Executive coaching is a growth business.the marketplace is increasingly crowded with messianic motivational coaches. Amid the hype, the real power and purpose of coaching can be forgotten. Mike Brent brings coaching back to the basics of learning and. Mike Brent is a senior There are many definitions of coaching. One Coaching, therefore, is about letting the which I find useful is by the writer Denis employee perform to their full potential. Kinlaw: Successful coaching is a mutual conversation between manager and employee that follows a predictable process and leads to The need for coaching superior performance, commitment to sustained improvement, and positive relationships. As we change from an industrial society to a This definition is attractive because it stresses service and knowledge economy, the need is for the two way aspect of coaching. Coaching is a employees who can think for themselves, be conversation rather than a monologue. Having creative and react quickly and appropriately to a predictable process allows for repeatability different situations. The command and control and training. This is important in organisations model cannot work in this environment, as people where too often the coaching process is so need to be able to think independently. If informal that there is no real structure or employees have to wait for the boss to decide, or if follow up. they let their boss do all the thinking for them, The aim of coaching is always to have better then it slows down the whole organisation and it performance and it is my belief that the eventually becomes a dinosaur. relationship between manager and employee is There is an expression, To take the monkey, key to effective performance. Recent research by meaning that you end up taking on other people s Gallup has shown that the key factor in problems and issues. This is extremely common in successful performance is the relationship management for two reasons. First, the manager between manager and employee. very often thinks that their job is to solve The coach facilitates learning and does not problems. Second, as a result of hierarchy and own the problem. The coach helps the person command and control cultures, many employees being coached develop their own thinking and have got used to letting someone else do their awareness. Many managers make the mistake of thinking for them. At Ashridge, we see in our trying to own their employees problems with workshops many examples of managers whose the result that they end up taking responsibility default style is to go immediately to giving advice and learning away from the person. the Why don t you style of management. consultant in Ashridge Consulting and has trained and consulted with major international companies all over the world, as well as lecturing at several business schools. He is interested in the nature of challenge and creativity in organisations, in helping managers develop their coaching skills, and in facilitating change. Email: mike.brent @ashridge.org.uk 11
+ UNCERTAINTY Instead of asking questions, and listening, when an employee comes to them, many managers feel obliged to offer their solution. Apart from the fact that the boss is not always right, this leads to a mental laziness from the employee, who is not being forced to think the issues through and come up with different courses of action. A further impetus to coaching is the shift from management to leadership (although organisations still need both). In this new leadership paradigm, leaders must be able to coach. Coaching is essentially about creating and generating options and alternatives. If your only COACHING IN A COMPLEX ENVIRONMENT NEED TO SHARE PROBLEMS ONS CONFLICT POTENTIAL DILEMMAS example, the question, What should our strategy be for the next five years? has no single correct answer waiting to be discovered. This is a dilemma, not a puzzle nor a problem. All managers can do is to engage in dialogue, listen, be creative and come up with different options and alternatives. Then they need to objectively analyse the alternatives and choose the one that has a chance of engaging the organisation s attention and energy. If we confuse puzzles with dilemmas, then we are in danger of simplifying the issue, imposing dogma instead of looking together for alternatives. As one manager said: It s got to be an extremely simple question to have an answer. Unfortunately, in reality there are no longer that many simple questions. Abandoning the security of knowing 12 PUZZLES COMPLEXITY + Figure 1. Source: Critchley and Casey1 style is to tell people what to do, you are not empowering or enabling them. You are not growing and developing your most important resource. And, you are wasting your own valuable time. Time is increasingly short because the rate of change is accelerating and the degree of complexity encountered by managers increasing rapidly. Managers are having to deal less with simple puzzles, and more with complex problems and dilemmas (see Figure 1). The difference is that with puzzles, there are answers available, and they can often be solved by an individual. With complex problems, they are less evident and are likely to need input from different sources to solve them. And then there are dilemmas which don t have any solutions, only options and alternatives. For The question for managers must be: If you re not coaching your people how are you managing them? If coaching can be defined as unlocking potential, if managers aren t unlocking it, what are they doing? Coaching unlocking potential, developing people, promoting learning and confidence is the key role of the manager. More and more of the problems the manager faces are human ones rather than technical ones. Many managers are excellent at solving technical issues, but are not so good at dealing with human ones. One of the key roles of a manager is to develop his or her people. It is not always an easy role to play. One manager, talking about the move from being the expert to being the coach, put it nicely when he said: It s very uncomfortable to leave the comfort and security of knowing. Coaching is about helping people, enabling them to achieve something they want to achieve, whether it may be promotion, skills, performance or self-understanding or better balance. It has to be client centred and not coach, or even organisation, centred.
The argument for coaching in terms of competitiveness is among the most straightforward. When products and services are similar, competitive advantage comes from having people with ideas, skills, responsibility and initiative. Learning makes the difference and the core idea of coaching is to develop others to help them learn. Without coaching this cannot be achieved. Ultimately, as the environment grows more and more complex, performance will be as a result of learning. To paraphrase Reg Revans, the founder of action learning, if the environment changes faster than your organisation learns, you re out of business. This means that managers cannot wait for the rest of the organisation to change before they change. We all have to take individual responsibility for learning. Why don t managers coach? There are many reasons why managers do not actually use coaching in their everyday lives. Some of the main ones are: organisational culture; fear; not convinced it works; lack of skill; coaching is seen as remedial. Culture. Many of the managers in our workshops raise objections to the idea of coaching typical remarks are It won t work here, We don t have the time, It s tree hugging, etc. Few admit to being afraid or unprepared to coach. We found this resistance rather surprising initially, and resented wasting time, as we thought, dealing with this resistance. What we saw were organisational cultures that, although paying for coaching workshops, were in reality paying lip service to the philosophy behind the concept of coaching one in which continuous learning and growth are seen as important. Although top management were convinced of the need to have a coaching culture, not all of the managers actually used coaching as a way of managing their own employees. Many participants reported that although they were keen to coach, they felt that their hierarchical superiors were not on board, and that it would be a waste of time to implement coaching in their own teams. Too often organisations send their managers on coaching workshops to gain transactional skills, without linking coaching to the larger, strategic aim of transformation. If coaching is seen as the latest fad, it will have no effect on performance. Fear. Few managers would admit to being afraid of coaching, but we often see managers who are extremely anxious about their ability to coach. There are a number of skills, attitudes and tools which need to be mastered if one is to become an effective coach. Managers need to be supported and they need training in these techniques. Not convinced. Sometimes we see managers who see no value in changing their command and control style to a coaching one. These managers tell us that their job is to give advice. If an employee has an issue or a problem, the manager doesn t feel it is right to spend time eliciting the employee s own thoughts. They feel it is a waste of time to coach and that there is nothing to gain by helping employees develop their own thinking. Although giving advice or telling employees what to do is appropriate in some circumstances emergencies, for example it is not a means of developing employees. In reality, we found that these managers subordinates actually wanted to be coached. Coaching as remedial. Many participants come to coaching workshops with the idea that coaching is remedial. This is a barrier in the sense that they If your only style is to tell people what to do, you are not empowering or enabling them.you are not growing and developing your most important resource. 13
14 don t think it is something that could be used options are. Almost any interaction can be every day with all team members, but just as a tool done in a coaching style, although we don t to be used with poor performers. If they tried a recommend asking people for their different coaching approach with anyone else, that person options and alternatives in the middle of an resisted because they felt they were then being emergency. considered as a poor performer. Coaching needs a supportive organisational culture. It is vital to have a coaching culture Making coaching work within the organisation, otherwise it fails. The coaching culture has to come from a strong There are many models which can be used in belief that it can add value to both individuals training managers to be more effective coaches. and the organisation, and is not simply seen However the real value of the coaching training as a sheep dip reflex or fad. lies in the actual practising of coaching, with participants bringing real issues to the workshop. Successful coaching is about more than In our experience, role playing is not as effective as simply developing skills and techniques. If working with real issues. After all, when you are the right attitude is not there, no amount of back in the organisation, you don t have the skills will make you a good coach. option of saying, This was just a game. Workshops are not enough. If all you do is organise some coaching workshops for your Coaching needs a supportive organisational culture. It is vital to have a coaching culture within the organisation, otherwise it fails. Making coaching work requires a number of things: Recognition that coaching is not time consuming. One of the common objections to coaching is that it takes too much time. The opposite is true. Simply telling people what to do is what actually consumes time. You can coach in a five minute session simply by developing the reflex of asking rather than telling. Too often managers are tempted to use the Why don t you model, instead of asking people what their own thoughts and managers, but then do not support a coaching environment, then at best, you are wasting money. Just paying lip service to the idea of coaching is counter productive. Many participants in our workshops fully understand the importance of developing a coaching style, but if they go back to a boss who uses old fashioned command and control styles, and does not support coaching in practise, there is a strong possibility that they will stop using their coaching skills. Top management must communicate the importance of coaching. It is vital that senior management support the coaching initiative. This means that they have to be visible in supporting it, show up at the workshops to demonstrate its importance, and also reward those who use it in practice, and most importantly, use it themselves and encourage other senior colleagues to use it. Coaching is often seen only as transactional when it should be transformational.
For coaching to be most effective, it is important for senior members of the management team to point out the strategic importance of coaching to the participants. A coaching culture will not survive in the organisation unless it is seen to add value to the strategy of the organisation and improve the quality of organisational life. As consultants and trainers we can remind participants of this, but it is clearly the responsibility of the organisation s leaders to communicate it. Resistances to the idea of managers using a coaching style must be acknowledged and brought into the open. Some managers do resist and it is important to listen to their concerns. Coaching must not be seen as a fad or only as remedial. The aim of coaching is to help people achieve their potential, and everyone, at all levels, can benefit. No serious sportsman or woman would consider not using a coach why shouldn t managers? When training managers to be coaches, there must be practice sessions using real issues as well as theory. The real learning comes by doing, and getting feedback. Advice to coaches Here is a list of tips and advice to help you coach more effectively.they are not a panacea, but should help you avoid the most common mistakes. Don t over question it s not an interrogation Summarise often Be aware of double pressure on you your preference for giving advice and the coachee s request for advice Resist giving advice prematurely Try to offer reframes and different perspectives through questioning Remember that coaching should lead to action Identify restraints, especially internal ones Check whether the issue is a puzzle, problem or dilemma Balance your reality questions with questions which move the issue on Remember to use the naïve question Coaching must take account of cross-cultural differences especially when people are being trained how to coach. Coaching must be linked to strategy. If we only focus on change at an individual level then the effort and initiative will be lost. On the other hand, if we work on strategy but forget implementation, then we are wasting time. Implementation is always carried out by individuals and a process is needed to work through the implementation of the strategy. Coaching is such a process. Understand the emotions as well as the logic Challenge if necessary, but learn how to challenge elegantly Use what if questions Ask how important the issue is Build on what the coachee is actually saying, rather than inventing new questions Pick up on non-verbal communication. Notice if people get excited, or sad Use more open than closed questions. REFERENCE 1. Critchley, Bill and Casey, David. (1984). Second thoughts on team building, Mead. RESOURCES Gallwey, Timothy. (2000). The Inner Game of Work, Orion. Kinlaw, Denis. (1989). Coaching for Commitment, Pfeiffer. 15