Coaching An Entire Team
Heartland Financial (Team coaching for 12 top executives)
While involved in succession planning for his executive team, Bill Nasgovitz, CEO of Heartland Financial Advisors, read the book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith. He loved the concept that development is a process, the emphasis on the importance of follow-up, and the 20 habits that can get in the way of executives advancing to the next level in their career. In a discussion with Jonathan Wygant at Big Speak, Nasgovitz told Jonathan about his interest in career development for senior leaders on his executive team.
Jonathan suggested that team coaching might be an effective method for Nasgovitz to develop a number of senior leaders on his executive team simultaneously. He put Nasgovitz in touch with Bill Hawkins, a founding member of the Marshall Goldsmith Group. Hawkins custom-designed a year-long program for the top 12 leaders at Heartland Financial. He worked with each of the leaders to identify an area for personal development. Then Hawkins, in a coordinated effort with Human Resources, helped each executive design an action plan for personal development. For example, one leader worked on communicating more effectively, another focused on delegating, and another wanted to improve listening skills.
The year-long development process for the entire team consisted of quarterly visits to Heartland where Hawkins conducted educational workshops for the entire team. Each workshop was customized to the issues associated with personal action plans. For instance, one session included a model and research on “Establishing and Maintaining Trust During Times of Change” and another on “Teambuilding.” Hawkins also met with every member of the executive team on each visit for a coaching session on their action plan. Every 6 weeks between visits, Hawkins conducted one-hour phone calls with each executive to reinforce follow-up and provide additional coaching assistance.
At the end of a year, Hawkins conducted a mini-survey to track the results on the improvement for each executive. The survey contained questions specific to the issue each executive worked on over the course of the year. Additionally, the survey included a question on overall leadership effectiveness over the course of the year.
The results were dramatic. Every single executive improved on the specific issue he or she worked on over the year period. The average improvement (on a -3 to +3 scale) was +1.4. Even more significantly, on the same scale, the overall leadership effectiveness of the entire team improved +18. The CEO was so impressed with the results that he set new goals for the next year and employed the same process to take the team to the next level of effectiveness.