Trafford Publishing: Coach 2 the Bottom Line: An Executive Guide to Coaching Performance, Change and Transformation in Organizations

Here is the full reference card for this book...

If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113.

Coach 2 the Bottom Line: An Executive Guide to Coaching Performance, Change and Transformation in Organizations

by Mike R. Jay

366 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #99-0035; ISBN 1-55212-284-0; US$39.96, C$61.47, EUR40.00, £27.70

The book is about creating outcomes for the individual and the organization that lead to well-being, purpose, competence and awareness. It is based on proven methods of improving performance, creating generative rather than destructive change and facilitating individual and organizational transformation.

About the Author

MIKE JAY has been an active Coach since 1988, As a business leader for the past 25 years, he has experienced first-hand what it means to "make a payroll," and deal with difficult management issues in a turbulent and ambiguous environment.

An award winning U.S. Marine and Texas Aggie quarterback, his experience in leadership has led to management success in medicine, hospitality and business services. After coaching managers in a small business and corporate environment for over 15 years, Mike became founder of the International Consortia of Business Coaches, a virtual organization.

Mike has been featured in national publications for his innovative work with employees and was awarded the "Highest Achievement Award" from the Dale Carnegie Speaking Program. He currently speaks and writes about business, coaching and systems that generate personal and organizational effectiveness.

Excerpt

from cover inside flap:

A practical guide for anyone seeking information on coaching or creating a coaching system in their organization or business.

Throughout history, business has searched for ways to improve, change and transform itself and its people.

In this book, a path to awareness, competence, purpose and well-being is lit for organizations who are looking for ways to energize and develop people. Coaching is not just a passing fad or program dujour, it is a methodology for integrating leadership, management and development.

Business today is turbulent, ambiguous and uncertain. The knowledge worker has truly become mobile; global competitiveness is beginning to beckon talent faster than we can refill our intellectual banks.

Leaders will be pressed to grow their organizations with people, in fact leadership will become the constraining factor on the quality and quantity of organizational effectiveness in the future.

Without a clear commitment to recruiting, developing and retaining the best employees, companies will find themselves bleeding creative talent and innovative capability-in real time.

A coaching system, fully woven into the fabric of the organization will create opportunities for people to develop capability. The coached organization will be populated by people who have adaptability, vitality, passion and the willingness to go the extra mile.

Right Action: A Premise for Coaching

When people ask me what the role of leadership, management and coaching is in an organization, I have often thought of the following statement: "The right people doing the right things at the right time in the right way for the right reasons." Mike Jay

I guess it is imperative that we discuss why the following statement has a place in the back of every person's mind who may employ coaching as a strategy for improving and developing people and organizations-right action.

Often we think of the needs of the shareholder and the organization's ability to create wealth and keep a customer as most important. Yet, it really isn't enough of a noble cause to accomplish the really big things, is it?

I often view the organization as a framework for the exchange of value. It helps me to keep straight, the organization or structure that surrounds us--all those functional but impersonal issues--and the people, the personal side of an organization. I admit I still struggle with the definition of organization and while I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, it's not about struggle.

You will hear the term effortless used throughout the book with many different nouns, as work in today's world with all of our modern attributes should not be about effort and work, but about contribution and flow. Never before have we had the opportunities that abound today. We literally are at the dawn of a new age, hardly capable of being known, yet fully evident as we live and breathe.

This book is about that age, living and prospering in it and finding an uncommon happiness through effortless contribution. My goal is to help you help others find their dreams, their best way of contributing, an inner sense of well-being that burns in all of us-everyday. Work and organization need not be about struggle and strife--scarcity and greed. Work is probably the most significant human bond, lying ready to afford us the abundance and satisfaction that is common to the least of us.

Organizational Effectiveness

The short sidetrack above should not distract you from the central issue of right action-it is merely the underlying foundation for it. Right action depends on the individual and collective action taken as a matter of choice each and every moment we process our thoughts-and behave. Right action is a matter of deep inner being that is often prevented from surfacing by personal and organizational barriers. However, in each and every moment, we have the opportunity and some would say the obligation to surface right action.

"Understanding how we diagnose and construct our experience, take action, and monitor our behavior while simultaneously achieving our goals is crucial to understanding and enhancing effectiveness."

Argyris & Schon, Theory in Practice, 1974

Of course it is easier said than done. While this book contains the where with all or theory and practices to help facilitate that for individuals and organizations, it is beyond the scope of our time together here to fully explore right action for you in all of your roles and their dimensions. Perhaps someday I will finish the work in progress that addresses those personal leadership issues, but for now allow me to offer to you my experience and synthesis of how to coach right action in organizations-to create organizational effectiveness.

Personal and Organizational Right Action are not Separate!

So don't think for a moment that I intend anything other than a synthesis of personal and organizational effectiveness--simultaneously. However, I have to focus the light of our attention and consciousness on the task at hand and that is helping you to understand how to create a coaching system in your organization or workgroup that creates the opportunities for right action to surface and persist.

You will notice that I make reference to the surfacing of right action as opposed to having to create it? This is done on purpose. If we view the process of surfacing something that already exists rather than constructing it from scratch, I think you can see that our system of approach will be much different. The methods, along with the knowledge, skills and abilities (ksa's) that are required for competence in surfacing right action as opposed to constructing it, are not always similar.

While this book is about developing and improving the competencies you will need to master in order to remove the barriers to right action, it is also about people. These competencies are made up of the ksa's that people will learn and can master. We will discuss the integration of both during our short time together-- reading and understanding this book. They are covered fully in later chapters.

Understanding the Components of Right Action

Let's for a moment go back to the concept of right action. We said that right action was "the right people doing the right things at the right time in the right way for the right reasons."

If we look at each component in the right action system, we will discover the reason for including it in the equation.

Right People

"It is a lot easier to hire the right people to begin with than to fix them later."

Bradford D. Smart, Ph.D.

That quote from Smart's latest book, TOPGRADING: How leading companies win by hiring, coaching and keeping the right people, pretty much sums up the importance of the right people in my view. So much of our time as change agents is spent working with the wrong people-people we are stuck with. It is clear that in order to be a great company or great workgroup you need to have great people. Yet, so much of the time, we find ourselves working with people who are not ready, willing and able to do the job they have been assigned.

While this book deals effectively with coaching in this situation, prevention through recruiting, hiring and training the best person for the job can't be overlooked. Fix your problems before they start! Coaching a person who is ready, willing and able is a whole lot different than someone who isn't. Surfacing right action in the former is truly effortless, while the latter can be a challenge for even the most masterful coach at best, impossible in the least. Many coaching programs discuss the person who is not coachable. A person who is neither ready, willing, and able populates that subset.

I would recommend TOPGRADING for no other reason than to see how Smart classifies different people into A, B and C possibilities. He fully demonstrates the effectiveness of how leading companies prosper because they spend 80% of their time with the people falling into the A class. He indicates that an effective strategy is to hire the best possible candidate available for the job based on an extensive interviewing process that is delineated in his book.

Right Things

The first part of the equation is fairly simple, start well-end well. However from here on things get pretty complex. What is the right thing? This question in itself is probably responsible for more books, papers, articles and conversation than most other topics except the right reasons.

The right thing has a way of being pretty elusive especially when the right thing today is not the right thing tomorrow! However, the right thing can also be surfaced with the proper methodology. In fact, the quality of the right thing will improve with the use of the coaching methodology we describe in this book.

The focus throughout the book often centers on the question what is the right thing--for the person coaching, the person being coached, the system or the organization? Simply put, the right thing is whatever content, delivery, product or service meeting the needs-that has value--of the person/organization and situation you are dealing with at the time.

For a person coaching, the right thing may be something we say or refrain from saying. It might appear as a question, a form of feedback, an idea or perhaps even silence. For a customer service person, it might appear as a solution the customer wants and the company can afford. For a leader, it might be that vision thing, the correct selection of CFO, a new product idea or even a smooth, quiet ride in the countryside.

Each moment in time defines rightness or fit as often referenced. The ability to do the right thing is within each of us. It may not be the right thing for everyone but at that precise moment it might be the right thing for us-a chance to work for another company, an opportunity to pursue a lifelong interest or the action taken to help someone in need.

To do the right thing requires an understanding of one's self, the situation and the desired outcomes, either shared or held individually. It must meet a host of moral and legal criteria, all so complex that at times we find ourselves pulled in two directions at once, yet underneath it all, we know the right thing.

An effective coaching interaction surfaces the right thing at the right time, even under the most ambiguous circumstances.

Right Time

Timing is essential. Almost everything can be fixed except time. Time passes and often you get just one chance to do it right. Often, accountants talk of efficiency. In systems, we measure efficiency, the time and resources it takes to do it right the first time. As an individual or organization, we need to focus on doing the right thing at the right time because of the cost to do it over and the speed in which the business environment is changing shape. Regis McKenna's book called REAL TIME: Preparing for the Age of the Never Satisfied Customer brings into view how critical timing is to individuals and organizations.

"Companies best equipped for the twenty-first century will consider investment in real time systems as essential to maintaining their competitive edge and keeping their customers. By this I mean that they will use information and telecommunications technology to respond to changing circumstances and even more important, customer expectations within the smallest lapse of time."

Regis McKenna

Clearly we have no choice but to take into consideration how time affects everything in our personal and organizational lives. From being on time to seeing your child perform in a play, to having the right thing ready for a customer precisely-in time. People and organizations have NO CHOICE but to seriously consider the impact of time on everything-including the right time to relax!

Coaching is about timing!

Without a doubt, the most exciting thing about coaching is that it brings about the consideration and importance of timing-through interaction. When we take the time or opportunity to connect with people, to clarify meaning and to make commitments that are healthy, wealthy and wise-our time is well spent.

Right Way

This book is about a right way. You see, the right way is the way that it needs to be. However, we don't always know the right way on the surface and unconsciously we will often do things in a way that is not representative of this deep knowing we all have access to deep inside.

"The environment in which we operate is significantly more complex than what the human mind can process at a given moment. In order for the human mind to deal with reality, we must abstract from the buzzing confusion of everyday life by using abstract concepts."

Chris Argyris, Org Dynamics, Autumn 1982

The right way often becomes something that has worked in the past or something that is familiar. Due to complexity we use these previously successful right ways for more and more challenges-to the point that they no longer become the right way. One of my favorite quotes from Abraham Maslow demonstrates this modus operandi..."he who is good with a hammer thinks everything is a nail."

The right way syndrome can be tested and often determined from using coaching methods. This is why coaching has become so popular among the fad of the month practicioners. Coaching as a way, is participative, not as directive as other ways and is often much more appreciative of people. It allows for the surfacing-not just the substitution-of the right way in each circumstance. In the least, an awareness that we often fall into using the same abstract concept spoken about by Argyris to solve a variety of solutions. In organization, it is easy to sub-optimize the system by using less than ideal solutions.

Ask anyone who has been in a coaching relationship for any period of time and regardless of whether they like their coach or not, they will feel more empowered about themselves and often towards the organization of their choice. The mere fact that two people relate to one another and discuss things that are not normally discussed has the power of unleashing forces within us that are seldom seem. No wonder everybody is a coach!

If we were on the internet I would have put a {g} (stands for an emotion of smiling or grinning) but since we are not I will just say the statement was meant facetiously.{g}

However, often the mistake that is being made-addressed clearly throughout the book-is that not everyone can or should be a coach, however everyone should learn to use coaching ksa's (remember-knowledge, skills and abilities).

So, the right way is mostly determined by the actor acting in accordance with the situational needs. If we understand that principle, then using coaching ksa's can surface or test the right way, whether we are a coach or not. The right way is often a perception and not a truth. That confuses most people because so many people have been taught to believe that there is a one right way to everything (remember Maslow?).

In a complex and ambiguous world such as we live and work in, very few things are universally true. We perceive them to be, but such is just not the case. We do not see the world as it is, but how we are.

If I asked you to-for just one moment-suspend all your truths and ask you to find the right way to do something, you would probably use coaching ksa's automatically. Not knowing-starting with a beginner's mind-you would have to probably connect with someone, clarify some issues-testing alternatives-committing to the right way for that situation.

Of course, we always consider the right reasons while we are discovering this right way, but that goes without saying.

Right Reasons

I saved the best for last! The right reasons is the most written and talked about subject of mankind. Whole nations have been annihilated for not having the right reason on their side! Our entire democracy exists for the right reasons. Each and everyday we think we are doing things for the right reasons. We are individually and collectively guided by the right reasons, yet why don't we all have the same reasons?

Because the right reasons are highly personal and often very subjective-often hidden deep within our cognitive and emotional conditioning-being interpreted from rising complexity, arising out of abstract concepts.

As we discussed in right way, there are very few universal truths, only those we subscribe to and believe. In business, the right reasons have to be motivating, empowering, energizing, on solid legal ground, compassionate-compassionate? That too! No longer can we hide behind a stoic truth about how the organization is all powerful and dictates the lives of its constituents, its market and its buyers! A new world has dawned and we now live in a buyer's market, driven by overcapacity, global competition and a deteriotating environment.

The Right Reasons?

The right reasons today are different than the right reasons of yesterday. Yes, we need to have the same moral compass, yet the moral points have become more graduated. No longer can we live and work at the benefit of our environment. No longer are there people lined up at our doors willing to work for anything we chose to declare as fit.

The time has passed that we are able to command the world's markets and our employee's time, life and existence. A fragile, yet dynamic balance is coming into vogue where we must-for the right reasons-conduct ourselves individually and collectively in harmony with one another and our environment.

Coaching is one of the few ways to approach and dialog about the right reasons at the individual level.

Leaders describe for us the right reasons in their noble visions.
Managers decide our course of actions for the right reasons.
Trainers teach us what to do for the right reasons and others perform their roles for the right reasons.

Yet, in coaching we explore the right reasons; we test the assumptions those right reasons are based upon. Through discovery, appreciative inquiry and through dialog and conversation with another person, we formulate the right reasons through interaction.

Throughout this book, you will discover why coaching is not just another fad of the month. You will understand how coaching fits in the modern day organization and how to conduct coaching interactions to develop well-being, purpose, competence and awareness as an individual and in your organization.

"I recommend that we account for behavior by understanding it as what follows from the way the world is showing up for someone. In other words, it is not events, communication, or stimuli that lead to behavior, it is the interpretation [my emphasis] an individual gives to the phenomenon that leads to actions taken."

James Flaherty from COACHING: Evoking Excellence in Others.

Clearly right action is determined through interpretation of the interaction of a variety of factors and is not always defined in terms of standards but often emergent according to interpretation or one's governing variables as Argyris might conclude. The role of coaching in an organization and for the individual can facilitate interpretations that are more generative for all concerned.

Generati

In a sense, people who practice this methodology as a lifestyle rather than in a part of their lives evoke the term generati for me. I coined this term a number of years ago to describe this very condition-people who continuously create generative circumstances around them. The term is taken from the forms of literati and digerati, coined to describe conditions surrounding literary and digital worlds. The new world that I offer this coaching methodology towards...is about right action...is about creating generative circumstances for all involved and...is about a practice of understanding and acting in harmony with our goals, our work, our communities and ourselves.

In the following chapters, please join me for a journey towards generati. Coaching is a path that you will find generative for you and your organization.