Early mornings, long hours and cold weather sum up a typical day at a professional race horse training yard. In this case study Lucinda de Stacpoole-Lynch documents a coaching process in the yard of a champion horse trainer, involving the trainer (business owner), client (yard manager) and the staff.
The growing popularity of executive coaching is a testament to the economic benefit it has brought into the corporate world; over 40% of all Fortune 500 companies currently use this approach to support their talent,and overcome behavioural, strategic or leadership challenges within the workplace. Executive coaching is a tool that can be adapted to many industries and sectors as the process remains largely the same regardless of the context. Although this is theoretically possible, the reality shows that executive coaching has not found its way into all domains – one or which is the equine industry.
The equine industry is a multimillion-pound market that has historically seen minimal resources allocated towards managerial training, coaching, and self-improvement. I undertook my postgraduate thesis in a horse racing yard to examine the impact of executive coaching in the equine industry. Marshall Goldsmiths process of behaviour change was used as a structure for the coaching sessions over a period of six weeks. The results were surprising and highlight the potential for executive coaching in the equine industry.
In this case study the yard manager was the client and the coaching sessions happened with the approval of the trainer who is the yard owner. I surveyed the staff and the yard manager (client) for areas of management that were causing problems and could be improved. I began by addressing the areas the client identified that he needed to improve, and then moved on to the areas identified by the yard staff who report to him.
Clients areas for Improvement
Behavioural Issues
Within Marshall Goldsmith’s process it was identified by fellow stakeholders/ co-workers that the client treated the younger staff differently to the more experienced staff. It seemed that the younger staff got away with more and consequently the senior staff had to pick up the slack. Stakeholders noted how this would irritate them as they would have twice the work load. As a result, I brought this to the attention of the client who decided that he needed to evenly spread out the work among the co-workers. This identifies the clients’ awareness to adapting a solution focused mentality instead of pointing blame or justifying his actions. Throughout the process the client actively worked on his behaviour, spreading out the workload to prevent himself from retracting to relying on senior staff.
Leadership Skills
Firstly, the client identified that he needed to improve his direct communication skills with his co-workers. His fellow co-workers identified how the client needed to be vocal in assigning tasks. Stakeholders quoted that he needed to be more authoritative and to be clear on things he wanted completed. Over the six weeks of conducting executive coaching with the client, the client improved his direct communication with all his co-workers. The importance of good communication can be seen as adapting a feedforward mentality with staff as Goldsmith (2002) noted, feedforward embodies the ability to make positive changes for the future while developing a solution focused mentality as this enables an openness between stakeholders and the client. Luthra and Dahiya (2015) identified the importance of good communication; managers spend 70 to 90 percent of their time communicating with their team and others at the work place. In this study, the clients’ improvements can be seen towards the end of the process as he communicates more directly and with authority.
Throughout the process, the client focused on solving the issues rather than focusing on the negative aspects such as who said what and why. This illustrated ownership of the issues.
Secondly, the client identified that he needed to improve his ability to delegate tasks. It was identified by a select few stakeholders that these two areas for improvement ((communication and delegation) heavily overlapped with each other as they both required the client to improve his communication skills. With the need to improve his ability to delegate tasks, co-workers felt that the client needed to assign tasks in advance as they were unsure of what they had to do. Stakeholders quoted that the client would sometimes expect them to know what task to do before he told them. As this process progressed through the six-week period the client began to make some significant changes to how he was delegating. On review after the six week process he was perceived by the stakeholders to be delegating to his co-workers in advance, and everyone seemed to know what they were doing. This was an important improvement.
The importance of delegating correctly can be seen throughout the corporate world as delegating tasks allows for managers to lead effectively and consequently fosters creativity, efficiency and team growth. Again all these factors apply to the equine industry as each yard is driven by success and the people behind the scenes are the backbone to this success.
Overall the client noted that he actively tried to make little changes everyday; “I have tried to spread the work around a bit”, “I suppose I explained their tasks a bit better to them”. Throughout the process, the client focused on solving the issues rather than focusing on the negative aspects such as who said what and why. This illustrated ownership of the issues. For the client it showed that he is willing to make the necessary changes for the team and to make it more efficient for everyone in their roles. He became more self aware of how he communicates and interacts with his fellow co-workers which brings about self-reflection; which enabled him to improve on a personal and professional level.
An employee’s perspective
Within this industry it is important to look at how all co-workers view the issues being raised, as the people at junior levels generally can tell you the areas of weaknesses! Therefore, as a coach it is key to examine issues in a top- down and bottom- up process; to include employees of all levels. With this they provided proactive, solution- focused recommendations. As a result of using an inclusive coaching method it allowed for junior and senior staff to feel a sense of inclusion in the process which brought about positive change in the work environment.
One scenario highlighted by a select few senior stakeholders was the issue of some junior staff “slacking” in their roles in the evening time. They felt annoyed and wanted this rectified at the earliest convenience. In essence this was due to the client issuing tasks to junior staff in groups where they were not being constantly monitored and therefore there were signs of social loafing. As soon as the client started to improve his delegating task skills, the issue of social loafing decreased as tasks were set out in advance for each co-worker. The trainer/ yard owner also started to implement changes to the organizational structure which would help prevent the issue in the future.
Contribution from the Trainer/Yard Owner
Throughout the coaching process I kept the trainer informed with each stage of the process; themes identified, feedback and potential actions to implement moving forward. He was very positive with the actions put in place and further proposed a plan to help alleviate stress from the client (yard manager) as his workload was excessive in the afternoons and too much for one person. The trainers’ proposed plans was to put 2 people in charge of the horses and maintenance per barn and were therefore responsible for the running of that barn and how well the horses were cared for. This plan not only helped reduce the stress for the client but also gave the rest of the staff an opportunity to take further responsibility within their roles. Furthermore, this helped solve the issue of social loafing in the afternoons. Overall the trainer engaged positively with the process and displayed a solution focused mentality to the issues raised and came up with other solutions to problem areas. Again this relates back to the corporate world as any owner or leader would want their company to run smoothly and to have an efficient workforce which will bring about positive change within the company.
Benefits of using executive coaching within the equine industry
As seen above it is clear that within this yard all stakeholders/ co-workers engaged positively with the coaching process and it is clear that executive coaching principles could be transferred into the equine industry. So what benefits could executive coaching offer? First of all, it could be a collaborative process including different levels of experience among the co-workers and departments, while also keeping the trainer informed at each stage of the process. It offers the chance for an external resource to come into the yard and explore areas which may need to be enhanced with the client or on a functional organizational level. This is especially relevant in this industry, as within many equine yards there may be no human resource department. Furthermore, if there are issues in relation to leadership, teamwork, goal setting or organizational issues (to name a few), executive coaching could aid positive change which in turn will increase a positive working environment among employees and on a performance level. Lastly, as many equine yards are constantly on-the-go, it is important to conduct coaching in a timely manner. Conducting coaching in a minimum of a six-week period can offer significant results. Interestingly within other behavioural studies, it was identified that health and performance changes can be made within six weeks (Arden-Close & McGrath, 2017; Park, Song, Hur, & Kim, 2009). Even within a busy yard like this one was, the client requested that I follow up with him in six months. This demonstrates how useful this process was and how the results were perceived. So with all these positive changes could this be the turning point into introducing executive coaching into the equine industry?
By Lucinda de Stacpoole-Lynch
