Internal trainers. The leader is a "functional coach". What will the company gain? The key role of the internal coach in the company

The presence of good business coaches in the company is a reliable competitive advantage, and although the range of tasks of a coach in each organization is different, it largely depends on him how fast he will be, both in terms of his professional skills and in terms of commitment to corporate values.

The role of a coach in a company largely depends on the status and level of development of the department in which he works. A small training department means that the trainer performs a series of repetitive tasks. For example, such as holding welcome - trainings for new employees, product trainings. Development and delivery of trainings for the development of special behavioral skills (sales, etc.). In addition, the trainer can play the role of a coordinator (notifying participants, gathering groups, paperwork). In this situation, the development of managerial personnel is often carried out by external providers.

If the company has an established department of training and development, or a corporate university, the scope of the coach's tasks and his role become more global. In such a situation, the coach can act in a variety of roles necessary for the company, such as facilitator, teacher, consultant, adviser, hr partner, expert, psychologist, evaluator, recruiter, coordinator, motivator, ideologist, inspirer, methodologist, copywriter, coach and others. In fact, each of these roles deserves a separate essay, we will touch on some of them as an example.

It is worth dwelling separately on such a role of a coach as a methodologist and developer of business trainings. The issue of the emergence of a methodology in a company is usually solved either with the help of external providers or by internal trainers. The most effective is a mixed option, in which the company invests in best practices, and on the other hand, trainers are constantly working to improve and adapt methods and materials.

In any case, the coach is the link between the needs of the business and modern technologies of sales, management, and business optimization. In addition, when creating training programs, the trainer must systematically approach the development of business skills of employees and plan consistent training in various methods, while understanding the end result. For example, for aspiring managers, a trainer can prepare a series of training programs on a modular basis, such as:

Module 2 "Mentoring as a Leadership Function"

Module 4 "Management of employees in the style of coaching"

With this approach, within a year, the trainer will be able to prepare professional managers from scratch for the company, who, after completing this program, can very quickly grow into effective middle managers.

Also, one of the important tasks of the trainer is to support those managers whose employees have been trained by the trainer. Ideally, these managers should also receive training from him, where the topics studied by subordinates should be covered, and on the other hand, recommendations and management technologies are provided to consolidate new knowledge and allow achieving new results.

The interaction of the trainer with the leaders also provides great opportunities for evaluating the effectiveness of the training, and allows you to make timely improvements to the training programs. In many Western companies, there is a practice of coaches depending on the results of work and the implementation of plans by trained employees.

In conclusion, I would like to once again list the range of potential tasks of a coach in a large company:

· Conducting trainings to develop management skills.

Participation in the creation of a competency model for company employees.

· Participation in projects to evaluate personnel and analyze the level of development of their competencies.

· Development of the potential of employees (talent management and)

Supporting company departments in increasing their business performance

Assistance in optimizing business processes

Strengthening corporate values

Formation of the necessary worldview of employees

· Individual development and coaching of employees in accordance with their professional goals and the goals of the department.

· Conducting strategic and organizational development sessions for top management of companies.

· Participation in the strengthening of the management team, analysis of their individual personal characteristics, communication styles, team roles and assistance in improving the effectiveness of their team interaction.

· Collaboration with providers on the creation of customized training programs for the needs of the company's employees and the specifics of its business.

Do you have any questions? Ask our coaches! Or order a corporate business training for employees or managers of your company!

HR management and performance consultant

From the point of view of HR, it includes two components: a coaching resource and a methodological core. Let's look at how to reduce costs and improve results in each of these areas.

What disadvantages can the methodological core have?

• Content redundancy. This is when the methodological content significantly exceeds what is required by people holding these positions and representing these professions. For example, I had a client, a retail company, where salespeople were trained in such complex sales technology as SPIN. Or another example: a large energy company. We received a request from her to train foremen and heads of workshops in making strategic management decisions. It is completely incomprehensible why the company decided to give line managers an absolute directorial skill, when they just need to training for the management of subordinate performers.
• Inappropriate direction. This is the other extreme. For example, when we started talking with one client, an oil producing company, about the programs that need to be developed for it, the client did not say a word about the core competency models. Instead, we were asked to rely on a short list of knowledge needed by employees. With this approach, almost any project can be sold to a client. This leads, as in the first case, to the fact that the money of the training customer is wasted, and most importantly, the time of employees is wasted.

How to form an effective methodological core:

1. Write down processes and competencies.
2. Create training programs for processes and competencies.
3. Create a learning process for processes and competencies.

What are the disadvantages of the coaching staff?

The quality of the work of the training corporate structure reduces both the redundancy of qualifications and the lack of qualifications of the trainer. Looking through the vacancies for coaches, I notice from time to time that the requirements described in them are quite high. This is the creation of a training center, and a description of the training processes ... But, as a rule, such a specialist is quite expensive for a company. This is the work of a methodologist. And, as practice shows, doing the work of an ordinary coach, such a specialist subsequently quickly loses motivation. And then a painful process begins: the company has to pay dearly for the cheap labor of an ordinary and, moreover, unmotivated coach-leader. And vice versa. If a company invites an ordinary trainer to describe the methodological core of its training center for a small salary, the result is also clear.

These risks are typical for those cases when one employee of the company is responsible for corporate training. And if the described errors apply to a larger process, then the losses and risks will also be higher.

How to optimize the human resource of the company's training center? It is possible to divide the work of the presenter and the work of the methodologist. And thus, the optimization of the corporate training process includes the following tasks:

1. Prescribe work processes and KPI or competency models (MC) of employees.
2. Write training programs.
3. Prescribe training programs and KPI of the training structure.
4. Write down the requirements for a coach-leader.
5. Find the right trainer.

How to optimize?

First, it is important to draw up a fundamental document: a functional model or (and) a model of competencies required by employees. Without this document, an attempt to train staff in anything is to hit the sky with a finger. To describe the programs, you can turn to outsourcers, whose services are now not very expensive. You can also solve this problem internally.

As for the coach-leader, there is a new, one might say, crisis trend - the use "functional trainers". Any top- or middle-level manager can become such a coach, a mentor for subordinates. My observation: if a top manager is positive about employee training and understands that teaching others is the best way to develop himself, he quite willingly takes on the role of a “functional coach”.

Thus, we further reduce the cost of . But this is not the only advantage of this approach. If an employee is engaged in training others, his competence, motivation, and, of course, adaptation to the next position increase. This is a great way to create an informal for a company. It might even be a rule that when selecting an internal candidate for a vacancy, only applicants who have accumulated a certain number of hours teaching with their subordinates are considered.

What are the challenges faced by "functional coaches"?

• General group resistance or difficult members. This is expressed in the fact that employees studying with the current leader, as a rule, are inactive in the classroom, realizing that if you “open your mouth”, it will be more expensive for yourself. In this case, there is no need to talk about efficiency. In order for the group to demonstrate the assimilation of new skills, it must argue, actively communicate.
• Lack of learning outcome. This is natural if our leader does not own the methods of teaching adults.

His training is dominated by emotions. He "ignites" the audience and introduces into ecstasy, but there is no progress in production. Familiar? Perhaps it's not professionalism, but diversity.

It is almost impossible to determine how good or bad a business coach is. There is no average business coach, just as there is no average student or patient. A business coach should approach the corporate culture of the company in which he works. If we analyze the styles of conducting business trainings, we can distinguish five main roles of business coaches. There may be more, but for now we've highlighted these. If the reader wants to add, I will only be glad.

• trainer is charismatic
• trainer - expert
• trainer - methodologist
• trainer - facilitator
• trainer - psychologist

Let us analyze in more detail what are the features of conducting trainings in each of the roles and which corporate cultures of companies they are more suitable for.

COACH - CHARISMATIC

His trainings are dominated by emotions, appeals, slogans, accompanied by fascinating stories, ambiguous statements. His task is to ignite the audience, make it go beyond the usual, raise the emotional mood. Such trainers have long been associated with business training in general due to the influence of our foreign colleagues. Many foreign companies have demonstrated exactly this kind of business training. After them, an elevated emotional state arose and a desire to train their staff in this way. But after a while, this method began to fail. Why? There were no major changes in the workplace, and emotions disappeared after a few weeks. Such trainings had to be carried out constantly and according to a certain schedule.

Charismatic coaches often "burn out" - "dancing" in front of the audience and turning themselves inside out to achieve the desired ecstasy is not easy. In front of the same audience, such trainings cannot be repeated several times. Techniques and influences will be recognized, and, therefore, will not bring the desired effect. Therefore, a charismatic coach has to increase his influence every time, come up with something new. Otherwise, the training will lose its originality and the ability to "ignite". All this makes the work of internal charismatic coaches emotionally expensive - they have to make changes and increase the impact every time, because they work for the same audience. Therefore, these trainings and similar trainers get along well in large companies - with a large number of employees, the same training can be repeated many times, since the groups will be different.

It is easier for external charismatic trainers - they can repeat similar techniques and influences in different groups.

What corporate cultures are best suited for such business coaches? These are Coca-Cola, Mars, McDonald's, RedBull, etc. What do these companies have in common? Most likely, the presence of an “intra-corporate religion”, which is being introduced with the help of charismatic trainers. In other words, these are companies whose corporate culture is built on a strong "intracorporate religion" and assumes that all employees are in "performing faith" in relation to their leaders and the company as a whole.

TRAINER - EXPERT

His training focuses on content. It is important for him not so much to ignite as to convey the necessary material to the audience. As a rule, such trainers grow up from employees of companies that professionally work with products or services. Ideally, they should be experts in the field they teach. At their trainings, production skills are worked out, knowledge of a product or service is given. Such trainings are accompanied by a large amount of methodological and informational material.

Since the main techniques of expert trainers are explaining the methods and checking the correctness of execution in practice, they are periodically trying to replace their direct teaching with distance courses.

Expert trainers are well received by companies that require knowledge of a service, product, or manufacturing process. In many companies, especially manufacturing ones, where such trainings are considered mandatory, they are visited for show. Expert coaches work in exactly the same way - working out the required hours in front of an audience. They take root well, as a rule, in enterprises with a production cycle. Worse - in selling companies. Why? Expert trainers need a corporate culture coupled with a bureaucratic management system. Their trainings do not involve entertaining employees. The methodology is simple and uncomplicated - to tell and show how the production process works, or what a product or service contains. Therefore, a strong administrative component is needed to gather groups for trainings. Employees must attend them without fail and be responsible for mastering the material. Expert trainers tend to make little effort to make their programs more fun and interesting for employees. Therefore, such trainings require a corporate culture that includes executive discipline and a bureaucratic management system. If this is present in companies, then expert trainers get along easily in them.

TRAINER – METHODOLOGIST

The peculiarity of these trainers is that they bring disparate processes, fragmentary knowledge and skills of employees into the system. Their feature is the analysis and structure of information. Good trainers-methodologists, as a rule, are obtained from specialists with a technical or economic education, but there are exceptions. Such trainings are dominated by graphs, diagrams that clearly demonstrate the connections between many elements. Often, methodological trainings are ordered for managers who need to build a systematic view of the company as a whole or of their department. Of the company's specialists, such trainings are preferred by marketers, project team leaders, analysts involved in business processes.

In what corporate cultures are trainers-methodologists most in demand? These are, as a rule, young companies that have not yet developed their history, knowledge base, and cannot boast of high achievements. Their corporate culture is just taking shape. Such companies are in search, and they have a need to systematize and generalize internal corporate processes. It is also important for these companies to compare their work with the work of others and with what is happening in the market or what is offered by theoretical studies.

Often trainers-methodologists are needed during the period when a small company develops into a medium one. Business processes and organizational structure are changing, there is a need for a different corporate culture.

TRAINER - FACILITATOR

The peculiarity of these trainers is their ability to manage various teams, working groups. They work not with individual employees, but with their totality. Coaches-facilitators direct the work of employees towards the goals and results that the company needs.

Working as a facilitator is the pinnacle of a coach, as it requires a lot of knowledge and skills at the same time, as well as optimal actions in unpredictable situations. Experienced trainers with knowledge in many areas come to this role. They are personally developed, so they enjoy the achievements of the team of employees, and not themselves, loved ones. Their task is to get, generalize and structure the experience and knowledge of the participants, without making their own work and conclusions. Coaches-facilitators start the activity of the working group, which works out the issues of the company.

As a rule, trainers-facilitators are requested by companies focused on highly professional employees who have value in accumulating their own knowledge, structuring and generalizing it. The corporate culture of these companies is based on the importance of using the experience of employees, creating a knowledge base within the company. As an example, these are companies such as Sberbank, Volvo and the like.

TRAINER - PSYCHOLOGIST

Coaches with a psychological or psychotherapeutic background are not often requested in the business these days. Their time, one might say, is gone. In the early 1990s, when the concept of business training was in its infancy and there were no schools for training business trainers, psychologists conducted classes with employees.

In our time, trainers-psychologists are needed where employees work in high-stress conditions, they are required to have super-discipline and responsibility. Under these conditions, employees often burn out, become stressed and lose productivity. Such companies need trainings for personal growth, stress management, personal study. As an example, these are the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Airports, Nuclear Power Plants, etc. The corporate culture of these companies includes endurance, efficiency, stress resistance and diligence. These are companies whose work is connected with the responsibility for the life of the population.

What happens when the roles of a business coach do not align with the corporate culture of the company? In these cases, the coach is considered unsuccessful or not meeting the client's request. For example, if a company needs an expert trainer to conduct trainings, and a charismatic trainer has come, then his trainings will not give the desired effect. Trust in the coach, based only on his charisma, will not happen in this company. He will be expected to have knowledge in the areas of specialization of the client company.

If a charismatic trainer comes to a growing company, then the training itself will go well. But there will be no systemic changes in the company. In growing companies, emotions are already running high, they do not need to be raised and made more violent. Employees expect the right knowledge in the field of development and steps to implement it.

If a charismatic coach comes to a company where experience and consistency are valuable, then employees will perceive him through the prism of their professionalism. They will be disappointed in comparison with the small amount of knowledge of such a coach. It's like teaching the sales stages for the fifth time for seasoned salespeople. Experienced salespeople are motivated by their experience, they know what they are doing. They do not need external motivation from a less experienced coach.

Such examples show how important it is to select not only the topics of the trainings, but also the appropriate roles of the facilitators.

Let's make a reservation that individual trainings of business trainers with different roles are possible in any company, with any corporate culture. We have considered the correspondence of the roles of business coaches in the framework of systemic training and development of personnel. It was important to highlight the priority types of trainings depending on the characteristics of the company's corporate culture. Note that it was not my goal to describe the various corporate cultures in detail. I have highlighted only individual elements that can be decisive when choosing business coaches.

Let us summarize in the table the highlighted roles of business coaches and the corporate cultures of companies in which they will be most effective.

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- Andrey Vladimirovich, what are the challenges facing the internal training system for employees at TNK-BP?

Last year, 12,000 people were trained through the internal training system using internal trainers. The goal for next year is to keep the pace of learning at the same level. Now we are holding conferences of internal trainers, discussing the set of programs that they lead. I want to reiterate what I said earlier at Townhall on April 6, 2012. Based on the Company's value of Leadership, I encourage all leaders to display this quality in internal employee training as well. We have good examples. Mikhail Slobodin leads a program related to the development of the competencies of future leaders. Irina Kibina also supported the initiative. She also conducted a course related to the development of the professional level of employees. The leader trains the leader - this is the principle that should underlie internal learning.

- You said an important thing - "development through training." What is the connection between these concepts?

Education is one of the development tools. Learning can take place in different forms - both in lectures and in the mode of self-study on the "Knowledge Portal". And you can add to this and participation in some projects. And here employees also receive additional knowledge, acquire new skills. Other forms are also possible, such as coaching or mentoring from department heads. A skillful combination of all these tools ensures the maximum effect of employee development.

Here a person attended classes, received new knowledge. What else is required of him in order for there to be a leap in his development?

You need more self-motivation. A person must learn to apply the acquired knowledge in his work, transform knowledge into skills, skills to use in work and thereby increase the return on himself.

- How should a person be trained so that he participates in innovative activities?

First, let's agree on what innovation is. In my understanding, innovation is a change in the current order or process, aimed at its improvement or acceleration, deepening, etc. A person's participation in this is possible only when he is interested in it. That is, he should be interested in the results of innovation, in its introduction into life. At the initial stage, this is usually done under the slogan: “If you are an innovator, you will be paid money,” for example, from the effect of an introduced innovation. And ideally, this should become the need of every person, benefit society or the company. It's not training, it's motivation.

- Is it possible to motivate people only with money?

No you can not. There must also be recognition. Recognition can be both tangible and intangible. The organization has a set of non-material incentives. The person must know that he is important to the company. And what he comes up with brings a positive effect both to the company and to him personally in terms of his image, authority among colleagues.

Imagine an invention. For example, they changed the process, increased labor productivity. But who will know about it? Why not hang a sign with the name of the innovator on the installation?

Not a sign… There should be a platform for information, discussion, and understanding of innovations. If only because if this process has an impact on the Company, then everyone who is related to it should know that the process has changed. This is the "point of view" of the process. And from the point of view of a person, a platform is also needed where he can become famous. We have the Novator and Your Company magazines, and such information should find its place there. You can also mention it in the Panorama TNK-BP newspaper. This will be a huge incentive for the innovator. A person needs people to know about his work, because he is not a “cog”, he is a real participant in solving the problems facing the organization, and has done a lot for this.

- In your opinion, are all people capable of innovation?

Of course not. No one can decide for them who is capable and who is not capable. The one who participates in it is capable. It is a complex of intellectual and motivational components. If it merges, then it turns out, if not, the initiative hides in a corner, and the person does nothing, that is, he can be smart, but he doesn’t care, he is not involved.

My opinion is simple. The system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs also says how many fines should be, how many criminals should be caught and crimes solved. Probably, the matter is in the environment: if a person is comfortable, then he is interested, he offers innovations. If this does not happen, then we will put a tick, sharpen paper clips and write that we have made an innovation. I personally will not do this, I have a different motivation. I understand it differently - as a free will of a person, a need, rather, even as a person's interest, to positively influence the processes that surround him.

You spoke about the need for intellectual and motivational qualities. Can we say that intelligence must be above average for innovation?

I am not a professor at the Department of Psychology, but I can say for sure that the processes are different in their complexity. There are people who can influence one process, others - on the totality, the complex of these processes. Therefore, probably, who is smarter, he participates in more complex innovations.

- Does the system of internal training develop the intellectual component?

Naturally, like any training. The training system affects the intellectual abilities or inclinations of a person. We are talking about the fact that the resource of internal training is the right resource for the Company, it affects the preservation and development of creative potential within the Company.

- Is the participation of a person in such an innovative process as the creation of something new, is it creativity?

Rather, we are talking about improving an existing process. If a person knows the process well, he understands how it can be improved.

- Should people be willing to make changes?

Of course, there must be such a desire. A person should not be indifferent to what the organization in which he works is doing. We included this in the “Conscientiousness” value – how a person relates to the performance of his work, to what is happening around him. And in this he shows or does not show his conscientiousness.

- Are there ways to cultivate conscientiousness?

First of all, this is the environment as an addition to what the parents did. This environment is both outside the organization and inside. Of course, the organization in this case plays the most important role, because we spend most of our time here at work.

- But the environment outside the gates of the enterprise does not really stimulate people to be creative.

It is not true. People see a lot of changes that are happening every day at a gigantic speed around. It is another matter whether they have the desire or time to participate in these changes or not. I'd love to hear about more changes, but I don't have time for that. I mostly find out what has changed in mechanics only when I'm on vacation and reading the Popular Mechanics magazine.

Who is an internal coach?

These are mature people who felt the need to pass on their knowledge to young people. No one else can be a hasty internal coach. He should enjoy it - from the fact that he shares knowledge, and from the fact that he sees the positive changes that occur in the trainees. This is the most stimulating. If these two things are not present, he will retire after some time. And we can say from experience that we already have a whole team of coaches, it is stable and does not decrease. There are figures on how many hours a year people spent in training. It must be taken into account that these are not freed coaches, these are people who are engaged in their work and plus the education of people. We started doing this actively only in 2008. Now we feel how important this is, and we are sincerely glad that it is developing. We will continue it.

- How do you select coaches?

Just. A man comes and says, "I want to be a coach." Then work begins with him. Check how he can be a coach. No one is appointed, the person himself takes the initiative, only at will. And we have to help him develop and become a coach.

- Do coaches need pedagogical skills?

I think yes. But it seems to me that when a person has the desire and potential to develop these pedagogical abilities, there is no problem. We have a training program for internal trainers. A very important tool is the conferences of internal trainers. It's not just gatherings. Here, important issues related to the direct work of coaches are discussed, they talk about what needs to be improved, and consider new techniques. Train the trainer is an important thing we do. We want the level of coaches to constantly grow.

- Should a coach have a natural inclination to work with young people?

We have to deal not only with young people, but also with everyone who wants to be enriched with new knowledge. We educate not only the young, but also all those who need it. The trainer must have a set of specific knowledge, he must have practical experience in the Company, clearly understand business processes. When we say "a person from business", it means that he understands the tasks facing the business. I think this is one of the main characteristics.

Does he need wisdom?

There are few wise people. Wisdom is desired. As they say, a smart person knows how to get out of a situation, a wise person knows how not to get into it.

Prospects are global. Everyone can be an internal coach, because everyone can be unique in some way or the most advanced. When the overall level of professionalism grows, there will be more specific questions and there will be a finer distribution between trainers according to their competencies. I want the atmosphere at this moment to be good, so that everyone really feels like a single team, feels the elbow of a friend, so that it is not at a formal level. Then our whole organization will be even stronger.

- Are we on our way to becoming the best company in the industry?

And not just in the industry. We have entered the international level and compete with the largest international companies that have more experience and better opportunities. Therefore, the availability of a tool that allows us to constantly improve the level of professionalism within the Company can be perceived as our additional competitive advantage.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION - Training system

Conferences of internal trainers:

• Since the start of internal coaching as an element of the training and development system, the Company has held three corporate conferences of internal trainers.
• 2009 "Implementation and development of an internal training and knowledge transfer system." Themes:
  • development of the internal training system: initiatives and projects;
  • coaching kaleidoscope - teaching skills or expanding professional horizons.
  • 2010. Development of a community of internal expert trainers in the company. Themes:
    • from the capabilities of the knowledge portal to the knowledge management system;
    • the role of expert trainers in the Company's values ​​implementation project;
    • coaching kaleidoscope - a coach as a master in transferring knowledge and skills.
    • 2011. "Priorities of internal training in accordance with the strategy for the development of disciplines and business objectives." Themes:
      • discipline leaders, internal trainers, training managers - coordination of roles, interaction in the process of internal training.
      • Steps into the future - how to earn an interaction scheme;
      • coaching kaleidoscope - facilitation practices, Pin-Point - group discussion technology.
      • 2012 (plan) “From volume to quality. Focus on the needs of disciplines in internal training and the role of discipline leaders as customers. Themes:
        • Supervision of trainings and trainers by discipline leaders is a guarantee of quality and a step towards the systematization of trainings in a discipline”;
        • integration of personal efforts of internal trainers and discipline resources for the development of the organizational potential of the Company”;
        • transition from internal training to a remote course and an expert meeting with a trainer”;
        • coaching kaleidoscope - focus groups as a tool for actualizing the need for training.

Training of internal trainers:

• An internal coach is an expert in his professional field. The management of the Company considers such employees as future leaders.
• An internal trainer should not only be an expert, but also have the skills to transfer their knowledge, develop programs, and analyze training needs.
• In 2012 45 internal trainers in the technical disciplines of BN Exploration and Production have already completed a training module on building skills for developing internal training.

Motivation of internal trainers:

• Annual competition for the title of "the best internal coach of the Company". This title is awarded for outstanding performance in the field of knowledge transfer.
• In 2012, the results will be summed up in four nominations:
  • best in-house coach at BN Exploration and Production;
  • the best internal coach of BN "Processing and trade";
  • the best internal coach of the Charitable Foundation "Finance";
  • the best internal coach of the functional divisions of the Company”.

The sphere of training and development of human resources is constantly evolving, because the only reliable source of competitive advantages for a modern organization is professionally trained personnel, however, the issues of the professional role of the trainer, the training services provided to them and the place of business trainers in the organization remain relevant and open, so as there is no common understanding of the profession of a business coach. An experienced business coach Nikolai Smirnov "TA Master Class" (St. Petersburg) helped us to understand these complex issues.

The specialty "business coach", as you know, is not in the educational state standards, however, this is not a problem. allows professionals to live and work.

What is a business coach? What does he do?

Understanding the work, as a business coach, I have to form myself in direct communication with the management of the Company where I work. In most cases, a business coach not only organizes and conducts corporate training, but also actively participates in the formation of corporate standards and the implementation of business processes. Modern business implies the introduction of the latest technologies for training and development of personnel, a business coach should become the initiator of such changes.

When we have a problem, we usually resort to the services of a specialist. A toothache, we go to the dentist, we need a haircut - we go to the hairdresser.

What can motivate and cause a manager to contact a business coach?

Indeed, many company owners do not fully understand the problem area of ​​a business coach. The fact is that training is a process that is difficult to separate from the influence of other factors that shape the result of the company's work. Most often directors who have been trained many times cannot understand why a business coach is in the Company. The answer to this question is not trivial. From my point of view, a corporate business coach is necessary under the condition of a high need for systematic training of personnel, most often these are companies with more than 300 employees. According to business statistics in the United States, there are an average of 216 employees per business coach. This number of students provides him with the necessary workload.

Naturally, we are talking about employees who need business training. In smaller organizations, it may be more appropriate to hire a coaching provider or to invite freelancers to project work for one-time training. However, if the trainer, in addition to training programs, is involved in individual work with staff, for example, as a coach, the number of staff covered will be significantly reduced.

Analyzing the success stories of well-known business coaches, one can single out some of the most striking descriptive characteristics among them, for example, coaches-showmen. They know how to work well with the participants of the training in the classroom, they have their own “chips” and provide results on an emotional level that are not related to solving complex business problems.

In your opinion, can such trainers become a good incentive for changes within the organization that contribute to its more efficient functioning?

It must be said that the appearance of a business coach in a company is already an incentive for changes and improvement in efficiency. At the same time, the coach-showman is the image of a guest business coach. The fact is that emotional pumping allows you to increase interest in the training program, strengthen the memorization process, but it does not solve business problems. Of course, a professional can and should keep his audience in a good mood, but this is not the first priority. An internal business coach forms the image of the company itself, which it represents to the staff. The more serious approach the company has, the more serious the trainings. The freer the atmosphere in the organization, the more fun the trainings. Thus, the level of emotional involvement should meet the company's expectations.

Given the conditions of the company, the coach should have his own “chips”. The individual approach of each coach to his work ensures his survival in this market in order to distinguish himself from his other colleagues.

In addition, there are theoretical trainers who defend the position that in order to solve the business problems of an organization, it is not necessary to understand business, to be an expert in the subject area. In their opinion, in order to teach others the basics of management, it is not necessary to have practical experience as a manager yourself.

What do you think about it?

Managers refer to coaches as "theorists" who are limited to teaching models and theory. "Practitioners" are trainers with extensive experience in their field. Who is better? This is an age-old dispute, which comes first - an egg or a chicken. Effective work is the application of theory into practice. One cannot be exclusively a practitioner or exclusively a theoretician; everything must be mixed up. And I must say that effective coaches come from both "theoreticians" and "practitioners", while there are more "theorists". Teaching skill is the ability to systematize knowledge, and most practitioners simply cannot teach due to lack of patience, systems thinking, or theory. In my opinion, it is necessary to look for in a business coach, first of all, a “system specialist”. That is, a specialist capable of generalizing knowledge and practice into a single whole.

Nevertheless, “Which coach, for what tasks and how to choose?” In our time, it remains unclear, modern leaders do not have a single list of criteria for choosing a business coach.

From your point of view, what is the ideal business coach?

External Business Coach is

A business coach within the organization is a translator of ideas and "visions" of the company's management and a catalyst for change. The company must constantly change and the business coach gives the direction of development for the staff. If we talk about professional competencies, then the list will be long. For the competent selection of a business coach for your tasks, you need to determine what the coach should do, compare his experience in this area and conduct a demo training on this topic. It is important to understand that if you do not have a Training Center, then a business coach must be hired with experience in a large company and preferably with foreign capital. While listening to the demo training, pay special attention to the ability to explain business models in simple language.

One of the roles of a business coach in an organization, by analogy with computer programs, corresponds to the role of anti-virus programs. In addition, a successful coach is a strategist, an expert in his field of specialization, sometimes a business partner, project manager, leader and facilitator of change.

- A lot of things, but it is not clear what positions in the organization are occupied by internal business coaches? And what are their functional responsibilities?

A business coach in a company is most often specialized in training and development, rarely acts as a project manager for the formation of business processes or procedures. In any case, a business coach is a leader in the company and a facilitator of change. Functionally, a business coach should develop and implement a training and development program in the company, evaluate the effectiveness and expediency of programs. Align programs with the business in which they work. Participate in the optimization of the processes of interaction between departments. Accelerate and streamline business processes. In a word, a business coach improves the efficiency of employees within their company.

Separately, it is worth noting the function of a business coach as a diagnostician or appraiser. Undoubtedly, the involvement of a coach in the evaluation process is mandatory, but the more the coach becomes immersed in evaluations, the less he is able to make changes in the company. These are opposite processes.

I heard about such a concept as "Key Performance Indicators (abbr. KPI`s)" is introduced in companies as a standard of labor relations, when we can talk about some kind of increase in staff performance.

Have you met the leaders of organizations operating with these concepts? When a business coach finishes his job, what does he provide to the manager? How does the trainer prove the effectiveness of the learning outcomes “at the exit”?

Most foreign companies use key performance indicators as the best way to evaluate an employee's contribution to the overall result. Many companies in St. Petersburg are actively implementing the technology of personnel assessment and motivation based onKPI. The Kilpatrick-Philips model is considered to be the classic technology for evaluating the effectiveness of training, but it evaluates only the effectiveness of training. If we talk about evaluating the contribution of a business coach to the overall result, then it is appropriate to assign to a business coachKPIto which it is oriented. For example: purchasing activity, the number of new customers, the number of returns, etc. In this case, planned indicators are formed for the medium term (six months, a year) and the trainer creates training programs based on these indicators. This practice implies a high activity of a business coach and a strong leadership position in the company.

Most often, at the first stage of the introduction of this position, it is enough to assess the reaction to training, test knowledge on the training materials and increaseKPItraining participants in the short term (up to 3 months).

There is an opinion that a full-time business coach cannot, by definition, solve some important problems of the organization, since he “revolves” inside this system, a view from the outside can understand it and evaluate its qualities, and for this you need an independent external freelance coach who does not depend on internal intrigues, factions, undercurrents, etc. He is free to express his point of view, unlike an employee who values ​​his place or is generally concerned about his personal stability.

What is your position on this issue?

A business coach is a leader in the company and if he takes a dependent position, he turns into a training manager. Being inside the company, he can and should solve important problems. The involvement of external coaches is an important tool for training company employees with whom the business coach interacts as a partner or subordinate. It is better to implement systemic issues through corporate business coaches.

There are many problems in the work of a trainer, for example, participants who come to a training do not always want to come there. They don't always want to learn something new. It may also turn out that what you tell them is already known to half of the group, moreover, it is actively applied. After all, it’s not always that group members in the process of training have what psychologists call insight?

How did you act in such situations? And what advice would you give to novice coaches who will have to “take a hit” and at the same time move in the right direction?

It is not always possible to optimally solve the problem at the organizational level, but it is necessary to move in this direction. First of all, form study groups according to experience, age, positions, and even gender. It is important to diagnose the need for training before the training, if it is not possible in advance, then before the start of the training. If there is still an "expert" in the group, he should be recognized and supported.

The most problematic place in the work of a business coach at the stage of entering the company is the failure to appear for training. This is mainly due to the negative experience of participants from past trainings. We will have to take emergency methods of punishment for non-appearance in a rigid form (fines, reprimands, absenteeism). A business coach should immediately show his uncompromising attitude towards absenteeism. Ideally, an order is written for the company "On mandatory attendance for internal training."

There are companies that do not welcome hard methods, then a new business coach will have to create a positive image of training for years through the dissemination of recommendations among the employees of the Company.

Prepared for the journal "Corporate Universities"