Stellafai Expert Series
In the world of coaching, what are the top strategies for putting success on the fast track?
In this article, we’re diving into the our expert’s take on coaching, and the benefits it can bring to any organisation. In today’s fast-paced work world, success isn’t about following strict rules; it’s about unleashing potential and tackling challenges with creativity. So, what role do coaches play and how do they accelerate success?
🤫 Psst — If you’re in a rush and want a speedy summary of our expert’s wisdom, skip to the end to hear what Stellafai’s AI-powered Digital Assistant key takeaways were!
Good coaches ask questions that motivate people to think beyond their current situation. They also present options, and the trade-offs of those options, to the people they are coaching (which is why stuff like https://www.pmi.org/disciplined-agile/ongoing-goals/measure-outcomes is so important). Finally, good coaches help teams find the space to experiment with new ways of working (WoW), including WoW around OKRs.
Focusing the client on the real problem they want to solve not on OKR theory or “best practices”. Managing the change process and getting buy in from key people. Avoiding the most common pitfalls (OKR rules over applied).
Skillful Questioning: The role of a coach is to unlock potential through skillful questioning. By asking the right questions, coaches can encourage deep thinking, promote self-reflection, and facilitate problem-solving. This helps individuals and teams uncover their strengths, identify opportunities for improvement, and find their own path forward.
Vision Articulation: Coaches guide organizations step by step in creating a clear and detailed product or service vision. Through their guidance, everyone in the organization understands and integrates what change we are trying to bring about, and for whom. This shared understanding of vision fosters alignment and unity of purpose.
Objective Crafting and Facilitation: Coaches aid in crafting meaningful objectives and key results (OKRs). They ask the right questions to ensure these OKRs are not just quantifiable, but also meaningful and impactful. Furthermore, coaches facilitate the implementation process to avoid the ‘set and forget’ scenario often associated with OKR adoption. They ensure regular check-ins, reviews, and adjustments, promoting a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
- Provides learning and best practices;
- Guides the teams to be more aligned and productive;
- Identifies “blind spots”
From a systems coaching perspective, in designing the right model for the context of the business. Removing the textbook elements that aren’t going to help them. And in embedding this in the business.
Embedding a culture of continuous improvement in both how their team, dept, org use OKRs. And in terms of how they inspect and adapt their OKRs themselves.
In teaching, mentoring, training their colleagues in OKR best practice. From what OKRs are, all the way to how to write good objectives and find meaningful measures for them.
- Meet people where they are at and help them find a starting point
- Don’t be the OKR / Agile police!
- Listen and understand the problems companies are facing, so you can help identify the right problems to solve and in which order
- Continue to steer and help a team craft the OKRs that will provide the north star of outcomes for the org.
- Help the team disconnect the launches from the landings, while celebrating both.
- Helping the team see setbacks as opportunities to pivot to more profitable endeavors.
- Good coaches ask questions that motivate people to think beyond their current situation, present options, and help teams find the space to experiment with new ways of working.
- Coaches guide organisations in creating a clear and detailed product or service vision that fosters alignment and unity of purpose.
- Coaches aid in crafting meaningful objectives and key results, and facilitate the implementation process to avoid the ‘set and forget’ scenario often associated with OKR adoption.
- The system coach helps the team design the right model for the context of the business, and embeds a culture of continuous improvement in how their team, dept, org use OKRs.
- Help a team identify the right problems to solve. Benefit of an external perspective.
