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MyNavy Coaching is offering the Fundamentals of Coaching course virtually via Teams. This course will provide a baseline understanding of coaching and coach-like behaviors. The Fundamentals Course will be a required prerequisite for the upcoming Master Coaching Course starting Q2 FY25. Please utilize the form below to sign up!

MyNavy Coaching is a Chief of Naval Personnel (CNP)-led initiative to build and sustain a peer-to-peer coaching culture within the Navy with the goal not to make everyone a coach but to make our Sailors more coach-like. Coaching is a communication and leadership skill that utilizes active listening, empathy, and asking powerful questions. Using coaching as a communication skill allows us to communicate in an open, honest, and respectful way that promotes bi-directional feedback and growth to achieve your best performance which will ultimately enhance warfighting capability and Navy lethality. 

The mission of MyNavy Coaching is to inspire coaching partners to reach their potential and achieve maximum performance outcomes through coaching partnerships. The vision of MyNavy Coaching is to build an organizational coaching culture that instills and promotes coach-like attributes in Sailors which includes collaborative communication, a lifelong learner mindset, personal self-awareness, regular feedback, and professional growth. The Navy is focused on four strategic priorities and action plans to include creating coaching partnerships, promoting Sailor growth, promoting Sailor potential, and promoting candid feedback, with the four operating principles of partnership, growth mindset, potential, and feedback.
 
Mentoring vs Coaching Conversations

Differentiating coaching from mentoring is an important step in creating the desired coaching culture. There is a presumption that these two types of conversations mean the same thing but there are some nuances to them. Mentoring and coaching produce different outcomes and involve different types of skills. To help you do this successfully, below is a description of differences between mentoring and coaching conversations.

• Mentoring is a voluntary relationship where there is usually a senior, more experienced person who provides personal and career assistance to a more junior, less experienced person. Mentoring is more of a “learn from me” approach. In the mentoring role, it is expected that the mentor, who is a subject matter expert, will share their experiences and give advice and guidance to the mentee.

• In coaching, the coach is in a role to facilitate self-awareness on behalf of the coaching partner and is more of “learn with me” approach. The coach is asking open-ended questions, does not have to be the subject matter expert, does not have to be of the same rank, rate, or specialty, uses active listening, demonstrates empathy, and asks powerful questions to empower the coaching partner. The coaching partner is inspired to take accountability and ownership of their development. 

Why do we need coaching in the Navy?

• Higher strategic guidance calls for efforts to better develop our Sailors as leaders and warfighters to attract and retain the best talent across the Navy. The Navy is improving and modernizing the way they currently manage talent and performance by investing in individual development. 

• The Navy will not be successful unless we preserve our Sailors as our greatest strength and asset – deliberately developing them – which is key to leveraging retention. Better talent management practices improve the Navy’s ability to retain the best and most fully qualified Sailors who will provide the Navy the warfighting advantage needed in the Strategic Competition landscape. 

• Focusing on development is also a way to increase engagement. Sailor engagement has repeatedly been found to be a critical influence on the success of an organization. Increased engagement fosters increased development, feedback, performance, accountability, and retention. 

• Coaching is a way to implement the guidance of senior Navy leadership to enhance Sailor development, ultimately contributing to greater retention across the Navy. To accomplish all of this requires us to start creating a coaching culture and a culture of feedback.

Why implement Coaching in the Navy?

• These “coach-like” behaviors and questioning style are required skills that are imperative for 21st century supervisors and Sailors to master. 

• Besides higher-level strategic guidance, work environments evolve around a new norm of rapid, constant, and disruptive change. In this VUCA – volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous – environment, challenges are much more complex and cannot be approached from traditional, outdated approaches to management and leadership. 

• In addition, we can no longer rely on our leaders and supervisors to serve as the technical, functional, and professional experts to tell us what to do, especially in our information-saturated environment. 

• Today we need our leaders and Sailors to create a learning organization by asking questions that enhance growth and development and create connection and engagement among our Sailors. 

Implementation of MyNavy Coaching
A 4-pronged peer-to-peer coaching approach is being utilized to build a coach-like developmental culture in the Navy where everyone is responsible for development, not just supervisors or senior leaders. This approach is being scaled for all Sailors, regardless of rank, and consists of the following: Implementation of MyNavy Coaching content into all

• 1) Leadership Schools and

• 2) Accession Points 

• 3) Support to Commands/Communities: This is implementing MyNavy Coaching workshops across commands and communities 

• 4) Support to Existing Customers/Processes: There are other Navy programs/initiatives that MyNavy Coaching can leverage in terms of what they are already doing. For instance, coach-like skills have been inserted into the Performance Counseling instruction (BUPERSINST 1610.10F)

 

MyNavy Coaching Challenge
Everyone in the Navy has an opportunity to play a role in creating and sustaining our Navy coaching culture. Below are some ideas to help you to start being more coach-like. 

• Tell someone about MyNavy Coaching

• Have an open mind and be motivated to want to engage in these conversations

• Pick a skill to start working on right away such as active listening, empathy, or asking powerful questions

• Attend an in-person training or view online modules to learn the skills once these are available

• Start experiencing and practicing being more coach-like in your daily interactions as well as engaging in peer-to-peer coaching partnership

*Emails to MyNavyCoaching@navy.mil from non .mil email accounts may not be delivered. Please use either your .mil account or call us at the number listed above.*
*MyNavy Coaching's training material is currently being developed and piloted. Please continue to check back for updates.*
*Are you a certified or credentialed coach?*
**If so, email or call us at:**
MyNavyCoaching@navy.mil
1-866-232-NAVY (6289)
901-874-2547