In this example Jean Cessford, Services Manager, Support for Staff, Education and Children's Services (ECS) describes how coaching has developed in Education and Children’s Service in Perth and Kinross Council.
The authority had already begun to provide people across ECS with opportunities to be trained in coaching before the Scottish Executive Education Department project. Within ECS the aim has been to build coaching capacity and to create a directory of people who felt confident to support their colleagues across the Service.
Staff across ECS from Heads of Service to Head teachers, Probationer mentors and Chartered Teachers have participated and their expertise has been used to support new staff for the first weeks and months of a new job with people self selecting a coach from the directory.
Jean thinks of coaching as a partnership of equals in a relationship which encourages the coachee to develop his or her confidence. Coaching can create an environment where the truth can be told and mistakes made. Coaching involves effective questioning, listening, summarising and reflecting. The values of integrity, honesty, credibility, visibility, reliability, consistency compassion and trust to empower people in risk taking are central to coaching. Objectivity is a vital characteristic of coaching, as are avoiding providing opinions, projecting one’s own expectations and making judgements of the coachee. The model that have been reviewed and training offered.
PKC offered participants a two day skills development programme based around the GROW/OSCAR solution focused approach to coaching. The training included establishing the links between coaching and mentoring, establishing what coaching is and is not, looking at values, building confidence, and looking at where coaching is an appropriate approach. Following the training there is a recall day to review the coaching sessions that coaches have had, to revisit the skills and gain feedback from the trainer. There is also a network session each term where coaches can meet with the trainer and share experiences and build confidence.
The following account describes how a senior member of ECS assisted a member of staff return to work following a period of absence:
'I adopted a coaching approach to facilitate the return to work of a member of my staff following a long term stress-related absence. The purposes of adopting a coaching approach were to help the coachee identify changes she could make to improve work/life balance and to help her to regain lost confidence.
This entailed having weekly meetings as agreed in our return to work meeting. These were informal and lasted for roughly an hour and we focused on planning the week’s tasks to begin with. I used coaching questions to give ownership of, and responsibility for, improvements to the coachee. This enabled her to find appropriate solutions to personal issues and demonstrated her competence. I undertook to find resources from time to time with the coachee undertaking most of the actions identified.
As time progressed, with the coachee reporting an increasing level of confidence and enjoyment in her job, we sometimes missed our weekly meetings and also the coachee would come to the meetings with more and more preparatory work completed, thus making the meetings shorter and tipping the balance of who was leading the agenda.
This coaching process lasted for one hour per week, over a period of five months. It was sometimes difficult to find the time however both of us felt that the time was so well spent that we had to make sure we kept up with our meetings which was a challenge. The other challenge was the coachee’s feeling that she had a huge mountain to climb to feel competent and confident. This was overcome by focusing on very specific tasks, knowing what needed to be achieved and by reflecting on her success (or not).
Having made the opportunity to reflect and discuss matters openly and honestly has been fundamental to the success of this coaching example. From my point of view I feel that I have a very good understanding of my colleague’s work and am able to encourage her to share the good practice I am seeing her develop.
Her confidence has greatly increased and she is now thinking creatively about her work and is not afraid to make changes to longstanding plans, with the needs of the young people she works with at the core of her thinking. Previously she had stuck to what she viewed as being the prescribed approach and had worried about her ability to adapt her approach but now she is much more flexible.
In summary, I regard this example of coaching as having been most successful – as a result the coachee has regained confidence, now has much more job satisfaction and is demonstrating a high level of competence in her work. I have been able to improve my coaching skills during this time and using these skills has in turn resulted in better monitoring feedback meetings with other members of staff'.
Jean believes this initiative has been successful because it was not imposed. She began by approaching a few people for the first training session and the word spread about what a useful experience it had been. As a result, new people are still requesting this as a training opportunity.
Another important factor in its success is the opportunity people have had to meet and be counselled by an experienced coach/ trainer so their skills are maintained to a high standard. She also sees coaching as is not another initiative but a skill to be added to a toolkit at all levels within the ECS organisation. The key learning most people have taken from coaching is empowerment of the individual to take responsibility for their actions and build confidence in their decision making.
Jean’s comments on the further development of coaching in ECS are:
'I am trying to build a community of coaches across the Service where coaching conversations prevail. I have now built a group who are committed to coaching approaches. Next steps are to consider accreditation for this group who may be able to act as ambassadors for this approach'.
For more information please email Jean Cessford, Services Manager, Support for Staff, Education and Children's Services (ECS).
In association with Education Scotland
Comments
Sheena Greco,
27 February 2008, 1.00 pm
What an interesting project... What form will any future accrediation take? Sheena Greco Leadership Development Officer City of Edinburgh Council
Jean Cessford,
4 March 2008, 08.23 am
Working with the trainer who has gained accreditation through the ILM we are considering this route for those regularly attend the networks and want to gain recognition for the skills they are building on. The network is an opportunity for people to amass experience in a supportive environment.