As a coach this means accepting that the coachee’s polarities may well not be your polarities. The Manager Coach who intervenes in the process through deciding what the polarities should be derails the exercise. Having decided on meaningful polarities, the coachee is then invited to rate their present performance against that scale. In this instance, the individual rates them-selves at 2.
Challenge for the Manager Coach
From your perspective, this may seem an inappropriate rating. You may see them as regularly confronting situations, and feel that they are underselling themselves. You may be a ‘cup-half-full person’, who cannot understand how anyone would rate themselves so low, and have an urge to encourage a higher rating. Alternately, they may rate themselves at 8, a rating with which you profoundly disagree, based on your experience of them. The challenge for the coach is to accept that this is their perception, and it is from this that you are helping them build solutions.
A rating of 2 may appear that there is little to work with, but solution focused coaching looks for what is there, and asks the individual to explain what 2 looks like. What are they doing that explains rating themselves at 2 rather than 0?
Their first reply is likely to be in the negative:
g Well I know they will resist the minute I try and give them tough feedback.
g I lose confidence when I can see their body language stiffen up.
Challenge for the Manager Coach
The challenge for the coach is to keep the other person focused on the resources that are there, even in a rating of 2. Since they have not rated themselves at 0, what it is it that they are doing, as distinct from not doing? They may reply:
g I did once manage to get him/her to listen to a difficult message.
g I believe it is too important to ignore.
g I have got some time with them next week, and I have flagged up that piece of work as something I want to talk about.
Someone who sees themselves as failing in an area of their work ignores contrary evidence. The coach’s role is to help them find that evidence, no matter how small.
A common fear is that the coachee will place themselves as 0. In reality, this rarely, if ever, happens. Even if it does, it allows for getting negative data into the open on what specifically contributes to a rating of 0. The Manager Coach can accept their assessment, knowing that the next question forces a shift in thinking.
The question:
Where do you think you need to be in order to . . .?
invites the coachee to identify the place on the scale that they aspire to. The point at which they can achieve their goal. At this point it becomes untenable to remain at 0, since change is impossible from this position. The answer will come at any point beyond their present rating, and it may not be 10.
Challenge for the Manager Coach
This is another point at which the urge to intervene can be strong. Goal achievement suggests that individuals should be aspiring to 10. However, from the other’s perspective this may be beyond their present reach. Solution focused coaching looks to create and build on progress, however small, since it is from a sense of progress that bigger goals emerge. Solution building does not demand that the individual sets themselves a goal that, at that moment, seems unachievable.
This coachee identifies 7 as the point they would like to reach. Although a number has no absolute meaning, it will have meaning for them. That meaning is revealed through asking the question:
What would be different if you were at 7?
This simple question invites the other person to start identifying the data they are looking for that will signal the desired change has happened. They answer:
g I would have performance data to hand when we speak, rather than relying on my impressions.
g I would own what I am saying, rather than saying, ‘people tell me that you are not . . .’.
g I would clear my diary for 30 minutes before meeting with them, so that I prepare my argument and anticipate their objections.
g I would write down key phrases to keep me focused when they start trying to deflect me.
g I would keep in mind the reason I am challenging their performance, rather than worrying about myself.
In identifying the difference, it is apparent in their answers that they have identified their solutions.
Challenge for the Manager Coach
Once they have identified the differences, the challenge for the Manager Coach is to help them find evidence that they have applied those solutions before, so that the implementation of the solution becomes easier. The evidence may already be there. In talking through the issue, reality bite questioning could have allowed them to recognize that exceptionally they do many of those things they are now
0 Could not imagine confronting
10 Confronting every time I see
under-performance
2 7
The space for solution building
Figure 10.2 Space for solution building
seeking to apply to this situation. In this case, the Manager Coach simply needs to remind them of the resource. If that evidence has not emerged, the coach supports them through questioning to seek out exceptions, or to test out the difficulty of doing something they have not previously done.
If it becomes clear that the individual has never applied any of the solutions that they are now looking to use, the Manager Coach can help them rescale their aspirations, through asking them to define:
What would one point up from where you currently are look like?
Looking one point up provides solutions that are easily achieved, and from which a sense of progress can build. This is important when the scale of aspira-tion is larger than the resources available. One point up in this instance could be:
g ‘Making a few phone calls to internal customers to get some feedback data.
It would give me some backbone knowing it is not just me who thinks this.’
g ‘Getting out their objectives and using them in our weekly meeting to signal that I have my eye on performance delivery.’
g ‘Extracting data from the Management Information System so that I know I have some objective information on their performance.’
Any one of these ‘one point ups’ will provide a basis for moving up to the next point, and from this identifying the next scale point.
Challenge for the Manager Coach
The challenge for the Manager Coach is to hold back from giving solutions. You will see many other things that they could do, but their ownership will be much greater for those things they identify themselves. It also asks that the Manager Coach accepts that there are many routes to the same destination. While the route the coachee takes may not be your route, if it gets them to the right place they do not need your map.
Sometimes, the individual will signal that they recognize the gap, but that they are struggling with how to make the difference. In this case, it can be helpful to ask if they would like some suggestions to get their thinking moving. This is qualitatively different from telling them what they should do. The purpose in making suggestions is not to signal your superior knowledge or experience, but
to pump-prime their thinking. A suggestion is a pebble thrown in order to stir up the surface of the other’s thoughts, rather than to provide the answer.
In making the suggestion, the Manager Coach has to be prepared for it to be rejected, accepting that its value is in helping them clarify their own solutions.
Because a scale is a simple visual structure that allows for framing sometimes complex thoughts, it speeds up the solution-building process. The process of putting things on a scale allows for expressing subjective thoughts and feelings within a structure that accepts them as objective. Its strength lies in the fact that it can be applied to any target that has been identified:
Target:
The confidence to speak out in a large meeting.
Scale: confidence in large groups.
Target:
To influence a US project worker when contact is only by telephone.
Scale: ability to influence at a distance.
Target:
To gain a promotion through committing 110 per cent to work over the next year.
Scale: willingness to commit 110 per cent.
Target:
To find a way of working with the organizational changes rather than resisting them.
Scale: willingness to change.
Target:
To delegate more to direct reports.
Scale: comfort in delegating.
C
ASES
TUDYVanessa had had an early career as a university lecturer. She joined a multinational in her late 20s and worked in a series of jobs where her analytical abilities, retention of detail and ability to see to the heart of an issue quickly brought her recognition. Being intelligent marked her out until she found herself on a subsidiary board of the company, working alongside an equally able peer group. They quickly came to resent her style. She was too quick to provide answers to others’ problems and could