Self-Designed Coaching Course of Independent Training for Industrial Supervision - Research Paper Example

Construction and Discussion of a Self-Designed Coaching Course of Independent Training for Industrial Supervision 1. Introduction The role of supervision on an industrial site involves sustainment of a blended methodology of knowledge and practice on tangible safety guidelines, understanding of the human resources demands of managing diverse, multi-cultural employees, effective project management capabilities, and establishment of controls that ensure compliance. It is a multi-faceted role requiring a breadth of competencies in order to facilitate a holistic management and leadership philosophy, many of these talents and skills not inherent individually, thus requiring establishment of a training program to assist supervisors in gaining the scope of skills necessary to build a versatile and flexible manager. One of the most fundamental skills that can be provided to newly hired supervisors on an industrial work site is understanding how to build a positive, unified organisational culture in order to gain follower commitment to achievement of strategic goals and imperatives. Whether a safety culture committed to zero incidents or whether a culture of ethics designed to provide human capital advantages in relation to establishing a corporate name positively linked with social responsibility, supervisors must maintain knowledge in sociological and psychological domains to facilitate more effective interpersonal relationships with a variety of internal and external stakeholders. This report describes the rationale and intention behind a proposed independent training program with emphasis on coaching in order to provide newly-hired supervisors with the skills and aptitudes necessary to become more effective leaders. Coaching, in this context, is defined as recurrent conversations between organisational stakeholders emphasising opportunities for improvement and development, “aimed at exerting a positive influence on awareness, performance and behaviour” (CCMI 2010, p.2). 2. Rationale for Undertaking Supervisory Training Coaching establishes a partnership perception between trainees and the instructor, unlocking potential for maximising managerial performance and establishing clarity for how to overcome behavioural barriers to effective management processes. Industrial management differs from many other business industries, as industrial workplaces require more stringent control systems to ensure compliance as a matter of reducing liabilities (safety fulfilment), to meet oftentimes inflexible deadlines for work completion, and often require the supervisor to maintain centralised, top-down authority systems that negate shared decision-making. Concurrently, the supervisor will require blended knowledge of psycho-social, human behavioural characteristics in order to gain followership and commitment to achieving short- and long-term strategic goals. The managerial demands imposed on supervisors on an industrial worksite require that the manager be given training that will construct or enhance pre-existing knowledge regarding managerial psychology in order to facilitate development of an appropriate, cohesive organisational culture. Under respected models of human behaviour, in order to gain meaningful commitment from stakeholders, managers must establish a priority sense of social belonging and enhance self-esteem development in order to gain inherent desire to achieve the maximum of individual performance (Maslow 1998; Morris and Maisto 2005). However, at the same time, much of the tangible work conducted on an industrial site demands stringent compliance measures to remove risks from the business model and ensure strict adherence to project deadlines. This is what complicates the process of industrial supervision over that of other industries, as the supervisor must maintain diverse and flexible leadership philosophies that effectively blend autocratic management with human-centric characteristics. This is why training on an industrial worksite is so critical for newly-hired supervisors. Coaching as a dimension of this training opens lines of communication between trainer and trainee, allowing the learner to examine historical errors in management philosophy to improve supervisory competency. Concurrently, coaching can provide opportunities to utilise experiential learning methodology, a hands-on approach providing a “direct encounter with the phenomena being studied rather than merely thinking about the encounter, or only considering the possibility of doing something about it” (Borzak 1981, p.28). Coaching can provide a template for training that maintains the ability to provide incentive for supervisors to engage in self-discovery, improve their empathic position in relation to the needs of stakeholders, and align strategy with a sense of individual purpose to facilitate a sense of managerial confidence. Few supervisors, inherently, maintain the aptitudes necessary to successfully blend autocratic management process with human resources-focused approaches necessary within an industrial work site to gain productive outcomes. However, it is an absolute necessity to gain legitimised stakeholder followership and ensure that change resistance is minimised by followers in order to build a successful organisational model that contributes to meeting goals outlined by senior management and corporate governance bodies. Coaching is therefore the most effective training conception to ensure that supervision in this environment is equipped with the amalgamated set of competencies required to manage a diverse workplace population with radically different attitudes, skill-sets, cultural characteristics, and social expectations. It is widely understood that individuals in the organisation maintain many unique learning styles and preferences that will impact long-term comprehension and acceptance of training conceptions provided. Some stakeholders in varying ranks of authority within the organisational model learn best through auditory instruction (as one relevant example) whilst others prefer visually-based information. At the same time, some individuals maintain divergent learning patterns, maintaining a strong preference for social relationship development and tend to be imaginative problem-solvers that appreciate providing self-generated creative input (Squires 1993). Because of these disparities between unique learning preferences and styles, oftentimes independent learning provides opportunities to allow trainees to seek their own, most effective outlets for learning under the tutelage of a closely-connected coaching representative. Rather than creating a homogenous training program that could not possibly maintain characteristics befitting diverse stakeholder learning styles, independent learning can be customised for unique learning needs to maximise comprehension and long-term productivity in management theory and philosophy. 3. Proposed Areas of Independent Learning This proposed independent learning and coaching program will focus primarily on establishment of a cohesive organisational culture with emphasis on establishment of a safety culture and construction of meaningful human-centric relationships with internal stakeholders. The premise of this proposed training program is to allow supervisors to explore their own individualised learning tools, supported with ongoing consultation with a dedicated coach to help the trainee identify weaknesses and strengths throughout the duration of the training program. Industrial management maintains many risks that have the potential of imposing liabilities and costs for failures in adherence to safety protocols. At the same time, the business world is beginning to recognise that human capital development maintains long-run opportunities for sustaining competitive advantage. Culture is becoming more attractive to a variety of investors who will often perceive development of a unified organisational culture to be akin with high prestige (Very et al. 1997). This has considerably positive potential outcomes for organisations that require multiple private and corporate investments in order to sustain projects or improve competitive business position. The inter-dependencies between building competent human capital and its relationship to external stakeholder investment entities support the necessity to utilise human-centric training strategies that focus on coaching. It is the variety of feedback mechanisms provided by coaching in training that support utilising a human-centric approach to learning and comprehension. During training, according to theory, trust must be established between the trainer and the trainee in order to gain commitment. Coaching provides the necessary opportunities to build authentic and trusting relationships, which is considered a “reciprocal process” in which the employee and supervisor “voluntarily assume responsibility for its initiation, development and maintenance through respect and mutual acts illustrating high affection” (Starnes, Truhon and McCarthy 2010, p.5). Coaching, therefore, follows closely the theoretical transformational leadership model, one in which vision and mission are consistently reiterated to gain commitment to corporate goals and where lines of communication between manager and employee are decentralised (Fairholm 2009). The proposed training program will focus on comprehension of the tangibles of developing a safety culture. This is defined as the specific set of beliefs, values, attitudes and norms that will contribute to minimising exposure of multiple stakeholders to situations considered hazardous or injurious (McDonald and Ryan 1992). Most industrial work sites, as previously identified, maintain very rigid hierarchies of authority where rewards or reprimand are transactional based on performance and cooperation. Managers can create a wide variety of policies and procedures designed to force compliance to safety protocols and objectives, however the ability to gain legitimate commitment from the entire organisation requires supplementary humanistic strategies that appeal to psycho-social characteristics of the organisational population. The first critical area of the proposed training program is gaining knowledge on managerial psychology which can be translated into better performance to gain commitment to establishing a safety culture. A secondary area of training practice is providing opportunities for experiential learning, the hands-on approach to training, that provides a more concrete learning experience by applying concepts to real-life managerial and leadership practice. Merriam, Caffarella and Baumgartner (2007) applaud introduction of experiential learning into a training module as this type of learning better engages the learner in the course content. Experiential learning also has been known to raise learner interest in the course materials and improves comprehension long-term (Poorman 2002). Lessons learned through hands-on training imperatives can be discussed in real-time with a coach to identify failures in approach methodology and also applaud successes that are designed to facilitate the necessary self-confidence and esteem development needed in a highly dynamic industrial work environment. 4. Initial Aims The primary aim of this proposed independent training program is to ensure that supervisors are able to examine emergent trends in the organisation that add risks to the business model, both predictive and legitimate. This includes providing knowledge that can assist the supervisor in identifying human behavioural components that lead to safety non-compliance and learning to assess the job role design to identify potential liabilities associated with individual task performance. The secondary aim of this proposed training concept is to disseminate knowledge regarding human psychology and best practice in human resources to create a well-versed manager that understands how to lead through transformational philosophy. This training imperative will provide independent learning opportunities in multiple domains of human behavioural theory which, through consultation with the supportive coach, can be effectively applied to real-life workplace scenarios to gain followership and stakeholder commitment and motivation. These two aims will assist in creating a more competent manager that can successfully blend authoritarian management philosophy with humanistic leadership that will ultimately translate into human capital competitive advantages. The training will also promote trainee ability to recognise how to predict potential risks to the business model, thus giving the supervisor skills in auditing and change management related to job safety. Since gaining commitment to active participation in an ongoing safety culture requires appeals to emotional or sociological needs, these two aforementioned aims will ensure that all necessary material is covered since safety culture and human motivation and behavioural constructs are inter-dependent in the organisational model. 5. Initial Objectives A. To effectively train managers on safety protocols and safety auditing and how to establish appropriate corrective action for non-compliance B. To teach supervisors how to effectively motivate diverse employees C. To promote creativity in unique problem-solving so that supervisors can be adaptive to changing organisational scenarios D. Teach supervisors how to generate a sense of urgency in multiple organisational stakeholders in order to guide the intended cultural coalition upon development. E. Teach supervisors how to become an advocate for fulfilment of employee needs by providing experiential learning in a variety of scenarios requiring competence in emotional intelligence/empathy and social belonging theory. 6. Implementation of Training Design Social learning theory acts as the foundation for the rationale for the proposed training program, as this serves to predict supervisory commitment to successful participation. Social learning theory indicates that individuals will be more apt to model the behaviours of important reference groups when they maintain credible and attractive observed characteristics. When individuals in the organisation witness behaviours or attitudes being vicariously reinforced in the social environment, it creates an operant conditioning response where modelling the observed, rewarded behaviours becomes more appealing (Bandura 1977). This is a highly important conception in the training process, as trust must be established and there must also be incentive by which to commit to participation in recognising the importance of establishing a unified safety culture. This is where the coach role becomes crucial, by establishing the feedback mechanisms and reward systems that can be publicised in the presence of other supervisory trainees. When publicly applauding desired behaviours attained by participation in the training process, it is more likely that others will pattern these attitudes. Supervisors will therefore by subject to a variety of workplace scenarios crafted by the training coach, involving role play in hypothetical scenarios with fabricated internal and external stakeholders. Role play as an experiential learning dimension of the training program, will allow supervisors to express their own creative solutions in an effort to diffuse or support difficult interventions with key stakeholder groups. The coach will observe these imaginary interactions and responses, offering advice on how decisions could have been improved or where behaviours were witnessed to excel according to expectations for stakeholder engagement. Since the training is designed to be independent, thus allowing supervisors to seek the most effective method of learning that fits their learning profiles and inherent personalities, the coach will provide a variety of secondary literature sources in the domains of psychology, sociology, and human resources. Allowing managers to explore this information can be facilitated with effective supplementary support from information technology (i.e. Web instruction or CD-ROM) as part of independent instruction. The coach will establish a checklist or balanced scorecard that highlights what learning outcomes should be achieved through independent study. After fulfilment of self-managed learning in key domains of knowledge, the coach will convene with the learners utilising an interview approach to measure comprehension of humanistic learning. Findings associated with this part of the training will be supported by pre-test evaluations conducted on each individual supervisor to measure their pre-existing level of knowledge regarding sociological and psychological theory. Learning will be evaluated by assessing comprehension. Rather than distributing a set of pre-determined literature sources and research case studies on effective leadership, giving supervisors greater autonomy over content will create the perception of trust in their ability to thrive in self-managed learning. Managers will also, as part of training design, be instructed to create an auditing template (derived from their own training comprehension) that can be utilised to identify existing or predictable risks related to worker safety. Rather than developing a standardised, coach-generated auditing tool, allowing managers to craft their own evaluation tool will give them experience in work site appraisal that can be evaluated upon completion for accuracy, creativity and thoroughness. The coach will provide the supervisors with a best practice auditing diagram as a point of reference, asking the trainees to modify the template to align it with current business environment and practices. Upon completion of a self-managed audit of the work site, the coach will work with the trainee to identify failures or inconsistencies to help them identify where their auditing strengths and weaknesses lie. During the auditing process, the coach will inform the trainees to work interactively with a variety of internal stakeholders to criticise or commend observed safety compliances or non-compliances which will be documented for evaluation with the coach upon completion. The goal of this experiential program of hands-on auditing is to familiarise the organisational population with increased managerial presence and establish mutually-reciprocal relationships between supervisor that will enhance safety culture development. Each supervisor in the training, in order to assist in developing interpersonal relationship development competencies, will be instructed to create a meeting agenda to discuss the imperatives of maintaining a safety culture and subsequently instructed to arbitrate the meeting in the presence of the development coach. Based on the foundational learning associated with human behaviour, psychology and motivational theory, the trainees will develop their own, unique processes to assist in building a cohesive safety culture. As part of this program, the trainees will develop their own internal marketing campaign in which mission and vision can be iterated and disseminated throughout the organisation, either in the form of creative posters and imagery or by distributing a self-conceived safety culture module for delivery and analyses with multiple stakeholders. The potential effectiveness of the integrated safety culture campaign will be measured against best practice in organisational marketing and human resources by the coach, offering only solutions on how to improve its message impact and the ability of the supervisor-created campaign to foster commitment and motivation. As the goal of independent learning is to give supervisors the experiential knowledge that will provide new competencies in effective relationship management, the coach only serves as an evaluation force to identify areas of improvement and reward outstanding comprehension and adherence to learning outcomes provided in the training program. According to Grieves (2010), creativity and volition are actually created from conflict and not consensus, therefore the coach will be a facilitator of critical analysis of learning performance in order to inspire ingenious responses from trainees that can be applied to an ever-changing and dynamic work environment. Periodically during the training program, the coach will inspire collaboration with other trainees under a communities of practice model. This is where individuals in the organisation come together to share common experiences and improve problem-solving prowess (Wenger 2005; Buffington 2003). Even though the training is designed to be independent with only moderate intervention from the development coach, communities of practice will allow managers to compare their evaluations stemming from the coach to identify potential best practice methodologies in human-centric leadership style and in gaining commitment to safety throughout the organisation. The coach will then consult with those participating in collaboration, providing guidance on potential effectiveness of group-based outcomes. Through interviews, the coach will be able to determine whether problem-solving generated from the trainee group would have practical, long-standing benefits in the existing organisational model. In most Western cultures, feedback is considered one of the most important measures of performance and capabilities and also serves as the foundation of trust development between trainer and trainee (Javidan 2004). Trainees in the proposed program must understand what areas of understanding would be unproductive and which would be effectual in achieving desired organisational outcomes. According to organisational theory, many stakeholders feel isolated in workplaces where there are strong political nuances that tend to forbid transparency and sharing of ideas (Terrell 1989); a common trait in the industrial work environment. Individuals that attempt to take advantage of politically-based advantages often seek non-corporately-sanctioned methods to gain advantages, which can conflict trust establishment between stakeholders. The goal of the coach is to breakdown any pre-existing layers of bureaucracy that conflict relationship development, recognising the phenomenon of psychological transition that employees go through when attempting to adjust to new change practices (Bridges 1991). The coach supports and promotes as an observer of independent learning effort, acting as an advocate rather than politically-motivated obstructer of learning. Illustrating that political barriers that often lead to mistrust or uncertainty provides a template by which others can mould their behaviours, thus building the initial foundations of a cohesive culture. In the industrial environment where rigid, top-down management structures often conflict social relationship development, the role of an empathetic coach can serve to illustrate how to establish an appropriate balance between compliance and human resources function. 7. Support for Further Learning The proposed training program that allows for independent study and independent application of learned concepts related to safety culture development and transformational leadership design is aligned with best practice models of change management. According to Kotter (1996) genuine organisational efficiencies in change management involve establishing a sense of urgency, creating a consistent vision and mission statement, and empowering action of important stakeholders in the change process. The training design is founded against these change principles, which are known to provide greater motivation and commitment (Kotter 1996). Once the supervisors have been equipped with the vital knowledge required to appeal more successfully to the inherent emotions and needs of employees, they will only then be able to gain long-term commitment from stakeholders to become active participants in change imperatives. Understanding what drives resistance to change, what factors of leadership tends to improve employee motivation, and how to conduct appropriate evaluations and auditing processes creates opportunities for future learning. Understanding the complicated, yet relevant characteristics of human behaviour is a vital model within virtually any organisational context. Not only can findings from the proposed training module provide these foundational lessons, but they can be applied to more than simply safety culture. Learning in domains of psychology and sociology also maintain long-term opportunities for improving many relationships with external stakeholders, ranging from the supply chain to customer relationship management. Since many characteristics of human behaviour, such as those represented by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and other respected psychological models, are largely universal, the potential of the training to create other areas of competitive advantage are significant. Trainee-generated learnings that are identified by the coach as being relevant and effective and applicable to the industrial workplace environment can then be applied far into the future as valid for improving customer relationships, enhancing the marketing function, or even improving the ability of trainees to augment their individual competencies in strategic analyses throughout the organisational model to identify potential efficiencies through change management practices. There are also learning opportunities for the coach, as well as supervisors undertaking the training, by giving them their own experiential knowledge about colleague relationship development and advanced knowledge on what drives individual motivation. Coach-inspired learning stemming through interventions and consultation with trainees that have undergone the training program includes, but is not limited to, improving risk management practices and emergent learning outcomes about how to structure more effective, future training modules. Additionally, direct consultation with supervisor trainees will provide greater understanding of the emotional constructs inherent in worker populations that can serve to obstruct change management practices so that these hindrances can be combated effectively based on real-life experience working with diverse trainees. The genuine philosophies and approaches best aligned with human resources will be learned through active participation by the coach, easily translatable into future HR campaigns when change becomes another critical, future objective. References Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. New York: Prentice Hall. Borzak, L. (1981). Field Study: A Source Book for Experiential Learning. 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