Case Study - Major Blue Chip International Retailer

Six-month coaching programme with 50 managers on 11 sites across the North East of England representing a range of disciplines, plus 10 management trainees.

Method:

• agree expectations and measures with stakeholders
• initiated and established coaching as a means of personal development for each individual
• spoke to representative groups and circulated feedback and achieved concensus from group and stakeholders

This approach supports ongoing personal development of managers, which is both individual and time-efficient and offers the opportunity for a tailored approach rather than one approach fits all. Concentrated on developing capability of individuals rather than their skills or knowledge.

One-to-one dialogue of about one hour, then 4-6 weekly reviews, which each took around 30 minutes, these focused upon reflection and review of the previous time period and agreed specific actions for the next period.

Essentially the role of the coach is about assisting individuals to hold themselves accountable for their own development.

Outcomes:

• A performance measurement tool examining improvements in areas such as
• innovation, empowerment, teamworking, involvement
• demonstrated an increase of 10-15 points over the 6-month period, where 5 points is normally recognised as a good improvement.

The plan for the next phase is to project manage a retail change programme looking at business efficiencies across the North East of England. The managers who have already participated in the previous 6-month programme will have developed the capabilities and relationships to facilitate change with others and therefore the next phase should be wholly achievable given that these capabilities are in place.

The longer term business benefit therefore is much more realisable due to the foundations laid by the two-phase coaching programmes.