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 third cause and together with the following two posts over the next week I’ll give you specific and actionable solutions for each cause for you to follow.
I’ll then wrap the solutions up into an 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’.
Cause 3 – Missing Coaching Opportunities
Leaders and managers are as busy as anyone else, if not more. They must prioritise how they deploy their efforts. This prioritisation can cause them to miss coaching opportunities.
Unfortunately those priorities are affected by some myths about coaching:
- Coaching is a remedial function – not true. Champions have coaches. Coaching is about enhancing skills, not just correcting them.
- The people who need coaching most are the average or poor performers – not true. We all benefit from coaching. High performers enjoy being challenged and seek to become even better. Average and poor performers want help but are scared that asking will mean confirmation that they are lesser and may even lead to career losses.
- Coaching must be asked for by the person seeking it – not true. Because there is a professional protocol that coaching is ideally voluntary, doesn’t mean the leader must wait to be asked. As pointed out before, some people who want coaching are afraid to ask for it lest they be deemed unworthy etc.
Another primary cause of coaching opportunities being missed is when the leader/manager lacks the confidence to offer. There are two common reasons behind that:
- fear of rejection; and
- uncertainty about how to proceed.
Here are some easy solutions you can adapt to suit your conditions:
- Create an informal coaching agenda for all your team – high, average and poor performers – these are regular but informal sessions that where you get to ask the seven questions I spoke about in my blog of 29th May.
- Keep a look out for spontaneous opportunities to coach – not only for improvement but for inspiration and motivation – for example “Hey John, can I see you for a moment? Let’s go for a coffee (or somewhere private). When there you could say “You know that job you just finished, that was great. How can we get that standard going over here in this work?”
- Get comfortable with being able to ask for a brief, private on-the-spot meeting to coach. Practice or rehearse what you’d ask to keep the conversation engaging, non-threatening, relevant and useful.
- Remember you are asking not telling!
- Always coach in private unless it is a group coaching session.
Could you practice with your people now?
Please let me know how you go.
Standby for part 4 – Waiting for That Perfect Time to Coach
