The journey from Agile Team Coach to Enterprise Coach is a journey of intentional development. It is an inside-out journey of personal transformation, to develop self as the most important instrument of change. Enterprise Agility cannot be accomplished with only team level coaching, or with team coaches that have not developed a rich understanding of the complexity and scope of an enterprise-wide transformation. This developmental journey involves building the capabilities that are needed to help organizations span the boundaries that have become barriers to collaboration across the organization. This boundary spanning capability comes from their own ability to see themselves objectively, to become fully aware of their way of being, and to be able to fully take the perspective of others. If they themselves are unable to make this shift, they will not have the ability to help others do so.
Guiding organizational agility requires coaches to develop their ability to work with complex adaptive systems in order to achieve business goals, which requires developing capability in systems intelligence, systems thinking and systems awareness. Being capable of seeing systems in a deeper way, is not done from a reactive or auto-pilot stance, it manifests when a coach comes into a new state of awareness, seeing through new lenses what they have previously not seen, and what others miss. It can only come from a place of deep listening, curiosity and inquiry.
An Enterprise Coach is a co-creator with leadership to design more adaptive organizational structures that enable and enhance real agility. Without a deeper level of organizational design, many coaches and leaders will look to a framework installation to solve this challenge. And we know from experience, this will not be the silver bullet for agility.
As coaches guide organizations through change, they must have proven disciplined approaches, beyond traditional change management to a more conscious change leadership approach. Transformational change involves the deeper human dynamics; therefore, it cannot be a transactional approach done in a reactive way. From entering the system to sustaining the change, there is an intentional outcome-creating stance that the coach needs to hold, that encompasses the relationship and task elements of the change.
Moving from Team to Enterprise Coaching also requires the ability to work with leaders at all levels within an organization, up to the senior most leader. In addition to working with leaders at all levels, they need to help develop leaders through vertical leadership development approaches that increase individual and collective effectiveness, and their ability to navigate their organizations through change.
There is much awareness around the failure rate of Agile Transformations, and we still haven’t adequately addressed the gap that exists in our industry. I’ve talked with many Agile Coaches and Leaders that are frustrated with their ‘Agile Transformation’, and they also have a deep desire to catalyze change in their organizations. So, what can we do to make a difference in the results we are seeing?
To start with, I believe we need to prioritize the development of Agile Coaches, specifically developing the capabilities and competencies to truly coach and guide organizations in transformational type change. We have spent the last several years focusing on developing Agile Team Coaches to acquire real coaching skills, even a large movement of coaches getting certified as professional coaches. We need to do the same thing for growing the Agile Coach role to a highly competent, expert level Enterprise Coach.
This year, Trans4mation is laser-focused on the development of Enterprise Agile Coaches and has developed the full suite of Enterprise Coach training and development, accredited by ICAgile in the Enterprise Coaching Track.
The knowledge-based certifications in this track are “Agility in the Enterprise” and “Coaching Agile Transitions”. For nearly 4 years, we have been teaching our Agile Transformational Leader Workshop, accredited for the ICP-ENT certification. We now offer the ICP-CAT (Coaching Agile Transitions) and the coveted competency-based Expert certification, ICE-EC with our Enterprise Coaching for Agility – Master Cohort Program.
If you are looking to start your journey from Team Coach to Enterprise Coach, join us next week in Richmond for the first course in this track, our Agile Trans4mational Leader Workshop! There still time to act on a special promotion! (This is a pre-requisite for our Enterprise Cohort)
We have also just announced registration for our 2nd Enterprise Coach Cohort, which kicks off in Amelia Island this June! Check out our video and testimonials from participants in our current Cohort, which launched in the Azores Islands last October. https://www.trans4mation.coach/enterprise-coaching-for-agility-master-cohort-program-ecmp/
And available this July, my book, co-authored with Michael Spayd, “Agile Transformation: Using the Integral Agile Transformation Framework™ to Think and Lead Differently”.
We’d love to be a part of your journey!
-Michele Madore
- Make Integral Practical - January 18, 2023
- Stop. Just Stop. Be Still… Listen. - March 31, 2020
- Journey from Team to Enterprise Coach - February 5, 2020
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