The Alzheimer’s Society is the leading dementia charity for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It employs over 1,600 staff (the majority of which are part-time) and has approximately 5,000 volunteers. The majority of the society’s work is carried out by local branches in the towns and cities throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Their work is supported by a central services function, which is based in London (this includes fundraising, campaigning, finance, HR, and so on).
Over the past three or four years the organisation has grown rapidly and it is now seeing through a major restructuring to enable it to move forward over the coming years. The associated stresses and strains have led to a variety of approaches to help staff and managers; coaching has been one such approach.
The society hasn’t got a formal coaching policy or statement of intent. In one sense they’ve almost ‘stumbled upon’ coaching and coaching skills, as they’ve needed to find solutions to a variety of issues. It’s a practice that has grown rather organically, but the society is now also using some planned approaches.
Over the past two years a few staff have had some individual coaching. These sessions have been focused to help the person address a specific development need. In all the cases, it was a need on which the person and their manager were agreed. All of the people who received the coaching have said that they found it really beneficial and were quite surprised at how much they got out of it. One person commented, ‘I saw myself in a different light.’
In the process of this research, two commented that they hadn’t really thought of it as coaching, ‘but now you come to mention it…’. It’s difficult to really grasp what it was they thought coaching meant, but from the interviews it does appear that they had an image of something formal and quite intellectual rather than practical and ‘down to earth’.
This perception touches on something key to the whole issue of coaching in an organisation. In short, ‘what’s in a word?’ If the phrase coaching is going to be associated in people’s minds with formality, intellectualism or performance management, then its chance of success is already significantly hampered. Neil Hunt, Chief Executive Officer of the Alzheimer’s Society, said, ‘Coaching is the opportunity to think about the hows – how I reach decisions, how I implement them – and to consider the implications of what I am doing for me personally and for those around me. (It’s a) more reflective mode, more focused on how; how I do it, how it will affect me.’ Neil has articulated what the previously mentioned staff experienced.
In the coaching sessions referred to above, the line management involvement varied. Some asked the coachee about the sessions and how they were going, while others made no reference to it at all. There was one instance where the coach directly gave the manager feedback, which had been agreed with the coachee. They said that there’s ‘not a right for the line manager to know everything’, so clearly being in control of the feedback content was vitally important – as was trust. All of the coachees were able to point to specific changes they’d made in their work that had directly demonstrated the value of the sessions.
As well as these rather ad hoc coaching arrangements, the society has committed to provide a fixed number of executive coaching sessions for each member of its senior management team. With a major change programme taking place and with a fairly new senior management team (that is, a number of very recent appointments), it was seen to be a ‘good investment’. These sessions are still running and there is no doubt that the recipients have benefited from these reflective opportunities. More recently the senior management team has also had some team coaching to build on the personal development work during a complex period of strategic planning. Neil Hunt reflected that it was about ‘using the combined insight of everyone on the team… to help us through some quite difficult questions. We valued help in making sure that we could use input from all the team as we entered unfamiliar territory.’
Another version of coaching being used is that of action learning. The tier of management that reports to the senior management team has been formed into four action learning sets. Each set has an external facilitator. At times the action learning sets have tackled some very sensitive and difficult issues, providing individuals with a safe and practical place to explore their thinking. In the process of this research, one person said they had been ‘blown away by the results’. Additional benefits have been some breaking down of operational silos and better understanding of others’ perspectives. The impact of the action learning sets has yet to be evaluated, but at least one group intends to carry on meeting and self-facilitating beyond the end of the contracted sessions. In addition, some hard questions and challenges that needed to be made have been given a constructive forum and progress has been made. There are fewer places to hide!
In addition, there is a lot of informal coaching or use of coaching skills in line management supervision. Much of this work happens without fuss and is probably where (for purists!) the boundaries between coaching and mentoring are blurred. Staff are often working in very stressful situations supporting people with dementia and their families. Good coaching and mentoring in supervision can provide crucial support for the staff member to assist their work skills and their own emotional well-being.
So, where is the society going from here? At this time, it’s not entirely clear. As an organisation, they are very unlikely to have a formal coaching programme throughout. It’s far more likely that they’ll continue with organic growth but perhaps with some more structure. The society is looking at how it can extend the use of action learning sets, and may consider finding options for partner organisations to provide some reciprocal mentoring or coaching. In addition, they intend to identify ways to increase line managers’ broad ‘coaching skills’. Using a high-level coaching programme of executive coaching, team coaching and action learning sets has been quite uncomfortable at times, but the changes and benefits are outweighing the discomfort. Carol Magnus, Head of Learning and Development, said, ‘I don’t think we’ll ever have it “right” and we’ll always be trying to improve. One person said to me that “coaching is almost part of the culture”. My dilemma is how to tackle the “almost”!’
Information supplied by Carol Magnus, Head of Learning and Development, The Alzheimer’s Society