How to Implement a Business Coaching Process (Management by Coaching – MPC™)

There are as many definitions of coaching as there are “coaches”. The main aim of coaching, however, consists in leading individuals to position themselves towards their professional life and/or project(s). The key-question that every coached person is proposed to answer is: “What role am I expected to play within the company through my projects and responsibilities?”

The gap between coaching within an organization and competition in sports deserves a special mention, for their methodology and – more importantly – their finality radically differ. Indeed, individuals who go beyond their strengths rather represent a threat than an opportunity for the company. Moreover, competition in a professional context can cause a deterioration of the company’s social atmosphere, which is one of its most valuable assets. It is thus important to be very clear as to what the goals and the methodology of the coaching process are.

Also note that team coaching tends to be more and more often introduced into companies. It includes the same tools and pursues the same goals as individual coaching. The difference is that, instead of starting the coaching with an individual audit, it is the global functioning of the team that is assessed in the first place. Similarly, at the end of the process, every team member will be attributed specific responsibilities in the collective action plan.

TOOLS

A number of tools can be used, as these should be directly adapted to the coached person’s situation – i.e. to their professional project, different partners, etc. However, the following tools deserve to be mentioned, as they are the most commonly used at the moment:

PRACTICE

The Management by Coaching (MPC™) approach offers a coaching methodology that structures every activity into a project. This coaching process (illustration) follows the following steps:

1) Audit of the coached person: assessments both at professional (knowledge, know-how and behavior) and personal level (knowledge of one’s values and life-balance) in order to compare them to the project’s characteristics.

2) Audit of the project: This analysis aims to structure the project’s demands in an objective manner, both at technical and human levels. It will include:

  • the list of all the customers with their expectations
  • the list of the partners who take part in the project
  • the list of all the factors (both technical and human) that may ease or hinder the completion of the project

3) Definition of the project’s mission: construction of the project’s mission. The latter should integrate the coached person’s characteristics and aspirations (i.e. their ideals and values) as much as possible.

4) Goals and activity flows: At this stage, we identify the – often ill-defined – quantitative (turnover, costs, deadlines, absenteeism…) and/or qualitative goals (quality of products/services, motivation, work atmosphere, skills…) that underlie the mission. These can be decomposed into sub-goals – or “milestones” – that will allow a better control of the project’s advancement. Note that human-related goals (e.g. the improvement of the relation to the customers, the development of the project team’s skills…) are often forgotten in this process.

The activity flows are also derived from the team’s mission. They should be rationalized in relation to the organization’s global workflows, in order to allow for gains in terms of time, energy and money. Moreover, listing up all of the team’s activities will ease the distribution of roles and responsibilities within the team itself.

5) Resources and structure: At this stage, all resources – whether technical (tools, information, infrastructures…) or human (customer management, marketing, communication…) – that will allow for the mission to be fulfilled, should be listed up.

As for the structure, it consists in formalizing and delimitating each person’s role in a clear and transparent way, in order to foster the development of delegation and the acquisition of a structured and global vision (for the project manager).

6) Action plan: It is aimed at the realization of the mission. Without this step and its implementation, the coaching process would be useless. It is absolutely necessary that the decisions made to be quickly implemented.

This action plan is made up of two parts:

  • a personal action plan aimed at achieving a satisfactory work-life balance. The latter is based on the people’s hobbies, as well as on the development of the weak points that they regard as important for the project and themselves.
  • an action plan for the project that will become its main steering tool. It lists up the project team’s missiongoals and respective roles, as well as the related tools and resources. It allows for the introduction of a project timeline by specifying all compulsory deadlines. Finally, the project manager can, thanks to this plan, assess the follow-up of the project and even include control indicators.

7) Monitoring of the project: The achievement of the goals set in the action plans is continually checked for as the project unfolds. When intermediary goals are achieved, new goals are set, and so on, until completion of the project’s mission.

EXAMPLE

Here is a dual action plan (example) – for both the coachee’s personal development and the management of the project itself – that derives from the Management by Coaching (MPC™) methodology.

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