an alternative perspective or approach, help remove roadblocks, enable a project or team to get back on track and maintain their resilience and optimism.
- Most importantly, they create accountability around conscious leadership, empowering people to speak from their own experience, see and understand their blind spots, and access compassion and empathy when confronted by situations that can either divide us or unite us.
In 2021, I transitioned from my role as an EC and Head of Culture at Sonder and founded Alma. This company trains and places Embedded Coaches with companies ready to adopt this model and revolutionize their HR function. I have seen time and again how ECs impact retention, engagement, productivity, and performance.
Even more importantly, this role empowers companies to scale and create an environment where everyone can thrive.
Author Bio
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Alita Watson is the CEO & Co-Founder of Alma Coaching. She is a seasoned executive coach and business partner with over two decades of expertise in transforming businesses into viable, scalable, and thriving organizations. |
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