With business moving at breakneck speed – frequent job shifts, downsizing, mergers, changes in strategy, consumer needs and employee expectations – training alone has been inadequate to up-skill leaders within organisations to prepare for and manage these constant challenges. Organisations are looking internally and externally for people who can guide them through workplace challenges, help improve performance, and lead them through key decisions.
Coaching is becoming central to leadership development to help high potential leaders advance into successor roles; addressing performance issues, and grooming individuals for increased responsibility to achieve business goals.
In recent years, coaching has been recognised as a superb tool for improving performance and managing people more effectively. It differs from training or mentoring in that a trainer or mentor will generally guide and teach someone in a specific task or job. Mentors and trainers draw significantly on their own experience and often have the answers. A coach works with an individual as a detached, independent thinker who holds the firm belief that the Client/Coachee is a capable, resourceful person who needs guidance and support in articulating and achieving their own goals.
Every individual, team, organisation and community can benefit from coaching as it supports:
- Discovering a solution to a challenge or problem
- Developing a skill
- Enhancing an element of job performance
- Improving time management and personal organisation
- Planning a career path
- Personal development
- Work-life balance
- Becoming more creative and effective in personal and business environments
- Developing confidence
- Improving team understanding and performance
- Creating a culture of engagement and high performance
- Becoming an effective leader and manager
Organisations operate in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment. Coaching supports management teams and individuals to better understand themselves and their environment, take action and shift behaviour to positively impact themselves and those around them.
As coaches, we apply the techniques and models most appropriate for the individual coachee. However, the basis of all our interventions at Awakening Excellence includes:
- Appreciative Enquiry – The basis of appreciative enquiry is the belief that every person and organisation has key strengths that brought them to the present point. We identify these strengths and build on them. This principle acknowledges and recognises all that has gone before.
- Emotional Intelligence – To coach another and to manage relationships effectively requires a level of emotional intelligence. Through coaching we support the individual in developing interpersonal skills, identifying strength and triggers to better manage emotions.
- Positive Psychology – The premise of positive psychology is to be more solution focused.
- Neuro Linguistic Programming – As trained NLP practitioners, we bring to the awareness of individuals their patterns of thinking and language, often spoken, that shape the outcome of their life, work performance and relationships. Neuro Linguistic Programming is a powerful tool to help change thinking patterns and neural pathways in creating a more successful and fulfilling life.
The book, ‘An Engaged Workforce: 6 practical steps to creating a coaching culture’, is a practical guide for managers in creating a high performing engaged workforce. Its written as a story, so as to share some of the challenges and experiences faced in business today and more particularly as a manager. At the end of each chapter are best practices and action steps that a manager can take to improve their team performance. Here’s what some of our readers had to say about the book:
Adv. Pria Hassan
For me, reading must be intriguing and so inspiring that it captivates the little time you have in a day and illustrates something you would never have had the foresight to approach or see before… An Engaged Workforce, the book written by Dr Mariam Sha of Awakening Excellence exceeded this expectation. I was riveted to it, wanting to do more, be more; act with haste to make the changes suggested to change the face of our workforce thereby shifting our economy. The book is systematic, practical and more importantly, capable of implementation for start-up entrepreneurs to global organisations alike. South African business leaders are sometimes daunted by asking the right questions; they fear being judged. This book will hopefully motivate them to be fearless, bold and transparent. The benefit of creating a coaching culture must never be underestimated. It’s about empowering individuals in your organisations to not just be their best but be content with all they do. Thank you Dr Mariam, for reminding me that our people are our greatest asset.
Frederick Stroebel
What a fascinating yet practical coaching journey! The true challenge for human resources practitioners is to make complex concepts simple and understandable for business. This is what Mariam accomplishes in a very entertaining yet educational manner in her coaching and courses.
Paul Norman
…the lessons learned in the book, An Engaged Workforce bring a very practical flavour to the work. It is an easy read, easy to understand and follow. Dr Mariam Sha has taken potentially complex issues and kept them simple. She gives business issues actionable treatment which aids practitioners in addressing similar problems in their respective workplaces. I particularly like her focus in certain places on what went wrong and how this could be addressed. In my view, we don’t spend enough time on problem solving, and then building tailored solutions to our own problems. The book could, therefore, be a good guide for those who are out in the field.
Ashraf Garda
One gym session in a year will not make you fitter, similarly one session of self-help training or personal coaching will not be enough to create a culture of excellence in your life. Enter Dr Mariam Sha of Awakening Excellence and author of the book, An Engaged Workforce – 6 practical steps to creating a coaching culture. Along with her coaching services and course offerings, the book is a wonderful personal and business manual that primes you to create a workplace culture that delivers results at full throttle. The Champion South Africa movement that I drive talks of ‘Champion people; build champion people’ and ‘Champion people; build champion nations’. I will encourage all those that wish to buy into the vision of a great and greater SA to understand that it starts with team coaching at all levels of society. An Engaged Workforce means just that, and Awakening excellence offers just that!
Prof. Gerrit Horn
I believe this is the most difficult economic period in more than two decades and that organisations are struggling to justify their budgets and performances. This book makes an important contribution to business coaching in the workplace. More and more business leaders are realising they need to take an honest and challenging approach in order to develop the human and the being and restore them to the workplace. Mariam has done a wonderful job writing this book. An Engaged Workforce is inspiring because it reinforces the motivational concerns regarding the enormous potential of individuals and the contribution they can make to the workplace. It provides valuable information on how to coach and invest in employees for high-performance results in an organisation. Business leaders should take note of the key messages and challenges. Enjoy!
