A guest blog – the importance and value of minority leadership coaching

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Val Boston III, Career coach, diversity and leadership consultant, and author of this guest blog

As a diversity and career development consultant and trainer, I am often involved in discussions about the lack of diversity in senior leadership, including women, people of color, and younger professionals. Often teams struggle to build a diverse slate for senior leadership positions, and assert that they could not find any highly qualified minority candidates for the position.

It would be far too easy to simply add some diverse people to a candidate list to be “politically correct.” Or one could include people on the slate, who if they got the job would certainly be set up to fail. But instead of these two superficial fixes, we should do the deep work of analyzing the systemic issues in the organization that have created this scarcity of diverse top leadership talent.

One of the most important resources that can be provided is top notch deep minority leadership coaching that helps diverse people grow skills to lead in that difficult environment where they are in a minority and leading mostly people different from themselves. One such seasoned and excellent experienced coach who I have called on to provide this guess blog is Mr. Val Boston of Boston and Associates LLC. Val writes:

One on one professional career coaching is often a critical piece in career progression and talent development.

Succession Planning addresses your organization’s need to strategically prepare for the healthy transition of leadership. These plans are typically linked to a talent management strategy of effective recruiting, developing, retaining and preparing potential leaders for advancement. Considering the rapidly changing demographics in the workplace, special consideration should be paid to the Historically Underrepresented Groups (HUGs) in your talent pool.

Characteristics and Challenges of Successful Coaching Interventions

Executive coaching (or employee coaching or leadership coaching) is certainly not a new concept. Effective coaching occurs when the coach and the colleague have mutual trust and respect; where communications clear and understood by all parties simultaneously; when the colleague is well on track to achieving their professional goals; and the colleague is “dialed in” into the controllable behaviors that generate success.

Most challenges arise with coaching interventions because the market changes are more rapid and unpredictable than ever before; dramatic events may compromise the integrity of the coaching intervention; the continued “buy-in” by the colleague may become out-of-sync and no one understands why; and when basic objectives are not being met.

Why Minority Executive Coaching?

SCENARIO: Jordan is a talented employee who is from a HUG. He has outstanding educational credentials and has an excellent employee track record to date. He is assigned an internal mentor or coach as part of his professional development who is not from his HUG. Though the mentor/coach can provide guidance and direction, the personal relationship and trust needed may not develop that would give Jordan all the “tools” he needs for further growth in the organization. The coach may not be able to provide him with the “unwritten rules” or truly and deeply be able to relate to Jordan at all levels.

Minority Coaching is often a critical tool for assuring career progression of underrepresented communities.

Minority coaching targets HUG employees and can provide the “missing ingredient”, and can many times provide more relevancy. Since many organizations view coaching as an integral component of talent management and development strategies, this focus can enhance existing internal mentorship and coaching programs. Organizations can provide this resource to identified or self-selected colleagues as part of their development plans. Talent that can be developed to assume more responsibilities over time is a win-win, can increase retention rates of high potentials, while developing talent pools to fill key roles.

Our Approach:

Boston and Associates LLC uses a practical, proven coaching model to effect change and improve performance, with an insight based approach.
• Step One: Establish the Coaching Relationship
• Step Two: Assess the Situation
• Step Three: Define Desired Outcomes
• Step Four: Determine & Commit to Take Actions: Determine Possible Actions, Identify Obstacles/ Enablers & Commitment to Take Action
• Step Five: Follow Up/Measure Success
• Step Six: Ongoing Coaching

Coaching increases employee motivation, develops talent for long term high performance, helps to create a source of competitive advantage, and helps to attract and retain the best talent. The successful executive coaching program results in leaders or employees who are more sensitized, better able to communicate, more open to personal growth, as well as overall greater productivity, engagement and job satisfaction that significantly benefits the entire organization.

Val can be contacted at [email protected]
Website: http://www.bostonandassociates.com/
Phone: 336-202-3348

Let’s Include People with Mental Illness in the Diversity and Inclusion Discussion

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Carolyn Naseer (middle) from “My Change Agent” introduced me to the team at the Farm at Penny Lane

As a diversity consultant and trainer, I enjoy how much the diversity and inclusion field continues to evolve and expand into new areas (link to blog.) One of the key constituencies that many organization and companies now focus on is full inclusion of people with disabilities. But so often left out of the discussion are those with severe and persistent mental illness. Can they have a productive place in our society? And are they even employable?

A thoughtful and innovative program which can become a model for efforts worldwide is the Farm at Penny Lane in rural Chatham County, North Carolina, but still within 30 minutes of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. I recently visited the facility to explore and witness their outstanding work.

I was introduced to the Farm at Penny Lane by a consulting colleague, Carolyn Naseer from “My Change Agent,” (link), a boutique management consulting firm with a focus on making a positive impact through collaboration. She is currently assisting the Farm at Penny Lane through XDS, Inc., the non-profit with which the Farm at Penny Lane as one of their initiatives.

Thava Mahadevam and Matt Ballard proudly showing off their “small home” model.

During my visit to their beautiful peaceful 40 acres just north of Pittsboro, I met Director Thava Mahadevam, Social Worker Matt Ballard, and Farmer Jessamine Hyatt. They all passionately shared about their work with me. Some of the current efforts around “whole person health” that are helping people with mental illness gain self-worth include:
• Utilizing people with mental illness to assist with farming and packaging efforts, including growing healthy food and caring for egg-laying chickens.
• Training emotional support dogs, which can often even more therapeutic than meeting with a human counselor.
• Building of small homes in a cluster community environment to provide space for people to productively live on their own.

So often there is negative stigma around suffering with a mental illness, and we all need to be more understanding and caring, providing pathways for recovery and enhanced quality of life. And providing employment, which many of us admittedly dislike and would prefer vacations and holidays instead, is actually a great way of engaging people with mental illness to provide them purpose and meaning. And the staff even refer to those with mental illness serving in these jobs as “volunteers” instead of “patients.”

The colorful building where volunteers train emotional support dogs

The vision of the farm, established through a partnership with the non-profit XDS Inc and the University of North Carolina Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health, is for “our community members with severe mental illness to live longer, healthier, inclusive, and more self-sufficient lives. And their mission: “The Farm at Penny Lane partners with individuals with mental illness to grow nutritious food for themselves and others and offers integrated, community-based, therapeutic programs in an inclusive farm setting.”

I inspect the tomato plants with social worker Matt and farmer Jessamine

Perhaps in the future, industry may even be able to learn from this model to provide meaningful employment for people with mental illness, which will benefit the individuals, the companies, society and our economy!

To schedule a visit and learn more about this uplifting work, do peruse The Farm at Penny Lane’s website. And volunteers and financial support are truly welcomed, check out their “get involved” page.