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Tuesday 16 March 2010

ICF Balkan Conference: Bucharest Romania April 30 "The Working Alliance: Vodafone Romania, a client case study"

The Working Alliance: Vodafone Romania, a client case study

Romania is an exciting country in which to work. There is something very energetic and dynamic about the transition economies and this is perhaps truer for Romania than anywhere. Its young well educated  population, and its "Mediterranean" feel create ideal conditions for coaching to grow. 

It perhaps therefore no surprise that in Romania it was possible to partner with Vodafone to implement very best practices in executive coaching. Leaders from Vodafone Romania will join me on a panel at the ICF Balkan conference, on April 30 (The conference starts on 29 April) to discuss these assignments. 

The ICF Balkan conference will be a great place to show how "leading edge" coaching practices do not only occur in the developed west, but on the frontiers of Europe, where change and transformation are happening so rapidly.

Here's a precis of the planned discussion.

The coaching profession of the future will be very different from today. Already, there are major changes taking place. I would to help create a dialogue about how these changes are affecting the way we work, both as internal and external coaches.

One important shift is the way in which we, as external coaches, work with the client and the organizational sponsor.

My view is that we are at our most effective as coaches when we build a strong relationship with our client – the person being coached and also when we enrol the sponsor of the coaching as an active mentor-coach.

I believe this can be done without jeopardising the confidential and trusted basis for client – coach relationship. More than this, it limits the risk that a leader is “outsourcing” their developmental responsibilities to the coach. When working properly, the sponsoring leader and the external executive coach are working as a coaching team for the benefit of the client.

Too often, the sponsor of the coaching feels disempowered by the presence of the coach and their genuine intention to support and help in the development of the client is not properly leveraged. A leader may therefore act as a commercial sponsor for coaching, but still have no ownership for the broader organizational outcomes. This is a dangerous situation for both client and coach.

Internal and external coaching is therefore not a binary choice, but an opportunity for collaboration.
This tri-partite relationship, formed by client, coach and sponsor,  is what I call the Working Alliance.

Let’s be clear...the Working Alliance is there primarily for the benefit of the client. But I also think it is possible to generate secondary benefits for the organization, and this is why the sponsors role is so important.

For instance, if the client is working to improve their leadership style by coaching and empowering their teams more, the client will benefit from enhanced relationships and career progression; and, the organization will benefit by experiencing improved organizational climate.

The Working Alliance is therefore a framework that can help align the organizational needs with the publicly stated goals of the client. Throughout, it is probable that the client will also have private goals, which are shared only with their coach.

Here is a more detailed list of topics to be discussed at the conference:

  • The ethics of and within the Working Alliance

  • Contracting within the Alliance

  • Agreeing and aligning Public and Private goals

  • Putting the Alliance to work for the benefit of the Client

  • Measuring the results of the Alliance from the client and sponsor perspective

I would like to share my experiences of forming Working Alliances in different cultures around the world.

This is the approach that underpinned the successful engagement with Vodafone Romania. We are fortunate to have present leaders from Vodafone Romania who have both been coached and acted as the sponsor for coaching.

We plan to create an informative and interactive session, with plenty of room for plenary dialogue and Q&A.