Experts, including managing director, PZ Cussons Family Care, Alex Goma, and President of Nigeria chapter of International Coach Federation (ICF), Ajibola Ponnle, have called on public and private sector executives in Nigeria to key into benefits of coaching in order to optimise the human capital of the country and achieve reasonable development.
They made the call during a conference organised by the ICF chapter in Lagos, in commemoration of the 2017 International Coaches Week, held recently in Lagos.
Goma, who spoke on ‘What Businesses Need From Coaches For Transformation,’ stated that if the fundamental role of business remained relatively constant in the area of value creation by providing the goods and services that people need or want, then the biggest impact would lie in driving the right leadership behaviour and linking to performance to create the right performance culture.
‘’Organisations that build a performance culture with the right leadership behaviours and values are more likely to win. Business transformation and sustainability occur when a leadership culture exists across any organisation,” he said, according to a statement.
The ICF president, Ajibola Ponnle, in her keynote address said coaching helped unlock potentials needed for development, but regretted that Nigeria seemed not to be moving with the ongoing silent global revolution.
She said: “In our environment, people are still very confused about what coaching is. When you talk about coach, they think of a football or athletics coach. But we tell people that we are life, executive and leadership coach. There’s still a lot of misconception about what it is and what we do. So the aim is to tell people about what coaching is and how it call help their organisation to increase their bottom line and even individuals to perform better and live more satisfied lives in general.”
Speaking on the benefits of coaching, she explained that coaching is a global trend and is being deployed in every sector of the economy around the globe. She stated that if well embraced it will help develop sectors of the Nigerian economy.
“For Nigeria right now, the focus is on entrepreneurship, agriculture, SMEs. The federal government has identified these sectors as the drivers of the economy. What you find out with a lot of entrepreneurs is that they have the vision and idea; many of them lack the skills and someone that would help channel the skills, and also make them accountable. Having a coach with small businesses would help the company stay focused on the targets. It would help achieve the business objectives. Coaches really work in every sector. We have professional, life, corporate and leadership coaches. The key is that for whatever goal you set, we help develop the strategies to achieve them.”
Ponnle added that coaching will also be invaluable in the public sectors as it would keep officials on their toes and make them accountable.
“Part of our goals is to present coaching and the benefits to the public sector officials to hold them accountable to the promises and goals they have set within their parastatals. Without accountability, it would be difficult for the country to progress. We keep finding money under roofs and in houses. Who is holding our officials accountable? They do that in the private sector, but it’s a missing link in the public sector. Countries like South Africa and some in East Africa now assign a coach to public officials. Every single public official in South Africa now is assigned a coach. The richest man in the world, Bill Gates said everyone needs a coach. It means that there’s real value to coaching in getting people to where they need to be,” she said.
International Coach Federation is the largest global association of coaches. It’s represented in every continent and has over 47,500 members. ICF Nigeria Chapter is the first in West Africa.
DANIEL OBI
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