COACH THE COACH® CURRICULUM

The focus is helping participants learn to coach attorneys more effectively by adapting the tools and techniques used by external coaches to fit the needs and culture of their firm.  Coach the Coach® is for law firm business development professionals and experts in the professional development field, who seek to add new coaching techniques to their respective skill sets to improve results when coaching individuals or groups of lawyers within the firm.

WHO SHOULD PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROGRAM?

Program participants include in-house marketing, professional and business development senior staff charged with supporting the achievement of their assigned practice group or business unit’s development goals. These goals may include expanding relationships with designated clients; developing leadership skills or enhancing team performance; pursuing new opportunities; and coaching individuals and teams on the best strategies and practices to build business.

While a law firm’s administrative professionals may have a deep and up-to-date understanding of the strategies and tactics related to their specific disciplines, they may not have a process for developing those skills in others through the coaching process. This program is an in-depth learning initiative focused on understanding the process and developing the skills to coach individual attorneys and teams.  Adding this knowledge and ability to a professional’s skill set enables him or her to build more effective and productive coaching relationships with targeted attorneys and teams. The net effect is to expand the positive impact and influence of the firm’s overall marketing, and business and professional development initiatives.
Skillful Means has developed an educational curriculum and an on-the-job learning process for qualified participants to accomplish the goals identified below.

GOALS OF THE  CURRICULUM

The goals of this curriculum for law firm marketing, business and professional development staff are to:

• Provide a customized learning opportunity to expand their respective skill sets to include an in-depth understanding of the skills-based coaching process, a capability that is in high demand from their attorney clients and practice groups;
   

• Support participants as they integrate the coaching process and skills into their day-to-day work, and enable them to address with confidence the challenges that may arise as part of a coach’s work with particular types of clients and issues;
   

• Help the Firm and the respective professional to identify attorneys who are the best investment for internal coaching including senior associates who need to learn more about business development and mid-level partners who may benefit from a mid-career correction; and
   

• Expand the Firm’s competitive advantage in recruiting, retention and business development by featuring internal coaching as an aspect of its business-building investment.

PROCESS AND CONTENT OF THE COACH THE COACH® PROGRAM

The program begins with pre-work to be completed by each of the participants prior to a five-hour, in-person workshop session.  Pre-work includes responding to questions about a participant’s experience to date with coaching and training; completing an on-line work place personality survey to identify natural traits and skills that may support effective coaching; providing a description of client situations that he/she believes would benefit from a coaching interaction; among others.
 

Each participant will be required to purchase the books, The Complete Guide to Coaching at Work (2001) and The Coaching at Work Toolkit (2002) by Zeus and Skiffington; these books will be used as the primary texts throughout the program.   Another aspect of the pre-work will be participants’ completion of the 4.0 version of the WorkPlace Big Five™ assessment, the latest version of this robust and helpful personality survey published in 2010.
 

The in-person workshop session will launch the program, and thereafter the group will collectively meet by telephone conference on a monthly basis for the six months following the program launch; these will be 90-minute calls.  As part of the curriculum each program participant will also receive two personal hour-long coaching sessions, to be conducted at a mutually convenient time and focused on topics of his/her choice having to do with improving on-the-job coaching skills.
 

Mary Kaczmarek will be the presenter and facilitator for the learning initiative.  Mary has ten years of consulting experience training and coaching attorneys in professional and business development skills.  Prior to launching Skillful Means in 2003, she worked as a business development professional in law firms for eight years, following her nine years of law practice as a corporate bankruptcy attorney.  With deep knowledge of the legal industry, understanding of the coaching needs and interests of attorneys and their teams, and significant coaching and training experience, Mary has developed this program to provide a highly engaging and content-rich training and coaching experience for law firms’ professional staff.

CONTENT FOR THE HALF-DAY WORKSHOP AND FOLLOW UP GROUP SESSIONS

TOPICS TO BE COVERED WILL INCLUDE:
 

• An overview of the coaching process and a description of how it differs from other development initiatives
   

• Pre-requisites for being an effective coach; consideration of the personal traits that contribute to coaching success; review of a sample of various coaching assessment instruments and consideration of their relative effectiveness
   

• Establishing the coaching relationship; coaching ethics and addressing issues of confidentiality
   

• Developing a coaching plan for individuals and for teams
   

• Challenges that coaches encounter and strategies for working through them

The topics will be addressed by short lecture; through studying examples, case studies and prototype forms from the texts and to be provided by the presenter; and by working in pairs and small groups to discuss and practice coaching-related skills.  At the end of the program, participants will receive “homework” assignments to be completed prior to the first session of telephone coaching.  After the workshop and prior to the first session of group coaching, each participant will also be required to identify two internal coaching clients from his/her organization, who he/she will use (with the clients’ understanding and acceptance of the “laboratory” nature of their work together) as practice opportunities for developing coaching skills.

SIX SESSIONS OR FOLLOW UP COACHING BY TELECONFERENCE

Each of these 90-minute sessions will include a review of the topics covered in the initial workshop, as well as new content related to improving coaching skills.  Most of the time will be spent in facilitated discussion among the participants of their experience with their two practice coaching clients over the preceding month.  The presenter will pose questions to the group to get them talking about challenges and concerns, observations and best practices.  Each session will conclude with an assignment to be completed prior to the next group telephone conference.

TWO SESSIONS OF INDIVIDUAL COACHING FOR EACH PARTICIPANT

In addition to the group work, each participant will be offered two, hour-long sessions of individual coaching.  These sessions will take place at a mutually convenient time during the course curriculum. Participants will identify the curriculum-related topics they wish to work on in the individual sessions.

WHAT PARTICIPANTS THINK

“Coach the Coach has given me skills to analyze and access work styles, preferences and behaviors, thus enabling me to balance different personalities while working toward a common goal. It has provided a dual benefit in furnishing the tools to provide increased value to my attorneys in my business development role as well as making me a better supervisor in my staff management role.”

Monica F. Ulzheimer, M.B.A. (Participant in Skillful Means Coach the Coach Curriculum)Business ManagerSutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP

“Without hesitation, this program was the best professional development session I attended in the last 15 years. Thank you for sharing practical strategies and techniques to help make this program a success for me!”

Debra HareSenior Business Development ManagerSteptoe & Johnson, LLP

DETAILS AND FEES

For more information, please contact Amy Eades at amyeades@skillfulmeansmarketing.com.