By Ros Soulsby
Internal coaching, and now reverse mentoring, have been introduced at Samsung UK, part of a highly hierarchical South Korean multinational, which just three years ago had no learning and development (L&D) function at all.
In an interview with leadership coach and award-winning BBC journalist, Rachel Ellison, Anthony Ryland described the culture at Samsung UK, one of the electronics giant’s top five subsidiaries, as collective, with very little distinction between work and home life. It is very different from the UK’s more individualistic, egalitarian business culture, with small power distances between levels of authority, he said.
Ryland, who joined Samsung UK a few years ago as head of talent management and development, said that piloting coaching in the UK meant the L&D function came under a lot of scrutiny, because it worked on promoting a new way of leadership.
He shared the challenges in taking the organisation from a performance, to a leadership to a learning culture. When he joined Samsung, he discovered that in Korea, learning equals knowledge and that the setting for such knowledge is in amphitheatres, and not facilitated. In Korea, much of the population aspires to go to university, and Samsung is such a huge presence that many of Korea’s graduates work at the organisation. The UK has no parallel, he said.
Samsung was facing economic challenges too, with high-pressure retail targets. “Large shipments would arrive on Tuesday to be sold by Friday,” he said, explaining how he had needed to move the company from performance to leadership without losing sight of the bottom line.
One of Ryland’s first steps was to introduce a UK pilot: the ‘Great Leaders’ programme, targeting middle management, which could influence collectively and downwards, then exert peer pressure upwards.
Some 99 managers have now been through the programme, which is accelerating learning and application of coaching in the business. This is beginning to promote self-coaching in a business committed to weekly targets. With each decision potentially worth £1 million, making the best decisions is critical.
He introduced executive coaching, role-modelled from senior leadership down. More recently, an internal coach programme was introduced, creating 16 internal coaches, who have two clients a month.
Testimonials from internal clients point to a shift from anxiety about performance to enthusiasm, resilience and greater performance.
The reverse mentoring scheme sees new people share their experience with senior colleagues at Samsung UK.
In an industry that is only ever six months ahead of the competition, innovation is critical, but employees can only innovate if they have open feedback, he said. The internal coaching helps and supports the external coaching to encourage new thinking throughout the company.
He identifies his internal coaches as his greatest resource to help managers embed ‘how’ they lead and not get sucked back into the ‘what’ of the day to day. Internal coaching also keeps people refreshed, which helps with staff retention, he said.
When he buys coaching, he looks for coaches who seek to find out as much as they can in person, without using jargon, or coaching speak, such as holistic/systemic. “Most people in operations don’t know much about coaching and will be too embarrassed to ask,” he said.
Ryland said he also looked for coaches who can relate to the business and to the vice president; who have credibility in business terms, and who understand how the coaching can result in tangible outcomes; who instantly engage and can be seen
as valuable for someone with
limited attention time, and who remain aware that embedding in the business is the bottom line, and that you are providing the behaviour of the future.
Hawkins: let’s get over GROW
By Tim Segaller
“What can the coaching profession uniquely do that the world of tomorrow needs?” This was the challenging question at the heart of the keynote address by Professor Peter Hawkins, author and international thought leader in systemic team coaching.
Helping us get over our addiction to growth is one way forward, he suggested, making a pun on the GROW model popularised by Whitmore and others. “We are all addicted to GROW. Growth is good when we’re young or in the spring, but it is not the ultimate goal,” he said, suggesting team coaches need to work “future-back and inside-out”.
Hawkins took delegates on a whistle-stop tour of the latest research and practice on coaching boards and leadership teams.
There was good news, too: demand for team coaching is growing rapidly, as borne out by the Henley Corporate Learning Survey (bit.ly/1svCivv).
The discipline is becoming critically important, as Hawkins explained, since “organisational learning must equal or be greater than the speed of environmental change”.
In other words, leaders must act responsibly and effectively, often in the face of fast-moving and unpredictable events – and in the context of a booming world population and greater inter-connection, which is placing increased demand for higher quality, sustainable products and services at a lower cost.
So is the coaching profession ready to respond? Hawkins concluded: “Team coaches must get clear with themselves and clients about their different offers, and which are needed when. Perhaps even more importantly, they need to help leaders step up to challenges by enabling them to make the journey from team manager to team coach.”
Charity helps break the cycle of crime
By Tim Segaller
“Why coach in prisons?” was the question posed at a stimulating interactive workshop run by Spark Inside, a coaching charity supporting young people in the criminal justice system. And the answer? “Why not?”
Such plainness was characteristic of Spark Inside’s commonsense approach to its pioneering work. The charity ran a pilot in 2013 with eight high-risk young people aged 15-18 nearing release. With one-to-one coaching and group workshops it sought to help them “proactively create more fulfilling and productive futures”.
Spark Inside’s founder Baillie Aaron described her journey to setting up the charity. “As a volunteer in prisons, I saw young people coming out being assigned to training that didn’t match their interests. I wanted to help them see strengths and have a meaningful life. Young people told us they wanted a non-directive programme customised to them. I realised this is exactly what coaching is – so was determined to take it into prisons.”
Lola Fayemi, Spark Inside’s programme manager, also spoke of her passion for empowering young people. “During the riots of 2011, I was struck by how marginalised many young people are. I wanted to do something about that.”
Some 75 per cent of young offenders re-offend within two years of release.
Spark Inside’s pilot showed impressive results. All eight clients are now actively engaged in or seeking employment, education and training.
The young people described the coaching as a chance to speak to someone who was “on their side”.
As Lola explained: “The coaching work was a lot about breaking cycles – enabling them to explore a side of themselves that’s hidden, but can still grow.
CONFERENCE NEWS
It’s all relative
Many coaches will be familiar with the concept of ‘designing an alliance’ with their clients, yet some still neglect the important coaching relationship, writes Tim Segaller.
This was the backdrop for the workshop by coaching psychologist and academic researcher, Dr Alanna O’Broin.
Her extensive research backs up her hypothesis that real change in coaching can only take place when the relationship is well-established. Key to this is trust and a strong connection, based on the coach’s ability to respond appropriately at ‘critical moments’ of high emotion.
The key word here is ‘collaboration’ – a sense of joining forces to move towards an agreed vision. It’s also vital for the coach to adapt their style of communication to each client.
Effective coaching relationships can best be summed up by Aristotle’s observation: “The whole is more than the sum of
its parts.”
A curious feeling
Coaching is a way of modelling how to challenge from a place of curiosity rather than blame, said Diana Hogbin-Mills from Network Rail.
She said that as the organisation is policy-driven and hierarchical, people can find it hard to make challenges. Coaching was introduced into Network Rail 10 years ago, but is only now being accepted, writes Ros Soulsby.
The organisation found it hadn’t been listening enough, but that when this improved, people began to be open to feedback – and it is fundamentally transforming them.
See page 24 for an interview with Hogbin-Mills
Coaching at Work, Volume 9, issue 5