While the bulk of our work is done with executive teams, ProActive Leadership coaches also support individuals through one-on-one coaching. It would be impossible to count how many times we have been asked (sometimes verbatim) "Fix this person, please!" By the time we hear about some cases, the boss is frustrated enough to consider coaching as a last ditch effort to salvage a technically sound but interpersonally tone deaf individual.
When a leader breaks the glass and sounds the alarm for our intervention it's almost always about the candidate's people skills. Why? Because the bulk of the training we receive about how to succeed in the workplace relates to our technical skills. Human relations skills are often overlooked in training, and instead relegated to trial and error or role modeling. Who among us wants to be tried and erred upon until the boss or colleague improves? And depending on our backgrounds, the role modeling often leaves more impact about what NOT to do than it does about how to be effective as a leader, influencer, manager, salesperson, etc.
Your job is to grow the business's capacity to produce results, and your team members are your biggest appreciable resource in that endeavor. Here are a few principles to consider about engaging coaching:
- Know in specific terms why you want to invest in this person. Are they high potential? Are they technically proficient but interpersonally challenged? Are they undergoing a period of rapid change or a role progression, for which you want to provide coaching support? What is the return on investment that you want? Can you define it in dollar terms? Is it less of a return and more of a prevented cost that you're seeking? How big is that?
- Scope of work meeting makes or breaks the project. You and the coach work together with the candidate to discuss the focus of the coaching process, and lay out the desired outcomes. It is crucial that the stage is set by referencing the candidate's STRENGTHS - the reason why the company is investing in them. They will engage more fully when they view coaching as developmental rather than remedial.
- Habits are resistant to change. If the candidate has exhibited this pattern of behavior for a while it is ingrained at a subconscious level, meaning they don't notice that they are doing it. A good developmental coaching process includes tools that specifically help with habit changes. That said, there is no substitute for a motivated coachee who is willing to hit the behavioral pause button while working on noticing his or own behavior, then establishing new, more beneficial habits.
- Your feedback strengthens the process. You might be in your own habit - that of noticing this person primarily in the context of the undesirable behavior. While he or she is in the coaching process, make a point to catch the coachee when he or she is doing something right - and let the person know you noticed. What is rewarded is repeated. You cannot overestimate your importance in building the impact of the process.
- This person lives in a system. If you polish them up and place them back into a destructive culture, it will not take long for defensive behaviors and old habits to reappear. Few people feel joy from being difficult - the triggers for their old ways might be residing at the next workstation or in the cultural air all over the company. It is often productive for your coach to work with a peer group rather than individuals. This addresses the systemic nature of behavioral cause and effect, and it builds both positive peer pressure and a cross-functional relationships among the participants.
- Strategy and processes are the supports that enable performance. Strategy is important to coaching because your coachee needs to know the What and the Why behind their role. If you have articulated company core values the coachee should also have insight into How. As for the importance of process, a broken process can pulverize a team member's confidence, motivation, and productivity. That's aside from the fact that the process output is likely to be unreliable, no matter the person using the process.
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