How do we harmoniously balance progress in the same manner that all inventions of humankind hitherto have furthered the aspirations of humankind? How can we leverage AI to enhance work efficiency without compromising the effectiveness of work relationships? How to harness the reduction in the cost of doing business using AI without incurring the human cost of employees feeling disconnected? How does AI empower employees and not replace them? Perhaps the answer lies in managers using coaching to drive and sustain the engagement level of employees as they grapple with the insecurity and anxiety induced by the implications of AI developments applicable to the workplace.
Both AI and Coaching have roles to play in boosting productivity and job satisfaction simultaneously. For example, AI when treated as a resource and not a threat can empower employees with the autonomy of choice in the way in which they will integrate AI-powered tools to make their tasks easier and less time-consuming, freeing them up to experiment and innovate. Thus, AI is utilised to enhance efficiency and reduce operational costs, while employees gain the satisfaction of more meaningful work and feel empowered with more control over what they do and how they go about it. No point in guessing that empowering employees remains critical for fostering a productive and innovative work environment.
The essence of Coaching is about placing power in the hands of the employee as the coachee. It’s about identifying and re-gaining the locus of control in an exploding AI environment where the need for control is mounting at a considerable pace as the #Future of Work evolves to embrace enhanced AI. While continuing to make the business profitable and nimble-footed, the HR Heads, CXO’s and Talent management professionals need to match pace and reflect on what the #Future of Engagement looks like. Through this article, we are exploring the role Coaching can play in this arena.
Coaching is essential in this context as it helps employees develop their skills, boost their confidence, and foster a growth mindset. By guiding and supporting employees, coaching enables them to reach their full potential, which remains true even in AI-enabled work environments. As someone who has been involved both in employee engagement in my CHRO roles and in coaching as an International Coach Federation (ICF) leader, I see the three ‘C’s’ emerging that can help us appreciate the role of coaching in employee engagement in an #AI-enabled world:
Coaching-induced engagement: Coaching done well has the power to create a third space where both the worker and the workplace can thrive. By moving away from a rigid need for certainties and solutions, coaching encourages a mindset that embraces uncertainties and continuous evolution. For this space to be enabled, coach managers need to facilitate coachees towards self-awareness of their innate abilities and latent powers. Reflection needs to be engendered on how employees have adapted and integrated to come out on top while facing technological and business transformations. Emphasis needs to be provided on harnessing our core and not getting distracted by lurking unknowns. Clarity needs to be enhanced on how machines are programmed but human potential is unlimited. The focus needs to be not on surviving but on thriving by preserving the fundamental human connection to meaningful work. This shift, enabled through coaching, will lead to more meaningful interactions within the workplace and deeper engagement amongst employees.
Championing deeper engagement by driving personal mastery as coach-managers: Personal mastery is key to the maturing of coach-managers to effectively utilise coaching for the benefit of their team. The continuum of maturity involves diminishing their sense of importance, which is easier said than done, relative to what is conceivably possible in an empowering and enriching relationship with the coachee. The more invisible the coach, the more is his/her impact i.e. the more the coach-manager yields in terms of space in the relationship, the larger is the canvas available to the coachee to fill with reflections, insights and personal action-planning to adapt to the changing landscape. CXOs, Managers, and HR need to listen hard and better, to hone their coaching prowess. Just when they feel they have heard enough is the time to listen. On top of that, knowing when to stay silent shall also emerge as a primary skill. Having said this, making the transition to a master coach is like climbing a mountain—the higher you ascend, the bigger and more distant the horizon. We will know that we are making progress when we move from ‘doing’ coaching to ‘being’ a coach!
Connected engagement: With the advent of a machine-learning-based workforce, the need for an employee to connect with the workplace will only increase. Managers, leaders, and HR professionals driving engagement need to start looking at the #Whole person, which is a fundamental concept in coaching while framing engagement systems. Real connections will bring about real engagements that withstand the tides of AI, digital transformation, and other unprecedented changes. Engagement professionals need to be able to connect multiple dots for their employees and their lives, from 10-minute order delivery to real-time OT’s reducing the need for physical care responsibilities/crèche centres to futuristic gas stations to meme-based dating apps. All these interactions that employees will have shall be lessons for engagement professionals to connect the dots. These approaches fit well in the essential ethos of coaching – enquiring, open, inclusive, subtle, and multi-perspective. This form of coaching-driven engagement is to be seen as a kaleidoscope, not a photograph since the engagement interventions need to be in sync with the supersonic speed of ever-changing expectations of a multi-generational workforce.