Why Do Organizations Want People Who Can Coach?

Why Do Organizations Want People Who Can Coach?

There is an increasing demand for people who can coach.

I have often referred to the results of a Google study (*1) that shows "the top quality of an effective manager is being a good coach". Also, the results of a 2019 International Coaching Federation study (*2) says "83% of organizations will add coaching as a job requirement for managers in the next five years".

Executives we met told us the demands for talent is changing. There is a growing need for people who have a management perspective, who can think independently and create change, and they wish to be equipped with the skills to develop such talent.

To be able to do that, coaching can definitely make a difference. However, a 2017 survey by the Financial Times (FT) also found that "people with coaching skills" were amongst the top five kinds of people most difficult to hire (*3).

As the need for "talent who can coach" grows, same goes with the development of coaching skills. The FT's research points out.

The Shortcut To Being A Good Coach Is To Have Received Good Coaching

Why are so few people currently learning coaching skills?

Just getting coaching training is not enough to make you coachable. In the past, I have personally trained coaches over 150 days a year. The training served as a good introduction, but it lacked something crucial to actually make someone able to coach.

The International Coaching Federation made the following point in a 2019 survey.

"We want to let leaders have a 'coaching mentality' within the company, but the difficulty is that many leaders are not receiving good coaching.

Communication skill is a key component of coaching, but it is not enough, because it changes through real experience. In another words, in order to be able to coach, the most realistic approach is not only to learn coaching skills, but to be coached yourself.

I have seen many cases of how clients learn coaching via being coached by professionals, and they start using what they learn in the workplace and coach people around them. In this way, more and more people have real-world experience of coaching.

I believe "coaching and being coached" is the position where coaching should be, as when this chain of real-life experiences is born, the "place for organizational change" will take place.

A Platform Designed As Coaching Space

A platform called "Driving Corporate Dynamism™ (DCD™) " was developed to create a "place of change" within an organization.

DCD™ consists of four settings to develop leaders to coach:

1. Receive a professional coaching.
2. Improve your coaching skills.
3. Coach the key persons in your organization.
4. Receive feedback.

Through these four settings, a "coaching space" will be established on the DCD™ platform, and coaching conversations begin to occur throughout the organization.

Throughout this process, new leaders are shaped from the coaching received and also a surrounding where effective influences begin to emerge. The result is visible and actual organizational change.

The Changing Meaning of Leading

The world and the environment we now face is constantly in flux and uncertain. As such, it is not a compelling approach to just "instill answers in certain individuals".

The meaning of "leadership" is becoming "the act of being more relatable and being able to influence each other" (*4), and this requires leaders who can interact with others.

Through the DCD™ platform, we are taking on the challenges of organizational change and leadership development to meet the demands of the changing times.

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Language: Japanese

The author of this article

Wataru KURIMOTO COACH A Co., Ltd. Senior Director
ICF Master Certified Coach

Wataru KURIMOTO, MCC, is an executive coach providing coaching to more than 200 executives over the past 15 years including CEOs and other C-level executives in listed companies in Japan and their overseas subsidiaries. Wataru specializes in designing organization coaching with C-suites that aim not only at individual executive's success but also creating desirable impacts to entire organizations.
His recent track records include supporting a cross-border Post-Merger Integration project of a large chemical company by designing and implementing coaching to the newly-formed executive team.

In COACH A Wataru serves as the director of Overseas Business Development and he leads multi-national teams to drive new coaching and OD initiatives to truly accelerate Japanese corporations to win in a global context. His leadership experience enables him to synchronize the struggles and hence sense of urgency with his executives clients, which forms a deep-rooted trust from with clients in coaching relationships.
Towards advancing organizational success, Wataru’s emphasizes on continuously developing the self-awareness of executives as well as building their relational intelligence to transform their engagement approaches with the key leaders around them. Often times the executives quickly and effectively engage their leadership team with heightened level of accountabilities and unity.