What Does a Coachability Culture Look Like?

In my first year as a middle school teacher, a professor from my graduate program visited my classroom to observe my practice. Among many points of advice she offered, one stuck with me in particular throughout the years. 

“You need to think about the physical and emotional environment you are creating here,” she said. “I should be able to walk into your room and, without looking over your lesson plans, clearly see what students are learning and what kind of values you are instilling in the group.” 

This idea increased my intentionality around building culture in my classroom. I began to imagine a stranger peering in my classroom window– how would they know, just by glancing, that my students felt engaged and supported in their learning?  

We can employ the same sort of thought exercise with our organizations and companies. If a stranger happened to look through the window, what would they see? What would they learn about our values simply by quickly observing our daily practice? 

Study after study reinforces the idea that organizations see incredible benefits from creating a culture centered on coachability. But what does that truly mean? What does a coachability culture look and sound like?

To answer these burning questions, let’s look at a case study.

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Company X Case Study

Company X wanted to enhance their performance and improve their culture, so they implemented a program to develop leaders’ coaching ability. 

Company X is certainly not the only organization with the idea to target coaching skills. According to the International Coaching Federation, global organizations spend $4.6 billion annually just on coaching initiatives, and the Harvard Business Review reports that global organizations spend more than $60 billion on leadership development programs each year. 

Company X’s coaching program laid a strong foundation for their cultural goals and fueled their competitive edge; over a three-year period, Company X’s performance increased by 60% year over year, the employee retention rate remained above 95%, and the overall company expanded its market share by 10%. 

If a stranger were to have “glanced in the window” of Company X at that point, they would have seen the managers offering excellent coaching. They might have observed some of the following behaviors from Company X managers: 

• Offering formal or informal constructive feedback 
• Seeking out and listening attentively to the constructive feedback of their team members
• Asking thought-provoking questions that encourage their team members to think critically and solve problems independently

But, what might the stranger see in the team members? They had received no training in how to receive coaching effectively. 

Some years after implementing coaching training, performance at Company X began to plateau. Their growth faltered with other competitors close on their tail.

Company X realized they were missing an essential piece – the ability of feedback recipients to accept and enact coaching effectively. To expand and maximize the impact of their initial coaching culture efforts, Company X decided to layer “coachability” training on top of their existing program. Employees took assessments to help them measure their levels of coachability, and they were trained in workshops to further develop specific coachability skills. 

In this way, Company X began to build a more holistic, company-wide culture where they not only invested in the coaches, but also in all the people receiving their feedback as well. 

The results of such investment were powerful, palpable, and undeniable. First, the results were obvious on paper– a year after coachability training was implemented, Company X’s entire sales franchise grew 79 percent. 

But the environment improved drastically as well. A stranger peering in Company X’s window a year after coachability training might have noted the dynamism and energy that permeates a workplace with a coachability culture. 

Maybe they noticed the brand new culture committee communing in a conference room, the council members from all levels of the company freely sharing insights from their particular perspectives. Perhaps they saw the newly painted core values on the wall or the signs inviting employees to ongoing learning and development programming. Maybe they simply noticed the easy, informal exchange of feedback between colleagues at their computers.  

Through intentional interventions and training, Company X capitalized on their initial coaching program to craft a true coachability culture, an environment that empowered both managers and employees alike to drive the business. 

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Develop Your Coachability Culture With CCI 

If you are ready to look inward at your own company’s culture needs, explore the services we offer at Coachability Consultants, or contact us directly. 

To learn more about how coachability culture can benefit your organization, read more on our blog or sign up for our LinkedIn newsletter. 

At Coachability Consultants, we believe that everyone can elevate to the level of highly coachable, and we are on a mission to help as many people as possible achieve that milestone.  

We look forward to getting in touch and getting you started on your coachability journey.

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Credits:

• 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study (GCS), International Coaching Federation
• "What Makes Leadership Development Programs Succeed?", Yemiscigil, Born, & Ling, Harvard Business Review