Effective Coaching   

– Galileo Gallilei

Coaching Defined

Coaching is the art and practice of inspiring, energizing, and facilitating the performance, learning and development of  the player. (Myles Downey⁷)

Each word in this definition is a key word:

• art – though there is science to coaching, coaching is an art in the sense that "when practiced with excellence, there is no attention on the technique: the coach is fully engaged with the player and the process of coaching becomes a dance between two people, conversationally moving in complete harmony and partnership. At this point the intelligence, intuition and imagination of the coach become a valuable contribution - rather than being interference for the player."⁷

• inspiring – coaching is about helping the player to unlock his or her true potential through raising awareness, inspiring new ideas and encouraging creativity

• energizing – coaching is about energizing the player through effective communication, soliciting suggestions, and building a can-do attitude

• facilitating – implies that the player has the capacity to have an insight or creative idea and to think something through for himself

• performance – anything a coach says or does should be driven by the intention to improve performance, i.e. to achieve greater effectiveness or efficiency of the player

• learning – refers to a broader domain, how to approach a task or master a new technology; looking beyond immediate objectives, the future performance of the organization depends on learning

• development – refers to personal growth and greater self-awareness.⁷

The Goal of Coaching

The goal of coaching is to guide vision, urge excellence, and empower the one being coached – the player – through establishing a firmer connection with his or her inner authority.

Facilitating Individual Performance

Performance of an individual = potential + attitude - interference.

Interference creates a huge gap between the potential and performance. It is usually based in fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD).⁹ Interference crops up in many forms, but nothing gets in the way of peak performance more than doubt.⁷ You can reduce interference by focusing attention of the player. When the player's attention is focused, he enters a mental state – the state of relaxed concentration – in which he can learn and perform at his best.⁸... More

Zen Proverbs, Sayings, and Quotes

Great Faith. Great Doubt. Great Effort. – The three qualities necessary for training... More

Bad Feedback vs. Good Feedback

Bad Feedback: Demotivates, focuses on blame; creates defensiveness and confrontation

Food Feedback: Encourages, focuses on improvements – achieved or possible; creates trust and cooperation... More

Growing Role of Non-directive Coaching

During 1990s, coaching became one of the "hot" areas of personal, professional, and business development. There is in-build limitation in training and consulting, as well as directive coaching that involves directing, telling and instructing, which is the person giving advise or instruction has to know the answer already, or has to be able to work it out. Given the complex structure in most organizations as well as constantly and rapidly changing business environment in today's knowledge-driven economy, that is an unrealistic proposition.

Non-directive coaching that involves inspiring, asking effective questions, summarizing, paraphrasing, reflecting, and listening can help you and the player you are coaching achieve amazing results. If you adopt non-directive approach, people learn in minutes things that would take you, operating from a more conventional directive model, hours to teach.

Benefits of Coaching

"Coaching brings more humanity into the workplace," says  Myles Downey⁷. "Effective coaching in the workplace delivers achievement, fulfillment and joy from which both the individual and organization benefit:"

1. Achievement means "the delivery extraordinary results, organizational and individual goals achieved, strategies, project and plans executed. It suggests effectiveness, creativity, and innovation. Effective coaching delivers achievement, which is sustainable. Because of the emphasis on learning and because the confidence of the player (the coachee) is enhanced ('I worked it out for myself!') the increase in performance is typically sustained for a longer period and will impact on areas that were not directly the subject of coaching."⁷

2. Fulfillment includes learning and development. "To achieve the business result is one thing, to achieve it in a way in which a player learns and develops as part of the process has a greater value - to the player, the coach (the line-manager) and the organization, for it is the capacity to learn that ensures an organization's survival."⁷ Fulfillment also includes the notion that individuals through coaching begin to identify goals that are intrinsically rewarding. "With fulfillment comes an increase in motivation. That the coach respects the player his ideas and opinions, that the player is doing his work in his own way, that he is pursuing his own goals and is responsible - all this makes for a player who is inspired and committed. In this way more of the energy, intelligence and imagination of each individual is brought to the service of the organization."⁷

3. Joy. Enjoyment ensues when people are achieving their meaningful stretch goals and when learning and developing is part of the process.

These three components – achievement, fulfillment, and joy – are synergistically interlinked and the absence of any one will impact and erode the others. "Learning without achievement quickly exhausts one's energy. Achievement without learning soon becomes boring. The absence of joy and fun erodes the human spirit."⁷

Focusing on the Person, Not the Subject

Coaching is the key to unlocking the potential of your people, your organization, and yourself. It is based on the concept that individuals learn most from the everyday application of skills and by trying things out in practice.

"Not only is there no established body of knowledge called coaching, but the coach often has less expertise that the one being coached. The coach does not need to impart knowledge, advice, or even wisdom. What he or she must do is speak and act, in such a way that others learn and perform at their best."⁷

The coaching is all about helping others to identify and define their specific goals, and then organize themselves to attain these goals. Coaching deals with building an individual's personal skills, from setting the goals, to communication to management style to decision making and problem solving. Coaches draw upon a client's inner knowledge, resources and creativity to help him or her be more effective. It is about bringing the same structure and creativity to your interaction with colleagues as you bring to solving business problems.

Two-Way Benefits of Coaching

Coaching is a long-term strategy, but the benefits of managerial coaching are two-way:

1. For employees: improved performance, greater enthusiasm, and greater job satisfaction.

2. For managers: improved communication, motivation, delegation, employee empowerment, planning, and monitoring skills

Increasing Role of Coaching at Work

The new breed of leaders recognizes that in today's complex business environment autocracy no longer works, yet the empowerment alone is not enough. 

Inspiring Culture: 5 Elements

In the new economy driven by knowledge, new emphasis on people development and employee empowerment is driven by several powerful forces⁴:

1. Delayering – a trend toward reducing the number of management levels in organizations' hierarchies. Growing importance of cross-functional teams. Jobs and roles are no longer prescribed and static, so no longer can bosses just go on telling subordinates exactly what to do. Successful companies are now those in which people communicate freely, cross-pollinate their ideas, and learn new skills and habits from each other, and in which managers are also coaches.

2. Changes in the labor market - people are more mobile, and the most successful companies are focusing more on bringing out their employees' potential in order to retain their best performers.

3. Rapidly changing business conditions, markets and technologies - company can no longer rely on providing employees with regular off-the-job training courses. Training now had to be continuous, on-the job, and just-in-time – i.e. by coaching.

Leadership-Management Synergy

Coaching versus Micromanaging

Micromanagement won't work when teamwork and continuous innovation is a priority. Although micromanagement can build discipline, it keeps employees locked within a limited range of action. When micromanagers relax their grip and switch to a coaching approach, the organizations reporting to them often flourish because the staff has the opportunity to utilize and demonstrate its full potential.³ Instead of to do what they have to do to please their boss, team members are encouraged to see how hard and smart they can work to help achieve organizational mission.

Beware however of moving too far toward coaching. Finding the right balance between management, leadership, and coaching styles is the true sign of an inspired and effective manager.

References:

1. "Winning as an Executive Leadership Coach," Joseph Riggio

2. "One on One," Bridget McCrea

3. "Extreme Management," Mark Stevens

4. The Tao of Coaching, Max Landsberg

5. The NLP Coach, Ian McDermott and Wendy Jago

6. Jack Welch and the GE Way, Robert Slater

7. Effective Coaching, Myles Downey

8. "The Inner Game of Work," Timothy Gallwey

9. Regis McKenna, Silicon Valley marketing expert

10. “7 Key Elements For Managers To Learn Coaching Skills” by Wendy Hearn

11. "Why Coaching Is Important," Syntopic Intelligence, October 2005

12. The Center for Executive Coaching