Coaching Skills

Managers with great coaching skills understand that it starts with the ability to establish rapport with employees based on mutual trust. That is the foundation of a healthy manager-employee relationship and it is the key to employee growth and performance.

18
feb
0

The Why of Team Coaching: Winning, Losing, or Playing the Game?

Posted by Coaching Skills, Sally Starbuck StampNo Comments

 

By Sally Starbuck Stamp

While the original meaning of “coach” was a horse drawn carriage, British sports teams in the 1800s began to utilize “coaches” to assist with the training and development of individual athletes and teams. Subsequently, coaching of professional sports teams around the world evolved into what is now a highly visible, highly controversial, and highly compensated career choice. In the United States, even non-sports fans recognize the names of NFL and NBA coaches who are regularly featured in the news and command salaries that rival those of seasoned players.

What can we learn from this type of team coaching that relates to organization team coaching? What are some process elements that are universal and worthy of replication? What are some areas of coaching practices that should be challenged when applied to organizational effectiveness? And why would we want to invest scarce resources (money, time, talent) in team coaching when, just as in sports, there is no guarantee of a win?

Organizational Teaming

As authors Kathleen Ryan and Geoff Bellman discovered in their research of extraordinary groups, most work is done in teams in both organizations and communities. And while the “players” and “game” are ever changing, organizational teaming involves the same combining of individual talents and skills into a collective that is stronger as a whole than the sum of the parts.

Just as sports team coaches must consider the differing gifts of team members and determine ways to maximize performance of both individuals and the team, organizations must create and sustain teams that embrace differences – even when the team members are not recruited. In the current work environment, team member differences extend beyond skills and abilities to include different locations, different hours of work, and different degrees of commitment and engagement.

Team coaching is really all about facilitating the development of relationships that increases the likelihood of desired change. Noted author and organization coach Margaret Wheatley speaks to the importance of relationships when she says: “In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles and positions.”

Team Coaching Benefits

In teams of any kind, team members benefit from guidance in developing these critical relationships. On the field, in the board room, around the operating table, or at the construction site, team coaching can help team members:

  • Clarify shared purpose
  • Truly appreciate differences
  • Understand the stages of team or group development
  • Engage in open and honest dialogue
  • Experience learning and growth
  • Define and celebrate success

Master coach Adria Trowhill of Posi-TRAK Coaching and Consulting maintains that team coaching takes place in conversations. She sees it as a collaborative process where individual team members are regarded as creative and resourceful. She would likely suggest that sports team coaching models of command and control are best left in the locker room.

So if work is done in teams comprised of individual contributors who must establish some consensus around where they are and where they want to go, what does a team coach offer:

  • Active listening/observing of the team process
  • Maintenance of a safe environment where all voices are heard and respected
  • Powerful questioning to provoke exploration of choices
  • Direct communication including timely and relevant feedback
  • Encouragement of individual and team accountability
  • Reminders to focus on possibilities rather than limitations
  • Knowledge of process improvement and team dynamics.

Why should you consider team coaching? It’s a legitimate development process that benefits individuals, teams and the organization and it allows team members to experience teaming that is effective, satisfying, and fun. It’s also a way to “play the game” where the scoreboard is not about win/loss as much as how the teaming experience was truly positive and transformational.

Why Team Coaching? The Real Question is Why Not??

If you find that your team experience is not what you wish it could be, think about what’s at stake if things don’t change. Consider assessing the current team using the Extraordinary Teams Inventory (ETI).  Use this objective data to help get hard to discuss matters on the table as well as to understand areas of team strength and areas for improvement.

Also consider engaging a team coach to help guide the team experience. A team coach can help get undiscussables talked about in a neutral way that both values and helps to replace dysfunctional behavior that has served people at one time, but no longer serves them.

For more information about Team Coaching using the Extraordinary Teams model and training package and the ETI, contact HRDQ. Additional information, resources, and support for developing extraordinary teams can be found at www.extraordinaryteams.us.

10
feb
0

Having the Courage to be Courageous

Posted by Bill Treasurer, Coaching Skills, CourageNo Comments

 

By Bill Treasurer

I once coached a professional named Bob who was considering three separate job offers. All were well known companies, but one was of particular renown. Its name carried a certain pedigree that eclipsed the others. Bob had settled his mind on one of the lesser offers, rationalizing that this particular job most resembled the roles that he had had in the past—roles that no longer challenged him, as he had mentioned in the course of earlier discussions.

Sensing there was more to it, I asked him to describe his impressions about the more prominent company. He said that many of the people who worked there had Ivy League degrees (which he didn’t) and/or graduate degrees (which he had). Although they had offered him the job, he said that he was afraid he wouldn’t cut it. I now understood that the issue wasn’t about skill compatibility; it was about Bob’s personal insecurities, it was about his fear. I probed further, “Bob, what exactly are you afraid of?” He thought for a second and said, “I guess I am afraid that everyone will be smarter than me, that my ideas won’t be valued. If that happens, they’ll fire me.”

Directed by Bob’s answer, I asked him another, more courage-provoking, question: If fear weren’t an issue, which job would you choose? Without hesitation he selected the one he was most afraid of.

As Bob’s story illustrates, fear often indicates something about yourself that you are avoiding. Left unaddressed, life will bombard you with a litany of opportunities to confront these “issues” until you finally resolve them. Each time you avoid the issue, you stuff it further into your psyche. But knowing that dealing with the issue represents your growth, your psyche throws the issue back up until you finally confront it, as if to say, if you don’t learn the lesson, you have to repeat the class.

Through coaching, Bob was able to see that not only did the job he was afraid of represent an opportunity to gain experience working in a world-class organization, but it also represented an ideal opportunity to explore and, more importantly, to overcome his deep-rooted feelings of low self-worth. But to benefit from both opportunities, he would have to muster up the courage to be courageous and to face his fear. Ultimately he did. He chose the opportunity he was most afraid of.

Any risk situation has a grand continuum: You are either moving in the direction of your courage or moving in the direction of your cowardice. When you face your fears, your Courage Capability expands, enlarging your capacity for dealing with future fears. In this way, demonstrating courage is itself a form of encouragement in that it fills you with greater levels of courage. Fortified with more courage, you are then capable of facing more fearful situations. For example, as a young professional you might find it petrifying to give a presentation to ten people. However, as you progress in your career and gain more experience with public speaking, you are able to comfortably address larger and larger audiences. In this example, the number of additional audience members reflects the degree of expansion of your Courage Capability.

Of course the opposite is also true. In situations where you allow fear to prevent yourself from having something you want, you enlarge your Cowardice Capability. And the more cowardice you exhibit, the more it grows because cowardice feeds on the diminishment of courage. On a certain level, this is also quantifiable. For example, the person who is afraid to take the risk of asking for a raise can calculate his cowardice as the difference between his current salary and the adjusted salary he feels he deserves but is too afraid to ask for (assuming, of course, that he would have gotten the raise).

People don’t like using the word coward. They look for softer, less offensive terms. But just because we don’t like the word doesn’t mean cowardice isn’t real. Cowardice is as real as courage. One exists in relation to the other. Furthermore, just as there have been times in your life when you’ve been courageous, the chances are, at some point in your life you’ve been a coward as well. Most acts of cowardice, however, go unnoticed and remain concealed within the confines of your heart. Cowardice comes in compromising your principles, in allowing your boundaries to be crossed, in failing to demonstrate personal fidelity, and in not taking a stand for what you believe in. You could spend your whole life being a coward and no one would know it but you.

Having the courage to be courageous means backing up courageous actions with a courageous attitude. It means holding a clear picture of yourself being courageous and continuously asking yourself, how would the courageous person I want to become act in this fearful situation that I am faced with today? It means first believing in the virtue of courage and then acting in a courageous manner.

When it comes to courage, you have to believe it to be it.

19
sep
0

What Does Your Coaching Style Say About You?

Posted by Coaching SkillsNo Comments

 

A company’s reputation depends on how well its leaders guide and coach employees to achieve excellence. But only those with well-developed coaching skills can successfully lead employees to greater productivity.

Skilled coaches know that sustained superior employee performance is achieved through regular coaching that recognizes and reinforces good behavior, helps employees recognize problem areas in their own performance, and empowers employees to improve in those areas. A person’s individual coaching style must be known and developed in order to perform the best coaching possible.

What is Coaching?

Many professions have a specific set of skills that a person uses over and over throughout their career. However, coaching itself doesn’t have a specific set of skills that are repeated in every coaching situation.

Each coaching relationship comes with new challenges and presents different opportunities to learn new skills. This is because no two coachees – or coaches – are alike. Each coachee goes to their coach with different needs and aspirations, so no two coaching relationships are the same. Consequently, coaches need to be skilled in a variety of areas in order to achieve positive results. Some of these skills include goal setting, action planning, problem solving, decision-making, listening, and behavioral change techniques.

The Four Coaching Styles

There are different types of coaching styles that leaders tend to have. Everyone is different, and some coaches are more “take charge and direct” while others may be “warm and empathetic.” One style isn’t necessarily better than another, and someone may have a few styles they exhibit. The four coaching styles are:

  1. Direct. People who take charge, in control, competitive, fast-paced, authoritative, leaders.
  2. Spirited. People who are enthusiastic, friendly, motivators, high-profile, decision makers.
  3. Considerate. People who are warm, counseling, cooperative, reliable, caring.
  4. Systematic. People who are accurate, objective, factual, organized, problem solving.

So what does your coaching style say about you? It shows who you really are as a coach. If you are a direct person and your coachee is considerate, for example, you will want to flex your style to meet theirs in order to be a better coach to them. You can make the experience better by being more counseling rather than authoritative.

Improving Your Coaching Skills with a ‘Meeting Model’

A manager’s coaching skills can be improved with a “7-Step Coaching Meeting” model. The steps and skills in this model are all based on behavioral science research and distinguish managers who are effective at conducting coaching meetings from those who are less effective. An effective coaching meeting can be viewed as a process consisting of seven steps:

  • Building a Relationship of Mutual Trust. Mutual trust is the foundation of the coaching process and directly rooted in a manager’s day-to-day relationship with an employee. Build it up so both parties are comfortable.
  • Opening the Meeting. In opening a coaching meeting, it’s important for the manager to set a direction for the discussion and to get the employee involved in the conversation.
  • Getting Agreement. The manager’s goal during the meeting is to get the employee to agree verbally that a performance issue exists.
  • Exploring Alternatives. The manager and employee together explore alternatives that will improve the employee’s performance. The manager should begin by encouraging the employee to identify alternative solutions.
  • Getting a Commitment to Act. The next step is to get the employee to commit to implementing the alternative that will best improve his or her performance situation.
  • Handling Excuses. A manager should avoid arguing with an employee over the validity of an excuse, but rather try to disarm the excuse or turn the excuse into a problem-solving discussion.
  • Closing the Meeting. In closing a coaching meeting it’s important that the manager emphasize the developmental nature of the discussion so that the employee views the meeting as more than a reprimand.

If a manager follows these steps, they will have a successful coaching meeting with their employee, leading to better performance and a more positive relationship.

More Help with Coaching

To learn more about coaching, attend the “What Does Your Coaching Style Say About You?” webinar on December 9, 2019 at 2 p.m. US ET. Participants will learn how to use What’s My Coaching Style? as part of their personality style and coaching training, identify personal preference for one of four behavioral styles, develop an awareness of personal behavior patterns, and see how one is viewed by those he or she coaches. Click here to Watch the free webinar: HRDQ Webinar “What Does Your Coaching Style Say About You?”

This webinar is based upon research from What’s My Coaching Style?, a coaching assessment that measures personality style and explores how it relates to coaching and interpersonal relationships. Coaches and managers identify and understand personality traits, learn how to capitalize on personal strengths, and minimize potential weaknesses. Learn more about What’s My Coaching Style? by CLICKING HERE.

28
jan
0
whats_your_coaching_style

Do You Know Your Coaching Style?

Posted by Coaching SkillsNo Comments

Coaching is more than a means of correcting problematic behavior.  It’s more than something a manager has to do in times of conflict.  Coaching is how relationships form between managers and employees.  It’s an opportunity. Knowing your coaching style can go a long way to successful coaching.

Building a relationship of mutual trust between manager and employee benefits everyone – employee, manager, team, and organization.  And while coaching is an ongoing process, the skills involved in conducting a coaching meeting can be extended to the overall employee/manager relationship.

What’s My Coaching Style? is a coaching assessment that measures personality style and explores how it relates to coaching and interpersonal relationships. Coaches and managers identify and understand personality traits, learn how to capitalize on personal strengths, and minimize potential weaknesses.

Accurate, easy to use, and and easy to apply, the coaching assessment measures an individual’s preference for one or more basic behavioral styles: direct, spirited, considerate, and systematic. With this knowledge, individuals can better understand why they behave the way they do, learn how to adapt their behavior to improve interpersonal relationships, develop rapport, and ultimately, become more effective coaches.

 The result of a coaching meeting should be a message, sent and received, about behavior.  Both employee and manager need to be aware of and committed to specific actions that will align behavior with organizational goals and values. By upholding these values, and guiding work toward these objectives (by coaching their employees), managers are building a better future for their organization.

Healthy employee-manager relationships can be an invaluable part of your organization’s culture.  Build them with great coaching – let What’s My Coaching Style? be your guide! You can learn more about the value of using this product in your training in the upcoming FREE webinar What Does Your Coaching Style Say About You?

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2
oct
2

How to Improve Your Coaching Techniques

Posted by Coaching SkillsNo Comments

Effective coaching is necessary in order to succeed. It can benefit both the leader who is doing the coaching and the employee who is being coached. But there are specific ways to coach in order to create the best possible results.

Coaching skills can be used in many areas of a person’s job. They can help with interpersonal teams, clients, customers, and between managers. Coaching in and of itself is a specific method/technique that can be used to guide an individual to new learnings in a dedicated time frame.

Coaching has specific goals:

  • Motivating and inspiring individuals to do more and work harder
  • Supporting clients in breaking down large goals into manageable steps
  • Holding people accountable to their commitments in order to produce results

The Coaching Process

There is a specific process that a manager should follow in coaching. They should first start with assessing the skills, personality traits, and learning styles of their employees. Then they should define their vision and what the successful outcomes are. They should create an inspiring mission statement that will make an impact with team members. They should also establish annual goals with objectives to meet regularly.

During a coaching session the manager should set the stage and determine why the coaching is necessary, then specifically define the opportunity or issue, then analyze the options and possible outcomes, and finally develop an action plan.

A manager needs to build trust with their employee at the beginning of the coaching process. They should ask open-ended questions to determine the best way to approach the issues and the ways in which the team member should be trained. Different employees may require different approaches. The manager should gather as much knowledge as possible about the situation in order to decide how to proceed.

How to Improve Coaching Skills

HRDQ’s ‘Coaching Conversations’ training can help managers establish the context of a situation and lead a series of coaching conversations that make the individual become responsible for proactively defining goals and becoming more accountable. The coach will understand how the various aspects of coaching conversations (like defining the opportunity or problem, analyzing options, and developing an action plan) can motivate and support individuals to help them successfully meet their goals.

After completing the training, managers will be able to identify the four steps of a coaching session and how they are applied in various contexts, recognize the correct application of inquiry and advocacy in a coaching session, and apply basic coaching techniques for performance improvement, career development, and specific skills. Learn more here: https://www.hrdqstore.com/coaching-conversations-rtl-title.

Coaching can be made simpler with some additional help. HRDQ is hosting a webinar titled “How to Say It: Coaching Conversations” on Oct. 30. During the webinar attendees will learn a four-step strategy for developing more effective coaching conversations. This strategy works with coaching scenarios like performance improvement, career development, specific skill development and overall team performance.

 

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