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by Melinda Sinclair
"We have an important message to send, a
message that affects many around the globe.
The message is that companies
must respect and value people.
This is a 'must have', not a 'nice to have'.
"
Susan Lucio Annunzio
Susan Lucio Annunzio, in her recent book
Contagious Success: Spreading High Performance Throughout Your
Organization* offers an interesting perspective on the prerequisites
for high performance for knowledge workers. Her claims are based on extensive
empirical data, collected on a global basis. Her findings provide interesting
indirect support for a comprehensive coach approach to leading and managing.
The basic premise of Annunzio's book is as follows:
- Only a small number - 10% of units in an
organization - are truly high performance, in the sense that they create
results for their organization.
- The key to creating more high performance
units is about changing the situation and shaping the environment. The latter,
she claims, "is what leadership is" (p. 5)
- Any attempt to do the latter needs to take
make real the three key factors that distinguish high performance units:
- Valuing people
- Optimizing critical thinking
- Seizing opportunities
A coach approach to leadership can make a
direct contribution to the enhancement of each of these three factors. Here are
some of the specific ways in a coach approach to leadership can enhance the
three key factors for high performance identified by Annunzio.
Valuing people
- A coaching leader develops the habit of
appreciating and acknowledging others - setting an example that spreads to the
rest of the team.
- Positive feedback - as opposed to the
typical focus on negative feedback (or no feedback!) - is seen as a powerful
means for engagement and motivation for performance and learning.
- A coaching approach focuses on recognizing
and developing people's strengths, and efforts are made to find ways that
allows people to use their strengths at work.
Optimizing critical thinking
- Coaching leaders see their role as
supporting others in figuring out how to reach the goals that are important to
both them and the organization. This alignment engages people's best
thinking.
- A coaching approach intentionally creates
the opportunity for everyone to freely speak their kind, thus creating an
atmosphere of openness and free flow of information.
- Conversations are designed specifically to
stimulate creative thinking and problem solving - vs. "telling others how to
do" (the "detractor" factor of micro-managing).
Seizing opportunities
A
coaching approach to leadership creates a context in which individuals are more
willing to seize opportunities. It does this by:
- Encouraging risk taking
- Creating a learning climate
- Setting stretch goals
- Balancing a short term focus with a longer
term perspective
While there is more to the leader's role in
contributing to high performance, these key aspects of adopting a coaching
approach to leadership directly contribute to/ help enhance the three core
factors that are empirically linked to high performance for knowledge workers.
Indirectly, then, Annunzio's arguments provide support for adopting a coaching
approach leadership, especially in environments interested in fostering high
performance for knowledge workers.
* Annunzio, Susan Lucia. 2004.
Contagious Success: Spreading High Performance Throughout Your Organization.
Penguin: New York.
Copyright ©2005 Melinda Sinclair. All
rights reserved |
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