TaylorMade Golf Company is recognized as one of the top global brands in golf. Like most great companies, TaylorMade views their success as being closely linked to the quality of their people. In an effort to accelerate people development, several years ago they made the development of a coaching culture an important part of their strategy. The company started by hiring a handful of external coaches to provide support to the senior leadership team. At this point, TaylorMade was seeing the impact of coaching for a select group of senior staff, and the next step was to find a way to extend coaching deeper into the organization, in order to make it a company-wide practice.
Challenges
The organization is committed to lean thinking, which involves pushing individuals to take ownership and initiative to make their maximum contribution. Many training programs involve solving specific problems or are too theoretical—TaylorMade was looking for a way to empower staff at all levels on an ongoing basis. Coaching is viewed internally as highly effective, but it is limited to the upper levels of the organization.
Solution
Hudson implemented its Spot Coaching Approach for Managers program, which entailed:
- Training for 100 of TaylorMade’s managers on a “just-in-time” coaching approach that is easy to use by managers to grow their people and address issues in short spurts of 10-15 minutes. In order to create rapid momentum in the organization, managers were selected across functions to participate.
- Delivered as a 1-day workshop by a Hudson certified coach, including small group practice and feedback as well as follow up to ensure participants were able to integrate a developmental approach to leadership into their everyday work.
- Access to a resource library to continue honing skills after the workshop.
- TaylorMade selected this approach because it would allow the entire organization to experience the value of coaching, and help to empower employees at all levels to take initiative and solve problems.
Results
- TaylorMade has successfully created a common language around development and adopted a simple, easy-to-use process for coaching that managers can use in their daily work settings
- Managers are now consistently having timely, targeted developmental conversations
- Managers demonstrate an increased willingness to engage in difficult conversations and to provide tough feedback
- Managers have a heightened awareness of how to help team members take more initiative