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News

By Leif Sollid

A sustained and demonstrated commitment by Chevron Canada Resources to strengthen the capacity of its leaders and employees through the use of professional coaching has garnered CBU top honors in an internationally recognized awards program.

At a gala ceremony on April 20, Chevron Canada was honored as the winner of the 2010 PRISM Award in the category of businesses with over 500 employees, an International Coach Federation (ICF) acknowledgement of businesses and organizations that have achieved great success as a result of professional coaching. Other nominees in this category included Suncor and the Calgary Board of Education. Past award recipients have included EnCana, Agrium and the City of Calgary.

Chevron Canada first began using professional coaches in 2004 as part of a “Managing Change” training program for leaders. In 2007, then-CBU President Mark Nelson, along with Jan Dunlop, HR leadership development consultant/coach, established a formal program for Leadership Team members to partner one-on-one with a professional coach. Nelson was and has been a strong advocate from the beginning and has worked with a coach for several years.

The award recognizes Chevron Canada’s “multi-faceted approach” in using professional coaches, including one-on-one leadership coaching; an off-site program focused on enhancing leaders’ coaching skills (Banff 2008); a “Coaching Skills for Development Dialogues” training for leaders; a “Mentoring for Success” training program to develop mentor’s coaching skills; and an onsite New Leader/Team process that provides early feedback and coaching to leaders while enhancing team effectiveness. 

The objective of all of these programs is to give leaders and employees the tools to become more effective in their roles and to use those skills and knowledge to benefit the entire organization.

Coaching Culture

“We began with the leadership coaching program, as leaders are key for setting the tone, and then we expanded the use of coaching into other areas where we thought there would be a positive impact and to help move us toward a mentoring and coaching culture at CBU,” explained Dunlop, who manages CBU’s leadership development and coaching programs and who is also an accredited professional coach.

Steve Hutchison, manager, Oil Sands, has worked with an external coach since 2008 and is an advocate of the benefits that one-on-one coaching can provide to leaders.

“I think it was instrumental in changing me from a manager to a leader,” he said, noting he has acquired a wealth of new skills through the program. “For example, I am now much better at delegating and ensuring that the person I delegate to is set up for success.”

“It was quite an honor to win when you look at the competition,” added Hutchison of the award.

Wendi Gramantik, who nominated Chevron for the award on behalf of seven other professional coaches, has been coaching leaders at CBU since 2007.  She said Chevron’s coordinated and multi-faceted approach to coaching and desire to instill coaching skills across the organization is truly unique and sets a standard for other companies to emulate.

“The way Chevron coordinated the relationship amongst the external coaches and the focus on continual improvement of the program is outstanding and notable amongst corporate coaching programs,” she said.