Hello, my name is Tracy Sinclair. Welcome to Coaching in Conversation. Coaching in Conversation is a chance to discuss and explore, not just how we can keep developing and improving. Coaching in Conversation is a chance to discuss and explore, not just how we can keep developing and improving. Turing as coach practitioners, but also to consider how coaching is evolving and its future potential and place as a powerful vehicle for human development in today's and tomorrow's world. I'll be sharing some of my own thoughts on these topics, and we will also hear from some great guests from around the world who bring their unique experience and perspectives. Hello, everyone. My name is Tracy Sinclair, and I would like to wish you a warm welcome to another episode of Coaching in Conversation. Today, the conversation that I am having is with one of my organizational clients. Her name is Elina Verlimmer, and she is the Leadership and Learning Lead at Wärtsilä, which is a global leader in innovative technologies for the marine and energy markets. Wärtsilä also places a very high emphasis on supporting their customers with sustainable technology solutions, continuous improvement and environmental as well as economic performance. I have had the great pleasure of partnering with Elina and Wärtsilä for the last two years, working closely with Elina to support the organisation to Fully leverage coaching as a strategic resource in many ways. And that is just a delight actually, because Wärtsilä is in my opinion, a great role model for an organization that really takes this seriously, that really sees the benefit of coaching, not just in a micro isolated or discreet level, but how can coaching be of strategic interest? Wärtsilä as an organization has a very strong commitment to continuous improvement and to being a learning organization. And this is translated very, very nicely into how they have leveraged coaching in three key ways. One is the use of external coaches for certain coaching engagements, but on a one to one level and with teams. The other one is their commitment to fully training and taking that training through to certification level with the ICF of a growing community of internal coaches. And then the third modality is working with managers and leaders using great coaching skills as part of their leadership skill set. And so Wärtsilä is a lovely example of an organisation that is really utilising coaching, not just to leverage and improve leadership, but to also leverage and improve And thereby the knock on effect that that has is there is an improvement in the development of the organization, the performance of the organization, as well as the growth, motivation, and engagement of their employees all around the world. So I'm going to pause there and invite you to listen to this wonderful conversation. I hope it's inspiring, particularly for some of you who are Working with organizations and are curious about how coaching might be of service to you. Enjoy. My name is Elina Välimaa. I'm a learning and leadership lead at Wärtsilä. And Wärtsilä is a company of 17, 500 employees with headquarters in Helsinki, Finland, where I'm also based in. And we are on a journey of decarbonizing the maritime and energy industries. My name is Tracy Sinclair from Coach Advancement and we provide coaching education and coaching consultancy to coaches all around the world who want to develop those skills as well as organizations like Wärtsilä who are seeking to use coaching to build a coaching culture. And I had the great pleasure and privilege of connecting with Elina Some time ago now, probably almost two years ago, I think, when I happened to find out that Elina was looking for some new partners in developing and delivering coaching services within the organization. And together, We have partnered to bring two programs to the fore for now, which is the leader of coach program and the certification program. And we are very happily and actively talking at the moment about team and group coaching as well. Maybe it's good to mention that I am also a coach myself, ICF certified coach, PCC level. Previous to joining Wärtsilä two and a half years ago, I was working as an external coach trainer. Organizational developer with many different organizations, and I've seen the power of coaching in my previous roles and assignments. So I've really a firm believer, believer that the style of leadership that we need nowadays is not about command, control and correct, but it's more about. Coaching and empowering people. So that's one thing. So I personally believe in it, but then of course, Vatsila as a company is really has a very ambitious targets when it comes to decarbonizing the marine and energy sectors, and you need to have people who are, and teams who are working collaboratively together and leaders who are able to support that. And for that, you also need a coaching style of leadership. Of the, of the leaders and also for the collaboration per se, people, just employees collaborating with each other. Coaching is a skill that helps you to do that as well. So I think it's a essential for anybody actually, so to have these skills and then also our, we have our own leadership model. Where we have 15 different leadership behaviors and they're also coaching is part of that. And one more thing, in addition to all of this, we are also very keen on continuous improvement and lean philosophies and really believe that the people know best how to develop their own work. So they're also in the continuous Improvement mindset, coaching is a crucial part of that. So there are many different intersections, I would say, where coaching plays a big role. So that's why we have been keen on developing a coaching culture. You can divide them into two buckets if you like. So there is one bucket, which is related to coaching training, or let's say learning solutions. And there we have also different types of solutions that, that we are partnering with Tracy. So we have say, leader as coach training, which is for, as the name says, it's for line managers, but not only for line managers. So also people who are leading others in a matrix setup and who are keen to develop their skills in coaching. So that's one solution that we have. And then we have also a coaching certification training, which is more for practitioners, And it's more, of course, advanced and also more, let's say, lengthy from the duration point of view. And they're saying that this is more for HR professionals, more for our continuous improvement professionals, people working in kind of organizational development that are really using the coaching skills daily in their work and coaching others. And there we have, are now the second cohort of nine persons and who then who have the aim of being certified based on International Coaching Federation certification criteria. So those are the kind of learning solutions that we have. And those are the kind of main things. And this is also based on the fact that there are some studies that say that When you are building a coaching culture, you need to educate your line managers, your leaders on coaching, but then you also need to educate practitioners. So you need to have both modalities. And then of course, also using external coaches, which we do as, as well, but then that you are, these are the two main modalities that you are trying to develop. And then we also, we, Tracy offers to us external coaches. To support in executive coaching our senior leaders in at the same time, of course, also developing the coaching skills because you are also learning when you are being coached, but then also focusing on certain personal development or leadership topics that they are keen on working on. So those are the main services that we are getting from Tracy. Building upon what Elina just said around how the ICF research into coaching culture really substantiates what Elina was sharing about the three key modalities of developing internal coach practitioners, as well as leaders using really good, strong coaching skills and still engaging with external suppliers at the same time. So intuitively. The organization is already really working in the best practice way in terms of how to build coaching culture, which is really a joy to see because not all organizations will invest so much of their time, energy and resources into really building all three of those key modalities and Vertisilla really does that. I think there are multiple ways and that's of course like a Long journey as well. So we are on that path and on that journey, and it's not something that we see today, things are this way and tomorrow they will be totally different. So I think it's also small incremental things. But I think it's in a way, like, people are more accustomed to coaching. It's something more, something that they start to hear about. They start to hear about the experiences that others have had. So it starts to be something that's in the language. It has also started from the very top management. They have had their own coaches. They have worked on feedback that they have received. They have been having group coaching sessions and then the next level management teams as well. So it's a thing which you have, you're doing a kind of top down approach, but at the same time, bottom up. And for instance, the internal coaches that we have, so we start to get a volume there. And in the community, I think we have over, already over 50 people. And once you are on the path to certification, the beauty of it is that you need coaching hours, So you need to have at least 100 hours to be applying for the certification on the first level ACC. So it's a kind of a machine that starts to feed itself once you have enough people and also enough awareness of, okay, what coaching is, how can it help me, etc. So now we have Start to get enough people who are, I would like to get more coaching hours. Do you have some clients for me? And, and then we are, then people can apply for a coaching process. Anyone can apply, but then also like recently we did specific promotion on career exploration coaching. So if you are thinking about what's your next step career wise, you're not quite sure you're maybe in the crossroads. So we have also made a kind of more structured package around that. And that is also offered because what we have noticed is that people, when they are thinking about what would be my next step, maybe they don't always go to their line manager, but then instead they start to look for something outside and then they might leave the company. So we don't want that. So we want people to be having those conversations with someone, hopefully also the line manager chipping in or being part of the goal setting in the beginning of the process, etc. Depending of course on the situation, but so that we are, which is a very classical scenario for coaching is their coaching. So we have also started to productize that a little bit like, Hey, this is something very normal. You can have a really coaching process around this. And it's really about not maybe finding your concrete next step, but more who am I, what are my real drivers and which, Alternatives there are inside that I could be looking for. So those kinds of things, I think with this, and we also doing having some team coaching pilots in some parts of the organization, more, more focusing on, on, on how they can really build that competence. So there are like different. things happening in different parts of the organization, the more we have these. So there starts to be like a a tipping point at some point. I love what Elina is saying about the tipping point. And there's such a lot that's going into creating that tipping point and taking the organization to that. And what really strikes me about the way Elina and Wärtsilä are approaching this is three things. One is As Elina said, there's a growing awareness now of coaching and there is senior sponsorship of that in that there are many senior leaders who are engaging with coaches. There is a strong commitment to coaching being very visibly placed within their leadership model and the continuous learning organization framework, continuous improvement framework. And from my experience as an external partner, that is really embodied. It's not just something that's on a slide. It's something that people talk about and that they are aware of. So there's clearly a real, a really strong characteristic there of the groundwork that's going into creating that awareness and that for me leads to. The other characteristic that I see, which is that this is a long term view, as Elina was saying, it's not something that you just do and then it changes overnight. I really see a commitment by the organization to have this as a process and not a destination, and it's an ongoing process. So this is about informing leadership, informing culture, and informing Employees being and their decisions within that culture, like the career, the career move or the career change coaching that Elina was referring to. And that makes me think then of the third characteristic, which is this holistic view. It's not just linear in terms of one kind of coaching. People are engaging in coaching for all sorts of different reasons. And It's no surprise to me that tipping point is building. It's almost like a. A very positive swelling up of, of lots and lots of initiatives and lots of work that goes in over time to get to that point. When you meet up with people who have been coached, having, or who have been coaching and then just right after session and they are really energized and really inspired and really, there's a lot of energy around that. That piece is also very important actually. And it's something that you are pulling. The potential out of the people, it's not that your people are dragging their feet, but it's, it's something is really beneficial when the people that are being coached, actually they see the benefit and they are getting ahead. And moving, there's a progress and their mental models are changing. So I think that's also very important and we shouldn't forget about that. So there's always the individual who is seeing the benefit and hopefully that is the case for all of people being coached and the coaches as well. One of the things that really strikes me in working with the various teams and groups within Wärtsilä is, for example, on the Leader as Coach program. Initially, sometimes leaders are a little bit hesitant to go out there and practice these skills with their teams because it's new and it's different, and there's a lot of work to be done. You are, as Elina said, looking for quite a shift in their mental model, but when they do it, they come back and you can just see such a shift in their mindset and their awareness. Even if it's something as simple as listening more, which might sound So minor in a way, and yet it's the biggest transformational shift we could possibly want. And what also I noticed very much is when the leaders work with each other and coach each other in the peer group breakout sessions, they come back really realizing how, when they have been coached, Even by a colleague who is still learning to coach, the significant impact that different way of working has, that different way of engaging with someone. So that's hugely uplifting to see. And the same thing applies when we are doing the certification training to train the internal coach practitioners, is, and this has been my experience in many coach training programs, is it's It's, it's transformational because in learning to coach someone else, we start to coach ourselves. We start to take on a different mindset naturally ourselves. And there's so much more that comes from this way of working than just learning some valuable skills. And I don't mean to minimize those skills, but the bonus that you get. From the effect of coaching conversations is, is multiplied far more than you might think based on the content of that day. I think we are moving from individual approach to more to a team approach. So the team coaching is something really in the horizon. It has been there for some time, but I also see that there is now, there's more, we are more mature in a way that we can more move towards that. And that's something which is really, will be very useful. in organizations because one with one to one coaching you can get only so far. And with the team coaching approach, you are really addressing the whole team and making the team actually coaching each other. And so it's really powerful in the organizational setup and from the organizational development point of view. So using both the one to one modality and the team coaching, I think that's really something which will be maybe not exploding, but really growing rapidly in the next years to come in general. And I see the same development. At Wärtsilä, definitely. And maybe also the other development is probably this kind of more productized coaching for certain situations like this career exploration coaching or something else else when you are in a certain situation that you can Order in a way, or which is something that could be something that you can, we have start starting to market more. So those kinds of things. Building on what Elina said about the future, I completely agree with the impetus now around working with teams and groups, because of course we know that. The best way to really create and nurture coaching culture is through that ripple effect. So that's absolutely something that is on our agenda now. A couple of other things that come to my mind is Talking about sustainability and the sustainability agenda, there's something about the sustainability of the coaching culture. So that's something that will be very useful for us to explore is how do we not only grow and develop that, but how is that then sustainable? And by that, things like what mechanisms might we explore to put in place so that we can notice any Useful patterns or trends across the organization, obviously maintaining all of the appropriate confidentiality boundaries, but there's some very, very natural and elegant ways of capturing some really interesting and valuable organizational data that can be fed back into the organization. And Elina and I I've already started to table some thoughts around how we explore mechanisms for measuring and benchmarking return on investment, return on expectations and things like that. And of course, also over time, as Elina said, there's already a population of about 50 coaches, coach practitioners within the organization, and they too will be continuing with their development and maturing their skills. Not every coach practitioner is recently trained, therefore. So there's something about how can we keep role modeling the lifelong learner, if you like, approach within the coaching community. So that is also then spread to the leadership community. So that openness to learn, that learning organization. Characteristic that seems so strong at Wärtsilä is also nurtured and sustained. So if you're interested to develop a coaching culture in your organization, I would say do it for the right reasons. Do it for long term and get your senior leaders involved and exposed to coaching in the early phases of that development and really start just doing it. Offer trainings for leaders, build the awareness and use all the different modalities if possible. Leaders as coaches and internal coach practitioners and external coach practitioners. So be sure to also get the senior leaders involved and exposed to coaching so that they see how it can benefit the business and what are the returns of investment that you can get. Why are the coaching investment? I think in, in, in organizational development, in leadership development, in cultural development, we can have projects of the quarter or projects of the year. There's always another. Interesting, shiny concept or model that we can follow. And we know that is very attractive and that many change initiatives, many developmental initiatives have a lot of groundswell to begin with, and then they trail off. And so I think the things that Elina has shared about getting real senior buy in is absolutely important and to ensure that there is a sense of this is the way we want to do things, not that it's just a project that we're going to focus on. So this is definitely a long term, deep commitment to How you want your organisation to be and what the culture and the identity is of that organisation. Well, thank you all for listening to that conversation. I do hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did and that you also found some nuggets in there, some ideas and some thoughts that are perhaps in service of the kind of work that you're doing. If this is something that is of interest to you to find out a little bit more, first of all, I'd love to offer you a free resource, which is an e book that I have written around coaching. This ebook draws upon some of the in depth research that has been conducted by the International Coaching Federation in this area, along with some snippets from case studies of organizations that have won awards for in depth research. their success in integrating coaching into how it informs leadership and culture, as well as thoughts of my own in terms of my experience of working with several clients on a very hands on basis to make this happen in their workplace. If you would like to have a copy of that ebook, and if you would like to arrange an informal conversation just to hear more about what could be possible in your organisation, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I'd love to talk to you about it. I get very excited about this book. this possibility and what is, what is the opportunity really for organizations to leverage coaching in a much more powerful way. So please do reach out to me. My email address is Tracy at Tracy Sinclair. com. I'd love to hear from you. You have been listening to Coaching in Conversation by Tracy Sinclair. A podcast aimed at exploring how coaching is a vehicle for human development in today's and tomorrow's world. You can learn more about coach training and development at tracysinclair. com and follow us on social media. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a rating and review, and also share it with your networks to help us expand our reach. Thank you for listening and see you next time.