Janine Everson, Director of the Centre for Coaching, explores in this second interview of a seven part series on The Secrets of Success in Coaching: “The secret to making coaching more affordable”.
In this second interview, Janine looks at how to make coaching more affordable for organisations, including some innovative examples. You will find a full transcript of the interview below.
Daniel Schwenger:
Hello from the Dukascopy TV studio in Geneva. We’re talking about the Secrets of Success in Coaching, and in particular, how to make coaching more affordable for organisations with Janine Everson from the Centre for Coaching. Welcome to the studio, Janine, again.
Janine Everson:
Thank you.
Daniel Schwenger:
So what is the secret to make coaching more affordable for organisations?
Janine Everson:
Yes, this is something we’re very passionate about. In the past, most people only spent money on top executives, but how to be able to roll it down to others? And what we’ve seen, a growing trend over the last few years, is that organisations are finally saying, “You know what? What if we send some of our staff to learn how to coach? By attending professional coaching programs, and actually make it part of their duties, make it part of their portfolios. And that way, we can actually get coaching to the more junior staff; the high performers, the talented people who wouldn’t normally qualify for the top executive coaching.”
Daniel Schwenger:
What is the strategic rationale for building up in-house coaching?
Janine Everson:
Many organisations these days have to do so much more with so much less. And so, they’re realising their talent development has to be very strong, as well as saying there are certain business needs that different organisations have, and people need on-the-job coaching as well. I know it’s fashionable to say managers do on-the-job coaching, but it’s really managing in a coaching way.
What we’re talking about is how can you make people more effective and more efficient, more productive, more happy, more skilful in the workplace, whether they are juniors working their way up, or whether they are developing a new kind of skill or capability in the business.
Daniel Schwenger:
Could you give some examples maybe for small and for large organisations?
Janine Everson:
All right. A law firm recently sent their office manager and their two HR crew on our 6 month course, which I thought is very innovative because law firms are not known for spending a lot on people management, which is really good. Big financial institutions tend to send more staff to attend our courses – anything between 5 and 105. We have done a program for a financial institution that sent over a hundred people to learn how to coach so that they can bring this to all departments. It has made a massive impact and they’ve been very comfortable with that.
Another really interesting example is of another financial institution who’s decided instead of training up financial advisers to sell people policies and so on, they are going to teach these people how to become financial coaches. And actually, for example, work with their clients on their relationship to money and understanding money and getting through their fears of how to manage their money. As well as then, becoming the trusted adviser to help them decide which products to buy. So I’m seeing a lot of very innovative uses of skilful, trained coaching within the business by in-house coaches, which is very exciting.
Daniel Schwenger:
Thank you very much, Janine Everson, from the Centre for Coaching at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town for being here today.
Janine Everson:
Thank you.
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Centre for Coaching (Switzerland):
Established in 2002, the Centre for Coaching, an internationally accredited Centre for executive coach training and leadership development, is situated at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), and is present in South Africa, Australia and now also in Switzerland. Its courses form part of the GSB Executive Education suite of offerings and are thus informed by both academic rigour and coaching practice. The Centre for Coaching links into over 25 years of cutting edge coaching course development and experience offered through its alliance with New Ventures West in San Francisco.
The next six-month Associate Coaching Course will be starting on 24 September 2015, at the Château de Bossey, near Geneva – an intensive six-month programme designed for participants to emerge as coach practitioners.
