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D. Murali

Managers should coach, but mostly, they don't. External coaches are popular but they are often not the solution. Coaching means different things to different organisations.

In such a depressing and confusing scenario, James M. Hunt and Joseph R. Weintraub offer light through `The Coaching Organization: A Strategy for Developing Leaders,' from Sage (www.sagepublications.com) . The authors look at coaching as "relationship-based, on-the-job learning." A means by which `knowledge can be transferred from one generation of employees to the next,' to develop `a more capable workforce at all levels'.

Coaching is thus a key imperative, and a challenge that involves managing `the zone of execution,' as Dave Whitwam, former CEO of Whirpool Corporation would say. This zone is "the mindset and group of activities dominating a manager's attention at a particular point in time," explain the authors.

"Pressing operational problems and the need to make today's numbers almost always overpower long-term concerns. The leadership of the coaching organisation has to be constantly on guard for the tendency to ignore the strategic perspective completely, especially when times are tough."

What does a coaching organisation do? It uses coaching, effectively and regularly, "as a means of promoting both individual development and organisational learning in the service of the organisation's larger goals." Establish a `coaching capability infrastructure,' exhort the authors. Check if you have a `coaching value chain' in your organisation. It may be a good idea to have a CPM or `coaching practice manager' in your company, `to maintain the credibility of the coaching effort'.

In conclusion, the authors rue about `the larger morass of human resource and talent management'. Morass, because "there is a tremendous gap between what people know and what they can do in this area."

Vital read.

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