Most likely, you’ve previously collaborated with a coach, whether it was your high school football coach, a local piano teacher, or a manager at your place of employment. If you were fortunate, this person gave you the confidence to excel in addition to the knowledge you required to do a specific assignment.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many coaches like that. In fact, the vast majority of workers claim that coaching has done them no good at their jobs. How can a management ensure that their coaching sessions are successful? You must first understand that coaching is about the employee, not about you.
Michael Bungay Stanier’s book The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever is a step-by-step manual for developing the skills necessary to become a coach who listens intently and inspires colleagues to achieve greatness.
Most managers have gone to one or more coaching seminars. Unfortunately, only 23% of workers say that coaching sessions have improved their performance at work. Why is this the case? How can coaching be improved?
Let’s begin by examining some prevalent issues at work that make it all too simple for team members and leaders to develop unproductive work habits. All decisions—big and small—are referred to you by your staff. They stop feeling empowered, lose motivation, and you end up being the project’s bottleneck.
You’re overworked in the office. While rushing from meeting to meeting, you check your email. An employee must first locate you if they have a pressing query. Your crew is committed to finishing the work, but you’re not sure which tasks are crucial and which aren’t.
How do you improve things as a leader if you find yourself in one of these counterproductive work dynamics? The secret is to make coaching a habit. Instead of setting up regular weekly coaching sessions, try to give your staff ten minutes of casual coaching each day. You should always be in “coaching” mode; coaching should be a frequent component of workplace life.
You can help your staff become self-sufficient by developing a coaching habit. It keeps you from getting overwhelmed by work and reasserts your team’s focus on the most important tasks. Focus instead on growth rather than performance. Performance is crucial, but if you’re always putting out tiny fires and losing sight of the bigger picture, your staff won’t feel empowered. Look for areas where a worker can improve. Help your team improve and become more productive at what they do together.
Many managers “coach” by pretending to be interested in what an employee is saying and nodding deeply. Such conduct is counterproductive on both sides. Start your coaching session with the Kickstart question. What’s on your mind? is the kickstart question, which is a crucial tool in your coaching toolbox. Additionally, the Kickstart question can help you get back on target if you find yourself chatting for 20 minutes about the weekend with a worker you want to coach.
The AWE inquiry, “And what else?” should be used after you’ve carefully listened to your employee. The AWE inquiry keeps a conversation from getting bogged down on a single subject when it’s obvious the employee has more to say but isn’t sure how to express it. If you find yourself wanting to add a comment as well, asking the AWE question can be helpful.
Keep in mind that your role as a coach requires more listening than speaking or giving advise. You want to empower your staff so they can make their own decisions. A group of workers that rush to the leader whenever a decision needs to be made is the worst scenario for a leader.
Consider utilizing the Focus question: “What’s the true difficulty here for you?” if the first two questions in your coaching conversation aren’t generating fruitful dialogue. It’s a good idea to ask the Focus question when an employee begins to ramble or if you find it difficult to follow.
Even if an employee might want to complain about issues with a particular project, for example, doing so won’t get anything done. You can focus the issue so that you can both work on solving it by using the Focus question. In essence, it enables you to choose which task you should focus on first.
Your coaching practice is built on the three coaching questions: Kickstart, AWE, and Focus. Let’s have a look at four more questions that will help you advance from beginning coach to professional coach.
Finding out what you must do each day at work is not always simple. Similar to this, how can you coach a worker if she doesn’t even understand the purpose of their conversation? An good coach is able to assess a worker’s needs in any given circumstance. People are always motivated by desires or needs, so when a conversation starts to veer off course, asking the Foundation question can be helpful.
Get to the heart of the situation by asking the foundational question, “What do you want?” According to scientists, people are motivated by nine primary needs and wants: protection, identification, understanding, participation, subsistence, freedom, affection, and creation. You may identify which of these desires or requirements is motivating your employee using the Foundation question.
Does your employee want you to know that they have to leave early for home? Do they wish to get more involved in a project? Do they require more latitude to investigate a concept? The Lazy question is a crucial tool for determining a worker’s requirements and desires. When an employee has nothing to contribute but concerns about a situation, ask, “How can I help you?”
The Lazy question creates a fruitful coaching opportunity. This question can help you determine whether a coworker is requesting something from you or is just venting. By encouraging your staff to speak straight to the point, it also clarifies the situation. Although it is a direct inquiry, it will also help you gain the respect of your employee.
Asking the lazy question demonstrates to your employee that you are interested in learning about their needs. You will stand out from many other supervisors who simply don’t care if you can understand an employee’s desires.
Check out my related post: How to create a coaching habit?
Interesting reads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29342515-the-coaching-habit
A Better Man 