Case study: building a coaching culture to sustain growth

Building a Coaching Culture to Sustain GrowthClient: Cybersecurity & Consulting Firm The context: In an environment of tremendous growth, a cybersecurity and consulting ?rm had established an internal cohort of senior leaders to advance the capability of junior employees so they could more powerfully drive business outcomes. These leaders had deep knowledge, expertise, and wisdom to share, but to ensure sustainable onward growth, they needed to shift their approach from mentor/advisor to coach. Our approach: ZRG delivered a learning journey that focused on enhancing the coaching skills and capabilities of 12 senior leaders. Through a series of experiential sessions, they learned coaching fundamentals. Key topics included distinguishing coaching from other leadership approaches, coaching mindset, and how to shift to a curious leadership approach to build and enhance talent. These topics allowed the leaders to establish the ideal coaching moments, how to listen deeply and allow others space and time to develop their thinking, approach and solutions to support clients and future growth. Each session was carefully customized to include common coaching scenarios speci?c to the organization to make it applicable to their day-to-day reality. Participants gained access to a framework for building a coaching habit and practiced coaching one another. In addition, they observed the ZRG coaches demonstrating the coaching model and received guidance on how to implement in an impactful way and overcome resistance. Participants also took part in group coaching sessions. These focused on addressing coaching successes, lessons learned, and building internal support networks for the duration of the program and beyond. Results 100% of participants rated the ZRG coaches/facilitators as very good or excellent. The group coaching improved and strengthened the relationships and trust among the leaders as it presented opportunities for them to learn from one another. Participants described enhanced listening skills, improved problem solving, and awareness of their communication style. Additionally, leaders shifted from giving advice to coaching, creating space to allow their coachees to reach their own solutions and ideas. In doing so, putting less onus on them, elevating the capability and con?dence of their coachees to generate ideas to support their clients. Participants reported the program helped increase organizational commitment and motivation, acknowledging the firm’s demonstrated commitment to professional growth by investing in the program itself. The program is now being rolled out to additional cohorts of leaders.