Irish Coaching and Mentoring Case Studies -‐ 2013
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Irish Coaching and Mentoring Case Studies -‐ 2013 Coaching at ESB - A Shared Journey
ESB is a household name in Ireland. From its foundations as the provider of electricity to power a fledgling state in 1927, ESB now successfully competes in competitive energy markets both at home and overseas. With over 6000 staff, ESB continuously moves with the times and is at the forefront of renewable energy, Smart infrastructure and electric vehicle technology. This pace of change in the energy business requires the company to continuously harness and develop in-house talent. In 2006, coaching was identified as a required enabler for business success in terms of supporting the delivery of the business strategy. The position of Senior Executive Coach was created with a mandate to implement best practice coaching across ESB, including the training and development of a panel of internal coaches. The desired outcomes were initially identified as: •
Improved Performance
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Improved Succession Assurance
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Increased Capability Awareness
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Increased Organisational Learning Retention of Key Talent
The fact that support for coaching at ESB was evident right to the top of the company at Chief Executive and Director level gave coaching the ideal start. This support smoothed the way for coaching to be accepted by managers and provided clear direction. Many companies struggle with the perception of coaching but this was not an issue. Coaching was seen as being fundamental to the success of the business. The first challenge was the selection and training of internal coaches. A panel of forty internal coaches was put in place. All coaches received initial professional training, which was then supplemented by providing ongoing development through activities such as “lunch and learns” and a coaching conference. The internal coaching panel was supplemented by the appointment of a panel of external coaching providers. This provided the additional benefit of having external coaches available if required for specific coaching challenges that might be better met by someone outside the company.
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Irish Coaching and Mentoring Case Studies -‐ 2013 Standard policies, tools and templates were developed for use across the company. This helped to maintain consistency, provide on-line support for coaches and provide a means to build on lessons learned. Three-way contracting was introduced between client, coach and coachee. This served to educate clients on coaching, remove ambiguity and clarify expectations up front. Another successful policy introduced was that of “First 100 days” coaching for Senior Managers. This was directly aimed at assisting managers appointed to new positions during the initial transition into the role. It had the secondary effect of demonstrating that coaching was a standard management development activity. Managers were coached and supported during this initial transition, providing them with a means of “hitting the ground running”. Supervision was also provided for internal coaches on a Group Supervision basis. This gave the internal coaches an opportunity to explore themes they encountered, seek advice on the challenges they faced as coaches and to interact with other coaches across the business. Because coaching is by definition a one-to-one interaction, it was recognised that coaches needed opportunities to meet as a community of practice if they were to develop. This networking of coaches was important as it reinforced the coaches’ identity with, and alignment to, the overall coaching aims of the company. Internal coaches were expected to take on coaching in addition to their normal duties so it was also important that this effort be recognised and discussed as part of the coach’s performance appraisal. Another key element in supporting coaching across the company was the assignment of responsibility for coaching coordination to an individual in each area of the business. Being a divisionalised business, it was important to have local coordination in addition to central oversight by the Senior Executive Coach. These coordinators played a key role as initial point for contact for coaching assignments. They worked closely together to provide good matching between coaches and coachees, had regular group meetings and provided ongoing support to the internal coaches. They were also responsible for providing quarterly reports on coaching in their area. The efforts of the coordinators, who were drawn from the HR community, were a major success factor in the delivery and development of coaching across ESB. An independent external assessment of coaching impact at ESB showed that 71% of clients agreed that coaching directly supported the delivery of ESB’s business strategy. Moreover, 76% of clients agreed that coaching was central to the development of a high performance culture at the company. This is testament to the work of the coaches at ESB. More recent developments have been the introduction of Team Coaching and Career Coaching. In both cases, additional professional training was provided for a number of internal coaches. Team Coaching in particular has enormous potential to improve team performance and team dynamics. Looking to the future, the next stage for coaching at ESB is to mainstream it into Organisational Development. To date it has been separate to, albeit aligned to, the learning and development function. As part of recent organisational change,
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Irish Coaching and Mentoring Case Studies -‐ 2013 Coaching has now moved under Head of Organisational Development where it can be embedded further into management development, employee engagement and change management. The priority now is to instill coaching as an integral part of Development, ensuring it continues to develop and grow. The ultimate objective is to embed a coaching style of management across ESB Group. Looking back on the journey to date, there are some key learnings to be had from the ESB experience. 1. Secure visible and active support from the very top of the company 2. Provide ongoing professional development and practical support for internal coaches 3. Supplement the internal coaching panel with external coaches as and when required 4. Acknowledge the coaching community and provide opportunities for them to network
5. Ensure that there is proper coordination of coaching across the company
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Irish Coaching and Mentoring Case Studies -‐ 2013 Fit for the Future - Coaching for Business success at IDA Ireland
Fit for the Future - Coaching for Business success at IDA Ireland IDA Ireland is the Government Agency responsible for attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Ireland. The success of the agency is dependent on the quality of the staff in the way they carry out their roles. Securing FDI to Ireland has become more challenging with a higher degree of competition and an increasing number of agencies fighting for business investment. IDA has demanding targets each year on job creation for the country and each year the organisation needs to be more strategic in its approach to job creation and sophisticated in its engagement with clients and in its ability to generate solutions that meet client needs. To ensure we build the organisation’s capability to meet the future challenges in competitiveness and job creation, the organisational development strategy is clearly aligned to achieving this aim. IDA's Organisational Development Strategy The organisation has had a Performance Management and Development Review (PM&DR) process in place developed against a competency model that consists of nine competences indicating the skills, knowledge and behaviours expected at each level in the organisation. The competences are: 1. Sales and Marketing 2. Networking 3. Leadership and Management 4. Influencing and negotiation 5. Project Management 6. Communications and Personal Effectiveness 7. Creativity and Innovation 8. Knowledge 9. Client Focused Relationship Building
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Irish Coaching and Mentoring Case Studies -‐ 2013 Coaching and mentoring became an integrated part of the Leadership and Management competence. The organisation bases its annual Learning and Development programme on the output of the PM&DR process and the HR team tend to provide the development solutions. There were a number of training programmes delivered over the years, which provided tools and techniques for staff to do their jobs more effectively. These programmes were built around the core competencies, and HR found through feedback that a move in the OD strategy towards a more individual approach to developing people and less focus on training programmes was required. It was found that the best approach would be to offer a coaching programme to the organisation providing structure, focus and outputs. The organisation was looking for an outcome that would be about increasing the overall management capability in the organisation, improving the level of engagement with clients and stakeholders and develop more specifically the future talent of the organisation. The Approach A discussion on the development opportunities for the leadership team commenced, and a proposal for the introduction of external coaches chosen by individual executive members focusing on the key competence issues for them began, with full agreement by the Executive team. The success of this programme over a two-year period gave the impetus and support to cascade it down into the organisation. Although modular coaching and mentoring workshops were being delivered, the success of the programme at Executive level meant that the culture around the use of coaches and mentors became the norm, and the value of the approach was easily recognised. IDA then introduced nationally accredited mentoring and coaching programmes, delivered by Kingstown College and targeted at management levels and simultaneously to senior HR staff. The staff became trained coaches at diploma level, which supported the introduction and delivery of the programmes and this helped to embed the approach more smoothly into the organisation. The Executive team also played their part, which gave status and recognition to the importance of this approach to people development. The benefits of a management wide approach meant that the culture of coaching and mentoring in helping people to deliver their objectives and ultimately the organisation’s objectives was, and still remains very powerful. Outcomes There has been observable positive performance in behaviours. Managers are better able to manage their own behaviours as a result of having an understanding of their approach and the tools to apply in a variety of interactions with staff and colleagues. Staff have reported their application of the tools of coaching in their client engagements, listening and probing to find out what the client’s real concerns are and how they could respond more effectively.
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Irish Coaching and Mentoring Case Studies -‐ 2013 Performance conversations have become more focused and challenging, and managers have more confidence to deal with issues using a coaching approach. Coaching conversations around the development of talent for the future have become an integral part of IDA’s approach to establishing peoples’ interest in their careers and to encourage them to move up in their careers. Coaching and mentoring have now become an important part of IDA's organisational development strategy for the management and development of its people for the future.
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Irish Coaching and Mentoring Case Studies -‐ 2013 Carmichael Centre Mentor Scheme
Carmichael Centre for Voluntary Groups is a registered charity founded in 1990. It is the first and largest shared services centre for the community and voluntary sector in Ireland. It is an excellent example of sharing resources and promoting best practice in the sector. Each year they support the 46 resident member charities and voluntary groups located within the Centre and the 1,000's of volunteers, Board members, managers and staff located throughout Ireland who avail of training, information, organisational supports and meeting facilities. The Carmichael Centre Mentor Scheme: Providing a helping resource to leaders of charities and other not-for-profit organisations Being the leader of an organisation can be tough anywhere but it is especially true in the not-for-profit sector. The CEO can not share all concerns with the Board because the Board is the employer, and the Board of Directors want to see the CEO as competent and capable at all times. The CEO can not share personal concerns or anxieties with staff members who are employees, who want to see their leader as being able to solve all the problems. The value of a mentor is having someone who can ask questions that clarify the situation and can help relieve the anxiety that builds when there is nowhere to articulate the doubts that the CEO may feel. The purpose of the Carmichael Centre Mentor scheme is to help meet with this need by establishing a panel of mentors with relevant experience and skills who volunteer to provide one-to-one advice and guidance to CEOs and equivalents of voluntary, community and charity organisations. The scheme is provided free of charge to mentees. The mentors volunteer their time and Carmichael Centre manages and administers the scheme. Need The community, voluntary and charity sector is facing many challenges, such as, funding cuts, drops in fundraising income, reduction in staff numbers and the need to re-visit their strategic plans as they face ever increasing demands by clients for their services due to the impact of the economy. CEO’s can benefit from the experience, skills and support of an experienced mentor to help them navigate through the current difficulties. The Carmichael Centre Mentor Scheme is meeting that need.
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Irish Coaching and Mentoring Case Studies -‐ 2013 Pilot Phase We completed a pilot-mentoring scheme in 2012. The pilot phase involved 8 mentors and 8 mentees to road-test the concept and provide feedback on the design and operation of the scheme which the Carmichael Centre plan to launch on a larger scale in early in 2013. The feedback from both mentees and mentors on the pilot scheme has been very positive with both mentors and mentees gaining from the process. The mentees of the pilot scheme have identified the following specific benefits: • •
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Confidential support in a trusting atmosphere It offers smaller organisations the opportunity to learn from larger more established organisations. It provides tips and encouragement in initiating change and motivational support It is great to receive an objective opinion on how the organisation is going and how this can be improved Being a small organisation, input from a mentor who has vast experience and knowledge in the voluntary sector is hugely beneficial Getting individuals to start thinking more strategically, and what they can do to achieve their strategic direction Encouragement and “positive thinking” even in the current economic climate Mentees felt empowered by the mentor Experience of the mentor in the business sector which was shared effectively and efficiently with the mentee Similar to an audit against current best practices Being able to have guidance before taking important decisions The vital importance of having an active Board was clearly demonstrated The procedures that mentees had to have in place to ensure survival was explained and worked on in order to make it happen Daily planning and strategic goals were shown, based on what the association does and how they function in a new way. This has meant that they are now actively seeking out a whole new Board structure with defining roles for each new Director The association has been turned on its head due to the mentoring project It gives the mentee a space to discuss issues that can arise between Boards/Chairs and CEO’s. The mentee found that these issues were not insurmountable. The mentee needed the space to think “outside the box” and the scheme certainly gave them that.
The Carmichael Centre is continuing the process of building a panel of nationwide mentors. They now have 14 active mentors on their panel and the next mentoring round will commence in February, with 8 more CEOs from the not-for-profit sector.
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Irish Coaching and Mentoring Case Studies -‐ 2013 Mentoring in Trinity College Dublin
About TCD Trinity College Dublin is recognised internationally as Ireland's premier university and is ranked in 67th position in the top 100 world universities by the QS World University Rankings 2012. It was founded in 1592 and there were 17,000 registered students in. In 2009/10, TCD secured €75m in research income. There are over 95,470 alumni.
The Need for mentoring The College is committed to excellence in both research and teaching, to the enhancement of the learning experience of each of its students and to an inclusive College community with equality of access for all. With that in mind, the College strives to ‘Recruit and Retain the Best’ as a key strategic objective. The need was identified to support new academic staff in their transition to academic life through the Early Career Mentoring Programme. The aim is to: • Imbue staff with the Trinity ethos and an understanding of academic life • Assist the many staff who have moved from abroad to take up their positions in college • Speed their journey on the learning curve to academic excellence. Focus on broad career. Academics have separate opportunities to develop in their particular discipline Early Career Mentoring Initiative The goal of the proposed programme is to promote academic and personal development among new or recently appointed academic staff i.e. less than 3 years service. By connecting them with others who can advise, coach and guide them, as well as help them understand the environment in which they are operating.
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Irish Coaching and Mentoring Case Studies -‐ 2013 What is the focus? Supporting academics as they move from novice to competence, demonstrating ability to establish own programme of research and become an effective teacher through: • Analysis of strengths and areas • Editorial experience for development • Targeting external funding •
Career development plan
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Publications ‘pipeline’
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Research portfolio
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Teaching portfolio
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Hone team-building, interpersonal skills
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Develop collegial network intra- & inter-disciplinary
The Career Stage and Mentoring Support Framework summarize various aspect of the mentoring support: Career Stage
Development Focus
Early Career Stage
Means & Outputs
Role of Mentor
Analysis of strengths and limitations
Model values and practices
Career Development Plan
Encourage problem-solving skills
Publications ‘pipeline’
Help set career and shortterm goals
Research portfolio Moving from novice to competence Demonstrating ability to establish own programme of research and become an effective teacher
Guide to experiences that build skills and expand vision
Teaching portfolio Editorial Experience
Welcome to identity as a scholar
External funding; review experience; refereed publications & presentations
Help navigate inner workings of College
Formal education and research training
Open doors of opportunity Direct to resources
Certification in Teaching & Learning Socialization experiences (professional organizations) Hone team-building, interpersonal skills Develop collegial network
Facilitate networking Provide feedback so teaching & research can improve Keep focus on meeting institutional benchmarks of success
Adapted from Angela Barron McBride: Building An Academic Career: Stages, Interdisciplinary Development, and Needed Mentoring 2009
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Irish Coaching and Mentoring Case Studies -‐ 2013 Planning and implementation The initiative was sponsored by the Vice Provost/Chief Academic Officer, who headed up an advisory group of academic colleagues. A scheme was drafted and ‘proofed’ through the advisory group and with Deans of Faculty (key senior academic figures). As well as assisting in the development of the final scheme, this also helped develop advocates/champions for the mentoring initiative. It was decided to launch as a pilot, targeting 10-12 new staff initially. And new staff were written to and general information briefings were held. In addition, their head of school was also contacted to encourage take up. Applicants were asked to complete an Expression of Interest form. Mentors Separately, senior academic staff were invited to act as mentors by completing an Expression of Interest form and a positive response was received (oversubscribed).
The Matching process This was done with HR and each Dean of Faculty in a round-table exercise assessing suitability, using the expression of interest data from mentors and mentees, as well as local information available within the faculty. As the focus was on longer-term career, it was determined that matched pairs should not be from the same school/discipline (where there would be frequent contact/line reporting relationships) Once a pairing had been proposed, the candidates were contacted to confirm agreement. Then each candidate receives on-to-one induction training to the mentoring process. When this is complete, the mentoring commences. From this point on there is a ‘light touch’ from the centre with an annual email survey of participants. It is intended to the do a more rigorous survey of the scheme in the coming period. To date, 30 mentoring partnerships have been established and a second scheme has been launched, targeting more established academic staff.
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