Coaching Tip
Go Beyond Problem-Solving
We are often asked about our approach to coaching. Certainly, we believe there is no higher leverage leadership activity than coaching, when it is done well. The problem is, a great many managers in engineering and other professional service firms have a very technical understanding of the task of coaching, and therefore miss a lot of opportunities.
In short, we believe that if you want to get leverage from your coaching activities within your organization, you have to equip people appropriately. Most technically expert professionals cannot necessarily coach others. Even the most competent technical experts or savvy client managers can often not communicate what they know in a way that encourages actual learning and change.
The problem we often observe is this: would-be coaches focus on ‘the problem’ at hand and end up missing the forest for the trees.
As an example, in a recent Coach’s College session we facilitated, Mark was practicing his coaching skills on Sarah. Sarah presented a current, real issue that she wanted some help with. It had to do with an internal issue she was having with the landscape architecture group in her firm. Put simply, she felt consistently undermined in her effort to maintain her client’s happiness on a particularly challenging project, and that the landscape folks were quite happy to let her suffer.
Mark – as coach – listened earnestly and did not hesitate to wade into particulars of the situation. Who were the players, what did they say and when, what did they do or not do, and how did she react. When Mark learned ‘enough’ to understand the situation, he then gave Sarah some very specific advice on what to do. He advised particular conversations with particular people. He suggested politically-sensitive maneouvers that would allow Sarah to get what she needed from the Landscape group. He coached until his time was up.
Upon debrief, it was clear that Mark was quite pleased with his effort, and Sarah was no further along at all. Sarah had had a good conversation, but, being a smart person herself, as well as an inveterate problem-solver, she had been over much of the same ground through which Mark’s approach had led her. And while she felt heard and supported, she still felt stuck.
In our experience, novice coaches often do what Mark did: they apply their expertise and they problem-solve. However well-meaning, this approach usually fails to help the coachee get different results.
As Einstein is popularly quoted as saying, you can’t solve a problem with the same level of consciousness that created it. This is a crucial maxim for the would-be coach. If a coach tries to help someone with their problem, but does not address the coachee’s own beliefs and behavior, they will deliver little more than support and a sympathetic ear.
In the case of Sarah above, Mark had an opportunity to help her examine her own response to the situation. From the outset, the scenario had a whiff of victimhood, wherein Sarah was the hard-done-by victim of an ineffective, if not vindictive, landscape group. Insofar as Mark failed to help Sarah see how she herself was setting up her experience, and her results, he missed a golden opportunity to coach.
None of us can see ourselves very clearly. Having a coach hold a mirror up, so we can better understand our own behavior, and its effects, is a great gift. Of course, looking in the mirror can be uncomfortable, especially when the reflection is not flattering. No doubt Sarah would have bristled at the notion that she was in any way accountable for her situation. Indeed, it was much easier for her to maintain her belief that it was the landscape group that was the sole source of ‘the problem.’ In a sense, Mark took her at her word on this, and as a result did not hold up any mirror.
The skills to undertake real coaching, coaching that enables a change in behavior or beliefs, are learnable. And yet they represent a paradigm shift from how most people, especially technical professionals, think about the work of the coach.
What coaching opportunities have you had lately? Did you problem-solve, or did you hold up a mirror? What coaching opportunities do you have upcoming? How can you really maximize those opportunities to really change behaviour, and not just problem-solve?