The Coaching Connection: A Manager’s Guide to Developing Individual Potential in the Context of the Organization

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CHAPTER 4

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Area of Behavioral

Focus: Structure

“In these challenging times, nonprofit CEOs need a safety

net. A coach becomes the one person with whom they can

test ideas, honestly share their moments of uncertainty, and

then together construct how the CEO will lead forward with

vision and confidence.”

—Cathy Tisdale

Vice President, Council Partnerships

Mission to Market

Girl Scouts of the USA

S

tructure is the second of the ten components in the Contex-

tual Coaching model and can be defined as a mode of or-

ganizing (in our case, people, places, and resources), an

arrangement of parts, elements, or constituents—or, perhaps most

Strategy

Culture

Talent Systems

Development

Career

Structure

Communication

Talent Solutions

Dynamics

Competence

j

importantly, a complex system considered from the point of view

of the whole, rather than of any single part. Does that sound like

the organization you work for? While the organization is consid-

ered from the point of view of the whole rather than from the point

of any single individual, the Contextual Coaching model claims

that both the individual and the organization are important; nei-

ther can be fully known without fully knowing the other.

Depending on your coaching client’s level within the organiza-

tion, the strategy of your client’s area of responsibility must roll up

and integrate with larger business units and/or the overarching cor-

porate strategy. This requires enhanced awareness of the inten-

tional design and structure of the organization. It is critical that the

individual coaching process relate to the structure of the organiza-

tion to both illustrate and understand how your coaching client’s

efforts will be blended with (and enhance) the work of others. Just

as the coaching process must be carried out in the context of the

organization, it must also roll down to the strategic concerns of

those who report into the coaching client’s area of the business. In

pursuit of flawless execution, the organizational structure must be

built to support the goals and expectations set forth in its strategic

plan. As the contextual coach, you keep the coaching process fo-

cused on the organization by identifying the position of your

coaching client within the corporate structure and help your client

understand all the intentional and incidental strategies at play. If

you know the reporting relationships, the expectations for your

coaching client and other team members, and how structural

strategies can best be integrated and communicated, you will be

able to provide a powerful service to your coaching client and to

the larger corporate constituencies being served.

When considering the structure of the organization, you should

place emphasis on your coaching clients’ relationship with the ap-

propriate managing executive. Key to your coaching clients’ suc-

cess is the relationship they have with their manager(s)—especially

if that’s you. As a coach or a manager who coaches, there will be

times when you will be your clients’ manager and times when you

will deal with clients who report to other managers.

Regardless of whether you are the manager, your clients’ man-

agers are critical constituents in this process and should be included

68 THE COACHING CONNECTION