The Emerging Role of The Internal Coach Sara Hope and Louise Buckle

Outline for Today The evolving market Defining ‘internal coach’ Purpose of the role Attributes required for an internal coach to be effective The opportunities and challenges for internal coaches Critical success factors The role of professional bodies in supporting internal coaches Discuss: Structure of internal coaching Your practice How supervised and managed

The Evolving Market Organisations looking to create in-house coaching capability Costs of coaching Internal coaches understand culture, business strategy, people, politics Internal coaching as part of coaching culture Coaching can be spread more widely within the organisation Louise – Partner go with internal coach – cost, started conversation so why would I go external? We know the promotion system, the people, networks – mentoring that add’s value. Some mentoring type relationship in internal coaching relationships, but we watch that and switch between roles carefully.

Defining Internal Coach What is an internal coach? A definition: “a one-to-one development intervention supported by the organisation and provided by a colleague of those coached who is trusted to shape and deliver a programme yielding individual and professional growth.” (Frisch, 2001) Confusing terminology Tensions:

The Purpose of the Role No definitive guidelines – appears to be organisation specific Connected to wider Business/Learning & Development strategy Suggestion agenda may be restricted by organisation framework Delivery of skills, performance and development coaching In KPMG the framework has been largely talent – supporting our best. Some remedial – but more associated with how to become successful here. Ambitious people – natural focus on career, but also blind-spots around leadership and as its a non-corporate environment we are all leaders and so its crucial to our peope that we can all support and develop and use a coaching style at times. So coaching can be about supporting that style of leadership.

Internal Coaching Models What are the different ways internal coaching is being expressed within organisations?

Effective Internal Coach Attributes required Effective Internal Coach Technical Skills Organisational Understanding Experience Credibility Training and Development Recruitment Louise – credibility being commercial important and think about business opportunities. Reference business – demonstrate you ‘get’ the business. The role/title got credibility in KPMG – trust not been betrayed. When other people can’t help me, you can. Downside – where it’s lost it, where the coach has come in with their agenda eg WLB and partner not wanted this OR coached moved into L&D space. Importance of being explicit – I’m here as a coach Qualifications Professionalisation

The Opportunities/Challenges Relating to Internal Coaching What are the opportunities/challenges for an organisation employing internal coaches? What are the opportunities/challenges facing an internal coach? What are the issues you need to manage to ensure internal coaches can operate effectively? Notes from Louise: Being an internal coach you have to be more disciplined as coach to say within the boundaries and structure. You really have to live by your reputation. Way you manage your time internally is very different, practice shortened, operating in office structure. Doing deeper development work more challenging, tend to do more behavioural career work. Completely different set of experiences, is it full/part time, where located in business/central/HR/business. How role graded compared to all others. Are you given clients or do you find clients – impact on how you’re able to operate. How performance managed and how your time is accounted for. Contracting different – different kinds of conversation

Critical Success Factors Exploring and clarifying the purpose of the role Alignment of the role to the wider OD and coaching agenda Recruitment, training, supervision and on-going development Managing trust and confidentiality Managing stakeholder understanding Acknowledging subjectivity and ambiguity Louise Measurement – depends on whether tough times Way forward isn’t to measure – its to say what do you want to see happen next year? More planning. Strategic business needs and what strategic coaching need might be. Start with whats on the agenda, what issues facing and how coaching can help. How much it will cost, how can we prioritise? Therefore changes every year, development of offer, connects with business. Business Mindset – coaching is an individual activity. KPMG got individuals rather than a coaching service which you draw from so in some sense it’s more authentic to what coaching is about. Geography – notion that personal anxiety, will they choose me? What would happen to our relationship with a client if they chose from 15 faces on a website compared with if located within a business?

The Future Louise – is IC poor relation? Could argue better outcome than external? Depends on what coaching is for. Exec development for individual. If coaching is behavioural aligned to our values – systemic effect. Purpose rather than what Range/place for different types of coaching – types/levels. Importance of developing coaching strategy and getting clear on what you want to achieve. KPMG promoting associate coaching model – specific pockets ie impact/maternity coaching. Externals used with more senior staff. Challenges re value of each type of coaching.