BlessingWhite recently posted an excellent article on why coaching (by workplace leaders and managers) doesn’t work.
The article focussed on the five main causes of failed internal coaching and a general direction for the remedy for each cause.
This post covers the first cause and together with the following four posts over the next couple of weeks I’ll give you specific and actionable solutions for each cause for you to follow.
I’ll then wrap the solutions up into an easy to reference e-book and make it available to you with my compliments. This e-book will include many of the techniques I offer in my $7 e-book ‘Ask or Tell – the power of asking and the force of telling’
Professional business and executive coaches follow well practiced disciplines and have a range of processes that they adapt for each individual client. The leader/manager can easily adopt and adapt these professional skills and apply them. The key principle to remember is to practice consistently and correctly. Coaching is a leadership and management essential, not a discretionary tool.
Cause 1 – Coaching to the Job Description, not the Person
Coaching to the job description assumes the following:
- That the job description is adequate, accurate and actionable – except when it’s not!
- That the holders of the job have standard characteristics that align with that job – for example sales people are risk-takers and accounts people are detailed-oriented.
This causes the coaching to be task or project or outcomes focussed. Whilst the tasks, project and outcomes are important, they are dependent upon the person’s attitude and actions. That is where the coach must focus first.
People are “feeling creators”. Emotions are the biggest attitudinal drivers of action. Beliefs are the biggest cause of emotions. That is true for the coach/manager/leader as well!
Coaching must focus first on helping the person hold the best attitude to deliver the best actions.
Rather than address specific tasks, the coach can instead follow this process:
- Arrange to meet the person in a neutral private place asking to talk about how the work is going.
Example: “Hello John, can we have a coffee in the meeting room to help me understand how you are travelling with your current (specify the project or task)?
- At the meeting, commence with a question that is open and general and positive.
Example: “What’s working well for you?”
- Listen to the answer and feedback to ensure the person get’s that you are listening and appreciating what is being said.
Example: “Great, I see that you are on top of that.”
- Once you see the person is relaxed and open, ask the open and respectful question that leads to issues the person might have.
Example: “John, what aspects of the work do you want to do differently?”
- Listen carefully and explore the answers without judgement or suggestions to fully understand what the issues are.
Example: John says he’d like the task to be better planned and more aligned with the team’s current targets.
You could ask:
- “OK, what do you think could be added to the planning?”
- “Who could be doing that?”
- What do you need to make that happen?”
- “What would be the benefits for you?”
- What would be the benefits for the team?”
- “What action could you initiate of your own accord?”
- “What do you think others, including me, could do to help?”
- “When could this occur?”
- “What do you feel is stopping you from taking the initiative?”
- “If you were your own coach, what advice would you give now?”
You listen to the answers and then follow with acknowledging the answer and asking another empowering question from the above examples or other same-spirited questions.
The aim is to have the person own the issue and the solutions, not for you to direct the outcome – unless there is clear incompetence demonstrated, in which case you’d offer help.
In the case of established incompetence, you could say “John, I see you are having difficulty with this, can I suggest a solution?” This must be a last resort.
Conclusion of the session: “OK John thanks for giving me your time with this. What decisions have you made and what actions will you now take?
Listen carefully and feedback your agreement.
Then you could say “Thanks John is there anything else you’d like to say to conclude this meeting?”
This process has shown the person that you are interested in the person’s point of view, whilst still paying attention to the work.
Why don’t you practice it with your people now?
For an additional resource you could download my $7 e-book Ask or Tell- the power of asking or the force of telling. It has a coaching process, a conversation script and over 200 categorised leadership questions that can help you have very effective conversations, as well as other important leadership conversation solutions.
Please let me know how you go.
