“This pandemic is not here to make you weaker, sicker, more anxious, more depressed. It’s there to make you stronger, fitter, more courageous, more creative, more innovative,”[1]
-Anand Chulani-
(Leadership & Peak Performance Coach)
Are you wondering how you will manage performance and productivity remotely? How you will balance the emotional demons that accompany rocky terrain shifts? Having an impactful coaching culture is key for ANY business to thrive in a pandemic landscape.
Coaching for a Performance Culture: The Transformation Case Study
In one education organization we have been working closely with over the past 3 years, before we arrived, change had not been happening fast enough. There were rumblings of discontent from key stakeholders as their main objectives were not being met. This was complicated by discord amongst the staff due to ambiguous messages and a general blame shifting culture. Staff were in the comfort zone and coasting. The Senior Leadership Team and Management on the other hand were working hard to troubleshoot, but were exhausting themselves putting out fires left, right and centre.
LeapEd was engaged to work closely with Senior Leaders and Middle Management to embed a performance-based culture; a strong move away from the comfort zone culture that existed. The goal was to move from simply achieving to exceeding and excelling. The solution was for 23 Senior Leaders and Middle Managers to attend one of LeapEd’s coaching programmes.
The aim of the programme was simple. Enhance performance by providing Middle Managers coaching tools so that they could help their teams develop awareness of their self-limiting beliefs and strive towards performance.
The Intervention Based Approach of Coaching
Facilitated by LeapEd’s internal ICF certified coaches, the 
Senior Leadership Team and Middle Management:
- explored coaching tools and techniques to have informal coaching conversations using the LeapEd Coaching Framework
- learnt coaching strategies and approaches to have effective coaching conversations and conduct professional coaching
- developed skill sets to apply the 11 ICF competencies and coaching power tools in a professional coaching session
- conducted structured formal coaching sessions with their staff based on the 10 ICF Key Stages post training
They then applied learnings to their playing field. What were the outcomes?
The Results: Wisdom & New Learning
Was the intervention a success?
For a start, we first looked at external research by Jones (2015) in a study presenting a meta-analysis synthesizing the existing research on the effectiveness of workplace coaching.
The analysis of this study found that organizations that employ coaching perform 14% better than organizations that do not. Even more dramatic, the study presented that individual-level growth — which was defined in the research as learners who learn from training and apply it on the job — increases by 39% with coaching.
A similar pattern was observed in LeapEd. It was the power of the coaching skillset developed by the Senior Leadership Team and Middle Management that galvanised employees to move from their comfort zones into agility and endurance, timely in a pandemic landscape. Within 3 months, employees who had undergone coaching indicated increased growth in:
The After Result
The findings from the evaluation of employees having undergone some form of coaching as a direct result of the programme revealed THREE key elements of coaching that lead to an improved performance culture in employees:
- The right questions posed by the coaches through inquiry and curiosity help navigate articulate thinking, increase self-awareness, and overcoming self-limiting beliefs to uncover new possibilities for their learning and development.
- Coaches guided employees to set their goals for learners to give them direction and a sense of accomplishment when goals are met. When needed, reframing was key to ensure the RIGHT goal was being actioned
- The goals were often focused through questioning to be applicable and achievable tied to skills that learners can apply at work.
Embrace the Growth Mindset, complete the race
As a Leader and Manager in your organization, you light the match to improve your team’s performance and ensure they are moving collectively and progressively ahead in the new remote work reality.
As this pandemic continues to be a part of our lives, it is vital to shift our focus from ‘When it will it be over?’ to ‘How do I grow myself and my team by investing in the inner game?’
Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Take our coaching skills quiz here
- Take our self-limiting beliefs quiz here
- Check out the pathway to becoming an Internationally Certified Coach here
- Ask yourself the questions below
