Archive for the ‘Coaching and Mentoring’ Category

Coaching and Mentoring and the Issue of Intent Part 1: Etsko Schuitema

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Etsko Schuitema

Etsko Schuitema

 Introducing the Issue of Intent

 In the course of the Leadership and Organizational Development work done at Schuitema over the last 20 years it has become very apparent that the key variable that one has to come to grips with in the case of both mentoring and coaching is the issue of intent. This is because the issue of intent is the key variable that sits behind effective coaching and mentoring as far as the coach and mentor are concerned, as well as being the primary factor at issue with the mentee in a mentoring relationship. Let us first examine how the issue of intent plays out from the coaches’ point of view.

 

One has to assume that in the case of both mentoring and coaching the purpose has to be the growth of the coached or mentee. We have two small examples that indicate what this implies. Examine the following two scenarios and consider which one of the two has as its purpose the growth of the coached: Assume Patti has two subordinates, one called Joe and the other called Fred, and assume that Patti is very knowledgeable in a task that both Joe and Fred need to do because she did that job in 1995 and let us assume that she did it very well.

In the Joe case Patti walks up to him and says: ‘Joe, in 1995 I did the thing that you have to do now and what I did worked. Don’t argue with me Joe, do what I did.

In the Fred case Patti says ‘Fred, in 1995 I did the thing that you have to do now and what I did worked. It may be helpful to you, take a look at it.

Clearly, one would intuitively feel that the Fred example was a coaching experience, while the Joe example was not. The question is what really is the difference between these two interactions? In the first instance there is clearly a difference in who is making the decision about what is being done. In the Joe case, Patti is making the decision, whereas in the Fred case Fred feels that he is making the decision.

This therefore seems to imply that one of the ways of distinguishing between the two interactions in how autocratic or democratic the interaction is. In the Joe case the engagement is autocratic and compulsive, whereas in the Fred interaction Patti’s behavior is more democratic or persuasive. However, this distinction does not cut deep enough for us to really discern the difference between the two engagements. In order to really fathom the difference one has to separate means and ends, and put into those two categories either the person who is being coached or the job that is being done and the result that is being achieved.

In the Joe case, Patti’s intention is clearly to get a job done and Joe, the person is the means to that end. She is using Joe to achieve some sort of result or outcome. If we assume that in the Fred case Patti means what she says, in other words, her intent is consistent with what is coming out of her mouth, it becomes immediately apparent that there may be a very different outcome from what Patti achieved in 1995. It may be better, but it could also be a catastrophe. What therefore becomes apparent is that her intention here is not to get the job done, since this could be a disaster. Her intention is to teach Fred something and she uses the job that he is doing as the opportunity to teach him something.

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In short, in the Joe interaction she is using the person as her means to get a job done, and in the Fred interaction she is using the job as her means whereby she is teaching the person something. This inversion of means and ends enables us therefore to discern the real difference here, which becomes apparent when we consider who is experienced as the beneficiary of the interaction. Clearly, from Joe’s point of view he experiences that Patti is the beneficiary of the interaction. He therefore thinks she is trying to get or take something from him. Fred, on the other hand, experiences himself as the beneficiary of the interaction. He experiences that Patti is giving him something.

This means that the difference between these two interactions is significantly more than who is making the decision or how autocratic or democratic the behavior is seen to be. The difference lies in who is experienced as the beneficiary of the interaction, the coach or the coached. Imagine a coach of a team having announcing to the team at their first meeting that his job or purpose is to get the game played and to produce the result, and that he was going to use the players as his means to achieve that end. This coach would clearly very quickly be in very hot water with a rather disgruntled players looking for a different team.

The reason for this would be that in doing so the coach has completely missed the point of what his role is. He is not there to produce a result; the players are there to do that. His role is to coach the player. However, this does not imply that the coach there dismisses as irrelevant the game that is being played or the result that is being achieved. Both of these variables are very important to him, but they are the means that he employs to coach the players. He goes to the game on Saturday, he looks at what is going on the scoreboard, not because these things are his job, they are the means for him to do his job, which is to coach the players on Saturday.

This means to say that the coach quite literally uses the task or the result as his means to enable the player. His deliverable in coaching the player is a change in the competency of the player and he uses the game and the result to that end. Strangely, when the coach gets this right he is given license by the players to be as tough and as autocratic as he needs to be. The best coaches are rarely pleasant and affable people. More often than not they are very tough task masters. However, the question to ask here is who is the beneficiary of this toughness, the coach or the player? Clearly, it is the player. The key variable that is at issue as far as the coach is concerned is therefore not how autocratic or democratic his behavior is. It is whether his intent is to get something out of the player or to give the player something.

This suggests that the primary variable that sits at the root of being either a coach or a mentor is the issue of intent. When the coach or mentor’s primary objective is to get something out of the coached or mentee the relationship will fail. When the coach or the mentor is primarily in the relationship to serve enable and empower the mentee or coached, the relationship succeeds.

 Coaching, Mentoring and Empowerment

At Schuitema we have developed simple model of what empowerment means based on the folk wisdom that if you give a person a fish you feed him for a day but when you teach the person to fish you enable them to feed themselves for a lifetime. Should one take this rule of thumb seriously the following becomes apparent:

In the first place enabling the person to fish means giving them things, such as a hook, a line, a sinker, some bait, a license to fish, access to water where fish are and so on. We have come to refer to this as providing the means to do what is required.

Further to this one then has to teach the person what to do with all this stuff, how to tie a hook, how to bait it where to look for fish, what to do with them once they are caught and so on. It is also important to help the person to see the purpose of doing this, so that they see that this will help them to feed themselves for the rest of their lives. We have come to refer to this second issue as the issue of ability. Ability is concerned with how the job should be done and why the job should be done.

However, that these two variables are not adequate becomes apparent when one considers the following: assume that you are empowering someone to fish and you give them all the means they could conceivably require to do this and all the possible ability they could require to do this. Then you announce to this person that you have a freezer full of fish and should they not catch a fish you would gladly give them one from your freezer. The question is, have you empowered this person and clearly you have not. This means that you have not fully empowered the person until you have developed the bloody mindedness to tell the person, once you have given them the means and the ability to do what is required of them, ‘If you don’t catch fish after this, starve!’ we call this last variable the problem of accountability.

Clearly, in the context of a coaching or mentoring relationship the question of accountability does not necessarily have the same significance as what it would have in the context of a reporting relationship. It is not possible for the coach or mentor to hold someone accountable in the same way that a boss at work could. However, it is possible for the coach or mentor to censure someone if they are just unwilling to act consistently with what is being coached, or indeed the coach or mentor could refuse to have anything to do with the coached or mentee at all. Fundamentally, though, a mentor is particularly interested in the degree to which the mentee accepts accountability for the situation that they are in, whereas the coach’s focus is more on the persons capacity in how the task gets done.

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This suggests that empowering a person means to give a person the means to do what is required of them, to make them able to do what is required of them and to hold them accountable. It is this variable of accountability that speaks directly to the will or the intent of the person. Of the 3 variables that encapsulate the issue of empowerment, coaching speaks fundamentally to the issue of the ability, whereas mentoring is more concerned with the issue of intent.

At the cusp between the issues of ability and accountability is the problem of the why or the intent of the task being done. It is possible to deliver content in a teaching type engagement that would make the intent or the why of something clear to a person, and in this sense understanding the why is really an ability issue. On the other hand, understanding the why is really a necessary condition for the coached to accept accountability for what they are being coached in. If we reexamine the difference between the Joe and the Fred interactions, it is clear that in the Joe case Patti owns the why and therefore the accountability for the outcome, whereas in the Fred case Joe owns the why and accountability for the outcome.

In my experience most coaching/ mentoring engagements start as coaching type conversations. The issues that are dealt with are very pragmatic, with the focus being very often behavioral or task related issues that are of immediate benefit and concern to the coached. Over time, however, the character of these conversations tends to migrate from coaching to mentoring kinds of engagements.


This migration is normally heralded by an enquiry into the issue of the intent of a task.

The Benevolent Intent of the Task

The best way of describing the issue of the benevolent intent of a task is by way of example. Let’s assume Krishna is the General Manager of a GSK plant in Sydney which produces a wonder drug for aids. This is the magic bullet for this dreaded disease. It is referred to as the Lazarus drug because one pill dropped into the mouth of a comatose patient dying of aids and they are instantly revived. Further to this, all you ever need do is take one of these drugs and you will never get the disease, no matter how promiscuous and risky you sexual behavior is.

Let us assume that Krishna is of the view that the employees in the factory are very disengaged and uncommitted, and he decides to call a meeting in the staff canteen in order to give them a pep talk. At meeting he says words to the effect of the following:

‘Please work very hard at making these drugs because if you do you will help to make a shareholder on the London Stock Exchange very wealthy’.

I am convinced that within minutes Bruce the janitor will be plotting with the shop steward and Sheila the machine operator on machine x45 will be spitting in the mix. The reason for this is that these people will feel that were being taken from.

However, let us assume that Krishna is not as silly as this. In fact, he has a completely different idea of how to deal with the issue of the lack of commitment of his people. He still calls a meeting but at the meeting he says:

‘Please work very hard at making these drugs because if you do you will save millions of lives all around the world.’

Clearly, both Bruce and Sheila would be far more engaged, as anyone would under similar circumstances. The question is: what is the difference between the two engagements? Clearly, while the first engagement left Bruce and Sheila feeling taken from, the second engagement makes them feel like they are giving something. It phrases the task is such a way that it is seen to be noble. That is refers to an order of reality which is bigger than the individual’s self interest and which is worthy going the extra mile for.

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We refer to this skill of being able to phrase the intent of a task in such a way that it creates the condition where people act for reasons that are bigger than themselves as the skill of phrasing the benevolent intent of the task. A benevolent intent allows someone to act for reasons that are bigger than their self interest, therefore to give more than what they get. This also suggests that the cultivation of the will is a very specific issue: it is concerned with cultivating the possibility for people to act for reasons that are higher than their self-interest. People’s will becomes disengaged based in the degree to which they are here to get and becomes engaged based on the degree to which they are here to give.

The reason for this is that when one focuses on what one wants to get from the other, the other’s ability to withhold what the self wants gives the other power over the self. You have no power over what you get because what you get ways sits directly in the hands of the other. On the other hand, when the self gives attention to what the self is giving or contributing the self now gives attention to what the self has power over, which means the self becomes powerful.

This means that when you give someone a reason to act for something bigger than their own interests you empower that person. Going back to our example of the GSK factory in Sydney, If Krishna refers to the interests of the shareholders he is disabling the will of Bruce and Sheila because he creates the conditions where they feel taken from and therefore want to take back. Similarly, although not quite as aggressively, if Krishna sold the idea of working hard at making the drugs because they would secure their jobs or personally earn a lot of money he is again focusing Bruce and Sheila on what they are getting. This is again focusing the will on things that the other has power over and therefore, over time disables the will of the self. It is only in the last instance, when Krishna refers to a noble and worthy cause which is demonstrably bigger than any one’s self interest that he creates the conditions that make it possible for Bruce and Sheila to give attention to what they are contributing and therefore enables their will.

This suggests that when you give someone a reason to act for things that are bigger than their own interests you are doing more than just making the person able to do what is required of them, you make it possible for the person to engage their will. In other words, over time, the coaching conversation necessarily has to explore the issues of the why, and on so doing the answers that coach gives are only truly satisfying and empowering when the phrase a benevolent intent to the task. In this sense the coaching engagement borders on the mentoring engagement because it is about cultivating the will or intent to give or serve.

Mentoring

A mentoring relationship is concerned with more than the development of the skill of the mentee, it is concerned with the maturation and personal excellence of the mentee. Since this is the case it is useful at this point to examine how the will or intent matures. In the first instance it is true that maturation is a process, and like all processes it implies that it is a move of increments between a beginning and end. In the case of the maturation of a person, we call the beginning birth and the end death.

Viewed from this point of view, it is axiomatically true that at birth the infant has had nothing yet. Whatever it is going to get it will still get. At birth the infant is here to get in the most unconditional sense of the word. At death one gets nothing, one gives everything unconditionally. However, there is a logical challenge to this insight, since one can also say that at death one does not give everything unconditionally it gets taken away unconditionally.

This requires us to examine the difference between having everything taken from you unconditionally and giving everything unconditionally.  Afia has 10000 Rupees stolen from her and Miriam gives a struggling neighbour who is about to lose his house 10000 Rupees. What is the difference? Clearly, the difference does not lie in the 10000 Rupees; it sits in the will or the intent Afia and Miriam. Afia did not intend to give, which means she experienced that she was taken from. On the other hand, Miriam intended to give which means this was then her experience.

If we assumed that the lost of the 10000 Rupees, like death, is absolutely predictable, then it becomes apparent that Miriam’s experience of the loss of the money is the successful experience and Afia’s experience is negating, depressing and unsuccessful. When we die we have no choice about losing everything, the only thing we have a choice about is whether we hand over in good grace or resist and therefore have everything taken from us. To succeed at the process of maturation is therefore to succeed in developing the capacity to give unconditionally. The mentor’s task is precisely this issue: developing the mentee’s propensity to serve unconditionally.

The process of the maturation of intent goes through clearly define epochs as one matures, and in so far as this maturation is the key deliverable in the mentoring relationship, it is very important for the mentor to understand how this development takes place. At Schuitema we have developed a number of complementary views on this process, but the most useful in the context of mentoring is a model that we have come to refer to as the four concerns.

For Part 2 of this article: http://www.schuitema.co.za/blog/?p=437

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Coaching for Excellence in Ability: Wendy Lambourne

Saturday, October 24th, 2009

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The Care and Growth model argues that the crux of the difference between management and leadership is an inversion of means and ends. Managers use people as the means to get the job done and produce results. Leaders use tasks and results as the means to enable people.

 

When there is a job to be done, a manager assigns the job to the person perceived to be most willing and able to do the task at hand.

What concerns a manager is that the required output, in terms of both quantity and quality, is delivered. Whether the person who does the job is excellent or mediocre is in fact immaterial. Excellence in the person is not the manager’s job.

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A leader, unlike a manager, is concerned with the excellence of his / her people. A leader in fact is relentless in the pursuit of excellence in people not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself. The tasks to be done and the results to be achieved are what provide the leader with an opportunity to achieve just that.

 

This article focuses on the coaching process and how coaching enables those in positions of authority to make a fundamental shift in means and ends. It deals with the practice of deliberately using the task as the means to enable a person; more specifically to bring about the highest levels of excellence in a person’s ability.

THE 8 “REALITIES” OF COACHING

 

Eight commonly made statements about the “realities” of the coaching process provide a useful vehicle to convey what the Care and Growth model believes about this critical aspect of leading others.

 

 

STATEMENT ONE: Coaching is a useful process for improving employee contribution

TRUE

FALSE

 

 

       √

This statement is partially but not wholly correct. Coaching is an exceptionally useful process for enabling or improving employee contribution but ONLY when the issue affecting contribution is ability. Coaching is not useful when either means or accountability issues are at stake. This is because means issues are remediated through the provision of means, while accountability issues are addressed by holding people accountable.

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Neither means nor accountability issues suggest coaching. In fact using coaching on an accountability issue which, by definition is a matter of the will, is detrimental because doing so entrenches the ‘soft’ mistake. Accountability issues, be they those of carelessness or malevolence, require some form of sanction.

 

Failure to sanction, when a sanction is appropriate, not only leads to those who are careless or malevolent escaping accountability but convinces others that they can get away with it too. Coaching for accountability issues, in the fullness of time, cultivates the conditions whereby no one in the organisation is accountable for anything 

 

 

STATEMENT TWO: People can be coached to do anything if the coach is good enough.

TRUE

FALSE

 

 

      √

In the Care and Growth model a distinction is made between capability and ability. Capability is akin to talent; it is the foundation block upon which ability can be built. The absence of a capability or talent which is essential for performance in a particular role must inevitably impede success in the role.

 

This does not mean that sheer will power won’t assist someone to get a little better at something, especially if it is critically important to them to do so. It also does not suggest that dedication to the acquisition of specific knowledge and skills cannot go someway to counter an absence of talent.

What it does indicate, however, is that even the best coach cannot fabricate talent which is not there. The most a coach can do is work with what is there in the first place. 

 

When there is a significant disconnect between a person’s actual capability and the capability required to perform well in a particular role, then coaching is not the best route to follow. The better solution is to fit the person to a role that matches their capability, to put the person on the right seat on the bus.

 

Even a small change in fit can have a dramatic effect both on a person’s performance and their motivation. Conversely, failure to recast the person into a role for which they have the requisite capability can only result in poor performance and an ongoing sense of failure. The right thing to do, the caring thing to do, is to remove the person from the role.

 

 

STATEMENT THREE: Superior ability is inborn.

TRUE

FALSE

√

√

 

There is a widely held belief that superior ability is inborn. That is, that talent is innate and, therefore, is something that a person is born with. Moreover that super human performers are those who are truly “gifted” in a particular area and fortunate enough to discover their extraordinary talent early on in life.

 

The counter view is that superior ability in any area is not determined at birth. In fact the only clearly innate limit to the development of ability is a physical one. General abilities, like IQ and memory which have a genetic component may predict performance on an unfamiliar task but are not predictive of success thereafter. Even personality traits, although they may have an affect on the specific field in which an individual is likely to excel, do not limit a person’s achievement in general.

 

The Care and Growth model is not wed to either side of the talent debate Both the view that “people either have talent or they don’t” and the thesis that” people can be good at anything” are too extreme.

 

 In any event talent, whether it be inborn or developed, is not necessarily the critical factor and certainly not the only variable which accounts for excellent performance. There are clearly numerous factors, including upbringing, dedication and luck among others, which account for superior performance.

 

While the talent debate rages on, the Care and Growth model continues to ascribe to a firm belief that good leaders significantly affect the continuous growth in ability of their people by, amongst other things, coaching them effectively:

 

 

 

STATEMENT FOUR: Developing excellence in anything takes time.

TRUE

FALSE

 

√

 

  

Whilst the will can change in an instant an increase in ability does not happen immediately. The development of any ability or talent takes time.

Prodigious ability in a specific domain apparently takes many years to come to fruition. According to the neurologist Daniel Levitan roughly ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve real mastery. According to him no one has yet found a case in which true world class expertise was accomplished in less time.

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An extraordinary investment of hours, however, is not on its own enough. People can work at something for most of their lives, being good at what they do but never exceptional. Apparently it is necessary, but not sufficient, to work hard and put in the hours.

 

In addition, according to Anders Ericsson who coined the phrase “deliberate practice”, what is required is concerted, repetitive and focused engagement with the intention of improving what is being done. Deliberate practice is in fact the key to excellence. Moreover, deliberate practice is most effective under the guidance of a coach.

 

 

 

STATEMENT FIVE: Excellent performers also need coaching.

TRUE

FALSE

 

√

 

 

As the saying goes, even Tiger Woods has a coach. In most fields of endeavour in fact, those who have become exceptionally good at what they do, have received help along the way and continued to do so even in their prime. The person who provided help in achieving excellence acted as a coach or mentor, whether or not they were formally designated as such.There are of course exceptions to this rule. Roger Federer, for example, has spent most of his career without a coach analyzing his own game and making changes himself.

 

In a world of ever rising standards, however, getting really good at something without a coach is rare.

 

 

 

STATEMENT SIX: Coaching should focus on improving areas of weakness, strengths take care of themselves

TRUE

FALSE

 

 

√

 

Marcus Buckingham (2004) puts forward the argument for focusing on one’s strengths rather than weaknesses. He maintains that excellence, be it of an individual or a group, comes from maximizing strengths not from minimizing weaknesses. Improving on one’s weaknesses at best leads to mediocrity, makes someone average but never outstanding.

 

It is difficult to think of any aspect of Tiger Woods game as being less than perfect. Allegedly, however, he isn’t totally amazing at getting out of bunkers. This of course may be because he rarely gets into them! The undisputed strength in his game however is his drive. Hearsay has it that this is what his coach spent most of his time on. As a result, something which was already an exceptional strength for Tiger Woods, became unequalled in the world.

 

From a Care and Growth perspective coaching should be for both strengths and weaknesses. Coaching can both make a weakness less of a weakness and a strength more of a strength.

 

 

 

 

STATEMENT SEVEN: Coaching is the same as on the job training.

TRUE

FALSE

 

 

√

 

On-the-job training and coaching are distinctly different. Training, be it on or off the job, aims to increase a person’s knowledge or skill in a particular area Coaching has a higher goal. Its purpose is to enable the person being coached to realize the very best in themselves from an ability point of view.

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Training is an integral part, or should be, of the empowerment process. Before handing over a specific task or new accountability to someone, the person should be given the ability they need to take on the accountability. Both Step 2 (teaching) and Step 3 (testing) for competency are an integral past of the empowerment process.

 

Unlike training or teaching however coaching is not about the transfer of skill or knowledge from one person to another. Coaching is about being able to see the potential ability that is there in the other person and helping to bring that ability out into the world.

 

Two different artists put it best. Michelangelo said “my work is to release the hand from the marble that holds it prisoner.” In similar vein, the sculptor Henry Moore had this to say of his famous sculpture of a horse: “I call the horse out of the rock. I take away all the rock which is not the horse”

 

 

 

STATEMENT EIGHT: A person will only respond to                coaching once their will has been engaged

TRUE

FALSE

 

√

 

 

A precondition for coaching is that the person’s will to learn has been engaged; that the person has accepted accountability for their growth. If a person is unwilling to learn, has not accepted accountability, then it is premature to coach the person.There is a process for enabling accountability in a person but it is not coaching. It is a counselling or mentoring process which Schuitema calls the Gripe to Goal process.

 

The Gripe to Goal process addresses matters of the will. It therefore pertains to issues of intent not ability. As a process it enables a maturation of a person’s intent from being here to get to being here to give. It puts the person in the state to hone their ability to the highest level of excellence.

 

 

CRITICAL REQUIREMENTS OF A COACH

 

There are some fairly obvious requirements for successful coaching, certain characteristics which all good coaches have in common.                              

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In the first instance a good coach needs to be knowledgeable but not necessarily more   skilful or expert than the person being coached.    To be a good tennis coach for example requires an understanding of the game not a level of play equal to or better than the person being coached.

 

Secondly a coach needs to exercise patience. The person will not learn if the coach gets impatient and intervenes too early or, worse still, takes over and does the task on behalf of the person being coached.

 

The good coach enables learning, not by teaching but by helping the other person to learn. The primary skills of coaching therefore are listening, observing and giving feedback not the transfer of information. The good coach is able to see what the person themselves cannot see and then conveys what it is that they have seen. They are able to convince the person of what they should be working on next in order to improve their ability.

 

Thirdly a coach has to be a tough taskmaster. The majority of people under perform because they don’t push themselves to their limits.

 The good coach performs a critical role by to taking the person beyond their comfort zone. In order to do so the good coach is likely to be exceedingly tough, even hard on the person. While the person being coached will be unlikely to enjoy the experience, they will accept what the coach is doing because they know that it is being done in their best interest.

 

Finally the good coach puts their significance second to that of the person being coached. They recognize that ultimately it is the player not the coach who gets up on the podium. They are therefore not only prepared to share the limelight. They deliberately put their own need for recognition to one side; making it possible for the person they are coaching to shine.

 

The single most important requirement for successful coaching however is the intention of the coach. This becomes obvious only when the true transformation that is the purpose of coaching is understood.

 

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An episode from the BBC series “Faking It” illustrates the point. In one of the episodes in the series a painter of houses is plucked out of his small business in Liverpool and taken to London.  Once there, three coaches work on him around the clock for a month, after which he exhibits his paintings at an art exhibition along with four commercial artists Of three leading art critics, brought in for the task, only one is able to identify him as the fake.

 

In one month the coaches were able to transform a decorator from Liverpool into a “Rembrandt”. What the three coaches produced was an artist, who then produced a set of paintings which fooled the judges. Similarly, in sport, what the coach delvers is an athlete who is able to play the kind of game which puts the winning scores on the scoreboard. In the workplace, also, the measure of the leader / coach’s success is the degree to which the person being coached has changed. It is the transformed employee who excels at the task(s) which lead to positives organizational results.

 

What this suggests quite simply is that coaching is a 3rd Attention engagement. The conventional manager operates in the 1st Attention is here to get / achieve the result with the person as a means to that end. Progress to the 2nd Attention is made when attention shifts from the result to the task. In practical terms this happens when the person in authority makes it their business to provide the required means, ability and accountability which will enable excellence in the task. This is evidence of giving but is nevertheless still a giving to get.

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Only when the superordinate is finally focused exclusively on polishing and refining the person as an end in itself is the leader / coach in the 3rd Attention. This is because, for the first time, the leader is truly giving unconditionally.

 

This is hugely significant for two reasons:

 Firstly, it is only when the relationship between boss and subordinate is a coaching relationship that both parties are being empowered. This is because the boss and the subordinate are now focused on that which they can do something about, namely effect a change in the person being coached.

Secondly, whenever leaders put themselves in the role of coach they automatically make the task and the result the concern of the person being coached. Ironically, the degree to which the coach puts attention on the person, and is therefore prepared to take a risk with the task and the result, is the degree to which the person owns both the task and the result.

 

SHIFTING FROM A REPORTING TO A COACHING RELATIONSHIP

 

For a person to continuously hone and improve their ability it is not necessary for them to change jobs or even to take on new accountabilities within their current role. The potential for ongoing learning exists in the tasks that the person has to execute anyway in order to perform in their present job.

 

The change that has to happen is not a change in job content but a change in how the tasks which make up the job are viewed. Whenever a task is performed an opportunity exists to address a learning requirement or development need in the person. The task becomes the means to strengthen a specific ability in the person, rather than an end in itself.

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Etsko Schuitema (2004) in his book “Leadership: The Care and Growth model” suggests that the job that the person is doing be seen as a gymnasium and the tasks to be done as the apparatus for developing the person. A good gym instructor matches the athletes learning need (e.g. stamina) to the appropriate apparatus (e.g. treadmill) Similarly a good coach in the workplace matches a chosen learning need to those task(s) in the job that put pressure on the learning need.

 

The example on above left shows the key tasks performed by a Schuitema Consultant.

Every time the Schuitema consultant makes a sales call / presentation, facilitates a workshop, coaches a client, consults on an aspect of implementation, builds a relationship or coordinates delivery on a client project the opportunity exists to improve the Consultant’s listening ability.

The task(s) which put pressure on the Consultant’s conceptual ability on the other hand include the design of new products, a diagnostic exercise, design of an intervention and again consultation on implementation within the organization.

 

The critical insight here is that all jobs have within them a possibility for learning and growth. This is true even of a call centre agent tasked with contacting clients and verifying their personal details for 8 hours of the day. Each call made by the agent provides the means, if it is used as such, to enhance the agent’s diplomacy or influencing ability. In a leadership role dealing with a “subordinate from hell” likewise offers the possibility of developing what is a key leadership competency; that of confronting.

 

 Training typically enables the performance of a single task. Coaching however has a much more profound affect. In the example of the Schuitema Consultant it is clear that addressing the one learning requirement (in this case listening) impacts on many tasks and can have a dramatic affect on the Consultant’s overall performance.

  

What using the task and the result as a means to enable the person means practically therefore is the following:-

Firstly the coach needs to ascertain the competencies which differentiate the average from the superb performer in a particular role. Thereafter, based on an assessment of the individual’s learning requirements, the coach should select a competency as the focal point of the coaching interactions that he has with the person.

 

The chosen competency remains the key element in the interactions between the boss and the subordinate until such time that both parties are convinced that real progress has been made. At that point, attention shifts to strengthening another ability in the person.

 

A coaching relationship is clearly very different from a conventional reporting relationship. In a conventional reporting relationship the person is there to produce a result not to spend time improving their abilities. The routine interactions between boss and subordinate are therefore typically centred on progress against agreed tasks / deliverables.

 

In a coaching relationship the conversations between boss and subordinate are very different. Most importantly they include content which is not there in a conventional reporting relationship. In a coaching relationship what is discussed is the subordinate’s progress against a learning requirement, what constitutes the next learning opportunity for the subordinate and what tasks will enable the person to strengthen the ability which is the current focus of the coaching.

 

THE COACHING CYCLE

 

Coaching is not a singular event. Rather is a series of activities which repeat themselves over and over in an ongoing cycle. The coaching activities which make up the cycle are those of reviewing, monitoring and designing.

 wp9The purpose of the Review is diagnostic. It requires the coach to reflect on what it is that the person needs to learn and what then will become the focus of the coaching. The product of the Review activity is the identification of a learning need and the specification of a learning opportunity

 

The remedial activity in the coaching cycle is concerned with Designing and Setting the task(s) which will enable the person to strengthen the ability which is the current focus of the coaching.

 

The Monitoring activity requires the coach to observe the person while they are doing the job and give the person feedback on what they have observed. The aim of the observation is for the person to gain insight into their mastery of the current learning requirement and to identify the next learning opportunity for themselves.

 

The Review and Design activities take place off the job, in a one-on-one conversation between the leader and the person being coached. The Monitoring task, on the other hand, takes place while the person is actively doing their job.

 

Within the coaching cycle, moments of action and reflection repeat themselves over and over again. In due course what changes is the specific learning opportunity and, hence, those aspects of the person’s job which are the points of focus in the relationship.

   

·         Identifying the learning need and the learning opportunity

 

A good sports coach would never work on all aspects of an athlete’s game simultaneously. Similarly, in the work context, it is appropriate for the coach to focus on and work intently on improving only one aspect in the person at a time.

What the coach does in this phase of the coaching cycle is to help the person to identify very specifically what they should be working on and to phrase this as a learning opportunity.

 

Some examples of learning needs and learning opportunities for individual managers are given below.

 

A learning opportunity is also not a value; such as respect or honesty. A value is what a person is prepared to put their self interest second for. As such it is not an ability issue but an accountability issue.

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The role of the coach in the Reviewing phase is to elicit the diagnostic information which leads to the specification of the learning opportunity. When the person being coached has a high degree of self awareness the information can be elicited from them directly. Alternatively the coach needs to source the diagnostic material either through direct observation or by getting input from those who can bear witness to how the person performs in real time

 

  • “Watching” the person doing the task and determining what they need to learn next to improve their ability

 

The purpose of watching the game is to identify what it is SPECIFICALLY that the person needs to learn which will further improve their ability. The problem with a learning opportunity, stated as a competency, is that it is still too global.

What does the person need to improve/change in order to enhance their listening ability for example? Do they need to learn not to interrupt? Is it that they are not fully present? Are they analytical, and therefore able to ascertain the crux of the issue, but are insensitive to the feelings behind the facts?

 

Only by watching the game, while the game is being played, is it possible for the coach to put their finger on the next step forward for the person in terms of the ability which is the current focus of the coaching.

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The insight gained by the coach is of course only useful if it is conveyed to the person in a manner which convinces the person of what they need to work on next to improve their ability. There are a number of obvious ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ when it comes to giving feedback. The crux of good feedback however is that it looks to the future. It tells the person how to do better going forward, not what they did wrong.

 

  • Setting the task(s) which put pressure on the learning need

 

Practice task(s) are, or should be, deliberate. The coach does not simply implore the person to go out there and work on their listening, delegating or whatever. Rather the coach determines the specific task(s) which, when performed, will put pressure on the current learning need.

 

Practice tasks can be designed well or badly. Best practice activities stretch the person beyond their current abilities. They require the person to stretch just out of reach of their current level of ability. They place the person in a learning zone.

 

Task(s) which are in the person’s comfort zone on the other hand fail to extend ability since, by definition, they are already activities which can be done easily. Activities which are too hard, meanwhile, engender panic rather than learning. Specific task(s) which can be used to pursue particular learning opportunities are given below.

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Part of setting the task(s) is for the coach to agree the level of support / monitoring they will provide while the task is being performed. The amount of support provided by the coach must of course be directly proportional to the level of ability of the person being coached.

 

Superficially coaching can appear to be a relatively easy, if not mechanistic, aspect of the Care and Growth role. Nothing could be further from the truth. Engaging in the coaching cycle unconditionally, with no motive other than to realise the very best in the other person, tests the very essence of a leader’s generosity and courage.

 

It clarifies, like nothing else does, how far the leader is really prepared to go / to what degree they are prepared to sacrifice to realise the very best in the other.

 

 By definition, a learning opportunity is a defined ability or competency which can be enhanced through coaching. A learning opportunity is not a particular skill (e.g. reading a profit and loss statement) or a piece of knowledge (e.g. how to draw up a business plan) both of which are best addressed through training.

 

 

 

 

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