5 ideas to deal with resistance in your growth coaching process

Photo by Thiebaud Faix on Unsplash

Congratulations on taking the steps to create structure and process for your company's growth. To quote a coach friend of mine, I would love to tell you that your journey will be a straight line from lower left to upper right on the graph, but I would be deceiving you if I were to tell you that. The initial rosy glow of "finally we're doing something!" wears off and you find yourself dealing with resistance to your growth coaching process.

The Stages of Group Change – The fact that the team is feeling a bit uncomfortable at this stage of the process is not a sign that things are going wrong. It happens in every group, when the status quo is being shaken up. Your coach is asking them (and you too) to do things that they are not used to doing. Resistance does not mean that things are wrong – it means that they are different. We’ve been coaching for almost 30 years, and we see this happen in varying degrees in every client. What’s important is for you to stay the course and trust the process. It works when you use it. It’s important for you to be the early adopter, the supporter. The team is following your lead.

Develop the team while developing the leader - When growth is the goal in a company with a strong leader (subject matter expert, strong personality, or other aspects) it becomes a chicken-or-the-egg proposition between developing the team and developing the leader. The team has to build its strategic thinking so the CEO can become more comfortable having them more involved at that level. Concurrently, the CEO needs to be pushing more responsibility to the team. 

Cash cycle, market map, etc. to uncover “rocks” - The goal of your coach is to help your team uncover more strategic (rocks) based thinking. Same goes with exercises like the market analysis map, to help them see your business model more clearly, and to identify opportunities for channels, alliances, etc. and to see where there might be a strategic opportunity to increase market share.  These various activities are designed to generate ideas for action that could be incorporated on an individual or team plan. Sometimes the benefits of these activities are self-evident in the moment, and sometimes they are not. Your coach knows where the process needs to go to help you achieve your desired results.

Software and meeting rhythms as accountability tools – As the company grows it needs systems for greater accountability and visibility. Software like Metronome Growth Systems (we use this with our clients) provides a place where the big picture plan and real-time progress toward quarterly accountabilities live and are accessible by the team. It’s where you can check to see how things are going. 

If you need tight accountability, meet more often. Your overall team is probably doing a daily huddle (start doing so if you're not). Your senior team should also be meeting weekly if you want to keep your plan initiatives in the foreground. When you are a relatively small team, your leaders might be player-coaches, so if you don't help them maintain focus on the working-ON-the-business issues they are likely to become mired in the sand of daily operations.

Flexibility, adaptability in tools and topics –  Our focus as coaches near term is on helping your company overcome resistance and other obstacles that are preventing you from growing. There may be topics that come up during a standing agenda that require a “left turn” in the meeting on the fly. Know that those right-now changes are to capitalize on current dynamics in the room, and that they are supported by a full quiver full of coaching tools and techniques to help to pull your team forward.