COACHING FORLEADERSHIPDEVELOPMENT 125
Robert M. Fulmer
Business Challenge Coaching
C
oaching individual executives or leadership teams, for me, generally in-
volves tackling some type of business challenge as part of a leadership
development initiative. Work with individuals is most likely to come from an
assessment that the individual is not meeting his or her objectives or is out
of alignment with the organizational values or strategy. More frequently, the
coaching is based on the principles of action learning and is part of a corpo-
rate program that involves traditional education in leadership, strategy, or
change. Particularly in my work with Duke Corporate Education, we try to
combine content with a business challenge assignment and supplement that
with team and personal coaching to improve effectiveness. In other words,
the participants are learning for action as opposed to learning for knowledge
alone; they are having a Just-In-Time developmental experience rather than
a Just-In-Case one. The idea is to design an intervention that stretches the
abilities of leaders and helps them reach a new level of effectiveness while
solv ing a real business challenge.
I think it’s important to design the intervention together with the client.
Not only does that create buy-in, it also helps the coach to understand the
perspective of the organization and the needs of the individuals. To get to
that understanding, the first part of my coaching work involves a great deal
oflistening. My background in applied research, university executive edu-
cation, HRD consulting, and worldwide responsibility for management de-
velopment at a global corporation provides me with a broad perspective of
what is best practice in the world. I draw from that experience as I listen toDr. Robert M. Fulmer is Distinguished Visiting Profes-
sor at Pepperdine Universit y and also serves as Aca-
demic Director of Duke Corporate Education. He
ser ved as Director of Worldwide Management Develop-
ment at Allied-Signal, headed two HRD consulting
firms, authored four editions ofThe New Management,
and coauthored four editions ofA Practical Introduc-
tion to Business,as well as the acclaimed books Craft-
ing Competitiveness, Executive Development and
Organizational Learning for Global Business, Leadership by Design, The
Leadership Investment,and Growing Your Company’s Leaders.He can be
contacted via e-mail at [email protected] or via the Internet at
http://www.dukece.com.