Organizations are not only structures where previously planned processes are carried out to produce results, they are eminently entities of human coexistence with a culture that distinguishes them from each other and characterizes them to the point that we can say that some of them possess "Personality", that is, they are living beings.
These "living beings" that are organizations, need to be managed more efficiently and effectively, with the awareness that the more knowledge, the more effective. And this knowledge includes the different strategies, methods and techniques that could act as allies in the development of the daily experience of keeping them healthy and sustainable over time.
One of those strategies is coaching. The management of organizations adopts it as a very attractive alternative with very broad application prospects. It is worth saying that for Fremicourt cited by Caby (2004: 21), from the managerial level, it consists of: "helping an individual or a group to integrate within the framework of a business objective".
And it is that, in all parts of the world, coaching is being applied more and more in companies or organizations of any type, whether public or private, large or small, for-profit or non-profit.
Following the above, some companies have declared, according to their experience, that the timely professionality of a professional coach, in working groups on personal work on managers, is rapidly becoming a competitive advantage of the organization.
There are several distinctive characteristics of managerial coaching, among which are:
• Focuses on objectives: seeks clarity on how, when and why to achieve the results of the organization.
• It is flexible: it provides options for, within a space where creativity is promoted, multiple and varied ways are sought to achieve business results.
• Change enhancer: provides tools to managers to promote change through invitation and not imposition, creating an environment of conviction to carry it out.
• Promotes relationships: awakens management's interest in the systemic approach and the importance of quality human relationships in the organization.
• Emphasis on communication: proposes to continually review the conversational networks of the company, re-define them and intervene institutionally and personally in the messages for the permanent creation of a framework of possibilities and coordination of actions.
Managerial coaching fosters helpful situations in the organization, without this being confused with some type of therapy (although the discipline relies on proposals for the study of human behavior such as NLP, Emotional Intelligence and Transactional Analysis). This is what Hoffmann (2007: 20) refers to when he points out:
When we come across peak emotional situations, we listen to them empathetically, we contain them, we help the client to realize how this situation affects them in their different life contexts and we invite them to make the decision to work outside the organization with a specialized therapist. The organizational context is not a suitable context to do psychopetrapy!
It is necessary to make it clear that the main function of the managerial coach is to collaborate with the managers or key people in the organization to achieve the business objectives. To do this, it will have propulsion tools such as those proposed by Dilts (2004), among which are the formulation of well-formed objectives, psychogeography, experiential mapping, intervision, and contrast analysis.
All of the above, essential, within a learning environment. Managerial coaching, with an open awareness that like a waterfall must go from top to bottom, will always move within the space of the conscious need to continually learn. Because, in organizations, the problem does not only consist of “what” we learn to improve our performance, as stated by Echeverría (2006: 87) when he expresses:
The basic problem with learning is not that there are certain things to learn, and there are plenty of them. The problem is that the company must be permanently learning as part of its daily work. Learning is an inherent part of the job today.
And as suggested by the aforementioned Hoffmann (2007), all development strategies and actions should be aimed at promoting three types of learning: learning to learn, the ability to reflect, and the ability to act.
In summary, managerial coaching is a proposal that should focus on the performance of the organization, with well-defined objectives to obtain satisfactory results. This will be achieved through the optimization of organizational communication and continuous improvement of the relationships of the human system that integrates it. To do this, it will generate and consolidate forms of learning, the central axis of any coaching strategy.
Bibliography
Caby, Francois. Coaching. Editorial De Vecchi. Barcelona. 2004.
Echeverría, Rafael. The Emerging Company. Granica. Buenos Aires. 2006.
Dilts, Robert. Coaching, tools for change. Uranus editions. Barcelona. 2004.
Hoffmann, Wolfgang. Professional Coach Manual. Norma Editorial Group. Bogota 2007.
