Figure 19.1 Managing-Coaching Continuum
© Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara.
The focus on building coaching skills at the managerial level—what is often termed manager as coach—is a new frontier for coaching inside an organization. This next wave of coaching democratizes an approach that was once seen as an executive perk for accelerating development. Today organizations experience a rapid payoff when they equip managers with a set of skills and simple methodology that allows even first-time managers to quickly build skills in developing others.
A review of current research supports the view that equipping a manager with coaching skills pays off for the team and the organization. Mink, Owen, and Mink (1993) early on envisioned coaching at the managerial level as a process that encourages development and improves performance on the manager’s team. Ellinger and Bostrom (1999) conducted an extensive study to examine the specific behaviors of a manager that shift this person’s orientation from the model of control–dominate–prescribe to a facilitator of learning. Their findings identified two clusters of behaviors: empowering and facilitating.
These clusters of behaviors closely resemble coaching skills.
Ellinger and Bostrom’s study provides the field of coaching with important direction in articulating what is needed in order for managers to develop a coaching mind-set and a coaching approach. The clusters of behaviors developed over a decade ago closely resemble many of the coaching skills required for the manager as coach to successfully engage team members in their own development.
Ladyshewsky’s (2010) recent study, “The Manager as Coach as a Driver of Organizational Development,” is a natural extension of Ellinger and Bostrom’s earlier work. Ladyshewsky examines success and failure factors for the manager as coach and provides a thumbnail sketch of what’s required in the training of managers to equip them with the necessary skills to engage their team members in coaching and hold a coaching mind-set in their work. We set out his findings in the following sections.
Mind-set precedes change, and a good starting block for any manager of people is to reflect on the current beliefs and practices employed when managing others. Often the manager believes his job is to direct and problem-solve for others instead of developing and delegating. A coaching mind-set focuses on empowering team members by providing support in the growth and development of others in areas important to the worker, the manager, and the team.
Hargrove (1999) highlights some of the common obstacles that get in the way of a manager who is adopting a coaching mind-set, including a view that coaching is something that someone else does and takes too much time away from the work of managing. Hargrove urges managers to take a different view of their role and highlights the reality that “coaching lies at the heart of management, not the edges. Coaching is everything you do to produce extraordinary results in your business with colleagues amid change, complexity, and competition” (p. 8). He believes in the importance of helping managers view their role as much more than a checker or a cop; they are coaches and collaborators. Developing a coaching mind-set is an important step in organizations today.
In our work providing coaching skills to managers, we often place butcher paper on the wall with arrows going in both directions from highly directive to facilitative (see Figure 19.1) and ask a group of managers to stand where their current approach is best represented.
Almost without fail, the largest cluster of managers is at the far left end of the continuum, where the focus is on a highly directive approach of telling a direct report exactly what he or she needs to do or, in cases where a problem develops, moving in, taking over, and doing whatever needs to be corrected themselves. When we ask managers how it is to spend much of their time at the directive end of the continuum, they offer candid comments like these:
“I find myself frustrated when a team member doesn’t do it the way I think it ought to be done, and instead of taking the time it would require to get it back on track, I often just take over and do it my way—not a good long-term solution!”
“I guess I worry about whether or not some of my team members are capable of coming up with good solutions, so instead of taking a risk, I just opt to give detailed instructions and tell them what to do. Problem is, they just keep coming back for my instructions!”
At the other end of the continuum, where coaching occurs, the manager deliberately finds the right times to develop team members by asking questions, supporting and empowering good thinking, and challenging team members to come up with their own solutions (when the risks aren’t too high).
This coaching mind-set is a paradigm shift in the manager’s approach to working with teams and individuals. Instead of being overly committed to solving everyone’s problems and listening to complaints, the coaching mind-set creates a framework for ongoing development, collaboration, and empowerment among teams, direct reports. and peers.
Too often managers find themselves in the time-consuming role of mediator, problem solver, solution builder, and driver of the latest initiatives and deadlines—all roles that generally result in predictable tensions (and often disempowerment) with a short-term solution often being drawn into a long-term issue. By developing a coaching mind-set, the manager has another way of approaching the development of a team member. This new approach produces a sense of empowerment and encourages the employee to contribute to developing solutions and approaches to any number of issues and challenges. For the manager with a coaching mind-set, team tensions become an opportunity for individual and group development, as well as the chance for members to take a role in resolving friction.
An important step in developing this skill is to build awareness of the differences between a managing mind-set and the coaching mind-set. Table 19.1 provides a brief comparison.
Table 19.1 Managing Versus Coaching Mind-Set
| Managing Mind-Set | Coaching Mind-Set |
| Creates a quick solution | Helps team members develop their own solutions |
| Mediates staff differences | Queries team members about their role in a given challenge |
| Tells team members how to manage | Queries and listens to the issue |
| A step ahead of the team-building solutions to strategies | Asks questions before creating solutions and strategies. Seeks to empower team members to develop a sense of their contribution. |
| Gets it done! | Gets it done collaboratively |
| Managing can be the best approach in many situations, particularly when time pressure is intense. | Coaching builds skills while developing strategies and solutions designed to strengthen the organization but takes time |
We have developed the spot coaching approach (Figure 19.2) to allow managers to use coaching skills at the appropriate times to engage in ongoing development of team members and direct reports. This three-stage approach provides a simple structure and reliable methodology for successfully coaching people on the spot in their day-to-day work.
Twenty- to thirty-minute spot coaching sessions can rapidly yield measurable results, maximizing employee performance as well as laying a foundation for longer-term development. These sessions apply a proven and sound methodology:
Engage
Plan
Sustain
Although the comprehensive set of skills needed for a manager to engage in just-in-time spot coaching conversations is beyond the scope of this chapter, we offer a brief examination of what’s required at each step in this simple process.
The manager’s coaching tool kit needs to contain some essential skills in order to engage in a just-in-time coaching conversation. Given the tendencies of many managers to move quickly into the tell-and-fix approach when a problem surfaces, the first work is in changing old habits that don’t serve the manager’s ultimate goal and the development of a team member. A fix-and-tell approach may be called for in emergencies and high-risk situations, but when it’s time to develop and nurture the capacities of a member of the team, it’s time for a coaching mind-set and a coaching approach.
These are the key skills:
It takes a plan with clear action steps to support any change. At this stage in spot coaching, it’s important to get specific about when, where, what, and how a change will start to unfold.
Change happens through a combination of support and holding the other accountable for making the agreed-on and necessary adjustments. The employee can identify action steps that can be taken, and the manager can help identify building blocks that will lead to sustainable change in the future. The manager can support a member of the team in simple ways after this commitment through a follow-up conversation, a check-in e-mail, or whatever else will best support the other. Support creates another level of accountability because it is clear that there will be some follow-up on the progress and agreed-on action steps. A manager’s investment in coaching team members needs to be aligned with the organization and boost the bottom line of the team and the organization.
Sustainable change is the goal in all coaching, and in a manager’s just-in-time coaching, it most often takes several coaching conversations to create deep and long-term sustainability. It is useful to think of the impact of spot coaching as a spiraling dynamic (Figure 19.3) that continues to build momentum and lasting change through time and repetition:
Figure 19.3 Spot Coaching Spiral
In this transcript, Steve wants to strengthen his delegation skills.
Coach: Good morning. Steve, How are you?
Steve: I’m good. How are you?
Coach: Really good! So what’s going on? You said you wanted to chat for a few minutes.
Steve: I was wondering if you might be able to help me out with an issue I’m having. I’d like some help around delegation. I have the opportunity to really use somebody in a position, and I feel that I don’t have the skills quite yet to do that.
Coach: Okay. Is this a good time for a little coaching on this right now?
Steve: Sounds good.
Coach: So tell me a little bit more about what’s going on.
Steve: Well, I have a person coming in a couple of times a week who’s helping me on some specific projects. I don’t have a lot of experience delegating, so I’m having trouble focusing on my own tasks and handing stuff off.
Coach: Okay. And is it generally an issue with delegation, or do you think it’s particular with this individual?
Steve: That’s a good question. I think it’s a general issue.
Coach: Okay. So what success have you had in the past, if any, in this area?
Steve: Well, I’m really good at preparing specific tasks for the individual—figuring out what is something that I should pass off. That’s a strength, I think. I’ve found success there.
Coach: So where does the challenge come in?
Steve: I find myself going over their work even after it’s been completed, and I feel that’s kind of micromanaging, as well as a certain amount of discomfort with delegating. I don’t feel completely comfortable telling people what to do.
Coach: Do you feel like you are telling people what to do or perhaps helping people be more successful in their role on the team?
Steve: Well, I guess I hadn’t thought of it in that way. Instead of helping them, I’ve always thought of delegating as bossing others around, and that’s very uncomfortable for me.
Coach: And when I mention the possibility that you are helping someone be more successful . . .
Steve: It’s good! It really turns the whole thing upside down for me, and instead of being bossy, I can imagine I’m actually doing a favor for them.
Coach: Perhaps helping to develop them?
Steve: Yeah. That’s really a great way of thinking about this—very freeing actually!
Coach: So if you were to create an ideal situation, what is your goal here? How would you want it to work?
Steve: Ideally, I would appreciate someone in that position coming to me when they have questions, so I don’t feel as if I have to keep a close eye and go through everything that they produce with a fine-toothed comb.
Coach: That makes a lot of sense. So if I understand this correctly, you want to be better and more effective at delegating, you don’t want to be micromanaging this person, and you want to have some confidence that if they bump into something, they’re going to come and initiate the contact with you.
Steve: Yeah.
Coach: So if you were to think about what you’re doing with this person that is working well, what specifically would that be?
Steve: I think it’s useful to have a very specific set of items prepared and be able to sit down briefly. Sometime I go into too much detail when I say exactly what I want done. But being able to take that time just initially to go through what I expect and what I need is useful.
Coach: So a strength of yours right now that you’re using is you’re pretty clear about what you need done, and you have, more or less, the list of things and some details connected to it, and you’re clear about what you expect. Do you take the time each week or each day when she comes in to have this conversation with her about what’s expected that day?
Steve: Yeah, generally when she first comes in.
Coach: So what is problematic for you? Is she not getting the work done in the way that you want? Tell me where the gap is for you.
Steve: I think at this point, because she’s new to the projects, she needs a lot of clarification. So switching gears between what I’m working on and managing the projects that I’m hoping she will accomplish without much supervision is challenging.
Coach: It sounds to me as if she is able to do some of what you want, but it doesn’t sound like she is doing everything that you want her to be doing. So if you were to identify for yourself, what would you need to do differently to get more from her?
Steve: Rather than looking at it from a day-to-day basis is having things laid out either weekly or monthly that could be standardized and put into a format that she could track, without my having to hand over projects on a daily basis. That would be useful for both of us.
Coach: So for you right now, you’ve got the daily tasks more or less outlined and handled, and you’re thinking that if you were to step back and do this more on a project or give her a longer view than just that day to day, it might be useful. So for you, what would that require?
Steve: Maybe just taking a little more time to better define the position and really giving boundaries to what that position entails and what projects she could take over.
Coach: So what I’m hearing you say is rather than having it just be a daily “here’s the list of things I want you to do today,” you would take a step back and look at the projects you would want her involved in more closely and give her more of a project view of this. Have you done any of that at this point with her?
Steve: Very little, I would say. It’s been more of specific tasks, closer to the ground.
Coach: So for you, when you think about that being the ideal, her stepping up and being better able to come to you when she has a challenge, trusting that she will able to do that, is it your sense that if you give her a bigger view in the project orientation, she’s more likely to do that with you?
Steve: I think so. I sure know for me it is easier to understand the day-to-day stuff if I can see the bigger picture. That might be the case for her as well.
Coach: Okay. Are there any other perspectives that we might consider here?
Steve: Yes. I’m also wondering what I can do in my attitude toward delegating, in that it’s unnatural for me to direct someone so directly. It’s very direct to say, “Do this, do that.” I’d like to maybe soften that, but I’m not really sure how.
Coach: So what is it when you think of yourself as delegating and telling someone what to do? What’s challenging about that for you?
Steve: It’s the bossy thing again, like I’m putting myself at a higher level, and that’s uncomfortable. I feel like it’s not necessarily good for the relationship.
Coach: Interesting. So you would like to experience a more collaborative relationship with her, and I’m wondering, in the position you’re in, what is your sense of what the organization needs from you?
Steve: I think at this point, efficiency is important. Being able to add things to my plate, and that’s part of being able to hand things off.
Coach: So more is expected of you here because you’re learning more and they want you to take on some additional things, so in order to that, you have to be able to pass some things on to someone else. So you’re caught in that transition, so to speak, right now. And part of that transition is learning how to inform and support and get other folks to get the job done.
Steve: Yeah, absolutely.
Coach: So as you grow into this, is this something you want to learn for yourself?
Steve: I do. I think it’s very important and something that will be useful for the rest of my career.
Coach: So it’s a good practice place, this relationship with this individual? I have a thought for you. Are you interested in hearing my thought on this?
Steve: Yeah, definitely.
Coach: I’m wondering if a conversation with this individual would be helpful, because right now, she’s getting daily tasks from you, and you’re thinking of giving her things on more of a project basis. I wonder how she experiences you, because your concern is that you don’t want to be bossy or come across as if you’re higher than her. What’s your sense of how she experiences you?
Steve: I would imagine that if you’re constantly being handed things of that nature by one person, it might—this is probably part of my bias as well—feel like one thing after another is being shot at you without really getting that whole perspective.
Coach: Okay. So as you think about moving forward and reaching more of your ideal, what are some of the things that we’ve talked about that you might do with her to support this for you?
Steve: I think having a conversation around how she sees me and how she feels about the way she’s been presented tasks and projects, and explore new ways of working with her that would fit better for her. And maybe present to her the idea of coming up with something for her that’s longer term rather than just that initial meeting of the day—something for the week or the month. Maybe a certain format or spreadsheet would be useful and a good place to start.
Coach: Okay. So what is it that I might do to support you in having a conversation? Is there anything else we could talk about that would facilitate it?
Steve: It might be helpful if you have any ideas around how to initiate that conversation.
Coach: One of the things that you talked about when we started is that this is new for you, and it’s something you really want to do well, and you also want to support her. Given that those are your objectives for becoming more effective at this, would this be a good way to start the conversation? You want to be a more effective delegator; you want to do it in a way that really supports her and in a way that has you feeling like coworkers versus maybe her treated in a way that isn’t effective for her. When would you like to have this conversation with her?
Steve: Well, today even. Why not?
Coach: Okay! Great! So you’ll have the conversation today, and how about, if after you do that, you’ll let me know how it goes, and maybe then determine what we can do for the next steps.
Steve: Absolutely. That’d be great.
Coach: All right, good luck!
Steve: Thanks!
Coach: Well done!
The three-step process of spot coaching is evidenced throughout this coaching dialogue. What’s also clear is that a good methodology is not meant to be a lockstep linear process. At some points in this fifteen-minute just-in-time coaching session, the coach moves into building a plan with Steve. When she finds herself once again exploring Steve’s challenges around delegating, she quickly steps back and returns to the work of challenging Steve’s thinking and feelings and gaining more clarity about how Steve wants to adjust his current approach.
Sustainability is developed over time for managers as they engage in a just-in-time coaching approach and follow-up. Even the briefest follow-up creates the foundation for sustainable change, one conversation at a time.
