International Coach Federation Prism Award

Double Black Diamond Coaching and Long View Systems have won the coveted International Coach Federation Prism Award in Vancouver.

The ICF Prism Award has become an epitome of coaching excellence for companies using professional coaching to achieve impressive return on investment/expectations. Each year, the ICF honors organizations who have demonstrated that professional coaching used as a leadership strategy can pay off greatly. This award was granted this spring.

Double Black Diamond Coaching and the Vancouver branch of Long View Systems have been working together for 3 years. The project began with a request by the Branch Manager, Phil Edgell in the summer of 2010. In Phil’s words, “the team was dysfunctional, our financials were terrible, everyone on the leadership team was either new to Long View and/or new to Vancouver, we were coming out of a recession, and we were the least profitable and 2nd smallest branch in the company”. We could not keep going the way we were going”.

We came up with three specific coaching strategies:

• We would start by clearly determining the goals of the branch and the team leaders through the One Page Strategic Plan approach.
• Each leader would receive one-on-one coaching to support them through the planning, and then on-going coaching to develop them as leaders.
• We would have on-going team off-sites to continuously build the effectiveness of the team. A coach approach has been used for all meetings.

Most recently, the team worked through the book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni, to help identify and fix any areas where they deemed themselves dysfunctional.

The Results:

Although we cannot share specific business results, we can share the following:

• Coaching rapidly built a sense of team amongst the management team
• Trust grew and continues to grow dramatically.
• Decisions are made more openly and quickly.
• Accountability within the leadership team now exists where it did not exist before.
• Employee engagement has increased outside the management team
• The branch has a system for bringing new members of the management team on board
• Vancouver Branch Leaders are now tapped for their insights from head office and the other branches.
• Reputation in the market is improved – people want to come work here.
• Integration of new employees was rapid and successful.
• Overall branch atmosphere is greatly improved.

Here is what the clients had to say:

“What happened right away was that we started building a sense of team, with clear goals and objectives and our team quickly learned to trust each other. This was critical because when I first got here from Calgary there was no sense of a “leadership team” – just a bunch of individuals running around.”

 

“In the past we used to make excuses that our problems came from somewhere else – such as head office. Eventually, we decided to own our problems and fix what we could ourselves. That sense of ownership and accountability was huge”.

 

“…coaching helped me to quickly move into two new roles over the past two years…Coaching forced our leadership team to…work through issues quicker because of the stronger trust factor”.

 

“It has also helped in recruiting. People want to work here”.

 

“Accountability exists where it did not exist before”.

 

“We are more effective through the one-on-one coaching”.

As a result of this work, Double Black Diamond Coaching was recently asked by Long View Systems to provide a piece of the leadership training program for all company leaders across all branches in Calgary, Edmonton and Denver starting this spring.

If you would like to learn more, please contact Katie.