Coaching, a factor for success in Organizational Transformation

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Coaching, a decisive success factor for organizationaltransformation

Jérémie Avérous1, Certified Professional CoachDecember 2010

“During periods of major change, the performance aspirations of a company depends on many people throughout the organization learning new, specific values and behaviors .” Katzenbach & Smith, ‘The wisdom of teams’,1993.

Introduction Major organizational change, which we will call ‘organizational transformation’ in this paper,

like a merger or a substantial reorganization of a company, is an event which proves alwaysdifficult to implement. It adds up the difficulties of personal change to the challenge of modifying the interrelationships between people. It occurs in a context which often produceshigh level of anxiety.

As a proof that organizational transformation management is intrinsically difficult using traditional top-down approach, a number of such initiatives fail quickly, or lead to situations

where the organization performance plummets.

As organizational transformation often requires and involves significant change of behavior,change to the individuals’ outlook itself is key to its success. It is often overlooked.

Applied in a structured manner, coaching is a decisive additional tool for successfulorganizational transformations. Coaching needs to be applied both at the individual and grouplevel. This paper investigates the context of organizational transformation, and how to implementa successful coaching intervention in that context.

Coaching applied comprehensively can increase significantly the speed, effectiveness andsustainability of organizational transformation, thus delivering a significant competitive advantageto the organization.



Coaching, a decisive success factor for organizational transformation 2

The challenges of organizational change The challenges of an organizational transformation are multiple. Challenges happen through

all the different phases, from planning, to implementation and to consolidation. At the planning stage, the issues revolve about a review of the purpose of the organization

itself, a clear definition of the objective of the organizational transformation, and thedevelopment of an achievable plan for its implementation. This plan needs to include propermetrics to measure its effectiveness.

At the implementation stage, the issues revolve around simultaneous change at the multiplelevels of the individual, team and organization. At the individual level, people are anxious, acondition which generally does not promote change, while they need to be able to change theirhabits and behaviors. Sometimes, they need to change significantly their occupation or even theirlife habits. At the team level, there is also a need to change the balance of the informal relationsand distribution of tasks that might have developed over time. At the organizational level, uponimplementation of the new formal organization, the change process needs to foster as quickly aspossible the redevelopment of the informal organization that gets the organization to run

effectively. At the consolidation stage, measurement of whether the organizational transformation has

reached its objectives will indicate whether some improvements or remediation need to beimplemented.

Organizational transformation processes that are commonly considered are often very highlevel, founded on a rational and mechanistic approach. They rarely include listening to, andinvolving individuals down in the organization chart into the change process itself. Individualsare often supposed to simply implement a change decided higher up.

Organizational transformation often fails because people in the organization fail to understandthe purpose and the interest of the change, thus diminishing morale and involvement. People fail

to understand what opportunities and value the organizational transformation brings to them. Transformations also can fail overall because the change creates such a turmoil in theorganization that employees focus their entire energy on internal issues. Basic needs of customersor stakeholders are then not met any more creating difficulties for the organization as a whole.

Coaching allows to enter in a deep learning partnership with individuals or teams so as toenable them to achieve their own purpose in a positive and fulfilling way. It involves deep mutualcommunication, mutual respect and demonstrated active listening. In the case of organizationalchange, it is a decisive tool to help people understand what change means to them and theorganization. It also helps them enjoy the journey of change.

Because they go deep into the needs and wishes of the individuals, delve into the interpersonalrelationships, and act at the behavior level, individual or small group approaches like coaching area necessary supplement to the high level approaches to organizational change.

How to ensure success of organizational transformations, and the role of coaching in setting up the right metrics

Organizational transformation is an expensive endeavor. It is investment – either defensive, when it is about putting the organization back on track, or offensive when it is about developing significantly the capabilities of the organization for a new growth phase. As any investment, it is ashort-term expenditure with the intent to achieve a significant return on investment on the longerterm.

What is most astonishing is that most organizations do not take the time to setup the rightindicators to measure the progress of the organizational transformation.




Executive coaching during the change preparation will lead to a personal action plan to beimplemented during the change itself, to complement the formal overall change implementationplan.

In addition, organizational transformation will often lead to significant change in the executive

team itself. The executive team needs to be rebuilt as an effective team, develop mutualconfidence and support, manage unavoidable internal conflict properly while allowing thenecessary discussions to happen, and more generally, invent the way of working that are right forthem moving forward. Team coaching can in this instance help the executive team move morequickly in an effective team state.

At the implementation stage – for executives

During the implementation change, continuous personal coaching of executives is a usefultool to ensure that they indeed implement their personal action plan. Coaching can help clarify the emotional states of the executives as they go through period of doubts or highly emotionalsituations.

Team coaching of the executive team is a useful complement to enhance the effectiveness of the team in implementing the changes.

Coaching is also an important tool when it comes to preparing executives to handle difficultsituations, like for example a meeting with an individual that needs to be dismissed from theorganization. Coaching, through its action orientation, can allow the executive to rehearse thisdifficult situation so as to go through it as appropriately and professionally as possible. This isindeed a gift to both the executive and the person that will be dismissed, and ultimately a gift tothe organization on the long term. Other such cases that can be usefully rehearsed in coaching involve difficult public declarations and presentations in front of the employees.

One very important issue to tackle is the informal organization. It is not just the formalintermediate and upper management that need to be get involved in the change implementation;the leaders of the informal organization have also to be identified and involved. Identifying andinvolving the leaders of the informal organization is often the key to success of a majortransformation. This issue is often neglected, because recognizing it also means somehow thatthe formal organization does not have all the levers. But it is a reality and it needs to be leanedinto if major organizational change is to succeed.

At this stage, the role of a coach is to clarify with the executives who could be these leaders of the informal organization, and help them broaden their views from a usual hierarchical changeimplementation plan.

At the implementation stage – for individuals & teams driving the change During implementation, traditional hierarchy has a role to play in showing the way and taking

the people-related decisions, but this is not enough to ensure success. One of the most salientcharacteristics of organizational transformation is that beyond the obvious changes to the formalorganization and processes, the change can only be considered completed if the informalorganization has also shifted.

Coaching is an ideal useful lubricant making change much easier by dealing with the softersides of the expected change. Because coaching is a tool that accelerates personal transformation,including behaviors, it is extremely useful for changing the habits and behaviors of the people

who are the most affected by the change.

Coaching is a time and resource consuming activity and cannot be proposed to all individualsin the organization, even when practiced in the form of group coaching. On which individuals




should then coaching focus to achieve the greatest effectiveness, and what type of coaching should be implemented?

The target for coaching should be the group that will effectively have to drive the change, andlead the organization through it. Inside the group of formal and informal leaders, there willalways be 3 categories: the wait-and-see majority, and the minorities of the enthusiasts and of the

opponents. The objective is to create a critical mass of change agents in the organization that willcatalyze the overall organizational transformation. Coaching the enthusiasts can be done but they generally do not need a deep intervention, as they are already motivated by the change and hence,ready for personal change. Coaching the opponents will take a lot of efforts for limited results,except if one of the opponents is a key individual that needs to be brought into the changebecause of his position. Hence, the most effective is to concentrate on a critical representation of the wait-and-see majority to get them moving in the expected direction – identifying the primemovers and the informal leaders of the organization.

It will take some time to identify a limited list of formal and informal leaders of theorganization that could be the most effective group to be targeted. This group will have thepotential to drive the organization’s change. It will also be in a position to feedback issues to

senior management issues and possibly, modify the organizational transformation plan. Thismight lead to the creation of a ‘change council’ regrouping these target leaders. Involving them inthe governance of the change process is key.

Shifting the informal organization takes often a lot of time. It is about reestablishing therelationships and interactions across the organization, that make it work. Because it is all aboutinterpersonal relationships, coaching can greatly help accelerate this phase.

During the implementation of the transformation, coaching can be effectively deployed tohelp the chosen formal and informal leaders modify their behaviors, and overcome difficultsituations they might encounter. It will be particularly useful to identify avoidance patterns andovercome self-limiting beliefs. The availability of a coach will also help these leaders avoid the

feeling of loneliness which might sometimes occur when one tries to implement a change.

As a summary, coaching during the change can be done at two levels. Group coaching for thecouncil of formal and informal leaders - the group of people targeted to drive the change. Andimplementation of targeted individual coaching for these leaders, to help them overcome thepersonal difficulties associated with the implementation of change.

At the consolidation stage

At the consolidation stage, the objective is to achieve a new organization that is able to furtherimprove and evolve by itself.

As part of the close-out of the coaching intervention for the organizational transformation it

is important to check that the level of organizational self-awareness is sufficient for a continuing growth and development of the organization.

At that stage, targeted coaching interventions can help raise the level of awareness andcapability for continuous improvement in those parts of the organization that might be lagging behind. To achieve the objective of a learning organization that is more able to undertaketransformation by itself, the organization might also want to implement a program to developinternal coaching resources moving forward.




Conclusion Organizational transformation is a key moment in the life of any organization. It is a crucial

and stressful moment where failure can mean the end of the organization itself. Conventionaltransformation approaches, based on the formal organization, and rational analysis, have shown

their limits.Complementary new approaches are much more susceptible to be successful, that take into

account the transformation of the informal organization and of the people themselves. They ensure success in a holistic mode – both at the organization and the individual level, increasing the well-being of the individuals in the process. They are based on coaching, in a combination of one-to-one and group coaching. Some success parameters can be identified:

- they have to be implemented in a framework that allows to measure their effectivenesscontinuously through appropriate indicators;

- the approach needs to be comprehensive, from the top executive group to the executivethemselves, to a key slice of formal and informal leaders who will drive the effectivetransformation of the organization;

- the coaching intervention needs to be structured as an integral part of the transformationprocess itself.

Coaching is a key transformational technique and organizations would greatly benefit fromusing it in a consistent and structured manner to help them through their transformations. Whilecoaching in organization transformations will certainly become a standard leadership tool beyondthe ongoing Fourth Revolution2, organizations that implement already this type of approach willacquire a significant competitive edge. By drawing effectively on the talents of their highly motivated individuals and of the informal organization, they will transform swiftly and deeply,planting the seeds of a sustainable long term success.

Notes

1 For more information on the author, visit the author’s personal website at www.jeremieaverous.com 2 see www.thefourthrevolution.org . The Fourth Revolution, coming after the revolutions created by Speech,

Writing and Broadcasting (printing), is the current fundamental shift in humankind collective cognitive capability

created by cheap long-distance interactive communication. It will fundamentally change many assumptions of our previous Industrial Age, notably in the field of organizations, management and leadership.

Useful references

Katzenbach & Smith, The wisdom of teams , 1993Katzenbach & Khan, Leading outside the lines:how to mobilize the informal organization, energize your

team,and get better results , 2010O’Neill, Executive coaching with backbone and heart: a systems approach to engaging leaders with their

challenges , 2007Goldsmith, Hesselbein (ed.), The organization of the future 2 , 2009Lencioni, The five dysfunctions of a team: a leadership fable , 2002 and ancillary workbooks.

http://www.jeremieaverous.com/


http://www.thefourthrevolution.org/

http://www.thefourthrevolution.org/


Coaching, a factor for success in Organizational Transformation

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