Your concerns are likely to be around the time implications. How do you make coaching implementable when it is so often easier to send an email saying what you want of them, or to avoid giving feedback for risk of the reaction. Since so many of our actions within work are done in order to try and protect our time, what is the case for offering more of yourself to staff ?
C
ASES
TUDYKay was at the bottom of the management structure of a large food retailer, with responsibility for one section of the store. She had noticed that some produce was not selling and suspected it was the way it was displayed. She said nothing, however, because she assumed it was not her role, and that others would know better. One day, a regional manager visited the store and started to chat to her about her area. Feeling he had some interest, she asked him ‘Do you think this layout works?’. Expecting him to share his far greater knowledge of retailing by telling her what to do, she was surprised when he replied, ‘What do you think isn’t working?’. She told him her perspective, in order that he would solve the problem, and was flattered when he responded, ‘It sounds as though you understand what the problem is, what do you think we should change?’.
Emboldened, she told him. To which he replied ‘So, what is stopping you from doing it?’. ‘I did not think I could’, she responded. ‘Who has told you not to use your initiative?’, he questioned. To which the truthful response was ‘No-one’.
Kay repeated this story to me many years after the conversation because it had had a profound effect on her, not only at the time, but in her subsequent management of staff. What she had learnt was not just that a manager can inspire confidence in the ability to act, but that a short interaction can have a big impact. She had never worked anywhere where managers had the time to sit down to coach, but she believed profoundly in the power of coaching for performance.
Although at the time Kay would not have recognized that she was receiving coaching, what she registered was:
g the manager had shown her the respect of listening to her
g he had challenged her assumptions
g he had encouraged her to identify a solution (which may not have been his solution to the problem)
g he had encouraged her to use her awareness as a motivation to act
g he had modelled an approach that she continued to use to great effect.
Contrast this with my recent experience as a late learner of keyboards.
The teacher, considerably younger than myself, uses the lessons to bombard me with theory, which I am incapable of absorbing. He keeps me in a lesson for an hour when after thirty minutes my head is reeling. He ignores the book I bring, which includes songs that I enjoy and could imagine myself playing along to, and determines what I should be playing. He does not ask me how I learn best, tells me his approach, and then expresses surprise that I cannot move my fingers across the keyboard at speed. ‘It is hard to imagine why someone can’t do it, when you can yourself’, he commented after watching one of my painful attempts.
Standing on the outside as a coach, I can see that he feels intimidated by being asked to teach a middle-aged woman when his average pupil is pre-teen. He feels that he will gain credibility with me by showing his theoretical credentials and displaying that his approach is different from previous teachers who have struggled to get my two hands moving together with any fluidity. What is missing from this is any awareness of me, my feelings at attempting to learn a new skill, my goals and motivations. What I am learning are my own inadequacies. As a provider of a service, this works to his financial advantage, in that he shows me that I need considerable teaching help, but he fails to engender any enthusiasm to rush home and practise.
Transfer this back into the workplace, and you can see the parallels:
g the manager who, on being brought a work issue, uses it as an opportunity to display their superior knowledge
g the manager who fails to recognize that individuals have anxieties and concerns, as distinct from skills deficits, in taking on new challenges
g the manager who does not take the time to discover an individual’s preferred way of approaching a task, and assumes it is their way
g the manager who leaves you feeling even less adequate at the end of an interaction, with the result that you either go away and don’t ask again, or that your confidence about delivering is reduced, leading you to want more and more input on what you should be doing.
Amongst managers there are many well-meaning instructors, who give of their time without gaining a performance pay off.
A Manager Coach gives of just enough time to ensure that the person is able to act. The four questions that need to be asked every time an employee seeks help are these:
F – How can I ensure this conversation is focused and has purpose?
A – Is this conversation moving towards their ability to take action?
S – Is this conversation helping the other person to find a solution, rather than holding onto the problem?
T – Is this conversation timely and time effective?
Working within the FAST framework, a coaching conversation can take minutes. Consider Kay’s conversation.
F – It focused absolutely on Kay’s concerns about her part of the store with the purpose of equipping her to take initiative.
A – The manager assumed that the aim was to enable Kay to take action, rather than to talk about the problems of layout.
S – He pulled the solution out from her, rather than pushing his solution.
T – The conversation was clearly timely, and it took no longer than it needed to take.
Good Manager Coaches are FAST. The rest of this book is about helping you become the best FAST coach that you can be. It will provide you with the STARTED framework for managing conversations, with tools that you can use, and case studies – case studies that relate to the issues typically brought to managers, when they are up against deadlines, about to go to an important meeting, facing a difficult conversation with their own boss, or about to leave the office for the weekend.
You already know a great deal that is helpful to coaching staff. The purpose of this book is to help you recognize what you know, and help you address blind spots. An added bonus is that by modelling this approach with your direct
reports, you will equip them to deal with their reports, modelling the behav-iours you have used with them.
Summary
g This chapter has laid out the ground as to why coaching is more than just a ‘flavour of the month’ management skill, but a valuable approach to motivating staff and thereby enabling them to meet your needs and their own needs.
g Coaching has been identified as ‘two people engaged together in raising the awareness of one of them, and therefore their ability to act’. It is the focus on awareness for action that is central to keeping both manager and staff member on target, and not drifting into areas of discussion that either lead to insight without action or to levels of disclosure that the manager is unable to deal with.
The underpinning of all that follows in this book is that in order for coaching to be used within a management skill set, rather than becoming the focus of a manager’s role, it needs to be FAST.
References
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