Coaching in the Federal Government: Innovation, Transformation, and Exhilaration

Most ADR professionals are adept at conflict coaching. We do one-on-one work with our clients as they vent and explore strategies. We are naturally good at coaching because we are skilled at listening, posing powerful questions, being non-judgmental, problem solving, and helping to generate options. It is a short leap from conflict coaching to leadership and executive coaching.

Every HR office has leadership development programs for its employees of which coaching is a major component. Some HR officaching out to their ADR offices to ask them to serve as internal coaches in these competitive programs. With appropriate coach training,an ADR professional can help employees transform their careers and their lives. Georgetown University and George Mason University have rigorous coaching certificate programs; and a certain number of federal ADR professionals have been able to secure agency funding to attend them. Traditionally, coaching has been reserved as an expensive perk for SES employees or utilized as a remedial tool for poor performers. Now ,it is being implemented in many ways, for many diverse levels of employees. Agencies are using coaching to accelerate learning, increase motivation, build on strengths, do succession planning, enhance transitions, and support change.Coaching is an integral part of maximizing the benefit of the 360 instrument. An employee might seek coaching when taking on more complex responsibilities, transitioning to another location, or seeking a promotion. A team may ask for a coach when it is designing new SOPs,experiencing a dramatic re-organization, or moving to office hoteling.