Creating Coaching Cultures

The Atlas Complex

One of the first lessons that coaches need to learn is that they can’t carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.  Often, with their deep desire to make a difference, coaches will take on responsibilities that rightfully belong to their clients.  When clients don’t take the actions they committed to take, coaches may feel like their coaching “weren’t good enough.”  Rather than calling the client on the broken commitment, they may feel guilty or inadequate as a coach.  And then they try even harder.  This doesn’t serve the client or the coach.  

The same dynamic shows up for imaginal cells -- people who are guiding organizations to evolve to coaching cultures. (See the 09.09.09 blog entry, Invitation for more information on imaginal cells.)  People who are guiding these large change efforts can burn out quickly if they are not effectively engaging their organizations in the transformation process.

Here are some signs that you may have an “Atlas complex” – the desire to carry the weight of the entire change effort on your back:

• You find yourself cajoling people to take any kind of action – and then picking up the pieces when they don’t, rather than having a deeper conversation about their commitment to create meaningful change
• You feel overwhelmed by all of the activities you’ve got going and underwhelmed by the response from the organization
• You seem to care about creating change a whole lot more than almost anyone else, and at times, this may make you feel upset, misunderstood and / or unappreciated

Linking Coaching-Based Leadership to the Business

When I am in initial conversations with an organization about starting an initiative to integrate coaching-based leadership into the DNA of the organization, one of the first questions I ask is “How do you envision coaching-based leadership adding value to the business?”  If the answer sounds something like “Well, we just need coaching skills” that’s a huge red flag for me.

In my experience, if the people spearheading a coaching initiative can’t articulate the value to the business one of two outcomes is likely:

The initiative won’t get off the ground, usually because there’s insufficient support (read, insufficient budget.)

OR

The initiative will be sputter out under its own weight, since no one is quite sure why they are investing in something with no clear expected return.

“Just because” isn’t a good enough reason to engage in coaching-based leadership. 

Invitation

As the CEO of Cylient I often work with people who are keenly interested in evolving the cultures of their organizations to be more flexible, collaborative, responsive and vital.  Places where people feel valued and inspired to contribute their creative energy towards achieving something that makes a difference. 

I call these people who seek to create cultural change “imaginal cells.”  Imaginal cells are the cells that begin the “rewiring” process that changes the DNA of the caterpillar to transform into a butterfly.  The first imaginal cells begin to find each other and clump together, creating a threshold for change.  See this link for a more detailed explanation of the role of the imaginal cell in the transformation process:  http://www.cadi.ph/Editorials/Editorial_Butterfly_Effect.htm

Imaginal cells can reside in many different places in organizations.  They are not necessarily the most senior people or the recognized thought leaders, although they may play those roles.  They are the people who see that how we’re working isn’t always working.  And they want to do something about it.