“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
How do we teach, how do we learn? As successive governments tinker with the national curriculum and as exam formats and contents ebb and flow with the tide of fashion it is easy to forget that at heart mankind is naturally curious. We love to discover, we love to find out about the how and the why and what we learn along the way is almost a bi-product of that thirst for understanding and enlightenment.
As we move from school into work that desire for understanding doesn’t diminish; but sadly in so many organisations knowledge and understanding are still seen as dangerous attributes. Do what I say without question… attend that course when I tell you… follow this procedure to the letter… all designed to create robots and to kill enthusiasm.
But it doesn’t have to be like that. Enlightened organisations have come to understand that the more an employee fully absorbs not only the task but an understanding of the task the more that the employee can contribute. Providing exceptional customer service, innovating, suggesting improvements to product and process all flow from a true engagement with the task. Having a strong organisational culture in which employees are fully engaged opens up new horizons.
When you are helping people to “long for the endless immensity of the sea” then you have to recognise that individuals have differing triggers. What opens up possibilities for one will shut doors for another. Let’s look at one example. Charitable organisations tend to attract a vast range of abilities, enthusiasms and talents. Volunteers who give up their time to work in shops or to fund raise; employees who man the turnstiles or control the marketing or accounts; specialists who bring their PHD skills to bear on finding a cure or on looking after animals or the fabric of buildings – all of these come together under a single charitable aim but if you try and “train” everyone in the same way you are heading for a fall.
That’s where coaching comes into its own. Drawing up individual coaching pathways not only shows the individual how important they are in the organisation’s eyes, it also helps to ensure that the organisation can draw out the best from that individual. And because coaching in its true form means so much more than simply imparting knowledge it can be scheduled in a cost and time effective manner.
Yes ‘going on a course’ might be indicated but so might mentoring, spending time embedded in other departments, job shadowing or online research. With coaching nothing is ruled out and nothing in. To go back to our charity example, a research specialist might need to attend an international conference in their speciality but to fully appreciate the importance of their work they may also benefit from spending time in the front line, shadowing hospice carers or fundraising in a charity shop.
The organisation which will succeed in the world of tomorrow is one in which everyone works together towards a common goal. Innovative, agile and flexible, the emphasis is on long term stability and success rather than short term profits. For many this will require a change of culture, away from the assignment of individual tasks and fixed processes and towards a self-determining collaborative engaged approach. Coaching is key to this new way of working; helping individuals to bring their diverse talents together to create a unified whole and to explore the vast possibility that sits just beyond the horizon.
