CHAPTER 9:
Compelling Coaching Techniques
This chapter addresses the definition, types, and timing of coaching. It points out how to use factual feedback within the coaching conversation. Emphasis is on revisiting performance expectations, providing help, and maintaining the relationship. Whether the employee believes that coaching is of benefit to her depends partially on how the manager positions the feedback and sets the tone for coaching. A manager must ask questions, listen, and convey friendliness to be an effective coach. The coaching session is an opportunity to help an employee self-discover ways to develop and enhance performance.
Definition and Purpose of Business Coaching
Business coaching is a collegial one-on-one process to help people excel in their job performance. Coaching is a series of meetings in which the manager and employee partner to define desired outcomes, plan how to achieve them, access resources, remove obstacles, and assess progress toward the desired outcomes.
Since you are responsible for the results of your entire team, it is essential that you give each teammate the resources to succeed. Coaching is a prime resource. Coaching is evolving as one of the top skills a manager must acquire because it strengthens individual, and thus team, performance.
Coaching starts with an evaluation of the needs and skills of your staff. The individual being coached may need your assistance so he can improve or enhance communication, leadership, teamwork, goal achievement, or technical aspects of his job. Coaching enables direct reports to meet goals, be productive, and learn new skills. As each individual enhances competencies, the entire team is strengthened.
Many managers do not understand the purpose of coaching direct reports. So let’s look at a model that is familiar to almost everyone. Perhaps you have coached, or been coached, in sports, music, dance, acting, or another venue. Ideal coaches in these situations create and communicate long-range strategies as well as tactical maneuvers. These coaches have a process, plan, and schedule to train and practice. They constantly remind team members of the goals they are striving to achieve. They give immediate feedback—both positive reinforcement and redirective. Coaches motivate people to persevere under the toughest of conditions and challenges. They trust that the individuals being coached can accomplish the goals and continually say so. These coaches convey that they share the goals with the team members—everybody wins or nobody wins. No matter the degree of winning, development of knowledge and skills takes place during the process. The person being coached expects the coach to always be in the background for support, motivation, and tips on how to enhance performance.
Most people understand that the purpose of sports or arts coaching is to reach specific results for both individual and group success. The coach is a positive influence and a motivational force for teammates to persist and continually develop for some end goal—a performance, a game, or maybe even a Super Bowl.
Coaching has the same purpose in business. It is a partnership to help develop an individual’s skills and knowledge so the team can prosper. It reduces employees’ learning curve and thus increases their comfort and confidence. Yet some managers resist coaching. Some confuse coaching with discipline or counseling. It is neither. Counseling and discipline deal with performance problems that the employee did not correct after receiving feedback and coaching. These problems must be carefully documented and company policy followed because the problem is serious and may lead to the employee’s termination. This book does not address discipline or counseling.
Although coaching is not counseling, coaching does involve tweaking performance, which is why some managers avoid it. But coaching is a gift that can be used to improve or prevent performance shortfalls, and to enhance already good performance. The manager assesses performance constantly throughout the year rather than only at annual or semiannual performance review time. By assessing performance regularly, the manager can help the employee boost it through positive reinforcement and redirective feedback and a coaching plan. Coaching divides up the time between formal appraisal meetings and helps ensure that the direct report owns the results of his or her work and is always supported to achieve them. In fact, many companies hire specialized coaches to work with their executives to support achievement or to prepare them for increased responsibilities.
One way to get clear on the positive purpose of coaching is to think of it as a communication “spa treatment.” Coaching is an opportunity to relax as the manager and employee massage the muscles of getting the job done. The idea is to enhance learning, rid performance of pesky knots, and leave the employee glad he came in for the occasion. It is special one-on-one time dedicated to refreshing performance, communicating, and galvanizing the employee’s energies toward the goals.
The coach is supportive and future oriented. She uses many communication skills: questioning techniques, listening, and keeping relationship central to addressing business challenges. The coach draws on both her content knowledge and ability to facilitate learning. Being a first-rate coach means the coach is highly evolved in the content and process of the work and highly confident in her ability to help others. It means she invests time in developing relationships, which facilitates coaching success.
Managing today includes influencing and invigorating people who are entrusted to your guidance. Inspirational guidance that managers provide through coaching fortifies the abilities of both the manager and the employee. It also fosters an energized, communicative environment in which everyone can work better together.
What Is the Relationship Between Feedback and Coaching?
The purpose of both coaching and feedback is to help employees achieve objectives and be self-sufficient in their work. Coaching is a long-term expression of a manager’s intention to help the employee be all that he can be professionally and to meet performance goals. Feedback is the manager’s input about a specific event or task. Coaching is a routine, scheduled boost to performance. Feedback can take place spontaneously when an employee needs it. Coaching needs to follow a process, because there is too much at stake to shoot from the hip.
Feedback is a miniprocess inside a bigger process. Coaching is a strategic process and part of performance management. Coaching links regular feedback with formal annual goal setting, professional development planning, the annual performance review, and back to setting the next year’s performance goals. Feedback is tactical and takes place immediately upon observing behaviors. When managers want to reward performance behaviors and see them repeated, they describe the behavior and the impact it has. When managers wants to help employees tweak or improve performance behaviors, again, they describe the behavior just observed and the impact it has. They also ask the employees’ ideas on how to redirect it. Feedback is to help an employee meet performance expectations, which are a subset of the annual performance goals.
Coaching Versus Feedback
A manager can coach before any work begins—for example, when delegating to clarify the assignment, when goal setting, when helping a person who is facing a new task or project, for career or professional development, during critical crossroads or milestones of a project, or when implementing a change initiative. You can’t give feedback before you observe a behavior—feedback occurs after an observed action or inaction, if action was expected. Example: a person did not participate in a meeting at which his or her input was crucial. Or, an individual helped a coworker meet a deadline.
Coaching delivers performance information on a routine basis. It is planned, prepared for, scheduled, and expected. Feedback is not necessarily expected, since it is given as an action occurs.
Coaching implies an ongoing relationship. Feedback does not. For example, anyone can give feedback to anyone else with or without an ongoing relationship. The visiting VP of sales from headquarters might accompany a salesperson on calls once a year and give one-time feedback. But it is the sales manager who is the ongoing coach and maintains the daily relationship.
Coaching implies agreement that one person is the coach and one is the person who will get coached. It also implies that there is a shared goal both are aiming for. Both want to win the game, but the coach won’t be out on the field actually playing. Feedback is not necessarily based on an agreement. Feedback is based on an observation in the moment, so anyone can give feedback to anyone: coworker to coworker, employee to manager, peer to peer, as well as manager to direct report. All coaching involves feedback. Not all feedback is part of coaching.
A coach wants to accomplish the most amount of change with the least amount of effort or force. The coach constantly makes decisions on how best to spend time. For example, how to word the feedback to effectively communicate the message, preserve the relationship, and affect results. Feedback, on the other hand, does not necessarily involve planning and preparation, since it must be given immediately in order for the employee’s behavior to be recognized and rewarded or redirected. Since coaching is on a routine basis, a manager shares his technical expertise or ability to facilitate the employee to tap into his own expertise. Coaching involves pre-positioning. It requires setting up the rules of the game ahead of time and getting agreement on the terms, process, and end result.
Coaching implies a trusting relationship that the coach and team member are on the same team and both need the same outcome. A baseball player would not accept coaching from an opponent, or from the opponent team’s coach. In business the analogy would be that your staff would not accept feedback from a manager from a competing company. The suspicion would be that the feedback is not in the team’s best interest, so they would not trust it.
Example of Feedback Versus Coaching
Feedback gives people information about what others perceive and observe about a single issue and helps them figure out their own path of action based on that information or perception. It is tactical in nature because it is a one-time event. However, feedback can trigger the need for coaching. Coaching is a strategic plan that is implemented over time. It may be precipitated by one issue, but since the employee cannot solve it in one feedback session, it is integrated with big-picture goals and scheduled to take some time. The feedback in each coaching session will be new information.
The story below is an actual example of when poor feedback was given. Instead, it should have been put in the context of a long-term coaching strategy. This would have informed the direct report of why the behavior was important and would have provided all the resources necessary to make the change.
Marcella was a top-rated, experienced, first-line manager of professional groups. She was recently promoted to manage managers for the first time. She reports to Mark, the VP, and three group managers now report to her. Carol is one of the three group managers on Marcella’s new staff. Carol is a newly promoted first-line manager with no previous management experience.
In this real-life example, Mark called Marcella into his office one day and told her that her staff call her “The Queen.” This feedback shocked Marcella. Since the judging term, “Queen,” was the nature of the feedback, Marcella did not know what it meant or what to do to fix it. Instead of using the hurtful label, Mark should have delineated specific communication behaviors that were causing tension between Marcella and Carol. Mark’s words made it sound as if all of the staff had problems with Marcella, when it was specifically Carol that had the problem. Mark’s tone of voice made it sound to Marcella as if he was rebuking her and siding with someone else.
In reality, the only person who had complained to Mark was Carol, who had not discussed any problems with Marcella. The communication misfire existed only among Marcella, Carol, and Carol’s staff. The other two managers reporting to Marcella, and their staffs, had no issue with Marcella’s management.
Mark should have asked questions of Carol to discover the real problem Carol and her staff were having with Marcella. If Mark had used the process in Chapter 6 and had untangled the judgment (“The Queen”), he could have discovered the facts and the observed behaviors that were not working.
Had Mark gathered facts, he could have given useful feedback (which would have been part of a general coaching conversation) to Marcella. Better feedback would have been:
You have an outstanding track record as a first-level manager. I’d like to help you succeed in your new role of managing managers and want us to collaborate on how best to do that. You have a successful relationship with two of your direct report managers. Let’s build on that for how you and Carol might work better together. You’ve been managing managers and setting up this new unit for only two months, so now is the ideal time to make a plan of where we go from here. I want to give you all the resources you need because I know you will be a terrific manager of managers with a little help.
As you advance to higher-level management, the need for excellent communication skills is imperative. You will need to learn to work well with larger groups and with direct report managers of differing styles. Let’s make sure you get what you need to grow your skills as your job scope expands and your responsibilities for people increase. Let’s work together to design a long-range coaching plan to help you develop the advanced communication skills you will need as a higher-level manager. I should have offered you management and communication training before you were promoted. I realize you have never had any of that training and yet you managed to be so successful. That’s amazing. Managing and communicating at your new management level will be more complex, so we will include training as part of our plan. We will make sure part of that training is about learning about people’s behavioral styles. You and I will meet regularly for coaching sessions so we can partner on your progress on our plan. With this coaching help, I know you will meet our mutual goal that you develop top-notch communication skills so you can continue your track record as a first-rate manager.
I want to tell you what Carol told me earlier today so we can figure out a plan of action to enhance your communication with Carol’s team. Carol said that her team feels that you don’t communicate well with them in terms of clarifying what you expect and then listening to their opinion of those expectations. They said you are not supportive in your ongoing assessment of their performance and you drive the project planning too hard. They are not used to formalized project planning and deadlines and may need some training. Let’s hear what you have to say.
If Mark had given feedback like that, and positioned it as part of a collaborative coaching plan to develop Marcella’s knowledge and skills, Marcella might not have run crying to the ladies’ room and then left work as soon as she had composed herself. If Mark had given the ideal feedback, he could have asked Marcella questions to help her work out a plan to address her relationship with Carol and Carol’s staff. Marcella would have been informed about specific observed behaviors, so she would know what to change, and given resources, so she could learn how to change. But this became a lost opportunity because Mark did not have the managerial and coaching skills himself. As it turned out, they never spoke of it again. The feedback evaporated into the air. But the problems and tension remained. Now, after several years of a good, collegial relationship with her boss, Marcella no longer trusted Mark. The relationship, unfortunately, was irreparably damaged. And Marcella struggled with communication issues, not knowing the root cause of the problems or how to fix them.
Feedback can be a one-time event. Coaching is an ongoing process. It incorporates feedback into a more strategic and comprehensive plan. It uses feedback as a foundation to fortify an ongoing partnership so that the employee can be successful. Using the previous “The Queen” example, the coaching would consist of identifying communication behaviors that prevented collaboration between Marcella and Carol and Carol’s team. Mark and Marcella would explore what behaviors would be most effective and how Marcella thought she could best develop them.
Coaching and Generational Differences
Coaching is a one-on-one communication skill that is emerging as one of the key success factors for managers. The purpose of coaching is to aid direct reports so that they have the information, skills, and organizational support they need to be highly productive, achieve peak performance, and thus meet organizational goals. It is a very collegial process—a partnership. The intention is to use communication skills and a good relationship to raise the level of performance.
This partnership is increasingly important to members of Generation Y, who are known to be more collegial in approach. In general, this generation enjoys working with people rather than in isolation. Office furniture has even been designed to accommodate these workers, who want to be next to, not in cubicles away from, their coworkers. They need a manager who can lead casual, collaborative conversations with them to help them grow their portfolio of skills. They understand they will be changing jobs in their lifetime and will need to collect a wide range of abilities to make them marketable. They expect coaching.
Coaching is important to other generations in the workforce also. Most workers, regardless of generation, want acknowledgment that their contribution is important and is noticed. More-experienced employees reporting to less-experienced (code for younger) managers have different coaching needs. A manager may or may not think the more-experienced worker has skill-development needs. But in all likelihood, the older worker has had it reinforced for years that his skills and contributions are acceptable, or perhaps even exceed expectations. A savvy younger manager understands this and uses it as the beginning conversation when setting up a coaching plan.
If the relationship is to be truly collegial, the experienced employee must be acknowledged for his contribution and invited to share ideas on the inevitable changes in the working relationship with his manager. One of the questions to be answered is how to best use the expertise of the more-experienced employee. Many companies are pairing baby boomers with other generations and letting both parties contribute and enjoy the best each generation has to offer. It goes back to relationship, which knows no generational boundaries. Relationships can be nourished as long as there is mutual respect and intention to work amicably together. So, in coaching, if the intent is to grow the relationship as well as the performance, the focus is people, not generations.
Benefits of Coaching
Coaching benefits everyone—the manager, the organization as a whole, and the direct report who is the recipient of coaching.
Benefits to the Leader
One of the most rewarding activities a manager can perform is to help a direct report expand skills, develop potential, and achieve success. Promoting the advancement of others increases one’s own skill sets and widens one’s sphere of influence. This depth and breadth of competence and confidence in the people side of the business inspires respect and trust from both direct reports and upper management. It prepares a manager for even greater responsibilities.
Coaching is a gift you give to others who want to achieve greatness. You share your aptitude, talent, knowledge, and skill to help others develop their own. As employees move in the direction of accomplishment, the manager generates a comfortable, low-stress environment. Strong relationships and commitment to organizational processes are possible to attain as members of the team buy in to mutual success. This team commitment attracts better recruits from within and outside the organization as it grows. It also prevents people problems and thus decreases turnover—an expensive, time-consuming, and team-disrupting occurrence. In an economic downturn, coaching is just as important to help employees minimize stress and maximize productivity. Downsizing is distracting and emotional, as employees survive the parting of friends and coworkers, and the workload increases. Taking time to coach people in any type of economy saves the manager time and is more efficient over the long haul.
Benefits to the Organization
The entire organization benefits when its managers coach employees. Coaching is one of the best practices a manager can provide to the company. It creates an interactive environment that encourages positive and effective work behavior. This management practice leads to long-term success through constant team improvement and thus a stronger, more cohesive, better functioning team. Team success instills a sense of security for the team.
When coaching is a management habit, it fosters respect, loyalty, and commitment to the team and the whole organization. It shapes trusting relationships in which honest, open communication reduces stress for everyone.
Coaching helps people learn about their own ideas and develop competence, which leads to personal job satisfaction and empowerment. Developing others helps the manager succeed in a manager’s main job: to get results through others. The partnership that coaching creates offers the opportunity to listen to feedback from employees and to work collaboratively. Ultimately, good relationships contribute to quality results, which translate to profitability and shareholder value. This spills over to the organization’s reputation in the industry, to customers, and to job seekers.
When a continual learning environment is established, it sets people up for success. To achieve goals and higher performance from individuals, the manager acts as a sports coach would: training and providing immediate feedback as well as engaging in long-term supportive interactions. Coaching increases safety on the job, prevents disciplinary issues, and ups team morale. Most of all, coaching creates working partnerships that convey the manager’s intention to help each employee develop competence and happiness in the organization so all employees can do their personal best.
Benefits to the Person Receiving Coaching
Coaching clarifies and communicates expectations over the long term. It reaffirms organizational goals and why they are important. People need to be reminded that what they are doing is important and how it fits into the big picture of the organization. This increases motivation and enhances relationships and team dynamics. When people are informed about how they are doing in relation to the goal, it keeps them on track. This constant communication about performance reduces stress and fear of the unknown. A more relaxed environment improves morale and enables people to focus on the work.
The personal attention of the coach is tailor-made for the individual’s goals, talent development, and triumphs. Coaching makes it possible for employees to receive positive performance appraisals—which can lead to increases in compensation. It makes the learning and the job easier and more meaningful. Being an active member of a partnership for ideal performance encourages buy-in, ownership, commitment, and full participation. If your direct reports are managers or potential managers, they learn effective coaching skills by being coached well.
As coaching adds to employee professional growth and development, it builds self-assurance to accept greater responsibility. This promotes long-term success and career opportunities, and helps with succession planning.
Coaching Behaviors
It’s important to neither overcoach nor undercoach, but to give the employee whatever information and support she needs to succeed. This implies the manager has developed a relationship with the employee and understands his or her talents. Assumptions that a person does or does not have certain knowledge or skills can derail coaching. The manager must continue the partnership throughout the coaching meetings.
The point of coaching is to enhance individual performance, which brims over into the well-being of the entire team. The purpose is not to point out shortcomings and hang people out to dry, call them out, or make them feel demoralized. If the gears of the relationship have been kept oiled, the coaching session will be a collaborative discussion. The manager is less likely to be defensive or fearful when she has built a relationship and established that her aim is always to support the employee’s best interests and align them with the organizational interests. Coaching should demonstrate that the employee is a valued member of the team and that you want to help the person thrive on the job.
Positive coaching behaviors on the part of the manager will reinforce the message the coaching is meant to convey. Perhaps the most important action will be listening with a neutral, nonemotional reaction. True listening means not interrupting, not advising, but showing interest with open body language, eye contact, and enough silence to let the person explain the meaning of her comments. Listening is an action because it requires intention and attention. The intention is the desire to maintain the relationship and help the employee achieve greatness. The attention is taking the time to prepare for coaching sessions and then participating in partnering dialogues with as much time as is necessary. We talk more about listening in Chapter 11.
One of the overriding coaching behaviors is not judging, but defining facts and observable behaviors. Preparing for coaching incorporates the concepts discussed in Chapter 6 on breaking judging habits.
The preparation also includes a factual assessment of the direct report’s skills and building the confidence to state them honestly and directly yet listen to the employee’s viewpoint to gather more facts. Working out key take-away action items is an appropriate coaching behavior. Coaches need to present the information in a positive context of continual learning that directly benefits the employee. A coach who is excited about the possibilities of growth and development, she generates enthusiasm and forward movement with the direct report.
Preparing questions and also asking spontaneous questions to facilitate the employee’s thinking so she can create her own plan of action contributes to buy-in and increased potential for changed behaviors. Empower the employee by agreeing to her plan (if workable), even if it is different from yours. Encourage and praise the person for current accomplishments. Consider role-playing, if it will help the employee. Share personal anecdotes of times when you were improving the same skills or how coaching has helped you progress. Provide the tools and resources the employee needs. Set a time for the next follow-up coaching session because it sets expectations that there should be progress on a timeline. Be accessible in between coaching meetings. Keep the follow-up coaching meeting that you committed to. It shows that skill development is important to you and increases your credibility.
Two Types of Coaching
There are two basic types of coaching: telling and asking. Both have a purpose and an appropriate use depending on the work that needs to get done and the skill level of the employee.
Telling coaching is sometimes called directive, or pushing, coaching, because you push information and directions on the person you are coaching. The coach does not ask the direct report’s opinion because there is only one way to do it, there is a crucial deadline, and/or the person is new to this particular work.
Asking coaching is sometimes called discovery, exploring, or pulling coaching, because, by asking questions, the coach pulls information from the direct report, who discovers his own answers, solves his own problems, and makes his own decisions. This creates sought-after buy-in and ownership because the solutions belong to the employee. This kind of coaching is collegial in nature and requires partnership behaviors.
Telling Coaching
Telling coaching is appropriate in some situations. When telling, the role of the manager is to reinforce previous training, guide, and advise. The manager does not make suggestions because this gives a direct report an option to accept or reject the information. Telling is not suggesting. It is expecting the task to be done in one particular way. Asking a person’s opinion when there is no option to include it will only make her angry, distrustful, and unwilling to contribute ideas when they are needed.
Managers often misuse telling coaching because it is most expedient. Sometimes an employee asks for help and the manager replies by telling him what to do. “Just do it this way” is faster than talking, asking questions, and listening. Sometimes managers improperly tell, instead of ask, when they want employees to do the job the way the manager used to do it. Other ways might work, but it is safer and faster to tell about a proven way to do it instead of exploring the employee’s ideas. However, in the long run it takes longer for an employee to become fully competent and trust her own judgment if the manager keeps giving instructions instead of teaching the employee how to be responsible for her own work and be self-sufficient.
There seems to be a link between managers who are reluctant to delegate and those who slip into telling coaching. Some managers fear that employees will not get the work done as well as it would be done if the managers do it themselves. Some at least want the work done the way they always did it. It has worked well in the past to do the tasks that way. In fact, their methods of getting results may have been what earned them the promotion to manager. However, to fulfill their objectives of getting results through and with others, managers must move on and lead others to successfully do the work. Oftentimes, the employee has a different, new, or even better way of getting things done.
Asking Coaching
Asking coaching takes more time in the short run because the manager has to think of nonleading questions that will help the employee think about how to solve his own problem or make his own decision. Then the manager has to listen to the answers and, without casting judgments, ask more questions until the employee feels comfortable that he has a course of his own that will indeed work.
Many managers fall into the trap of solving employees’ problems because “they asked.” If an employee goes to the manager for direction, she may need it. However, often employees go because they don’t trust themselves, a previous manager always told them to do it one way that was the manager’s way, they fear repercussions, or they are trying to reduce the potential of rework.
Just because a direct report asks a manager to solve a problem for her does not mean it is the smartest course of action a manager can take. A manager’s overarching job is to get quality work done through others. This means the manager must help each direct report develop to be the most knowledgeable and skilled worker she can be. A person whose manager is the source of all knowledge does not fully develop in the job she is paid to do.
An intelligent manager looks down the road at the cost of not doing asking coaching. If employees do not learn to take full control of their jobs, the manager’s time will be sucked away. The manager will have little time to do strategic thinking and the level of work appropriate to his or her position and grade. So although asking coaching takes more time initially, in the long run it saves time. Eventually, employees learn to ask themselves the questions necessary to come up with effective answers.
When to Use Telling Coaching
Telling coaching communicates both what is expected and how to get a task done. It is a supportive tool to use because employees can feel confident that they are doing something the correct way when there is only one way to do something.
Suitable times to tell a direct report how to do the task are:
For routine, repetitive tasks: for example, order fulfillment and purchase order follow-up
For standard reports: for example, expense reports
When procedures and policies are already defined
For new task assignments
When deadlines are looming
When setting goals/corporate goals from upper management
When following instruction manuals for machines
For Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
When introducing new policy
During emergency, crisis situations when there is no time for asking coaching
For simple tasks with no room for interpretation
For impromptu projects with no lead time
For anything with legal or compliance ramifications (when it must be done a certain way)
For health and safety issues
For disaster planning
When directed by a boss to do it a certain way and passing it on to your direct report
When telling “guidelines” for company objectives
When setting expectations
When choosing the direction/telling after ideas are generated
For performance improvement plans
For new hires
During some training: for example, using software, operating machines
When asking coaching fails and the employee is demonstrating a performance problem
When dealing with a timid employee or one who does not want responsibility
When to Use Asking Coaching
Asking coaching communicates what needs to get done but helps the direct report figure out how to get a task done and to take ownership of the solution. This tool empowers and energizes the employee because the coach’s questions allow a person to discover and explore his own solutions. This both demonstrates the manager’s confidence in the employee and reinforces the employee’s trust in himself. When the employee bears responsibility for deciding and taking action to achieve the outcome, the employee tends to own the outcome and the process to get there. The coach acts more as a catalyst to prompt the employee’s own thinking.
Applicable times to use asking coaching are:
Whenever a manager can delegate the “how”
For research
For professional development/personal growth
When the project/process calls for an experienced person or one with specific education/certification to do the work (for example, an engineer, a librarian, etc.)
When the employee has more domain-specific knowledge
During process improvements
For individual challenges
During problem solving, decision making, and planning
For career progression and determining career path
When the employee has done a similar task or project in the past
When determining how an employee will reach a goal
During participative training, where participants are highly involved
When identifying roles, responsibilities, and level of authority
During conflict resolution
When building accountability/“ownership”
When learning about an employee’s process skills—how he approaches a project
For discovering the depth of a direct report’s knowledge
When a competent employee asks for help or is not sure of an answer
When a direct report asks for more responsibility and you need to create a plan
During weekly progress meetings
During annual performance review meetings
When getting ideas on restructuring, creating new positions, introducing new products or projects
For developing more advanced skills
Process for Asking Coaching
Relationships will always rule. Make all efforts to preserve the relationship while speaking in a neutral, nonjudgmental, but direct and honest way. Be supportive. Follow all the steps shown for “before” and “during” coaching for the best outcome in terms of both relationship and business results.
Before Coaching
Prepare ahead of time. It is important to revisit job expectations when preparing for coaching. Then gather facts about performance as they relate to expectations. Is performance at its peak, and you want to help keep it there? Is performance right on track, and you’d like to help the employee escalate it to excellence? Is performance off course, and you want to steer it back on target?
Decide if your coaching is telling or asking or a combination of both. List questions you will ask the employee to stimulate her thinking about current performance, skills, organizational supports and obstacles, problem analysis, and decision making.
Set up the coaching meeting and give the employee time to prepare. This can be part of your routine progress meeting or scheduled separately.
During the Coaching Meeting
Open the conversation. Tell employee the purpose of coaching. Say you want to work together to set up a plan to help him develop a particular skill or meet a particular goal. Set your comments in positive terms and within the context of continual learning. (Remember the previous “Marcella/Queen” example on enhancing communication skills for higher-level management positions?)
Get agreement on the expectation or goal and how it benefits the employee. Always ensure that the employee understands the benefit to him.
Find out the employee’s assessment of his performance as it relates to the goal. Ask open-ended questions and listen to the answers. Paraphrase the answers and clarify as you go. Facilitate a discussion in which the direct report does most of the talking and most of the thinking through of the issues.
Give feedback. Keep it in the context of the big picture of the ongoing coaching plan. Offer specific, factual observations on progress as it directly relates to expectations. If the employee disagrees, ask questions, revisit facts, and keep conversing until you agree on the facts.
If there is resistance to the feedback, refocus the conversation. Ask the employee’s perspective through a neutral statement, such as, “Tell me more about that.” Paraphrase the employee’s point of view to show you understand what he is saying. (This does not mean you necessarily agree with the view, but it does mean you understand what he is trying to say.) If you don’t understand the employee’s viewpoint, ask questions to clarify meaning. Then ask open-ended questions to discover his rationale. There may be facts you don’t know that change the direction to take next. But, if the employee is just offering excuses, refocus on observed behaviors and facts.
Work out the next steps together. Learn about the employee’s ideas of what he can do to move performance toward the goal. What would his next steps look like? What resources does he need? What obstacles do you need to remove so he can succeed? What are your own ideas for next steps? Decide mutually on what is best.
Energize the employee. Infuse the conversation with enthusiasm and excitement about the employee’s plan of action. Discuss the logic and benefits of the employee’s approach.
Sum up and clarify. Ask the employee to sum up the discussion of the expected performance goals, current performance, and the action steps and timeline to get there.
Set up the next collaborative coaching conversation.
Is It the Manager Who Needs Coaching?
Sometimes an indication that the manager needs training or coaching is when she catches herself blaming or judging an employee. Mary, a manager participating in a management class, complained about a direct report.
“She is Mt. Vesuvius!” she exclaimed.
“What does Mt. Vesuvius mean?” I asked.
“She’s like a volcano that erupts every day.”
Mary was a newly promoted first-time supervisor who was Generation Y. Ginny was her direct report. Ginny, a baby boomer, had been doing the job for fifteen years. Mary was upset about having to work with Ginny because she felt Ginny was “Mt. Vesuvius.”
As mentioned in Chapter 6 on unraveling judgments, managers sometimes judge and blame the employee when there is a problem. Mary first defined her problem by blaming Ginny and calling her “Mt. Vesuvius.” Imagine the scenario from Ginny’s vantage point. She comes in to work every day and her boss sees her as a giant volcano about to spill over with hot lava, instead of seeing her as a person. Ginny cannot meet her boss’s expectations because she does not know what they are.
As Mary and I used the unraveling judgments process explained in Chapter 6, Mary tried to redefine the problem in factual, behavioral terms. This was difficult. At first Mary redefined the problem as, “Ginny does not respect me because I am younger than she is.” I kept asking open-ended questions to help Mary peel back one layer at a time. Finally, Mary got to the actual behavior she had observed.
The observed behavior was that Ginny was following the same procedures she had always followed. She did the job exactly the same way she had done it for years. All those years she was rewarded for her performance and got high performance appraisal ratings. Now Ginny had a new manager but the new manager had not stated any change in what Ginny was to do.
As we worked at solving the problem, Mary recognized she had not made her expectations clear. She also realized that the procedures were probably out of date. In this case, the employee was getting blamed daily because of organizational obstacles: out-of-date procedures, lack of clear managerial direction, and no notification that a change in the way to do the work had taken place.
Although Mary had bruised the relationship, it could be healed. Mary, the manager, made a plan for what to do when she got back to work. She intended to tell Ginny that she wanted to make a fresh beginning of working well together. Then she would discuss the misunderstanding. Her next step would be to seek Ginny’s input on why she was doing the work the way she was doing it. Mary would read the procedures and discuss whether they were useful or should be changed with Ginny. Mary planned to ask questions to seek Ginny’s expertise and experience and show she valued both.
Mary would then decide if there was discretion for Ginny to determine the how or if the work demanded strictly following procedure. Mary would also determine if she was insisting on work being done her own way when Ginny’s way might work just as well. If the work needed to be done only one way, she would lead a conversation about the new expectations and the logic behind why the changes had been made. She would discuss why it was important to do the work the new way.
Perhaps most important, Mary would acknowledge that Ginny was previously reinforced to do the job a different way by previous managers. Mary would clarify that her expectations represented a change.
During the discussions with Ginny, Mary said she planned to ask open-ended questions to help Ginny express her feelings about the changed expectations. Questions would also help Ginny figure out how to work the new way so she could meet the new expectations.
Mary was excited about how much she learned in the management training. She had a roadmap of what to do to solve people problems and prevent them in the future. She realized that she needed to create a plan for growing her management knowledge and expertise. She decided to ask her manager for ongoing coaching so she could learn more about how to effectively delegate, give feedback, and coach.
Summary
Coaching, including giving targeted feedback, offers a collaborative approach to helping direct reports do their best work and succeed. Isn’t that one of a manager’s primary goals—to help others achieve success? Using a logical coaching process helps the manager stay on track to give the employee what he needs based on the goals or project. When coaching is done well, it strengthens the working relationships between managers and their employees.
Coaching assumes that setting clear expectations and delegating have been done well in the first place. We look more closely at delegating in the next chapter, Chapter 10.