While coaching is a hot topic in business it is most often associated with professional sports. In the 1970’s, the pioneering work of Timothy Gallwey (“The Inner Game”) and Sir John Whitmore (“GROW Model”) enabled the application of coaching to move from a sporting to business context. Our interest in this article is on coaching as a tool to support social processes used to improve operational effectiveness and safety performance in business. The importance of social processes in business was described in a recent SafetyMastersTM article[1].
An approach being applied to improve safety performance in the mining industry was first described in 2006 as the Cascaded Coaching System[2]. The primary intent being to “… build a supportive employee-centric culture of peer learning that facilitates professional development, enhanced performance and improved interpersonal communication.” Toyota’s Kata Culture[3] is a good example of this type of approach. Coach-Coachee pairings repeat across organizational levels. Each person has a next-level-up coach (his or her manager), and in the other direction each person is a coach to a group of learners. A Second Coach is also used and is typically the coach's boss, a peer or specialist. This interlinks all members of the organization with a common language, structure, and way of working. External coaches are often used initially to help selected persons develop their coaching skills as quickly and efficiently as possible so those persons can teach and spread the practice within the organization.
Although the term “cascade” may be perceived as top-down or hierarchical that is not the intent. While reporting lines may be used initially to provide structure and a multiplying effect, the intent is to establish coaching relationships as learning partnerships, which are not limited by title or position e.g., a peer may serve as a coach to a peer. The key is in establishing relationships where the coach earns the right to provide coaching. An important learning from top coaches in professional sports is that: “character drives process that produces results”[4]. In other words, it is the discipline of consistently applying the work process coupled with collaborative relationships that produce the best results.
With this approach it is vital to focus feedback on behaviours and elements of the work process (e.g., one being safety) that are going well. Studies have confirmed that a little corrective feedback goes a long way in improving team collaboration and performance, and that there is an optimum proportion of positive to corrective feedback[5]. Team members in top performing teams give each other 5-6 positive comments for every corrective statement.
This approach to coaching when applied to safety can focus on processes such as pre-shift meetings, pre-task hazard assessments, and leader field interactions. However, consistent with the approach used by SafetyMastersTM it may be applied broadly to other aspects of work with good effect to improve organizational effectiveness.
[2] Cascaded Coaching: Building a Culture of Peer Development. Hosmer, David. OD Practitioner, Vol. No. 3, 2006.
[3] Toyota Kata Culture: Building Organizational Capability and Mindset through Kata Coaching. McGraw-Hill. May 2017.
[4] Building Your Inner Coach. Brett Leadbetter TED Talk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7a5TIzOmeQ
[5] The Ideal Praise to Criticism Ratio. Zenger, J., Folkman, J. Harvard Business Review. March 15, 2013.
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