It must be the economy. Every HR person I meet lately is interested in "creating a coaching culture". The way these HR people see it, a coaching culture will mean that everyone will coach more. They want to rely less on external coaches. Makes sense. Why pay someone for something when you can do it yourself? The nice thing about this economy is that everyone is doing more themselves.

I decided to write this blog in order to help my clients create that coaching culture.

This blog will be the first in a series.

Creating a coaching culture, like any culture change is complex and takes time. I'll start with "culture"-- what it means and how you change it.

What is the meaning of culture? Here is the wikipedia definition. "A culture is a set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group." Organizational theorists borrow the term and concept of "culture" from anthropologists. Anthropologists use culture to describe the enduring cultures of groups of people (this includes everything from large ethnic groups to small subcultures.) For more detail see the extensive discussion in wikipedia.

When you think about the anthropological definition of culture, you start to see how hard it is to simply change culture. Typically culture is something that is developed over a long time period (thousands of years). Culture is entrenched through the cultural group's beliefs, values, language and systems. Anthropologists say cultures shift either very slowly or quickly due to major events (war) or inventions (world wide web).

Organizational cultures in business evolve over fewer years but can be equally entrenched. Language, beliefs, values and systems are also what drive and re-enforce organizational cultures.

How do you change organizational culture? If you start your change initiative with systems and language, the change will be slow (3-5 years). The change is often so slow that the organization is likely to change the systems again before any real cultural change occurs. Often in attempting to create organizational change most people start with language (to create a coaching culture this is usually in the form of coaching models and coaching training) and with systems (changing compensation and performance management). This a recipe for a large spend with little impact.

How do you get faster change? Jump on a "burning platform" or create one. John Kotter is probably the leading expert on organizational change. I have linked here to a from Kotter explaining how change works. Kotter's change theory has eight steps. The first step is to establish a sense of urgency. In many organizational change initiatives this step is often cursory or skipped completely. People naturally move into changing systems and language. Which as I've said results in slow or very little change.

How do you create a burning platform for a coaching culture? You have to first examine why you want a coaching culture. Saving money is laudable but not sufficient. Coaching must be connected to your business strategy. It must make sense that you need a coaching culture. Not every environment does. If you are coaching, you should be coaching for a reason. I'll give you a few examples to illustrate.

We have a financial services client. They live and die on what they sell. Clearly a coaching culture for them must be connected to the business development process. Creating a coaching culture because coaching is an important thing to do won't fly for them. You start with teaching them how to coach on business development and client service. It will be in their best interest to help their staff on these issues. They will consequently learn to coach.

Now let's look at a manufacturing client of ours. This client has razor thin margins. Everything they do is about managing costs. For coaching to have any traction in this environment it has to help these managers keep their costs down. If you can get managers coaching first on cost containment, there is a chance that you can develop their coaching skills and that they will use these skills on more general coaching.

Finally let's look at an insurance company we work with. This insurance company's strategy is focused on great customer service. They have successfully created a coaching culture. They have done this because they coach in order to retain their staff and improve service. High turnover hurts client service immediately. Coaching is tightly connected to their strategy.

Here's my advice, if you want to create a coaching culture first develop your burning platform. Take a day or two off-site and brainstorm this. Then spend an adequate amount of time socializing the burning platform. Do not start with systems and language. If you really think about it in a practical sense creating a burning platform costs little -- it costs only your time as a leader.