Recently, I learned more about coaching tools. One type of coaching I am familiar with is through the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, but it stops at peer coaching and limits how much you can do to help another person. I have explored working with good leadership coaches who have been more personal and holistic. Right now, I am interested in results-based coaching. How can we use coaching as a conversation to get results or drive performance?
As someone always curious about how to lead and manage myself, I’ve come to appreciate how powerful coaching can be. I attended a workshop on coaching conversations and reviewed valuable concepts and tools. I’ll share my recent learnings here.
What is coaching?
Coaching is a co-creative development process designed to help individuals and teams achieve and sustain top performance in ways that are linked to the organization’s needs and measurable business results. ~ LHH.com.vn
Although this definition tries a little too hard to put everything in a single sentence, it is a good and relevant one for me. I like the focus on tying performance with the organization’s needs and results. Coaching is also not limited to individuals but can be designed for teams. Tell me more!
It is a good reminder to be clear about what coaching is not, more than what it is about. There are two obvious but important points. First, I should stop focusing on the individuals without considering the organizational goals and impact. My executive job is clarifying goals and impact at the organization’s level so that coaching can cascade to the individuals. We are not the best people to help employees outside those areas. My coaching job then is to help employees within the proper organizational context. Second, I should also not focus on the status of actions and forget to pay attention to behavior changes. Shifting behavior is critical to the impact on coaching.
Coaching, mentoring and directing
As obvious as it sounds, not all conversations should be coaching conversations. In a leadership position, we must differentiate and choose the right approach between coaching, mentoring, and directing. That’s situational leadership. Whether coaching, mentoring, or directing, they all involve working with goals, expertise, solutions, and execution. But in each area, that’s where the differences are.
Goals
Directing tells others the goals and business results that need to be achieved. Mentoring assists in achieving their known goals. Coaching helps identify goals and achieve them.
Expertise
Directing means showing how it’s done. Mentoring means sharing experiences and networks to help a mentee. Coaching means providing a process to help coachees shift behaviors toward their goals.
Solutions
Direction means sharing ideas and solutions that need to happen. Mentoring means solving the problem together, combining ideas from both sides. Coaching means encouraging the coachees to come up with ideas and solutions.
Execution
Directing focuses on the immediate execution of a goal. Mentoring involves periodically scheduled meetings. Coaching can be on-demand or scheduled.
Coaching is about shifting behaviors.
I can recall when I was unsatisfied with my coaching work due to failure to focus on behavior changes. Ultimately, coaching is about change. Coaching can help people move through the five changes:
- Awareness
- Acceptance
- Skills development
- Behavior shift
- Mastery
Five stages of behavioral shift
It was natural to me that when I tried to coach employees, I had to make sure they could see their weaknesses and they accepted they needed help. However, the five stages I learned from the workshop make it ten times more precise. I will keep going back to them.
Awareness: When we get feedback on our behaviors, we can take the opportunity to develop a new understanding. This is labeled unconscious incompetence. Examples: “You tend to be the first to speak,” “You do not tend to smile, making people think you are stressed,” and “You are not responsive enough in this collaboration.”
Acceptance: we have to agree that actions must be taken on the feedback received. If this stage is not achieved, all the later stages will return here. We can short-circuit the coaching process if this cannot be achieved. This is labeled conscious incompetence. We become well aware of what we are not good at.
Skill development: It takes training, education, experience, or all to develop new skills.
Behavioral shift: happens when we find a new approach or way of thinking. Old patterns can be broken. This is labeled as conscious competence. We start to know how to use the skill consciously.
Mastery: the new behavior feels natural. This is labeled as unconscious competence.
This highlights the challenges of coaching. It can take months to achieve the five stages. It can take months to coach a manager to go through at least four stages. I wonder if it’s easier for the less senior staff, because they are more impressionable.
Coaching Readiness
Can everyone be coached? No. Many factors make a person uncoachable for specific goals at a certain time. So first, we have to accept that not everyone is coachable. It’d be helpful to be aware of the potential reasons. We must stop investing time and energy into coaching the uncoachable. It takes practice and skills to evaluate whether we can have coaching conversations with someone.
It’s also not black and white. There are reasons a person may not respond well to coaching.
The person may be ready for coaching, but the organizational culture or environment is not ready to support the change. In my business, we may have to move people to a different project.
The person may not be ready to accept that their behavior is a key factor. Performance management standards can point out the suboptimal results. If the person is motivated, we have a chance to reinforce coaching.
Who are good candidates for coaching? They should be open to feedback, naturally. They should desire change. They can sense the sense of urgency, whether internal or external. The organization needs to support this change.
This table is useful to consider the right approach with the right people.
| Readiness level | Manager’s primary action | Indicators | What to do | What to avoid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Closed | Listen | Resists feedback; unmotivated | Meet them where they are. Observe. Stay neutral. Be curious. | Just ignore. Getting angry. Giving feedback. Pressuring |
| Skeptical | Communicate | Defensive but some openness to development and feedback | Dialogue Ask questions. Listen deeply. Share a curiosity. Relate a personal story | Judge. Move too fast. Telling what to do. |
| Curious | Support | Feedback seen as wakeup call | Confidence in them. Maintain their self-esteem. Development is a process. | Dominate discussion. Dwell on their shortcomings |
| Committed | Collaborate | Real interest in improving; seek feedback. | Guidance and positive models. Culture and env support. Remove development barriers. Reinforce efforts and progress | Assume sufficient org support for change. Believe they have role models for effective leadership Let them self-navigate |
| Energized | Engage | Desires to grow and develop; Appreciate coaching. | Timely appropriate feedback. Development plans. Link performance/development to goals. Modify evaluation based on new info. | Think feedback is one-time event. Non-collaborative development goals. Assume they understand multiple perspectives. |
This is getting too long. I’ll do part 2 another day.