Corporate Wingman: a Different Kind of Corporate Coaching Program

Education can change a person's perspective but it can rarely change behavior. This is why coaching is the most important element of any execution improvement program. We all know of bright executives who have failed miserably at execution. Execution is more than applying textbook principles; it is a deeply engaging process that takes mind, body, and soul. Afterburner's corporate coaching program was designed with this in mind: Total Engagement of the Leader through effective leadership and management training.

Assessment

Afterburner's corporate coaching program begins with a comprehensive assessment of an individual leader's career goals, job challenges, leadership strengths, and development needs. The assessment begins with phone interviews with the leader, a peer, the leader's boss, and a direct report, and is followed by a series of online Hogan Assessments.

Phone Interviews: The assessment process begins with four interviews that are designed to collect qualitative feedback from the leader in question, the boss, a peer, and a direct report. An Afterburner staff member will contact the leader to set up an initial phone interview. This interview will consist of a series of questions about the individual's job challenges, significant work events, leadership strengths, and development needs. The interviewer will also ask the leader to identify a peer, boss, and direct report to be interviewed. These three individuals should work with the leader on a regular basis and be able to comment on work style, key challenges, and relationships in the work place. The leader will also need to provide a resume as part of the assessment process.

Personality and Values Assessment: The leader will have about two weeks to complete three online personality and values assessments. Only the individual in question and the Afterburner Corporate Wingman will see the results of these instruments, which will be reviewed as part of the one-on-one feedback session. Each of the three tools is a self-report survey, as follows:

• Hogan Personality Inventory
• Motives, Values and Preferences Inventory
• Hogan Development Survey

One-on-One Coaching, Leadership, & Management Training Program

A one-on-one feedback session is typically three to four hours long and begins with a review of the leader's work history, educational history, significant job challenges, and career goals. The leader and the coach will then review the leader's personality, values, and development needs in light of his or her work history, job challenges and career goals. They will discuss how different values and personality traits are affecting others' perceptions of the individual in question, key areas of strength, leadership development strategies, and what roles the Corporate Wingman can play in helping to create a higher level of success. The Corporate Wingman will then create a Performance Enhancement Plan that summarizes the key themes of the one-on-one feedback session.

Performance Enhancement Plan (PEP)

The Performance Enhancement Plan (PEP), created within a week of the one-one-one feedback session, provides the mission plan for the rest of the Corporate Wingman Program (CWP). The PEP is a three-to-five page document that describes the leader's career goals, key job challenges, leadership strengths, and development needs. It will also outline a schedule and strategy for the next steps in the CWP, including one-on-one coaching, leadership, and management training sessions and three-way development planning meetings.

3-Way Alignment Meeting

This component of the CWP begins with a one-hour, three-way development planning meeting with the leader in question, the boss, and the Corporate Wingman. This meeting is designed to get key players aligned with the major themes of the Performance Enhancement Plan and determine how the three people around the table can best work together to enhance the leader's effectiveness. If the assessment results in the determination that the leader has relatively minor, easily-addressed development needs, then the CWP ends with this three-way meeting. In many cases, however, the assessment process uncovers work challenges and development needs that are not as easily overcome. In those situations, the CWP begins a series of one-on-one coaching, leadership, and management training sessions to help leaders acquire and refine necessary skills.

Corporate Coaching Sessions

In general, most one-on-one corporate coaching, leadership, and management training sessions will be conducted over the phone and last about an hour. In these professional business coaching sessions, the leader will describe the key challenges he or she is currently facing, discuss techniques or approaches to successfully resolve these challenges, and be given practical strategies to apply between session assignments.

Because many participants seem to have trouble with some aspect of planning, briefing, executing, or debriefing, one-on-one coaching, leadership, and management training sessions often focus on building the leader's Flawless Execution℠ skills. Depending on the skills the leader needs, he or she will be personally coached on utilizing the Six Steps of Mission Planning to recognize and minimize his or her specific competitive threats, develop plans that exploit strengths, and build contingency plans to counter unanticipated obstacles. As needed, leaders will also learn how to conduct operational briefings so that everyone knows his or her respective roles and deliverables in the plan, enabling them to flawlessly execute, and debrief the plan to maximize organizational learning.

3-Way Debrief

Depending on the corporate coaching program, the leader may also do additional three-way development planning meetings with the boss and Corporate Wingman in order to review progress, discuss challenges, and formulate strategies for success.

To become a part of Afterburner's corporate coaching, leadership, and management training program, call , or contact us. You can also learn more about our corporate coaching specialists.