Maximise your team’s performance using Strengths Finder®

This week, to celebrate International Coaching Week, we’ve been exploring different aspects of coaching. We’ve covered ‘What is coaching’, ‘Does coaching work?’ and ‘What’s involved in working with a coach’. Today we’ll take a different angle, exploring one aspect of team coaching.

Imagine your team where every member understands their unique strengths and talents and knows how to harness them for maximum impact.  Strengths Finder® provides valuable insights into individual strengths, leading to better communication, collaboration, and team culture. By focusing on strengths, rather than just fixing weaknesses, team members align their work with their natural abilities, resulting in increased engagement, motivation, and productivity.

What is Strengths Finder?

Strengths Finder® is an online psychometric tool used by millions of people globally to identify their natural talents and what they do best. Through a series of online questions, Strengths Finder® identifies the top strengths of your team members from a list of 34 unique strengths (link to the 34 strengths page) grouped into four domains:

·         Executing

·         Influencing

·         Relationship Building

·         Strategic Thinking.

Team members understand their natural talents and how they can excel in various areas of your team's projects and goals.  Whilst there are numerous psychometric tools on the market, and I use many of them, Strengths Finder® seems to be the one that clients find most accurately describes their personality, motivations, values and behaviours.

What are the benefits of Strengths Finder®?  

Employees who act on their strengths are:

X 6 more likely to be engaged at work

X 7.8 more productive in their work

X 6 more likely to do what they do best every day

X 3 more likely to report having an excellent quality of life

Teams that use their strengths perform better than teams that don’t (infographic?)

7-23% higher employee engagement

8-18% increased performance

20-73% lower attrition

‘Since our Strengths Finder® work with you, team performance has noticeably improved, and our employee engagement scores have increased considerably.’

Vicky Garfitt, Head of Data Activation, Kingfisher plc

But Strengths Finder® goes beyond individual insights - it also fosters a positive team culture of empowerment. By understanding each other better, team members feel valued and motivated to contribute their best, creating a supportive environment that nurtures collaboration, innovation, and creativity. This unlocks the full potential of your team and leads to improved team performance and results, greater diversity and reduced conflict.

Empower your team with this proven tool and watch as they achieve results, energised by their unique strengths and talents. Contact me for an informal conversation.

StrengthsFinder® is a Trademark of the Gallup Organization, Washington, D.C and is also known as CliftonStrengths

What’s involved in working with a coach?

This week, to celebrate International Coaching Week, we’ve been exploring different aspects of coaching. We’ve covered ‘What is coaching’ and ‘Does coaching work?’. Today we discuss what’s involved in working with a coach.

1. Initial ‘chemistry’ session

For coaching to be effective, you must feel at ease with your coach. During the initial ‘chemistry’ session, we'll explore the work you want to do and how coaching can support your goals. We'll also discuss how we can work well together to ensure a good fit and successful coaching partnership.

2. Contracting

If we decide that we can work well together, move seamlessly on to what is often called ‘contracting’. Much simpler than the word would suggest, contracting includes discussing and agreeing your coaching goals, outcomes and measure of success, ie how will we know you’ve achieved your goals. We’ll also cover other practicalities, including confidentiality.

Coaching sessions may vary in duration and frequency. As a guideline, online sessions, which are the  most popular, (using Teams, Zoom etc.) usually last one hour; face-to-face sessions may be scheduled for 1 -3 hours. We'll also mutually agree a coaching schedule - weekly, fortnightly, or monthly - to best meet your needs. The frequency may alter as we progress.  

To book a free initial conversation to discuss how coaching can support you, or the leaders in your organisation, please contact me (link)

Three-way meetings

If you are purchasing coaching for leaders, or your organisation is sponsoring your coaching, you might be wondering how the organisation remains involved whilst respecting confidentiality between the coach and coachee. During the coaching we may have a three-way meeting with the coachee (the person being coached), the organisation sponsor (which might be HR, L&D or the coachee’s line manager) and me to ensure alignment of goals and to review progress. Outside of this, the content is confidential and not shared.

To explore how coaching can help you achieve your goals, contact me (link to contact page)

My approach to coaching

I bring a straightforward approach to coaching, partnering with you and your leaders to determine the best way we can work together to achieve your goals. Clients comment on my warm, calm manner and my dedication to their success. Together these create a trusting and caring environment which supports leaders and enables them to challenge themselves and move forwards.

Feedback on my coaching style spans common themes – collaboration, flexibility, focus, humour, warmth, attentiveness, clarity and a sharpness of thinking – yet I adapt my style to meet your unique needs. By balancing support and challenge, I create a space where you are encouraged to push the boundaries of your thinking. This results in heightened awareness, deeper insight, and meaningful progress towards your goals.

Goal-focused, our coaching sessions provide the time and space for you and your leaders to think things through, explore ideas and develop action plans. I hold clients accountable for their progress, combining empathy and encouragement with a practical approach to efficiently accomplishing the work. Previous clients say that I feel like a partner invested in their growth and development.

They report that coaching has improved their critical leadership competencies including:

·         Strategic thinking

·         Self-awareness

·         Emotional intelligence

·         Communication skills

·         Decision-making abilities

‘Just finished a great project with Kate to develop our leaders - C-suite down to mid manager - and Kate has been fantastic! She customised her approach to fit our culture, unique needs and values, providing coaching to the participants starting at the very top of our business. It's been hugely successful, really impactful and is making a real difference in our business. We can already see improved positive leadership intent and behaviours from our leaders. Thank you, Kate, for your coaching, challenge, consultancy skills, adaptability, patience and graft in helping us deliver something awesome to our business leaders.’

Ria Rogers, Head of People Strategy, Hemsley Fraser (leading global training provider who asked me to head up their internal leadership development programme)

Interested in gaining clarity on your leadership vision, challenges and opportunities?

Keen to develop strategies to align actions with the desired outcomes? Contact me for more information

Does Coaching work?

This week, to celebrate International Coaching Week, we’ve been exploring different aspects of coaching. Yesterday we looked at ‘What is coaching’. Today we discuss whether coaching works and the benefits of working with a coach.

Leadership coaching is a powerful tool that can significantly impact a leader’s effectiveness and an organisation’s success. Clients I’ve worked with over the years report the following benefits:

·         Increased confidence

·         Elevated organisational / team results

·         Improved influence and impact

·         Better relationships with stakeholders

·         More effective use of time and energy

·         More thinking space to be strategic (and less time caught up in the operational details)

·         Enhanced management of poor performance of team members

·         Better decision making

·         Higher energy levels and better work / life balance

Don’t take my word for it! Read below to explore 8 proven benefits of leadership coaching:

1.Improve leadership skills and competencies: Leadership coaching provides customised interventions that focus on specific leadership skills and competencies, resulting in improved leadership effectiveness (Day & Dragoni, 2015).

2.Boost self-awareness and emotional intelligence: Coaching can help you gain deeper insights into your own emotions, thoughts, and behaviours. You’ll learn a lot about yourself, as well as others! This enhances your ability to understand and manage the emotions of others, leading to improved emotional intelligence, which is critical for effective leadership (Grant, 2013).

3.Sharpen decision-making and problem-solving abilities: Coaches are often described as ‘thinking partners’, providing time and space away from the day job to step back and think more strategically. Through coaching, you can hone your critical thinking skills, ensuring you to make informed and strategic choices (Maltbia, Marsick, & Ghosh, 2014).

4.Strengthen communication and interpersonal skills: Coaching can enhance your communication skills, including giving and receiving feedback, communicating confidently and with impact, enabling you to build better relationships with your team and stakeholders. Working with a coach can provide a unique opportunity to practice conversations in advance, in a safe space, and with feedback, to hone your skills and confidence (Jones, Woods, & Guillaume, 2016).

5.Navigate change and uncertainty with confidence: Leadership coaching can provide you with tools and strategies to effectively manage change and uncertainty, enabling you to lead your team through challenges with resilience and adaptability. (de Haan, 2012).

6.Elevate team performance and productivity: As you become a more effective leader through coaching, you can create a positive work environment that fosters team collaboration, motivation, and productivity, resulting in improved team performance. (Theeboom, Beersma, & van Vianen, 2014).

7.Improve team performance and productivity: Effective leadership behaviours and strategies that you develop in coaching translate into improved team performance and productivity, as you learn how to lead and motivate your team more effectively (Grant, 2013).

8.Contribute to organisational effectiveness and success: The improved leadership skills, self-awareness, decision-making, communication, and team performance that you gain from coaching can ultimately contribute to the overall effectiveness and success of your organisation. (Day & Dragoni, 2015).

Coaching is not about providing prescriptive solutions, but about empowering you or your leaders to develop their own leadership capabilities and achieve sustainable results.   Investing in leadership coaching can yield significant positive outcomes for you as a leader and your organisation.   Through coaching, you gain the skills to drive positive change, make informed decisions, build effective relationships, and navigate dynamic organisational environments. As a result, your organisation benefits from improved leadership behaviours, higher team performance, enhanced culture, and increased overall effectiveness.  Leadership coaching is a valuable investment that propels long-term success and growth, both for you as a leader and for your organisation.