Coaching and Development – Olympic Lessons Learned

I’ve been really enjoying watching the Olympics over the past few weeks, but not necessarily for the obvious reasons. While it is great seeing the performances of top athletes from around the world and the pride of medal winners as they stand on the podium, what I find fascinating is each athlete’s back story. It’s no secret that making it to the Vancouver games is the culmination of years of extremely hard work and an investment of time, money and well, the belief of countless people including families, entire communities, and coaches along the way.

I’ve written previously about the coaching that goes into creating an elite athlete like an NFL all-star, and how that parallels coaching at the organizational level. I even did a little research on the subject, and came across the article Coaching: Sporting Lessons for HR over at Personnel Today. This piece takes a look at how UK-based athletes are training for the 2012 Summer games and what HR can learn from their motivational methods. While the piece focuses primarily on executive level coaching, there are definitely some great take-aways for HR and managers on all types of coaching.

As Bill Barry, founder of corporate coaching firm 121partner, explains:

I have met many people in HR who take an enlightened view of what coaching can achieve in terms of raising expectations and capitalising on strengths, but among business leaders as a whole, coaching has traditionally been seen as remedial and fluffy rather than a real management skill.

HR pros need to consider how coaching is perceived within the organization, especially coaching as a day-to-day thing between managers and employees. Is it looked at as “fluffy” or it is a valued asset? That’s where you need to start. If there’s no value placed on coaching, you can have all the programs and tools in place to support coaching, but it’s not going to succeed.

Another key point from the article is around motivation. Barry elaborates:

I would argue that there is a close similarity between using coaching to identify what motivates an athlete or director and using that knowledge to help that person stay at the top of their game; whether it’s rowing or retail.

You’re in HR so I don’t have to tell you how very tricky motivation can be. But do you really know what makes your employees tick? And do your managers take the time to ensure that they understand it before they coach employees? You can do all the coaching in the world, but there’s definitely a need for individualized coaching, which addresses the motivations and desires of each person. Coaching is not a one size fits all proposition, and managers have to be developed so that they are able to readily identify individual motivations, taking into account both verbal and non-verbal cues. Preparing managers to be coaches is about more than tools or processes, it requires time and development. If you take a hard look at most coaches of Olympic level athletes, they have one thing in common - they themselves have pursued the Olympic dream and understand the steps it takes to be at the top of their sport.

What other lessons can we take away from sports? I’d love to hear your comments below.