SILM® Business Coaching Psychology

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home >Introduction to Business Coaching Psychology

Business Coaching Psychology The Silm® model, with its "mental gearbox™" provides a simple framework to help you apply psychological concepts, skills and techniques in business. The knowledge base and e-coaching support can potentially help you achieve your goals towards business success with wellbeing.

Entrepreneur and Executive Coaching The role of the entrepreneur or manager increasingly requires a self-coaching or coaching dimension. Miles Downey (2003) defines coaching from a non-psychologist perspective as, '...the art of facilitating the performance, learning and development of another.' (p.21) This ethos equally applies to the manager or entrepreneur's personal development.

From a psychodynamic perspective, Richard Kilburg (2000) argues that consultants must have at least a rudimentary understanding of the nature and extent to which unconscious forces shape behaviour for individuals, groups and organizations. Such insights are perhaps also central to entrepreneurship and management that inevitably involve human interaction.

The silm® approach operates on both levels. It encompasses non-directive facilitation towards the achievement of goals but acknowledges the influence of an unconscious dynamic structure. These different perspectives are not necessarily in opposition, they can be understood as complimentary, one built upon the other. Just as a sound economic grounding is important for any organization so too is a strong yet flexible mental foundation for the entrepreneur, manager or management team.

Team Development Different psychological processes are dominant in different people [see Preference for different mental processes]. In a folk psychology way we tend to think of the artist as having a different kind of mind to the accountant or competitive athlete. In a more scientifically informed way we can think of members of the management team as contributing in different ways to team success. Identifying and operationalizing individual psychological strengths and talents toward optimum team performance can be facilitated by psychological profiling.

Psychometrics Allworth and Passmore (2008) describe the profiling approach where the emphasis is on building awareness and understanding of the coachee's attributes, such as abilities, interests and personality style. Insights gained from psychological testing can include identifying the coachee's relative strengths and areas for development and provide insights into how an individual's personal attributes compare with those of others in a particular reference or norm groups. Psychological testing can also help clarify developmental needs, future personal and career goals, or simply to facilitate understanding as to why a person might think or behave the way they do.

Performance Management Identifying personal strengths and weaknesses can also help in the management of experience and performance. Learning to listen, not judge, can reveal significant insights into intrinsic qualities, patterns of behaviour and the impact of organizational culture upon individual members and performance. Such insights can improve organizational performance and facilitate personal wellbeing.

Wellbeing In the world of work wellbeing is perhaps synonymous with work-life balance. Ultimately we have to ask what shapes our experience of life and work, reflect upon our values and goals, and address concerns that may arise, aware that we have the potential to do so from different perspectives.

Virtual Application In trying to capture the dynamic of the management team new technology comes to the fore. The idea of a 'virtual' general manager dialogue that is 'alive' on the Web or Network emerges. Warner & Witzel (2004) suggest that this extending of the management role, to encompass the virtual, requires the development of inner knowledge and imagination. The silm® model can help develop this potential.

The 'virtual myth' However, Lars Groth (1999) argues that the claim 'hierarchy is being supplanted by network teams' and that 'large firms are doomed in competition with the agile virtual organizations of tomorrow' (p.14) is a superficial analyses. Information technology (IT) can help process information outside of the human mind, improve our information storage capabilities and coordinative power, as well as improve communication - but not personal communication. Groth argues there are iron constraints that apply to human communication and that our emotions are still with us; there may be a serious conflict with some of the properties of computer based systems. The SILM® approach identifies the strengths and limitations of IT and human capability within organizations. The aim is to combine the strengths of both towards optimum performance with wellbeing.

The learning organization in a virtual world In the 20th century it was suggested that in a fast changing world an organization's ability to learn may well be its only competitive advantage. In the 21st century it may well be that a 'virtual dimension' to management is the essential parallel foundation to physical team and organizational development towards success.

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