COACHING FORORGANIZATIONALCHANGE 183
Leigh Fountain
T
he areas of strategic and organizational change foster a strong debate on
a demarcation separating consulting from coaching. As someone who
works in a holistic way in each area, I combine both approaches, sometimes
at the same time. In the late 1980s, I began calling the blended aspects of
consulting and coaching Embedded Coaching™—a natural outgrowth of a
learning or consulting activity where coaching occurs with the individual
you are working with and /or becomes part of your work with others in their
span of control. It can be short in duration (a coachable moment); but often
becomes part of an ongoing and structured coaching arrangement due to the
trust in place.
My organizational change work has spanned consulting and coaching in in-
ternal and external roles, and impacted groups into the tens of thousands. The
situations have been as varied as helping a business leader drive change with
their staff or a management team drive divisional or company-wide change.
I’ve also worked globally in both local and cross-border environments.
At the macro level, coaching for organizational change centers on the sys-
tems and people; at the micro level this is inverted and focuses primarily on
the people issues. Once the overarching themes are set it is the alignment of
systems, behavior, communication, and culture that brings about sustainable
change. All too often, people misjudge the time and intricacies involved in
change. Coaching can help frame the process and provide the support to
achieve it.
To illustrate, let me provide some examples. In an external role, I worked
on an eighteen-month cultural, product, and production model change with a
global electronics manufacturer. In this case, a new product was developed
and built while the factory was shifting to a team-based focus. The consulting
Leigh Fountain is President of Life Force, LLC, a con-
sultancy with laser focus on strategy, communication,
and leadership. Prior to Life Force, LLC, Leigh worked
on Wall Street in senior global management roles as head
of human resources for institutional sales, leadership and
organizational effectiveness, and sales staff develop-
ment. He began his career coestablishing an educational
and organizational consultancy group that grew to 275
staff. Leigh has both academic and clinical training in
coaching and counseling. For more information, Leigh can be reached by
e-mail at [email protected], via the Internet at http://www.Life-Force.net, or by
phone at (888) 480-4242; outside North America dial +1 (973) 218-0885.