Using Corporate Coaching to Reinvent Organizations

By Duanna Pang-Dokland & Vicki Adaway

With a history of private ownership spanning 124 years, The Westervelt Company has existed in multiple incarnations, ranging from invention to land stewardship. When it transitioned from a function-based manufacturing business to a process-based multi-faceted land resource organization in 2005, the organization was well prepared, thanks in part to its established coaching program.

Known from 1927-2006 as Gulf States Paper Corporation, the company’s leaders saw a need to adopt a coaching culture in order to remain competitive and relevant amidst an ever-changing global industry. In 2001, the company decided to define coaching as a critical part of their business structure. As a result, "we decided to take some talented associates who demonstrated a propensity for coaching out of their operating responsibilities, so they could focus their efforts on coaching full-time,” recalled Michael Case, President and CEO.

One of those individuals was Sheila Baker who, at the time, was a key management member of the organization’s Information Services department. Baker and the other coaches went though a rigorous coaching training and certification program. They have worked to develop a coaching strategy that focuses on developing leadership potential at all levels of the organization.

Case’s vision stemmed from his personal commitment to coaching. He began working with an external executive coach in the late ’90s and immediately saw how coaching improved the quality of his internal communication at the company. He also recognized the need for high-level executives to have an objective sounding board not predisposed to the day-in and day-out operations of the organization.

Case credits Baker with developing a strong program and adds, “Of all the wonderful things coaching does for us, I believe it gives us an edge –- the ability to attract and retain talented people, and the ability to tap into the collective wisdom that exists within our workforce. If we’re doing it and our competitors aren’t, at the end of the day we’re going to beat them.”

Recently, Case, Jim King, Vice President of National Resources and Sheila Baker, Corporate Coach, shared their thoughts on the benefits of coaching with International Coach Federation, North and Central Alabama Chapter’s president Duanna Pang-Dokland.

Duanna Pang-Dokland: How did coaching add value to your business?

Michael Case: I believe coaching has enabled us to create an environment of engagement, innovation and accountability. Engagement exists by having every associate understand the role that they can play. Engagement gives everyone a voice in improving the business versus a top down directive.

We realized when we were trying to take the process improvement initiative to another level that it wasn’t how smart our supervisors were that would propel us. It was recognition that, to get us to where we want to go, we had to tap into the knowledge that existed in the person doing the day-to-day work.

With engagement comes accountability. We no longer tell associates what to do. We define expectations. We are giving them the tools, the equipment and the chance for it to happen; the rest is up to them.

Jim King: We went through a major transition in this company as we went from being a function to a process-based organization. It was a big shift in the culture of this company. Coaching helped facilitate that transition by addressing the stress that accompanies any major change.

Sheila Baker: Coaching created an environment that allowed people to voice their concerns about the changes that were taking place, while developing a plan of action to manage the stress.

MC: By supporting people as they accepted more responsibility and accountability, coaching has helped us become a company of innovators. If there is a fear of taking risks, there is likely no innovation. Coaching helps drive company growth by surfacing the innovative ideas of our workforce.

DPD: What are the tangible and intangible impacts of coaching?

MC: Our associate turnover rate is down and that is a very tangible thing to measure, because we know how much it costs to acquire new talent. We look at our largest operation today -- it is a saw mill with 300 associates -- and we’ve gone from a 30% annual turnover rate to about 16%. Those are very real, tangible numbers and I think it has to do with a change in leadership philosophy that coaching has supported in that business.

We do an associate satisfaction survey each year and those numbers have steadily increased.

On the intangible level, I think the quality of our conversations at all levels is better. We talk about recognizing, raising and resolving issues. Value is created by how quickly you can go from recognizing to resolving an issue. With coaching, there is a greater sense that every person’s ideas are going to be respected.

Another area where coaching has had an impact is supporting business leaders as they give up some control. It wasn’t so much an issue of giving more authority or responsibility to people who hadn’t had it before -- there was some of that -- but for the most part, it was the willingness for people who were used to giving out orders to quit doing that and shift to a teaching role. That has allowed our business leaders to get away from the day-to-day fire fighting, to start focusing on strategic initiatives and where their business is going. That’s the role a leader should play in a process organization.

JK: On the tangible side, our transition to process helped facilitate more revenues, decrease costs and made us a more effective organization. To be able to transition to a process organization quickly and have everyone understand their roles -- I don’t think we would have been able to make that transition smoothly without the support of the coaching organization.

I didn’t really know how people would react to the increased level of accountability, and what we found is that they thrive on it! You just can’t imagine the passion that comes across. I think the coaching has helped them embrace that level of accountability, and that has made their job more enjoyable now than it was.

SB: Another tangible benefit from coaching is “stronger bench strength”. We use coaching to support those upcoming leaders to become bigger decision makers. As our current business leaders retire, we’ll have people ready to step into those positions and carry our company forward.

DPD: What did you learn the most?

MC: That everybody can benefit from coaching. Initially, I questioned if everyone was really going to get it. Are they going to benefit from coaching? The answer is, not everyone. But if they are willing to put some effort into it, they come back and say, ‘That worked for me, too’. For me, it works at all levels.

DPD: How did you get your senior level executives to buy into the idea of coaching?

MC: There is a difference between compliance and commitment. I got compliance because I made them try it. I think the commitment came with their experience in seeing what coaching could do for them. Coaching is now optional at our company. The people who are in it today have a passion for it.

The selection of coaches is also a critical component. So is the company’s commitment to those who stepped out in faith to take on this new career. My commitment to them was: this will not hurt you financially and you’re not going to have less of a career path here. We are asking you to do something to break new ground; it’s something we need you to do.

JK: We were aware that Mike had a coaching relationship even before we had a formal coaching structure. Mike served as a role model and said, “Hey, I’m benefiting from coaching and I think you could too.” That facilitated the buy-in.

DPD: As a senior level executive yourself, what won you over about coaching?

MC: It allowed me to get better at communicating and setting expectations, and shifting out of a problem-solving mode, which is my natural inclination, to a listening mode, and looking at every interaction as a coaching opportunity. I am not a coach but I do recognize good coaching opportunities. There are times when you are having a conversation that you can shift out of problem solver and a more directive mode, listen and just kind of put it back to the person by saying, ‘Okay, then, what would you do?’ and let them come up with ownership.

There are times when you have to say ‘this is what we are going to do’, but those are few and far between.

JK: What won me over was seeing the gradual change of the people I had worked with for years, knowing they made a big leap in terms of their engagement, their level of accountability, and the kinds of conversations that they are having with me now, as opposed to before they had coaching.

DPD: What would Westervelt have been like if coaching were not adopted?

MC: I think that our ability to attract new talent to come join this company would have been greatly inhibited. And our ability to retain people that we’ve been able to retain would have been greatly reduced. We aspire to be an ‘Employer of Choice’ -- a place where people want to work, and where, once you’re here, you want to stay.

DPD: How can coaching be best leveraged in the future? What’s next for Westervelt in regards to coaching?

MC: Our future success will be determined by how well we get a coaching attitude and mentality to exist in our front line supervisors. We will know we have gotten there when all the associates describe their supervisor as a leader, teacher, mentor or coach, but not as a boss.

JK: One way that coaching can be leveraged is in our recruiting. We offer coaching to all associates as an optional benefit.

DPD: Coaching appears to be relatively new in Alabama in that few companies seem to invest in coaching. What do you think it would take for businesses and corporations to buy into coaching as a process that positively impacts their businesses?

MC: You’ve got to have that commitment from the top. If it doesn’t start there and there is no role model for people to see, it is going to be a very difficult thing to do. So there’s got to be a catalyst within the organization that can help drive coaching and serve as that role model to move forward.

Coaching is a philosophy about how people work and the value they bring to an organization. It starts off with a senior level commitment, but if it doesn’t get down to everybody, and change the way people engage one another, then it’s not going to be successful and it’s really not coaching.

I don’t think coaching would work in a functional organization. To the degree that people still find comfort in a functional, hierarchal, bureaucratic organization, where there are defined lines of responsibility, where the organizational chart has a lot of layers, coaching is going to be a challenge.

In addition to senior level support, it almost has to start with a leap of faith. It’s not like you can look at Six Sigma and calculate what coaching is going to do to the bottom line. This has to start not in your brain but in your heart saying, “You know what, this is the kind of place I want to work in, and this is the kind of person I want to be, so let’s go on that basis”. It requires faith in the idea that through coaching you tap into the leadership potential of each person. When that happens, the possibilities are endless.

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Duanna Pang-Dokland, CC, is a Certified Business & Life Coach whose practice, Igniting Possibility Coaching [http://ignitingpossibility.com] works with business owners and sales professionals to increase profits and productivity without losing their sanity. She is also the co-author of a new book 101 Great Ways To Improve Your Life along with self-growth gurus like Ken Blanchard, Les Brown, Byron Katie and Mark Victor Hansen.

Vicki Adaway is a Certified NLP Life Coach. Her Birmingham, AL-based business Adaway Life Coaching [http://www.adawaylifecoaching.com] focuses on clients who want to smoothly manage transitions in business or personal life.

Founded in 1995, the International Coach Federation (ICF) [http://www.icfcoachalabama.com] is the leading global organization dedicated to advancing the coaching profession by setting high standards, providing independent certification, and building a worldwide network of credentialed coaches. The ICF’s core purpose is to advance the art, science and practice of professional coaching. The organization has over 12,000 members in 81 countries.