Coaching helps create 'something beautiful' for Swansea Council's direct payments support team

First steps into coaching

The offer seemed harmless – we’ll spend time coaching you, it’s free. What did we have to lose?

So, I applied, and a few weeks later was delighted to hear that we were to be ‘coached.’

Of course, this brought on a mild panic - what actually was this coaching? Were we up to it? Were we up for it? Was it going to be worth it? How could I possibly gather all the required staff members in one place at the same time?

Then, on a grey day in February 2024, we all met online and our journey began.

Rob, our coach, introduced himself. At the beginning, I wonder if he realised what he’d let himself in for. As fabulous as my team are, their passion is bursting. Within minutes the spark was lit, and ideas came thick and fast.

For Rob it must have seemed like an onslaught! A mad mix of enthusiasm, system frustrations, process annoyance and a variety of off-the-wall ideas. Rob captured everything in a rather cool, deliberated manner, while introducing us to the magic of the online whiteboard – what a revelation that was!

As an incredibly busy team, we rarely have the time to sit together to unpick and explore ideas, so I immediately recognised the value of this new process.

Rob created a safe space for us as a team to actively contribute to the discussion, and he openly encouraged participation. I found it inspiring to be part of the energised conversations, and it’s always fabulous to watch my team work together in such an invested way.

Rob expertly navigated the conversations and made note of relevant and important information, which helped inform further discussions as the sessions progressed.

Some of the work he carried out away from the group also proved invaluable, such as the feedback he collected about people’s experience of visiting our website.

That fly-on-the-wall view of someone trying to steer through an online personal assistant application gave us a new perspective. Through this new lens we set about exploring redesign.

What we’ve learnt

Having the space to discuss, and having those conversations facilitated and managed, has been most invaluable. For me, it’s certainly highlighted the usefulness of this kind of process and the gains that can be made. It’s also a process that can be mirrored in future team meetings and pieces of redesign work.

I’ve had previous experience of ‘action learning sets’. Although this was different, it seemed vaguely similar in many ways.

The ability to unlearn is as important as an ability to learn. And to learn in a safe space, while being gently steered, is quite liberating.

Trust in the process is a big thing for me. At the beginning there was temptation to get impatient, seek immediate answers and a definitive plan of action, because it was a new and slightly alien experience. But as hard as it was to let go, the experience was most definitely worth it.

Without wishing to sound too corny, I think we created something beautiful - a protected learning and exploration space where ideas seamlessly flowed. We established a common purpose that benefited this project but also took the unity and camaraderie of the team to another level.

Final thoughts

Would I recommend coaching to others? Well that’s a resounding yes! Be brave, dive in and go with it. Trust in the process and the results will come.

As a direct result of this coaching, we’ve redesigned our website, our application forms and our internal processes. Staff are clearer on their individual roles and responsibilities down to the finer detail. Possibly most significantly, it’s helped us understand each other more, appreciate our individual difficulties, and become more co-ordinated.

It's fair to say that the challenges of working in social care are considerable, and there are barriers to success at every turn. But time, effort and nurturing such as coaching make a significant positive impact on the direction we take as a service. In turn, this builds to provide a better service for the people we’re here to support.