Roving Coach Providing for the Needs of Middle Management
I worked for 30 years in corporate America. The last 20 of those years were in middle management positions, managing staffs of usually 10 members or more. Being a middle manager in a corporation is an emotionally stressful occupation. You are expected to get your own work done and make sure the work of your staff is also completed well. Often you have accountability for the deliverable of several projects at the same time. While there are times you have a say in negotiating your deadlines, there are often times they are imposed upon you and your staff.
While pressures may come from those above you in the organization, they can also come from staff members. Perhaps they are not as well trained as they need to be on tasks for which they have responsibility, needing more of your direct time to help them complete what needs to be done. Other staff members may not be as highly motivated as you to get the job accomplished the way you desire. Members of staff may need to work with each other on projects, and do not always get along well with each other.
While professional coaching has been growing in prominence in corporate offices for several years now, much of the attention of that coaching has been on executive leaders. Other coaching efforts are focused on the performance of an upper management team and how they interact with each other. There has been little attention given to coaching at the middle management and supervisory ranks, yet often coaching is needed there as much as it is at higher levels in the organization.
CJ Scarlet, Nicoa Dunne https://nicoadunne.com/ and Stephanie McDilda are three women from North Carolina who recognized this gap in corporate culture. Two years ago they discussed and came up with an idea of how to address it. CJ, Nicoa, and Stephanie envisioned a team of traveling coaches who went to the work location to directly offer their coaching to middle management staff members. They knew they would need to convince upper management of the benefit of such an approach for their staff members. In addition, they knew the coaching provided needed to have focus, be solution based and provide options for those middle management staff members who took advantage of the offering to move forward from those issues which may be holding them back.
From CJ, Nicoa and Stephanie’s vision, Roving Coach International was born. While still growing, Roving Coach has had success in a number of midsize firms in its home area of North Carolina and their subsidiaries. They are now targeting a number of larger firms on a national and international level. I first learned of their efforts about a year ago. At the time, I expressed my interest of being one of their Roving Coaches, within my home area of northeastern New Jersey and New York City. They in turn indicated to me they were pleased with my interest, but asked my patience as they looked to grow the business and ultimately looked to have a presence within the area where I live.
This past week I was pleased to learn that the team has asked me to be one of the Roving Coaches on their staff. I in turn was thrilled to accept their offer because of both my belief in the service they are offering, and their passion for how they are going about making it available to those they look to help support. Along the way Roving Coach has found that there are executive teams that are receptive to their message. What they have to offer is something that a number of progressive executives have been looking to be able to offer their management team members for a long time. Now they have that opportunity.
Roving Coach has trademarked as their slogan “Creating World Peace in the Workplace”. They look to achieve that by increasing employee engagement one employee at a time. In two short years Roving Coach has come a long way in getting their mission off the ground and they are continuing to move forward. New coaches are continually being added to their team. They have added additional partners to work with the initial team of CJ, Nicoa and Stephanie to promote what they have to offer. Most of all their enthusiasm has increased even more from when I was first exposed to them in terms of what they know they will be able to accomplish.
If you would like to learn more about Roving Coach, or believe it is something that may be right for your corporation to look into, you can learn more at www.rovingcoach.com. Or if you prefer, you can reach out to me at tony@absolutetransitions.com, and I would be glad to discuss the Roving Coach concept with you and put you in touch with one of their partners. I am proud to be associated with Roving Coach and look forward to working with many of their clients and their management staff members in the years to come.
