Why you probably want your employees to have coaching

In modern work life a coaching approach to leadership is constantly growing. Managers are trained in coaching methods and use them frequently to support and challenge their staff. And still external coaching is growing alongside. Why is coaching something you would want to make sure your employees take part of? And why would anyone want to spend money on external coaches when a coaching approach is already part of how you lead?

In this article I will give my view on why you do want coaching to be a natural part of the competency development package in your organisation and why you don’t want to do it all yourself even though you may have a quality coach training of your own.

First of all. Let’s have a look at what the effects of coaching actually are. And I am not talking of the bottom line results often measured as return of investment (ROI) in business coaching. These results exist as well and you may very well benefit from them but studies measuring ROI often focuses on business coaching per se and then the results are directly linked to the turnover and results of the organisation. In this article I will focus on other aspects of coaching ROI.

A meta study at Amsterdam University 1 shows that coaching has significant positive effects on five both theoretically and practically relevant individual-level outcome categories: performance/skills, well-being, coping, work attitudes, and goal-directed self-regulation. All outcomes with effect sizes ranging from g = 0.43 (coping) to g = 0.74 (goal-directed self-regulation). These findings indicate that coaching is, overall, an effective intervention in organizations raising parameters you as a manager benefit from increasing, financially, in terms of employer branding  and in efficiency.

   As you go along employing brilliant people to come together, bringing the results your organisation is striving for, you want them all to come in with commitment, energy and their full attention to the team and the goals. Gone are the days when coming to work, do your hours and leave in the evening was all that was expected. Recent research I participated in as research assistant at Centre of Leadership in Småland at Linneaus university showed that among the most important things employers were looking for in employees was the ability to independently work towards shared company goals.2

   In modern worklife we expect our employees to bring their whole person into work, strive and develop throughout their career, pushing our shared efforts to new heights in a competitive world. And our employees expect us to offer a workplace that gives the opportunities to learn, develop and grow as a person while performing the tasks at hand. The Why is just as important as the What.

This poses new challenges on leadership and competency development. If we want people to engage in work fully and whole heartedly, we also need to have structures in place to support managing not only the actual tasks but also ones’ emotions, stress responses, relations and coping strategies. This is where coaching comes in. In regular training new skills can be taught. Mentoring is a god way to share experience from seniors to newer staff and bring different perspectives together in mutual learning conversations. But these methods have one thing in common. They focus on transferring knowledge. In coaching knowledge is built. Brought to awareness. Connected to actual day to day situations and to the inner wisdom of the person, allowing for new knowledge to rise.

Coaching creates a space to reflect on tasks and processes with the purpose of better understanding through one´s own lens how to move forward. Every person has a unique set of talents, experiences and life lessons that form patterns of strengths and challenges. In coaching these patterns are activated, respected and at the same time strengthened or rewritten depending on whether they support or inhibit the goals of the coachee. A thought-provoking conversation with a professional speaking partner well trained in holding the space for someone to learn from their own situation, without polluting the learning experience with an outside agenda, brings safety to truly challenge oneself. An opportunity to find ones’ strengths within, increasing self-reliance, independency and resilience. When it is all about me in a safe space, we can allow ourselves to lower the guard and let weaker spots and less competitive traits be visible. What is visible is also workable.

   The simple reason you as a manager cannot be as efficient as an external coach in this is that you by definition have an agenda of your own. Among your daily tasks are overseeing employee performance, ensuring organisational goals are met etc. Even though you may decide to leave all of this outside the coaching room, it is still there in your prejudice and even more, in the mind of the employee. As your client there will be limits to the level of openness, and thus also to the learning given a chance to occur. In conversation with an external coach limiting beliefs can be challenged without fear of giving oneself away in ways that affect future career moves, salary or work reputation.

This is part of the reason coach – client confidentiality is of such importance. You as a manager may choose to start, check in and/or end coaching programs with triadic conversations where you, the client and the coach together sets expectations and checks in with the process. The coaching process however will go on without you, and client has the choice of what and how results will be shared with you from insights and learning.

The way I see it, it is the brave and the wise leaders who brings in us external coaches to support staff. Having that courage will show your employees you trust them, expect greatness and are willing to give them the space and the resources to develop the specific tools they need to be able to sustainably perform at their best.

Do use your coaching approach leadership to build the climate you want and lead your team. Then add the external coaches when recruiting new staff, moving employees into new positions, expect them to perform at high level under pressure without burning themselves out or to stay energized and committed throughout a long career in your organisation. Having a coach will bring higher performance/skills, well-being, coping, work attitudes, and goal-directed self-regulation. Guess you and your organisation will benefit from that, won’t you?

Want to talk about what bringing coaching to your staff could be? Welcome to book a spot in my calendar and I’ll happily have that conversation. Free of charge and no strings attached. Book it here.
Lena Gustafsson,
professional coach and passionate about understanding and developing a sustainable modern work life.

References:

1 Theeboom, T., Beersma, B., & van Vianen, A. E. (2013). Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual level outcomes in an organizational context. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1-18 (synopis).

2Forslund et.al (2022) "Förnyelse på småländska".

For the Swedish readers: here are some articles for further reading. Unfortunately only available in Swedish.
An interview with me in my role as a manager made by ICF Sweden: Coachande ledarskap.

An article from ICF Sweden on the role of coaching as competency development in modern work environments: Coaching – kompetensutveckling för det moderna arbetslivets krav

And a couple of articles I wrote as part of ICF Sweden editorial committee:  Bredare användning av coach i svenskt näringsliv

Varför coachning som metod passar så väl in på svensk arbetsmarknad

 

Episode 15 RYOB: Stick to your personal development journey

Congratulations on making it so far in this series of articles on running your own business. In this last episode we will address the issue of survival in the long run. We will discuss the ways in which you can keep maintaining your job satisfaction, find new challenges and opportunities, and continue your personal development alongside your company. Let’s dive into it!

Remember that you need to find a balance between operations and product

A challenge for all solo entrepreneurs and small businesses is to find the balance between operations and product/service. 

On the one hand, we have the operations: you need to actually run the company. And that entails a lot of hard work. We have looked at these parts in our previous articles from this series. And as you will remember, running a business is not a one-off process.It is an ongoing job and if you do not keep those processes going, there is a great risk of ending up in unprofitability, stress, and errors which will harm you and your brand. 

On the other hand, we have the product or service: the thing that the whole company is based on. If the product/service does not maintain its quality, the whole company is bound to fail.

You are your most important asset

In some industries this may be more applicable than in others, but regardless of your industry, as a freelancer or entrepreneur, you are your most important asset. Your success will largely depend on how you navigate the intricate environment of markets, customers, services, and business.

This is why it is crucial that you work on your personal development as well as your company’s development. 

Shoemakers’ children have no shoes

Forgetting about your personal development while focusing solely on business development is much more common than one might think. It is common even among coaches, whose (paradoxically) job includes talking to the customer about the value of taking care of and training their staff, and working on personal development. And as you can imagine, this is not unique to the coaching and training industry. Who has not heard the sayings "the baker's children get no buns" or "the shoemaker's son have no shoes"? Make sure that your skills are used in your own benefit too and give yourself the chance to grow in pace with your business.

Plan you personal and professional development 

It is a difficult art to create a balance between customers, market needs, and taking care of yourself. But it is as difficult as it is important. Think about it this way: what good craftsman lets their best tools be worn out? What good musician fails to tune their instrument regularly? Now, when you are running a company and you are your own (and perhaps others') manager, it is you who has the responsibility of planning your personal and professional development. As a freelancer or entrepreneur, you are not only responsible for your business, you are also responsible for yourself.

Planning this is setting aside time and money for the development of your own skills, but also to include moments of recovery in your schedule, and to set reasonable expectations and demands from your performance and support yourself in meeting those expectations. 

There are many obstacles you can encounter on this journey. We all have one or more weak links which can break as a result of different triggers. One way to make sure that you stay on track is to ask yourself: what do you need in order to deliver on top of your game? Reflect on this question, list your answers and then think about what it means for your way of running your business. How is this list reflected in your business plan?

As you become more and more established, your business plan develops and goes from the first years characterized by a steep learning curve and a fight for survival, to long-term sustainability. As time goes by, make sure to expand your business plan with chapters on service development, personnel care, and training planning. This should be, of course, done while keeping a close eye on your budget. But keep an open mind - costs and profits can be measured using different parameters: time, energy, money. Lately, I myself have included both time and money in my budget to get a more comprehensive picture of my business.

How do you keep your motivation levels high all the time when running your own business?

Frankly, you don’t. Very few of us are able to motivate ourselves in all situations with our strength and energy alone. Stagnation is bound to surface at one point or another.This is why it is important to reach out beyond yourself for support with both energy and growth opportunities. 

One way to find energy and growth opportunities is to join a network. Sometimes the networks you need already exist out there and all you need to do is join them. Other times, you have to create them yourself. Some networks are formal, while others are informal. The rule of thumb is that you need three kinds of needs met in your networks:

• business development

• professional development

• personal development

Having people who know you and your journey will offer you a lot of support, as they will hold you accountable for your progress, as well as cheer you on. 

Example of network for coaches

The International Coaching Association, ICF, is a global organisation supporting coaches and also Sweden's industry association for coaches and a good example of a network for your professional development. Here you can choose the level of activity and involvement. You can be involved locally in your town, country, continent, or you can be involved in the international network. You have the freedom to choose what fits you best.

Find support from coaching

Having a coach can help you get more clarity in your work, get more energy, and overcome the challenges you are faced with. 

Here it can be a good idea to differentiate between business coaching and personal coaching. Business coaching is focused on your business development, where you get support in running and improving the way you run your company. 

Personal coaching supports you in your own development, as a person, both as a private individual, and as an entrepreneur. In an actual coaching session the business and personal aspects are oftentimes blended together. But in order for you to make the right choice regarding your coaching decision and to help your coach understand whether the two of you are a good match, you need to be clear about what you are looking for. Which area do you primarily want to work with right now? Who do you want to do it with?

The more you get to know yourself, the more you know what suits you, what works well for you and what makes you effective. In order to get to know yourself though, you need to be challenged. Very little of it happens within your comfort zone. So get out there beyond the borders of comfort and see what you find there. This will bring some little discomfort, but the potential gains are definitely worth it.

My favorite things to keep my own development journey going

• Coach training, regular short for constant inflow and occasional deep efforts to challenge myself.

• Own coaching

• Coach conferences

• Conversations with coaching colleagues in ICF's network

• Surprise myself with unexpected training in areas other than coaching, preferably together with other industries.

• Schedule reflection time

• Allocated reading days, own time to read research and literature

What are your development engines?

Episode 14 RYOB: Brand building - so much more than just advertising

In this episode we will teach you how to build your brand. The moment you start your own business as a freelancer or entrepreneur, you by default start work on building your company's brand. 

The brand is the environment's perception of what your company is, what it looks like, and what you can expect from it.

You need to choose between a personal brand and a company brand

For some solo-entrepreneurs, the personal brand is strongly associated with the company. However, using your personal brand or building a company one boils down to your personal preference.

Depending on your industry, demand, and other factors, a personal brand helps the clients get a personal feel. When they think of your company and products they think of you, and when they think of you, they think of your company and products.

In other situations, separating the personal and company brand is advisable. The company's brand is built more independently of you as an entrepreneur in order to include more people in the future and maybe sell the company further down the line.

However, as you will see, for many small entrepreneurs, the brand consists of both personal and company elements. 

As you read through the article and get to think about all the components of the brand you can revisit this question and decide which of the three alternatives fits your company best.

You cannot not have a brand

Your business has a brand whether you like it or not. If you do not take care of your brand, it will take care of itself. The environment will form an opinion about your company and that will be your brand. In this article, we will discuss multiple brand building concepts and give some tips on how to own your brand building process.

The brand has 2 cornerstones

There are two concepts that create the basis of any brand:

• The first one is the physical expression: logo, profile colors, and the like.

• The second one is the value-laden identity of the brand. 

Many entrepreneurs and freelancers mistakenly think that when they choose a logo, make some business cards and design the website, the brand is set. Don’t fall for this fallacy. Your logo and other visual elements are there to reinforce the totality of your brand. They alone are not enough. The visual elements need to be part of something bigger, they need to be part of the identity and perception of what your company promises its customers. 

Long story short: the visuals should carry the meaning of the brand, not be the brand itself.

So let’s start there. Before you start designing the logo, you need to be clear about what your company means and wants to achieve. What is the purpose of your company?

Brand meaning

Begin by defining the vision, core values, ​​and brand promise

Maybe you did some of these already when you wrote your business plan. If not, now is the time.

The following questions can help you define your vision, core values, and brand promise:

• What do you really want to do with your business? Here you have to get past the obvious of providing the product you offer. Of course the product is a big part, but you do not run the company for your own sake. You come with a set of talents and abilities to offer the world and you are passionate about something. Spell that out.

• What is your vision of running this particular company? 

• What do you want - really?

Use the answers of these questions as a starting point and write down your vision. This will be the core of your brand and the tuning fork that all your future activities will be tuned to.

Expand the vision to find your core values

Now that you have the vision in front of you, you need to expand it and see how it relates to everything that you do. This is a very important step in your entrepreneurship journey. You can use these following questions as a guide:

• How do you achieve your vision? 

• What feeling do you want to convey when you achieve your vision?

•  What is your idea of ​​how your company should appear and be perceived? 

Brainstorm freely for a while and write down all the words that come to your mind.

Then see how the words in front of you are connected. Can they be grouped? Are there logical connections? Interesting contradictions? Sort them as you see fit. Take your vision as a basis, review the headings, groups and independent words in your brainstorming material based on the connection to your vision. 

To find your core values write down the most important ideas/concepts that stand out from the expansion of your vision. Pick 3-5 words that really describe what you want to be in the market.

Get extra help from a coach

Even the most self-reflective of us could use a helping hand now and then. It is easy to want to express many things at the same time or remain vague with certain elements. Get a coach to challenge you to stay concise and clear, and support you in finding those exact core values that are important to you.

Find a coach here or download our free material on finding your core values.

Write down your brand promises

Now that you have your vision and your core values, the next question is: what do you promise your customers? What is your brand promise? When someone buys your products, what can they expect? Go beyond “high quality product,” and dive deeper into the whole experience. Write down your promises.

The external attributes of the brand

Create a logo

Good work. Now you have done the groundwork. Next, you can start thinking about the external attributes. Ask a graphic designer to sketch a logo for you. Or if you prefer to do the job yourself, you can now start thinking about: 

• What does a company like yours look like? 

• How do you visualize your vision, your core values ​​and your promises to the customer? 

• Are they soft shapes or straighter lines? 

• What colors fit? 

Extra tip: if you have a favorite color that you know you often use yourself and you want your personal brand close to your company, you can include that color in your logo or make it your profile color.

All visual elements should reflect the brand

Build your website, your business cards, your brochures and the decor of your office to reflect and strengthen your brand. Create a style that expresses what your brand stands for and find ways to include elements of the vision, the core values, and the promises.

If you promise exclusivity, make sure your business cards reflect that. If personal closeness is one of your core values, this should be apparent when I visit your website. If corporate professionalism is part of your vision, you may want to skip decorating the brochures with kittens and summer flowers (even though they are beautiful).

Separate the brand from your personal taste

Now keep in mind that your visual expression should reflect the brand you have created as an entrepreneur, not your own personal taste. It's about what your company stands for and promises in the market, not who you are. With a brand that is close to you as a person, it is easy to mix them up. 

Practice separating yourself and the company even if you actually want to build a strong personal brand. You need to be genuine. You need to be YOU and like what you do. But you still have to have a private life as well. Not everything that you do should be expressed in the brand; this is about your professional persona. You choose how much of your entire identity you want to express there.

Let the brand live in your everyday life

Think about how you actually live your brand in your work day. Think about how you honor the promises you make to the customer as an entrepreneur. Think about what routines regarding purchase, payment, discounts, etc. will be right for a company with your brand promises. Think about the places where you should network, and the causes you should support.

At the same time, allow yourself to be unique and stand out. Your uniqueness is what makes the market notice and remember you - so take advantage of it. When you become too similar to all other entrepreneurs in your industry, it becomes harder and harder for those who meet you to find a clear hook to hang the memory of you on. What's your thing? Once you've worked on establishing your brand and people start talking about you - what are people saying when they talk to each other about you and want to remind each other of who you are? "It's he the one with…" or "You know her, her who…"

During the time you run your business, your brand will be alive, will breathe, and will develop. The reputation of your company will be built through the interactions with your customers, your competitors, your market, and the world around you. The more logical and clear you can communicate your intentions, the easier it will be for the right customers to find you. Your brand is strong when it clearly expresses the values ​​your company delivers and the outside world appreciates what they associate it with.

Summary on how to build your brand:

1. Develop a clear vision - why does this company exist?

2. Select core values ​​that reflect the vision. What is important for your business?

3. Formulate your brand promises. What do you promise the customer?

4. Design your style in the form of external expressions in line with your brand

5. Build business routines and networks in line with your brand

Live and communicate your brand day by day as long as you continue to run the business.

In our next and last episode of the RYOB series we will explore a topic that usually sets apart successful entrepreneurs from the rest: sticking to your own personal development journey.

Episode 8 RYOB: Shared assignments and tasks

In the last episode we started looking at different ways of sharing your daily work life as a solo/small entrepreneur. In this episode let us talk about a few things worth to keep in mind as you start working togther.

Collaborating on assignments or work tasks can be a good way for a small company to increase its power. By working with others, you can create better solutions for customers. 

From basic to complex

Collaborations can take multiple forms. Sometimes it can be restricted to simple tips. Here you could either consult your business partner on how to complete certain work tasks, or you could promote, through word of mouth, other small businesses with the agreement that they will do the same for you.

However, sometimes business grows beyond your own capacity and the quick and easy is not enough. To take it one step further and make it easier for your clients, you can subcontract the small business to offer products or services to your clients. This way you remain the first contact point with the clients and strengthen your bonds with the other businesses.

It is crucial to write an agreement 

How much and how often you collaborate with others determines what type of agreement you should have. Whether it is a simple agreement on a specific product or a framework agreement for a longer collaboration, it is just as important as in the case of a co-ownership scenario to have written agreements covering everything from practical routines, to dealing with crises when things go wrong. 

One tip here is to remember that, unfortunately, it is usually in collaboration with close friends or colleagues that misunderstandings form the basis for conflicts. This is because both parties knowing each other well might think that they mean the same thing and act based on assumptions rather than talking things through the way we do in new relations. Writing down all the terms of an agreement simply forces you to formulate and express yourself clearly and you can see where the other person thinks differently. 

3 simple tips for writing a contract

1. Before you begin, think about what you and your contract partner are going to do together: who does what? Then think about layout and distribution. Write down what you agree on,in clear language that is understood by all parties.

2. Think about what can go wrong and write down how you intend to solve it if it arises. Think of things such as conflicts, illness, accidents, mistakes towards the customer, whose logo do you work under, how are customer contacts handled and how are follow-up projects or products divided.

3. Feel free to create templates for the type of collaboration you usually have recurring such as employment contracts, subcontracting contracts, collaboration agreements. When you then adapt the template to the situation, you will make sure to cover all aspects of the collaboration.

Having employees can help you grow

Maybe your business is growing beyond what your own working hours can cover and you need to decide whether you should keep up with the growth or remain at your current size and refine. 

Hiring is one of the ways entrepreneurs can choose to make more time available. For many, the step is perceived as very large, and rightly so. On the day you become an employer, you also take responsibility for your employee(s) being properly insured, receiving good working conditions and an agreed salary every month, regardless of how things are going for your company. 

However there are many ways in which you can make this process easier and less risky for both yourself and your business. For example, you can hire part-time employees for a specific set of tasks or for the production/launch of a specific product or project. It is not necessarily all or nothing.

There is an overlooked side to having employees

Hiring does not only entail extra responsibilities and obligations. It is also a way to include more people in your vision and get more people working to realize it. You can complement with other personalities and other competencies or add someone like you while still retaining the ownership and decision-making power. As a good supervisor, you probably want to engage your employees and involve them in decisions and planning, but you can still keep the vision of “what” and engage employees in the “how.”

Use coaching to clarify your vision

Consciously reflecting on how you want your workday as an entrepreneur to look like, how close you want others in your business and what is important for your inspiration and development are excellent topics to address during coaching. Take the time to work with a coach through your core values, your vision, and your needs. Starting and running your own business is a career choice as well. Give it space and make active choices and you will create the workday that gives you the best potential to be the best version of yourself that you can be.

Congratulations! If you made it so far it means you have most of your company set and ready to go. In the next few episodes we will explore the marketing side of your business.

Episode 6 RYOB: Co-ownership - a few things to think of

In the previous article we talked about the options that you have when it comes to sharing parts of your company with others and we explored some questions which could help you make a decision. 

In this article we go in more depth and explore the key aspects which you need to consider if you decide to run your business together with other entrepreneurs. 

Running a business together

If you chose to run the company in joint ownership, there are multiple company types you can choose from. Depending on country forms may vary, here are some examples from my Swedish context. Check out specifically what is true in the country where you are planning your company.

1. Limited companies are the most common. The ownership is distributed through a proportion of shares to each owner. Owners then assign a board (out of themselves or by adding externals) and this board assigns CEO who takes in employees (among owners and/or external). The company’s management system and the roles each owner has, are decided through decisons in the board of the company and when you distribute the tasks.

2. An economic association is another form that is growing rapidly in popularity in Sweden today. The economic association is formed by three or more people. What you should keep in mind when considering this type of organization is that it is an open form. The statutes you write set the framework for who may be a partner. Therefore, everyone who then meets these criteria has the right to request to become part of the economic association. 

   The implication of this is that economic associations are very common for organizations such as cooperative preschools where membership is naturally linked to having children in that preschool. But staff cooperatives of various kinds are also emerging. In these cases, a group of people working together often share premises and other costs associated with that. 

3. The trading company is another alternative you could choose. However, since limited companies in Sweden today are so simplified in their administration and require relatively little effort, trading companies are very rare here today. The great personal risks are seldom defensible if you are not already married and have shared finances.

4. And so there is the unusual form of “simple company”. It is really only sole proprietors who for a joint venture obtain a joint VAT return number the form is not its’ own legal entity and quite unusual.

You need a good plan if you want to ace your partnership

A good basis for successfully running a company together with other entrepreneurs is to spend plenty of time on the partnership agreement when starting your collaboration. In the partnership agreement, you write down how the responsibility is distributed among you, how profits and losses should be distributed, who does what, and how you should handle different situations which may arise. 

Here are some questions which you might be useful to consider: 

• What do you do if you do not agree with your business partner(s)? 

• What do you do if someone wants to quit the partnership? 

• What if your company get into tough times, what do you do? Are there limits to your risktaking?

• What do you do if someone becomes ill or for other reasons unable to run the company?

If any of these scenarios were to happen, you can fall back on the partnership agreement for answers and guidance. 

The very process of writing the agreement can reveal points in which you think alike or differently from your business partners. This in itself will be a valuable lesson and experience. The key here is to think about as many scenarios as possible and have constructive conversations and agree on ways of managing them. This will make your joint-entrepreneurship journey smoother.

More things to consider 

Here are a few more questions you might find useful to ask yourself before you enter into a joint venture: 

• How equal are you in your collaboration? 

• Do you agree on how much you are willing to invest in terms of time, money and energy? If not - how do you compensate for the differences?

A situation where one partner is full of energy and drive while the other wants or needs to prioritize other things in their life can wear off the partnership, making it more likely to break in the future. It is therefore important to make each of the partners’ expectations and wishes clear from the very beginning. Then you need to negotiate sharing the responsibilities, as well as the compensations to make sure that everyone receives their deserved share.

External resources

Lastly, consider if and when you want to use external resources. For example, in Sweden, newly started companies are offered by the NyföretagarCentrum a mentor program where a mentor brings in an objective, outsider’s perspective which can bring a lot of new and valuable feedback to help you find your way forward. This is a great resource for new entrepreneurs. 

For established companies, an external board member can be a good way to get a new perspective, more clarity and sharpen the priorities around the entrepreneurship collaboration.

Join us in the next episode where we take a deeper dive into a different scenario: sharing your work life (but not ownership) with others.