What You Need to Know
Do I need expert knowledge in the subject that I am coaching in order to be a successful coach?
A good coach asks good questions. The point of coaching is to help someone voice his or her innate knowledge and wisdom. This allows the coachee to make concrete decisions based on a clearly articulated understanding of the issues. By taking self-responsibility in this way, the coachee is drawing on his or her own talent, not mimicking someone else’s.
Often, the person I am coaching has an idea that has been tried unsuccessfully before. Can’t I just tell them what will work and what won’t?
Sometimes, in the interests of time, it is necessary to steer someone toward a different course of action. However, it is much more effective if they can be brought to an understanding of what will and won’t work for themselves. If you ask them what the likely barriers to success are and how they will get around these, they may hear themselves argue against their original idea. Being told something will not work is very dismissive and demotivating. Try to spend a few short moments questioning rather than telling.
I don’t have time to coach; I have enough problems meeting my own work agenda!
It is a fallacy that good coaching takes time. Often one or two well positioned questions trigger a series of thoughts in another person that leads them to a good solution. Sometimes, people do not even know they are being coached! By developing a coaching style, you will doubtless find that the burden of your responsibilities is eased as your coachees take a greater share of the load.
What attributes do I need to be a good coach?
It certainly helps if you have an understanding of interpersonal relationships. It may also help if you have an understanding of the cultural landscape in the coachee’s organization—but not necessarily. Overriding this, good coaches have an interest in helping others develop their talent and an ability to ask, and receive the answers to, good questions.
What to Do
One of the most commonly used approaches to coaching is the GROW model. This is a framework that guides a coach in his or her conversation with a coachee. It has an elegant logic to it that takes the coaching conversation from defining the goal to planning how that goal will be reached. It is based on asking good questions, listening carefully to the responses, reflecting back to the coachee, and giving feedback. Coaches offer the means by which a coachee can hear him- or herself think through an issue or aspiration.
Before you move into the coaching conversation, it is important to set the context so that you know where the boundaries lie. What is the situation you are discussing and what are the circumstances of your conversation? Try to be explicit about these questions. Also, be thoughtful about the physical environment and the time available for your coaching discussion. Privacy may be important, as may be ensuring you are not disturbed.
The GROW framework looks like this:
G—Goals
R—Reality
O—Options
W— the Will, the Way, and the Wrap-up
Agree and Set Goals
Agree and set the goals. These must be SMART goals—Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Actionable, Realistic, and Time bound. It is not worth setting goals that will be reached without effort, try to set stretch goals so that the development and experience of the coachee are maximized. In order pin down the goals, you will need to use open, probing questions. These are the “who?”, “what?”, “where?”, “how?”, and “why?” questions. Open questions encourage the coachee to speak and explore his or her inner territory. If you seek a “yes”/“no” response, you will close down the exploration, and will not discover the richness of the coachee’s thoughts and ideas.
The following questions are designed to open up the discussion and to assist your coachee in arriving at a SMART stretch goal. They are suggested questions only. It is important to adapt them to your own style so that they feel authentic to you.
- What would you like to gain from this coaching session?
- What is the objective of this discussion?
- Can you tell me how you see your goal?
- Would you outline your understanding of your goal for me?
- What are your aspirations and what would the goal that you need to reach along the way look like?
- What does your preferred scenario look like?
- Can you describe to me the outcomes that you would like to see?
- What are the SMART goals you want to reach—in the short, medium, and long term?
- Why are you hoping to reach this goal?
- How will you know when you have reached your goal?
- What will it feel like to reach your goal?
Do a Reality Check
Once the goal has been set, you will need to create what might be called “structural tension” between where your coachee is now and where he or she wishes to be in the future. You might think of this tension as a stretched rubber band with the current reality at one end and the goal at the other. When you relax the rubber band the two ends come closer together, just as when you resolve the tension between the goal and the current reality; the goal becomes the current reality.
This reality check is not designed to be negative, it is designed to be realistic and distinguish the “beginning” from the “end.” For this reason it may include some seemingly negative statements.
- What is happening now?
- What obstacles or barriers do you see on your path to reach your goal?
- Who is directly or indirectly affected by the pursuit of your goal?
- Are there any critical relationships you need to nurture/inform/cultivate?
- What challenges do you think you will encounter on the way?
- What will assist or hinder you in the achievement of your goal?
- What does your intuition tell you to do?
- What assumptions are you making? Can you challenge these?
Consider All the Options
Once you have the beginning and end points fixed, you can invite your coachee to brainstorm the options. This is where he or she can explore the possibilities and opportunities that exist. Encourage your coachee to think the unthinkable and contemplate the “impossible.” Explore extensively. Your coachee may not arrive at a concrete solution by entering this more fanciful territory but doing so may trigger a series of thoughts that bring your coachee to a new understanding of the issues and a unique path through.
- What options are available to help you reach your goal?
- What have you considered so far?
- Do any opportunities exist that you could use to your advantage?
- Do you see any alternatives to your preferred approach?
- Can you think of any novel approaches to assist you?
- What would happen if you did nothing?
- What would be your ideal solution? (Break some rules. Be outrageous!)
- Are there any cost constraints?
- Do you have any more ideas?
- If a miracle happened, what would it look like?
Choose an Option and Build an Action Plan
This final part of the coaching framework is designed to make the course of action concrete and practical. It is about choosing an option and building an action plan. It is also about ensuring that your coachee is committed to reaching the goals that he or she has set. In this part of the conversation, ask your coachee to outline the steps he or she will be taking, the contingency plan if these steps do not go according to plan, the resources that will be necessary to reach the goal, some milestones, and the amount of support that he or she will need along the way.
- What is your immediate priority?
- What could you do as a first step?
- Are any of the steps dependent upon the success of a former step?
- If this does not go according to plan, what is your contingency?
- How committed are you to reaching this goal?
- What steps do you need to take to reach this goal?
- When will you start taking action?
- What support/resources do you need?
- On a scale of 1–10, rank your level of determination to reach your goal. (If less than 7, you are unlikely to do it!)
- Would you summarize or bullet-point your final plan?
Throughout the coaching conversation, you will need to demonstrate excellent listening skills. This means suspending judgment, disbelief, and your own agenda, as well as disciplining yourself not to jump to conclusions, interrupt, or finish their sentences for them. It also means clarifying assumptions and reflecting back your understanding. Although this sounds cumbersome, coupled with positive body language and a clear intention, you will find that the trust and rapport you build will ease and speed the process.
What to Avoid
You Fail to See the Value of Asking Open Questions
New coaches often give in to the temptation of sharing their own expertise and experience. This results in a session in which the coach gives guidance and advice to the coachee. This accomplishes nothing but a regurgitation of what you did in the past, regardless of whether any contextual changes have occurred. Try to discipline yourself to remain attentive to the kinds of questions that will allow the coachee to hear him- or herself find the best way forward.
You Allow Time Pressures to Interfere with Good Coaching Practice
Sometimes, it is impossible to ignore the pressures of time and you find that you must to issue an instruction rather than assist someone to think through the pros and cons of a particular situation. If this is becomes necessary, make sure you take the time later to review what has taken place and why. In this way the coachee can learn retrospectively so that next time, he or she will be able to apply his or her knowledge prospectively.
You Try to Create a Clone of Yourself
Coaching is about tapping into the creativity and tacit knowledge of another person in order to find a novel perspective or approach to a problem or situation. Try to be open to another’s way of thinking and welcome the exploration. Research has correlated increases in bottom-line results, innovation, and productivity to good coaching practice. The rewards are there to be enjoyed by everyone.
You Allow Your Ego to Become Involved
It can be tempting to tell war stories instead of mining for the inventive ideas in another person. Keep your ego out of the coaching conversation. It is not about you, it is about someone else building professional capability and credibility. You are bound to get a large amount of reflected glory when your coachees deliver excellent results continually.
Where to Learn More
Books:
Battley, Susan,
O’Connor, Joseph, and Andrea Lages,
Whitmore, John,
Zeus, Perry, and Suzanne Skiffington,
Web Sites:
Management Consulting News: www.managementconsultingnews.com/articles/battley_coaching_roi.php
12 Manage Rigor and Relevance: www.12manage.com/methods_coaching.html
Mind Tools: www.mindtools.com
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaching
