Workplace Coaching Skills Time

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It Takes Time: A Stages of ChangePerspective on the Adoption ofWorkplace Coaching Skills

ANTHONY M. GRANT

School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT Although many managers receive training in workplace coaching skills in order toenhance employees performance and facilitate organizational change, little is known aboutmanagers perceptions of the costs and benefits of adopting workplace coaching behaviors. Thisstudy explored the relationships between workplace coaching skills and the perceived costs andbenefits of adopting coaching skills from a Stages of Change perspective. This is the first study toexamine these issues. Participants were 99 executives and managers from a range of occupations.

Findings were broadly as predicated by the Transtheoretical Model of Change. Individuals in theearly stages of adopting coaching behaviors had lower self-efficacy and lower coaching skillsthan those in the latter stages. The perceived benefits of adopting coaching behaviors did notdiffer across different stages of change. The perceived costs of adopting coaching behaviors weresignificantly lower in the latter stages of change, but findings suggest that it takes about sixmonths before the perceived benefits of adopting coaching behaviors outweigh the perceivedcosts. Disaffected managers held higher perceptions of the benefits of coaching, and there was norelationship between coaching behaviors and workplace wellbeing. It is recommended thatmanagers of coach training programs explicitly address ways to overcome barriers to adoptingcoaching behaviors, rather than primarily promoting the benefits of workplace coaching.Organizations should give ongoing learning support to those who have recently completedworkplace coaching training, in order to help them persevere through the initial adjustment

period as they consolidate and develop their coaching skills.

KEY WORDS: Executive coaching, workplace coaching, Transtheoretical Model of Change

Journal of Change Management

Vol. 10, No. 1, 6177, March 2010

Correspondence Address: Anthony M. Grant, Coaching Psychology Unit, School of Psychology, University of

Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Tel.:

61 2 9351 6792; Email: [email protected]

1469-7017 Print/1479-1811 Online/10/01006117 # 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10 1080/14697010903549440


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Introduction

The use of coaching in the workplace has increased significantly over the past510 years, with coaching skills being central to workplace learning (Truijen

and van Woerkom, 2008) and contemporary models of leadership (Bass andAvolio, 2000; Goleman, 2000; Avolio and Gardner, 2005). Workplace coachingis also increasingly being used to facilitate organizational change in a widerange of industry sectors from consumer food products (Mike and Slocum Jr,2003) to energy suppliers (King and Wright, 2007).

Although in the past coaching has been predominantly viewed as a means offacilitating individual change, particularly at the leadership or high potentialemployee level, attention is now turning to how coaching can impact on organiz-ational change initiatives (for an informed discussion on this point see Stober,2008). Indeed, there is a small but growing body of work that discusses the role

of coaching in organizational change (Hunt and Weintraub, 2007).

Workplace Coaching as a Tool For Positive Organizational Change

The idea behind such initiatives is that developing individual managers coachingskills can help foster and support organizational change. Such initiatives typicallyseek to move organizational cultures away from a command and control men-tally, towards more positive, humanistic and motivating communication stylesand the establishment of a coaching culture (Megginson and Clutterbuck,2006). A common cry in such initiatives is that managers need to communicatelike a coach (Mai and Akerson, 2003, p. 112). Indeed, good verbal communi-cation skills lie at the very heart of the coaching conversation: coaches need tobe skilled at developing rapport in order to engage in collaborative goal-setting,whilst facilitating solution-focused thinking and enhancing motivation for change.

Coaching conversations in the workplace can be conducted both informally andformally. Informal coaching sessions, or corridor coaching, are short focusedconversations which engage the employee in collaborative problem solving andaim to leave the employee energized and engaged. In contrast, formal coachingsessions typically involve formal sit-down coaching sessions, and such coachingsessions may take place (for example) during a performance review, a debriefing

after sales presentations, or in preparation for various types of negotiation.Regardless of whether the coaching is informal or formal, workplace coaching

can be understood as being a helping relationship formed between an individualwho has managerial or supervisory responsibility in an organization and anemployee, in which the manager or supervisor uses a wide variety of cognitiveand behavioral techniques to enhance communication with the employee inorder to help the employee achieve a mutually defined set of goals, with theaim of improving his or her work performance and, consequently, the effective-ness of the organization (adapted from Kilburg, 1996).

Executives and managers are expected to be skilled at coaching their staff in

order to enhance employee engagement and performance and to facilitate individ-ual and organizational change (Ellingeret al., 2003; Chartered Institute of Person-nel and Development [CIPD] 2004) Indeed many companies spend significant

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sums training their executives and managers to be workplace coaches at leastone in five UK managers have received training in workplace coaching skills(Wright, 2005). This move towards training managers in coaching skills is

because the coaching skills of executives and managers are related to employeesorganizational commitment and job satisfaction (Harriset al., 2007). Furthermore,such coaching skills are also related to the extent to which employees internalizethe organizations goals and identify with the values espoused by the organization,and these latter points are especially salient in reference to positive organizationalchange and development (Bono and Judge, 2003).

Although coaching is sometimes perceived to be a time consuming activity (Yu,2007), good workplace coaching skills have been found to be linked to enhancedemployee performance at both managerial and supervisory levels (Graham et al.,1994). Gershman (1967) noted that supervisors coaching had a positive effect in

improving subordinates attitude and performance. More recently, supportivecoaching of self-managed teams by team leaders has been found to be positivelyrelated to team perceptions of leader effectiveness (Morgeson, 2005). Further-more, it has been found that the coaching skills of warehouse supervisors werepositively associated with employees job satisfaction (Ellinger et al., 2003) andthat a coaching style of leadership was associated with employees psychologicalwellbeing (Arnoldet al., 2007).

However, whilst there is research linking managers coaching skills withemployees wellbeing, there has been very limited research examining therelationship between a managers coaching skills and the managers own well-being or work satisfaction. In the only study to date that has examined thisissue, Bowles and Picano (2006) found that US Army recruitment managerswho more frequently coached subordinates reported more workplace satisfactionand a had a tendency toward more life satisfaction.

There has also been very little research which has focused on examining man-agers own perceptions of the costs and benefits of purposefully adopting work-place coaching behaviors. This is somewhat ironic in that manager as coachtraining programs are often implemented as a means of creating or sustainingorganizational change (Palmer and Dunford, 2008), yet little is known about thepsychological underpinnings of the change that such managers themselves experi-ence as they develop and use coaching skills. Given that middle management is

increasingly being required to act as workplace coaches (Stoker, 2006), it isimportant that we develop better understandings of the perceived costs andbenefits of adopting coaching behaviors in the workplace.

Perceived Costs and Benefits of Change: The Stages of Change Model

A key factor in the purposeful adoption and continued enactment of any new be-havior is the perceived utility of that behavior in terms of the perceived cost andbenefits of making such change (Ajzen, 1988; Madden et al., 1992). Understand-ing how individuals perceive the utility of adopting or using coaching skills in the

workplace is important because many organizations worldwide spend consider-able sums in training mangers to be workplace coaches, and where such trainingis also central to an organizational change program the cost of failure can be

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significant (Smithet al., 2004; By, 2005). To begin to address the above issues thisarticle explores executives and managers perceptions of their coaching skills,self-efficacy and workplace wellbeing from a stages of change perspective.

Prochaska and DiClementes (1982) Transtheoretical Model of Change or Stagesof Change model has been widely used to study the adoption of health-relatedbehaviors. More recently, it has been used to explore facets of organizationalchange (Prochaska, 2000), including managers motivation to learn in a leadershipdevelopment context (Harris and Cole, 2007). Since the Transtheoretical Model ofChange details some of the key factors underpinning purposeful change and situatesthese within a number of time-related stages, it offers a useful framework from whichto explore the factors related to the adoption of new behaviors, including coaching.

The Transtheoretical Model of Change describes five stages of change, startingwith theprecontemplationstage, in which individuals show no intention to change

in the foreseeable future. The next stage is contemplation in which individualsbecome aware of the need to change, are thinking about making changes, buthave not yet actually made any changes. The following stage is preparation inwhich individuals commitment to change increases. Individuals in this stageintend to take action in the near future and may have even started to makesmall behavioral changes. For example, smokers in preparation may smokefewer cigarettes or delay their first cigarette of the day (DiClemente et al.,1991). Action is the stage where individuals begin to make major behavioralchanges. Smokers stop smoking, and problem drinkers become abstinent or sig-nificantly reduce their alcohol consumption. If these changes are maintainedover a period of time (designated as six months for health-related behaviors),the individual can be considered to be in the maintenancestage.

Three Key Constructs Associated with the Stages Of Change

There are three key constructs associated with the Transtheoretical Model ofChange: decisional balance, self-efficacy and behavior, and the TranstheoreticalModel of Change predicts that the relationship between these will systematicallyvary across stages of change (Prochaska and DiClemente, 1982).

Decisional balance refers to the individuals perceptions of the pros and cons(benefits and costs) of adopting change. The Transtheoretical Model of Change

predicts that for individuals who are in early stages of change (such as the contem-plation stage), the perceived cons of adopting coaching behaviors should be greaterthan the perceived pros, whereas individuals in latter stages of chance (such as themaintenance stage) should rate the pros higher than the cons (Velicer et al., 1985).

The second construct associated with the Transtheoretical Model of Change isself-efficacy: an individuals confidence in their ability to perform a specificbehavior (Bandura, 1977). As newly adopted behaviors become more entrenchedover time and through practice, the individuals confidence in his or her abilitygrows, and so self-efficacy scores are typically higher in the action and mainten-ance stages than those in the precontemplation and contemplation stages (Cowan

et al., 1997; Herricket al., 1997; Lauby et al., 1998).The third three key construct associated with the Transtheoretical Model of

Change is behavior Where the change is focused on adopting new behaviors

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(such as coaching behaviors), there should be an increase in levels of the newbehavior over the stages of change. Thus, in the present study, individuals inthe maintenance stage should have higher levels of coaching behaviors than

individuals in contemplation, preparation or action stages. The primary aim ofthe present research was to use the Transtheoretical Model of Change as aframework for exploring the perceived costs and benefits of adopting coachingbehaviors. A secondary aim of this study was to explore the relationshipbetween managers use of coaching and their own wellbeing.

Method

Participants

Participants were 99 individuals who enrolled in a leadership development program.Participants enrolled as part of their professional development. All participantscompleted the measures online as part of their online pre-work before attendingthe leadership development program. There were 63 females and 36 males (meanage 43.3 years). Participants came from 14 different organizations. Participantsoccupations included human resource management, senior executives, nationalbusiness managers, learning and development managers, public sector seniormanagers, and senior consultants from a wide range of industry sectors, includingbanking and financial services, the gaming industry, law and the public service.Participants read the following statement before competing the measures:

These questions ask you about your attitudes to coaching at work. Workplace coach-ing involves skills such as developing rapport, motivating others, goal-setting and

communicating like a coach. The aim of workplace coaching is to help employees

stay focused on their goals in a way that helps energize them and keeps them

engaged. Formal coaching may not an explicit part of your designated workplace

role. If that is the case, as you answer these questions please think about how you

communicate with and informally coach people who you supervise, manage or

otherwise work with, and answer the questions with these issues in mind. There

are no right or wrong answers to these questions.

Measures

Stages of Change Questionnaire

As in past studies ( Prochaska, 2000), in order to assess each participants stageof change, participants responded to the following statements and were asked toindicate which one of the following most applied to them.

1. I havent given it any thought, and at present I do not intend to deliberately tryto improve the way that I coach and communicate with others at work(Precontemplation).

2. I have thought about deliberately trying to improve the way that I coach andcommunicate with others at work, but I have not actually done anythingabout it yet (Contemplation)



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3. I intend (within the next week) to deliberately improve the way I coach andcommunicate with others at work, and I have made some attempts already(Preparation).

4. I have been actively and deliberately improving the way I coach and commu-nicate with others at work for at least the past month (Action).

5. I usually try to actively and deliberately improve the way I coach and commu-nicate with others at work, and have done so for at least since the last sixmonths (Maintenance).

Self Efficacy

Drawing on Banduras (1982) notion of self-efficacy being an appraisal of onesability to perform a specific task, a four-item self-efficacy measure for workplacecoaching was administered. Subjects were asked to rate how much they agreed

with the following four statements using a 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7 (verystrongly agree) scale. Cronbachs alpha (Cronbach, 1951) for the workplacecoaching self-efficacy measure was 0.77.

1. I am confident that I fully understand the key concepts of good communicationand workplace coaching

2. I am confident that I am a truly effective communicator and workplace coach.3. I am confident that I can improve my workplace coaching and communications

skills.4. I am confident that my coaching really helps others reach their workplace goals.

Coaching Skills

Coaching skills were assessed using the the Goal-focused Coaching Skills Ques-tionnaire (GCSQ) (Grant and Cavanagh, 2007). This is a 12-item self-reportmeasure of goal-focused coaching skills, which assesses the five factors of goal-focused coaching: a) outcomes of coaching; b) working alliance; c) solution-focus; d) goal setting; and e) managing process and accountability. Participantsresponded using a 1 (very strongly disagree) to 6 (very strongly agree) scale.The GCSQ has been found to be a reliable and valid measure, distinguishingbetween novice and professional coaches, correlating with actual observed coach-

ing skills, and responsive to changes in coaching skills following coach training(Grant, 2007). It has a reported test-retest reliability of 0.70 (Grant and Cavanagh,2007). Cronbachs alpha for this study was 0.71.

Workplace Wellbeing

Workplace wellbeing was measured with the Workplace Wellbeing Index whichhas been found to be a reliable and valid measure of workplace wellbeing(WWBI) (Page, 2005). The 15-item WWBI assesses the degree of wellbeing andsatisfaction that individuals gain from their work using very dissatisfied (0) andvery satisfied (10) as the scale anchors. Items include items such as How satisfied

are you with how meaningful your work is?, How satisfied are you with yourworking conditions? and How satisfied are you with the recognition you receivefor good work? Cronbachs alpha (Cronbach 1951) for this study was 0 93

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Decisional Balance

Since this is the first study to investigate these issues in relation to coachingskills, it was necessary to develop a coaching skills-related decisional balance

measure. Drawing on established literature on values and workplace wellbeing(Hofstede, 1984; Kim, 2002), six pro items and six con items were developed.These items reflected the decisional balance categories as suggested by Janisand Mann (1977). Participants responded using a 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7(very strongly agree) point scale. Details of this measure are presented in theresults section.

Results

Decisional Balance Measure (Pros and Cons)

To ensure that the 12 items in the decisional balance measure formed an appro-priate two-factor decisional balance measure, factor analysis using a PrincipalComponent Analysis with Varimax rotation was conducted. Inspection of thescree plot showed two factors. The scale consisted of six pro and six con items.These two factors accounted for 58.45% of the total variance. Coefficient alphawas 0.80 for the pro scale, and 0.83 for the con scale. Decisional balance itemsand factor loadings are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.Decisional balance (pros and cons) item factor loadings

Decisional Balance ItemFactor 1 Factor 2

Pro Con

1 I would feel less stressed and anxious if I improved the way I coachand communicate with others at work

.462 2.311

2 It would interfere with my work if I spent time trying to improve theway I coach others

2.081 .690

3 It would help me fulfil my potential if I improved my coaching andcommunication skills

.772 2.133

4 Trying to deliberately improve the way I coach and communicatewould take too much effort

2.029 .709

5 Learning better ways to coach and communicate would improve my

work performance

.836 2.270

6 Trying to change ones coaching and communication skills is a wasteof time

2.196 .784

7 Coaching and communication skills are not really important 2.015 .7198 Improving the way I communicate and coach others will help me in

my career.722 2.116

9 If I developed my coaching and communications skills I would getbetter results at work

.849 2.140

10 Trying to deliberately change and improve ones coaching andcommunications skills never seems to work.

2.129 .727

11 I would be able to work more effectively if I improved my coachingand communications skills

.824 2.104

12 You can get by at work with the minimum of coaching andcommunication skills, so theres really no need to try to coach andcommunicate more effectively

2.153 .805



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Based on their response to the Stages of Change Questionnaire, participantswere assigned to one of the five stages of change. Stages of change were coded1 through to 5, from: precontemplation (1) through to maintenance (5), assessing

stages on a continuum and facilitating a correlational analysis. Such assessment isin accord with previous research (Levesque et al., 2000). Of the 99 completedquestionnaires, only one was in the precontemplation stage (1.02%), 12 were inthe contemplation stage (10.3%), nine were in the preparation stage (9.56%), 18were in the action stage (18.55%) and 59 were in the maintenance stage(60.8%). The responses for the single person in the precontemplation stagewere dropped from the analysis.

Pros and Cons Across Stages of Change

All raw data were converted to T-scores to facilitate comparison between vari-ables. Mean T-scores for all measures are presented in Table 2. Data for the deci-sional balance (pros and cons) and stages of change were analyzed using amultivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), consisting of one within-subjectsfactor (stage of change) and one between-subjects factors (decisional balance).A significance level of 0.05 was set for all tests. This analysis revealed a signifi-cant main effect across stages of change (Wilks Lambda 0.849, F,(6, 188) 2.644, p , 0.017), indicating that decisional balance (for both pros and cons) dif-fered across all stages of change. Comparing pros and cons individually, consshowed a significant difference across all stages (F,(3, 94) 4.785, p , 0.01)decreasing between contemplation and maintenance. There was no significantdifference for pros across all stages (F,(3, 94) 0.188,ns).

An independent samplet-test was used in order to contrast differences betweenspecific stages of change, comparing contemplation with maintenance. Contraryto expectations, for the pros of change there was no significant differencebetween the contemplation and maintenance stages. However, a significant differ-ence was found for the cons of change (t(69) 2.223, p , 0.05) indicating that,as hypothesized, participants in the maintenance stage of change rated the cons of

change significantly lower than individuals in the contemplation stage of change.An independent sample t-test found that the cons for maintenance were signifi-cantly lower than the cons for action (t (74) 3 349 p , 0 01)

Table 2. Mean T-scores for all variables

Contemplation Preparation Action Maintenance

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Pros of change 49.26 10.59 52.18 9.44 50.40 10.32 49.69 10.08Cons of change 53.31 8.23 52.64 9.54 55.83 11.88 47.11 8.85Workplace wellbeing 51.70 8.84 51.17 6.43 50.46 8.92 49.29 11.19

Self-efficacy 30.37 7.91 43.62 6.83 47.91 7.89 53.34 9.41Coaching skills 45.34 11.52 49.31 10.25 48.79 11.33 57.11 9.24

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Self-efficacy

Data for self-efficacy were analyzed using a univariate analysis of variance(ANOVA), which showed a significant main effect for self-efficacy across all

stages (F,(3, 94) 10.673, p , 0.001). An independent sample t-test was thenused in order to contrast differences between specific stages of coaching, compar-ing contemplation with maintenance. This analysis found a significant difference(t (69) 4.86, p , 0.001) indicating that, as hypothesized, participants in themaintenance stage of change had significantly higher levels of self-efficacy thanindividuals in the contemplation stage of change (see Figure 1).

Coaching Skills

Data for coaching skills were analyzed using a univariate analysis of variance

(ANOVA) which showed no significant main effect for coaching skills across allstages of change (F,(3, 74) 1.18037, ns). However, an independent sample t-test was then used in order to contrast differences between specific stages of coach-ing, comparing contemplation with maintenance. This one-tailed analysis found asignificant difference (t(53) 1.838,p , 0.05) indicating that, as hypothesized,participants in the maintenance stage of change had significantly higher coachingskills than individuals in the contemplation stage of change (see Figure 1).

Workplace Wellbeing

Data for workplace wellbeing were analyzed using a univariate analysis ofvariance (ANOVA), which showed no significant main effect for workplacewellbeing across all stages of change (F (4 74) 0 139 ns) An independent

Figure 1. Self-efficacy and coaching skills across stages of change.



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sample t-test was then used in order to conduct planned contrast differencesbetween specific stages of coaching, comparing contemplation with maintenance.This analysis found no significant differences (t(52) 0.619, ns) indicating that,

contrary to hypotheses, participants in the maintenance stage of change did nothave significantly higher levels of workplace wellbeing than individuals in thecontemplation stage of change.

Correlational Relationships

A correlational analysis was conducted in order to explore the relationshipsbetween variables that were not covered in the previous analyses (Table 3).Coaching skills were significantly correlated with pros (r 0.355; p , 0.01)and self-efficacy (r 0.298;p , 0.01), but there were no significant relationships

between coaching skills and cons (r20.175; ns) or, unexpectedly, between

coaching skills and workplace wellbeing (r 20.174; ns). As hypothesized,self-efficacy was significantly negatively correlated with cons (r 20.185; p ,0.05). However, contrary to expectations, there were no significant relationshipsbetween self-efficacy and pros (r 20.017;ns) or self-efficacy and workplacewellbeing (r 0.099; ns). Unexpectedly, workplace wellbeing was significantlynegatively correlated with pros (r 20.305;p , 0.01). There was no significantrelationship between workplace wellbeing and cons (r 20.118; ns).

Discussion

The primary aim of this study was to explore factors relating to the adoption ofworkplace coaching skills, and to investigate the perceived costs and benefits ofadopting workplace coaching skills using the Transtheoretical Model of Changeas a framework. The secondary aim of the study was explore the relationshipbetween executives and managers coaching skills and their own workplacewellbeing. In general, the pattern of relationships between the variables were aspredicted by the Transtheoretical Model of Change model, and the results

provide some initial support for the applicability of the Transtheoretical Modelof Change to the change processes associated with the adoption of coachingskills within the workplace.

Table 3. Correlations between variables

Stage ofchange

Pros ofchange

Cons ofchange

Workplacewellbeing

Self-efficacy

Pros of change 20.036Cons of change 20.339 20.193

Workplacewellbeing 20.083 20.306 0.118

Self-efficacy 0.482 20.017 20.185 0.099Coaching skills 0.119 0.355 20.175 20.174 0.298

Notes: Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level; Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level.

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The Perceived Costs of Adopting Coaching Skills May Take Time to Diminish

As predicted, the cons of change in the present study were found to differ signifi-cantly across stage of change. Participants in the maintenance stage rated the cons

of change significantly lower than participants in the contemplation stage. Thisfinding echoes past work in the areas of health (DiClemente et al., 1991) andorganizational change (Prochaska, 2000).

Of particular interest in the present study was the finding that the cons ofadopting coaching behaviors did not decrease between the preparation andaction stages. In fact the opposite was observed, the trend was towards an increasebetween preparation and action stages, although this trend was not statisticallysignificant. However, there was a significant difference between the cons foraction and the cons for the maintenance stage, with the cons of change inmaintenance being significantly lower than action (see Figure 2).

This means that participants who had been coaching for between one month andsix months (that is, participants in the action stage) held similarly high levels of theperceived costs of change to those who had not yet started coaching, and that theperceived cons of change did not significantly drop until participants had beencoaching for at least six months.

This notion, that the perceived costs of coaching take some time to diminish, hassome support from the existing literature on workplace coaching. In a qualitativestudy of factors related to managerial coaching behaviours, Ellinger and Bostrom(1999) found that managers found it difficult to switch between the role ofmanager and coach, and that this transition appears to occur on a continuum;

however, it is time intensive and requires training and development (p. 766).Ellinger and Bostrom further noted that the process of adopting coachingbehaviors requires an unfreezing or letting go of old behaviours, and support

Figure 2 Pros and cons of change across stages of change



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and encouragement over a period of time until the managers become comfortablewith their new role as coaches. Reflecting this notion, Kelly (1985) reportedthat it (coaching) takes forever to realise any change and that (learning to do)

coaching is too time consuming (Kelly, 1985, p. 54). Thus, on a practical level,the findings from the present study emphasise that it is important to ensure thatmanagers who are learning to coach have realistic expectations about the time ittakes to adopt coaching behaviors.

The Benefits of Coaching are Obvious

There were no significant differences in the pros of adopting coaching behaviorsacross the different stages of change, and this suggests that the positive aspects ofadopting workplace coaching skills were relatively obvious to all, regardless of

their specific stage of change or how long they had been coaching. Given thegeneral emphasis in the workplace on the importance of workplace coachingskills (Whitmore, 2004), this finding is not surprising. Indeed, similar non-significant relationships between the perceived pros of change and individualsstage of change have also been observed in prior studies which have examinedthe adoption of other performance-enhancing skills. For example, in exploringthe adoption of improved academic study skills from a stages of change perspec-tive, Grant and Franklin (2007) also found that the pros of change did not varyacross stage of change. Drawing on that finding, Grant and Franklin (2007)suggested that interventions designed to facilitate the adoption of performanceenhancing skills should focus more on helping people reduce perceived barriersto change rather than spending much time highlighting the benefits of change,and this point may also be relevant to the design of coaching skills programs.

Workplace Wellbeing and Coaching: A Myth?

There is a considerable amount of anecdotal material in the popular, trade andprofessional media that suggests that managers who coach have a more fulfillingworkplace experience ( McLeanet al., 2005; Harriset al., 2007), although to datethis issue has not been empirically investigated. Surprisingly, the present study,which is the first to investigate this issue, found that there was no statistically

significant relationship between participants coaching skills and their ownlevels of workplace wellbeing. This is a new finding which suggests that thepopular notion that managers who coach their staff experience greater levels ofwork satisfaction and wellbeing may be more a myth than reality, althoughclearly more research is needed here.

Disaffected Managers See Greater Benefits in Coaching

Interestingly, there was a significant negative correlation between workplace well-being and the perceived pros of change: participants who had lower levels of

workplace wellbeing held higher perceptions of the benefits of coaching. Thisfinding makes sense in that disaffected or frustrated managers may look to thegreater use of coaching skills as a means of enhancing their own workplace

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experience. Indeed, the popular management media has done much to propagatethe idea that coaching is a cure-all, the latest magic bullet in management consult-ing (Furnham, 2005). However, the overall findings of the present study suggest

that coaching is not a panacea, and that workplace coaching, like many otherlearnt skills, takes time to master and to produce results.

Limitations of the Study

There are a number of limitations inherent in this exploratory study. As in most ofthe research using the TTM as a frame of reference, this study was cross-sectional.It would be useful for future research to conduct longitudinal studies, followingexecutives and managers over time as they learnt and then applied coachingskills in the workplace. In addition, it is not known if the participants in the

present study were free to choose whether or not to adopt workplace coachingbehaviors. If some did feel as if they had been pressured by their organizationsto adopt coaching behaviors, and they had resistance to doing so, such attitudesmay well have effected these findings, particularly in relation to wellbeing. Fur-thermore, the numbers of participants in the present study varied at each stageof change and the distribution was skewed towards the action and maintenancestages, with fewer participants in the preparation stage. The observed distributionarose from the use of a representative population. However, although it is quitecommon for populations to be distributed unequally over the various stages ofchange ( Prochaska, 1994; Lafferty et al., 1999), this should be taken intoaccount when interpreting this studys findings.

Implications for Practice and Directions for Future Research

Notwithstanding the above limitations, this study has some useful implications forpractice and future research. The findings of this study suggest that it takes aboutsix months for the benefits of on-the-job coaching to become salient. On a prac-tical level this suggests that when enrolling participants into manager as coachtraining programs, it is important that trainers focus on helping participantsreduce or remove the perceived barriers to change, as well as highlighting thebenefits of workplace coaching. So it may be useful to explicitly prepare partici-

pants to deal with the frustrations that may arise as they begin to use coachingskills in the workplace.

In such programs, once the reasons to develop coaching skills have been broadlyoutlined and participant buy-in established, the training process could utilize apsychoeducational phase which would inform participants of some of the likelyfrustrations that they may face. This phase could then move on to helping partici-pants identify specific barriers to change, and then move onto developing ways toovercome these barriers. Where participants from a functional workgroup or teamare undertaking the program as a group, this process may well become a usefulplatform from which to embed specific organizational change strategies at both

an individual and a group level.Drawing on the findings presented in this article, it may be that managers

who have completed a coaching skills training program will need some kind of



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support for the first few months if they are to avoid initial discouragement andpersevere through the initial adjustment period as they begin to develop theircoaching skills. This support could be in the form of professional coaching

following the training program, or mentoring from peers who have completedsuch transitions themselves, or support from human resources or learning anddevelopment professionals.

As regards future research, the relationship between the perceived benefits ofworkplace coaching and workplace wellbeing requires further exploration. Longi-tudinal research should examine the development of factors such as decisionalbalance, self-efficacy and workplace wellbeing over time as individuals movethrough the stages of change following coaching skills training. Research couldalso examine to see if there are differences between managers who are formallyusing coaching compared to those who employ, or are considering employing,

informal coaching behaviors as a part of their everyday management style. Thisstudy examined both of these issues within a single participant sample andfurther insights may emerge from examining these issues separately.

Much past research in organizational change has found that coercing or forcingpeople into organizational change initiatives often results in resistance (for aninformed discussion on this point see Piderit, 2000), and it may be that coercingmanagers into acting as coaches may impact on their perception of the pros andcons of adopting workplace coaching. The present study did not examine theextent to which the participants felt as if they were coerced into using coachingskills, and future research which examines this issue could provide additionalinsights into how to better facilitate such change programs. In addition, futureresearch could also profitably explore how best to support participants in consoli-dating coaching skills and reduce the time necessary for workplace coachingskills to become a valued and central component of managers and executivesbehavioral repertoires.

Conclusion

This article extends the literature on the use of the Transtheoretical Model ofChange being one of few studies that have examined the applicability of theTranstheoretical Model of Change to organizational settings (Levesque et al.,

1999, 2001; Prochaska, 2000; Phillips, 2005). It also contributes to the literaturein that, although the Transtheoretical Model of Change is used within manycoach training programs and is referred to in many how to coach books(Skiffington and Zeus, 2003), there has been no published empirical work thatexplicitly links the Transtheoretical Model of Change to coaching practice.

This study has used a Stages of Change perspective drawn from the Transtheore-tical Model of Change as a framework from which to examine the perception ofthe use of workplace coaching skills in an executive and managerial population.Findings were broadly as predicated by the Transtheoretical Model of Change. Itappears that it takes about six months before the perceived benefits of adopting

coaching behaviors outweigh the perceived costs. Overall, the results of thisstudy indicate that the relationships between coaching skills, workplace wellbeingand the perceived pros and cons of using workplace coaching skills may be more

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complex than is frequently assumed. Workplace coaching may well be a usefulmeans of facilitating organizational change, and a more sophisticated understand-ing of these factors will provide the means to further develop the effectiveness and

wellbeing of both organizations and employees.

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