Building a successful coaching environment at LogicaCMG
| Date | 01 July 2005 |
| Pages | 8-9 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14754390580000812 |
| Published date | 01 July 2005 |
| Author | John Blakey |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
8Volume 4 Issue 5 July/August 2005
HR at WORK
,
Short case studies that demonstrate best practice in HR
Building a successful coaching
environment at LogicaCMG
I
n the November/December 2004 issue
of Strategic HR Review, Nigel Perks,
group HR director at LogicaCMG,
described the HR challenges that were
successfully overcome in the merger of
Logica and CMG to create a 21,000-
person, global IT services company.1One
aspect of these challenges involved
appointing one of the company’s most
successful managing directors as
director of coaching.
Over the course of two years,
LogicaCMG developed an approach to
coaching designed to deliver benefits to
the bottom line. John Blakey, director
of coaching at LogicaCMG, describes
how the company has gone about
meeting this challenge.
The challenge
One of the key leadership challenges
post-merger was succession planning
for the new executive committee
members. A presentation to the group
board in September 2003 noted that
five executive committee members
were due to retire in the next five
years. More worryingly, there was no
visible internal pipeline of successors for
these key leadership roles, nor were
there structures in place which would
develop such a pipeline.
This challenge was symptomatic of the
wider organization. Previous HR
processes built for an era of high growth,
rising salaries and skills shortages in a
much smaller organization were no
longer appropriate for the motivation
and development of 21,000 employees
operating in a far more competitive
environment. It was against this
backdrop that LogicaCMG took a series
of steps to introduce a coaching culture
which would identify and nurture the
business leaders of the future.
The approach
To build a successful coaching
environment, we had to tackle the
immediate business need of succession
planning for the executive committee.
In parallel, the foundations for wider
coaching initiatives across the
organization had to be put in place so
coaching wasn’t seen as a tool for the
“elite few” alone.
The immediate succession planning
need resulted in our Leadership
Development Program. Coaching was a
major component of this, alongside
mentoring, 360-degree feedback and a
new competency framework. This
program was targeted at the top 50
high-potential managers in the
company and gave these influential
individuals a first-hand experience of
coaching. These leaders were later able
to sow the seeds for follow-on
initiatives in the wider organization.
A second aspect involved
implementing a three-level coaching
skills training framework. This raised
awareness in the wider company of what
coaching is and how it works, as well as
allowing these skills to be learnt and
applied in day-to-day management roles.
Finally, coaching was used as part of
our strategic change programs. For
example, during the reorganization of
the global telecoms business, the
transition plan included a coaching
element to enable key leaders to adapt
quickly to new roles and changed
international structures. This
involvement in strategic change helped
position coaching not just as a personal
improvement tool but as something that
could also deliver bottom-line benefits.
The four keys to success
In 2003 the concept of coaching
represented something of a leap into
the dark for LogicaCMG. The heritage
of both Logica and CMG was in analysis
and coding of complex, mission-critical
IT systems rather than in the softer skills
associated with coaching. However,
within two years, it has become a core
principal behind our HR practices and
features strongly as part of our annual
LogicaCMG is a major international
organization in IT services and wireless
telecoms. It employs 21,000 staff in
offices across 34 countries and has more
than 40 years of experience in IT services.
LOGICACMG
Making coaching mainstream in a skeptical organization is a challenging task. John Blakey, LogicaCMG’s coaching
director and co-founder of 121coaching, shares four ways to make coaching part of your business culture.
19096 SHRR run 30/6/05 3:01 pm Page 8
© Melcrum Publishing Ltd. 2005 For more information visit www.melcrum.com or e-mail info@melcrum.com
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