Heart-Based Business: Create an Internal Coaching Program for Your Organization

By Jenny Blake, author of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One

In 2007, while working within Sheryl Sandberg’s Online Sales and Operations organization at Google, I received a coaching session that changed my life. This was before the word coaching (and careers revolving around it) was ubiquitous outside of the sports arena.

“What’s your purpose?” My coach Erik asked, as plainly as if inquiring about the weather. I was 23 years old. 

“Ummm, I don’t know . . . to help people?” 

“How? Whom? Be more specific,” he pressed.  

I took an awkward stab, grasping from unexplored terrain in my mind and soul. “Hmmm, I guess it’s to help young professionals feel less alone, and to help people reach their fullest potential.”

In our next session, I burst into non-work-appropriate sobs from a cramped phone room when Erik inquired about my values, pointing out that vitality was one I was currently ignoring to my detriment and encroaching depression. My inability to modulate the unlimited free snacks, fast-paced culture, and stress added the “Google 15” to my frame, or as I more accurately called it, the Google 30. 

Research shows that asking someone a question they have never heard before creates new neural pathways in the brain as they seek to answer it. In just two sessions, Erik helped me start exercising again, attend a coach-training information session at the Coaches Training Institute (CTI), connect with a larger purpose, and start a website for young professionals that later became my first book. I started to feel alive at work, and wanted to help others do the same, especially once it became clear that was my raison d'ĂȘtre. 

When I first approached my manager (and his manager) to ask for a few more sessions of this newfound professional oxygen, they said no. Understandably, it wouldn’t be fair to others. External coaching was prohibitively expensive, I was too junior, and this was part of a one-time leadership training run by the company Axialent (founder Fred Kofman’s first book, Conscious Business, also changed my life). An internal Eng Advisor program existed, but as the name belies, it was just for engineers. 

I was devastated. With all of Google’s touted perks—on-site laundry, haircuts, massage, dogs—how could we deny employees the chance to talk about what really mattered? Their lives, their values, their aspirations, their sanity? 

I became determined to “democratize” coaching within the organization: to make it free and readily available to any Googler seeking a 1:1 conversation with someone neutral, aka not responsible for keeping them at the company (or not). I always mentioned that these conversations would be in addition ones with their manager, as there was concern at the time not to cut off the central direct-reporting relationship. But we all know that sometimes you need to cry ugly tears or vent ungracefully to work through what you will say to the person grading and guiding your “performance” at work. 

I started connecting with others incubating similar ideas, including my friend Becky Cotton whose story I share in my book, Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One, to help people navigate what’s next. While working on the book, I adopted the motto: if change is the only constant, let’s get better at it. Becky had already been informally offering 1:1 conversations within Google in those early days, but was now looking to scale. Our efforts became a People Operations version of a “10% project” (which translates to a 110% role) and we formed a small task force. 

In 2008 and 2009, we piloted drop-in coaching programs in a bespoke, scrappy way — true to Google’s values for trying new things. We started training managers and directors all over the world to equip them with coaching skills — which created many aha moments for even the most senior leaders: 

  • More listening, less talking (I teach a 70/20/10 ratio: 70 percent listening, 20 percent powerful questions, 10 percent recapping what you’ve heard. Check out the fantastic book The Advice Trap, by Michael Bungay Stanier to really drive this point home!). 

  • Take the pressure off to “solve” a career conversation. Expand, explore, brainstorm small experiments. Neither of you have to arrive at any answers, and the surest way to create transformational aha moments is through in-the-moment presence without an agenda. 

  • Ask the two most powerful follow-up questions throughout: What’s important to you about that? What else? The first answer is just the beginning, and likely not the truest; stay with fewer questions longer. 

  • Get out of the conference room or your office; conduct these as walk-and-talks, or over coffee. 

Along with a small career development team, we launched the official Career Guru program globally in 2010, while I simultaneously turned in the final manuscript for my first book, Life After College, thanks to Erik—and my managers Steve, Kevin, and Lori who had been so encouraging of this growing outside passion project throughout my time at Google.

Six months later, I took a sabbatical to launch my book. When I realized I couldn’t juggle my side hustle and my intense Google responsibilities much longer—I was on a burnout-recover-repeat cycle as it was—I made the tough decision not to return to Google. I started my own consulting practice and moved to New York City in 2011, but I still work with them to this day and am grateful for our ongoing relationship, true to the message I share in Pivot, that careers and our working relationships are always evolving. 

Helping create and launch Career Guru is one of the proudest accomplishments of my career—not because I need the resume boost, but because I know the transformative impact that just one conversation—one question!—can have on a person’s life. The program is thriving to this day, over a decade later. There are nearly a dozen categories of gurus — at one point including new mom gurus, diversity and inclusion gurus, leadership gurus, and “pop-up” gurus when other topic-based needs arise. Career Guru is often cited in the media as one of the perks that makes Google a great company to work for, and many other organizations are starting to pilot similar programs. 

I can’t imagine why an organization wouldn’t create a drop-in coaching program, because everybody benefits: 

  • Managers, informal mentors, and coaches who apply to become advisors get to give back, receive additional development opportunities, and dedicate 10% of their (often unrelated) role to doing something they love by conducting a few sessions each month

  • Employees can release pressure by talking to a neutral third-party who isn’t their manager or HR, allowing them to problem-solve and own their careers, returning to their manager with more clarity for future conversations.

  • Organizations can offer a heart-based benefit that truly makes a difference, with minimal budget. In lieu of more unneeded swag (I sent off dozens of corporate t-shirts to be made into a quilt last year), those funds can be redirected toward a far more meaningful method of fostering deeper conversations and exploration, helping employees stay engaged and fulfilled as they dedicate such a large part of their lives to work.


How to Pilot an Internal Coaching Program within Your Organization

Career advisory programs are not difficult to set-up. There are logistics involved, but the scale and impact make it a no-brainer. The high-level steps are as follows: 

  • Initial program design: Overall goals, workflow, timeline, systems for scheduling and tracking, program measurement, and success metrics.

  • Recruit first batch of internal coaches (I recommend 10-30 to start): Determine selection criteria, application process (ie nominations, manager approval), selection process.

  • Schedule and deliver certified coach training based on coaching framework of your choice (I teach a simple four-stage Pivot Method for managers and coaches to navigate these; you can also use the popular GROW model) — with in-depth follow-up support and feedback for internal coaches in the following six months

  • Determine and deploy sign-up and measurement systems: Calendar, availability, post-session surveys, site with coach bios, FAQs. 

  • Develop marketing materials: internal communications, flyers, tying the program in with existing L&D offerings, messaging from senior leadership. 

  • Launch pilot! 

  • Conduct initial program evaluation and make revisions based on feedback from coachees and coaches.

  • Discuss ways to scale the programs more broadly: increase sophistication of internal tools for scheduling, surveys, measurement.

  • Look at longitudinal data for coachee cohort alongside annual employee survey: Does engagement, satisfaction, retention improve? If your organization does not yet conduct an annual survey, Gallup Q12 has a great baseline offering.

  Advisors will help coachees navigate tricky career-related subjects, such as planning for a conversation with their manager, navigating culture, addressing issues like burnout or frustration, or working on stated goals like leadership development, time management, or presentation skills. 

By piloting with a small cohort, you can get the support and data you need to make the case for rolling an internal coaching program out more broadly at a global level. As we always said at Google, launch and iterate. 

What do you have to lose? 

—

Jenny Blake is the founder of Pivot Method, a growth strategy company that helps forward-thinking individuals and organizations map what’s next with scalable programs. She is an international keynote speaker, and the author of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters is Your Next One, which won the Axiom Best Business Books award in the careers category. Jenny also hosts the popular Pivot Podcast, which Entrepreneur selected as one of the top 20 female-hosted business podcasts. 


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