SHRM25 Sneak Peek: Key to Coaching Success Is Senior Manager Buy-In

If you’ve tried to pass any strategic initiative in the workplace, you know how important stakeholder buy-in is. Being a champion for change isn’t easy, but having a set of strategies in mind can help.

Speaking at SHRM25 on June 30, Kim Eusepi, founder and president of Katuca AGILE Solutions, will discuss how gaining senior management buy-in is the key to coaching success. SHRM5 The session is open to both registered in-person attendees in San Diego and to registered remote attendees.  

Eusepi briefly discussed her upcoming session with SHRM.

SHRM: Give us a preview of what we can expect from your session.

Eusepi: I’m going to discuss a pilot we facilitated with our teams: Having a coaching program specifically for the middle managers as a corporate coach, from a developmental standpoint so they can see what collaborative coaching practices look like [and] so they can implement in with their junior managers.  

Attendees will gain strategies that came from my experience working with leadership teams — actionable items they can put into place — and looking at how they can integrate between middle managers. How to measure the success of programs from a qualitative standpoint, as well. Really looking at task-focused coaching versus collaborative coaching practices. How to identify what a great coach is, what are the best practices when you want to get front-line worker engagement, and the impact the senior manager has once they have bought into the philosophy.  

SHRM: Why is senior buy-in so important?   

Eusepi: Without buy-in, your company programs won’t pass the test. It doesn’t matter if it’s coaching, learning, or change management. If they’re not buying into my spaghetti sauce, they’re not going to talk about my spaghetti sauce to their friends. If they’re on board, they’ll be open to the organizational change. If employees are told, “Here’s the why,” then they’ll be able to work with that. When they get blindsided — by the way we’re launching this training program and “You’re going to coach now” — then change management is difficult. Having employees embrace it will help your program be successful. ... It’s a process. If we want to save time, involve your employees at the beginning of the change. It saves time, money, frustration, and it’s a better employee experience.    

SHRM: What mistake do you see leaders making when it comes to getting senior buy-in?   

Eusepi: The biggest challenge we have is making a big assumption that the middle manager is on board, but they might not see how it fits into their everyday.   

What’s in it for them? ... It’s about employees being part of the solution and being part of the coaching culture and understanding how the coaching experience will impact them positively. When most people think about coaching, they think it’s punitive. We want to show them there’s a value-add, and your front line and junior leaders will feel supported.  

SHRM: What’s one learning moment that’s shaped the way you approach leadership buy-in?    

Eusepi: The initial coaching program I led. The program was surprising for me. When we launched the leadership series, I felt we hit a home run. We went from directive to collaborative coaching. The junior managers were really engaged in all of the training sessions, but there was one comment that came up towards the tail end of the session follow-up calls. One of the junior managers said to me: “Is everybody in the organization being trained on this, as well?” It stayed in my mind. Yes, they were.  

After eight months, things started to fall off. Though the junior leaders were interested in [coaching], the senior managers weren’t as much. That self-reflection made me realize we didn’t hit the mark here. There was the gap. Why aren’t they embracing it? That was the big aha moment. 

Did we talk to the senior managers? No. That was that pivotal moment where it wasn’t working to where we wanted it to be. ... When we re-evaluated and redid the engagement survey, we added specific questions that were task-focused: Does your senior leader coach you? Yes. Do they follow up? Yes/No. Do they celebrate your successes? Do they ask you questions to be successful? As a result, we saw that lift where the operation managers were more engaged.  

There’s many times when you think you launched this great learning program or we launched this great software we’re rolling out — there’s so many places where we implement as an HR team — and we think it’s going to be revolutionary, and we don’t often hit the mark because we don’t validate with the supervisors of the end users.

SHRM: What’s one thing attendees can take away from your session?    

Eusepi: Attendees will receive a job aid for them to go home with — a role-play activity for them to conduct with their teams to improve their coaching style.