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#408
from Innovative
Leader Volume 8, Number 6
June 1999 How
to Manage Like a Coach, Not a Cop Dr.
Rinke is a management consultant, professional speaker, and editor
of The Winning Manager newsletter and 12 books including Winning
Management: 6
Fail-Safe Strategies for Building High-Performance Organizations
(Achievement Publishers, Clarksville, MD, 1997), from which
this article was excerpted. He can be reached at 410-531-9280,
e-mail wolfrinke@aol.com or on the web at www.wolfrinke.com. Rapid changes
demand that managers and leaders learn to leverage themselves by
learning how to coach their team members.
Unfortunately, many have not mastered this art because
they’re unwilling to give their power away, primarily because
they perceive that granting power to their team members will
reduce their own power. My own experience, and that of my clients,
has demonstrated just the opposite. Giving power to others not
only multiplies your power, it also (in the long run) enhances
your ability to be a highly effective manager, whose team members
tend to be: • Results-oriented
instead of activity-focused • Less
concerned about doing something wrong, or making mistakes • Less
dependent on supervisory approval to make decisions • Willing
to take calculated risks and achieve innovative results • Able to
communicate effectively because they can express their needs and • Able to
build effective networks and partnerships • Able to
influence others and get the job done • Opportunity
focused, looking beyond their own area of responsibility to make Given the
alternatives, it’s clear that empowerment is a critical strategy
that demands your attention. Of course, if you’re currently an
effective delegator, you might assume that you are already
empowering your employees. Although I partially agree, coaching
and empowerment go beyond delegating because they represent an
entirely different way of managing people. Instead of playing cop,
you will be expected to assume the role of coach, facilitator, and
team leader. And that role can best be fulfilled if you master the
art of unconditionally accepting others for who they are, instead
of who they ought to be. In
this age of teams and project management, mastering these roles
represents a survival strategy.
So what is coaching? Coaching:
A Definition Coaching is a
system that “grows” people by enabling them to learn through
guided discovery and hands-on experience. The important element in
this definition is that learning occurs through guided
discovery, not by showing or telling people what to do.
I’m fond of suggesting to managers, that “telling is
not coaching!” Rather,
coaching assumes that team members learn by doing. Implicit in
that definition is that effective coaches have three major
responsibilities: •
Guiding people to discover the tools they need to get the job done •
Building confidence •
Motivating team members to be the best they can be Building
confidence and keeping team members motivated is an important
aspect of your job. Some
people will take on additional responsibilities with open arms. No
problem there. But what about those who are always running away
from additional responsibility? Well, you must make very clear
what’s in it for them and then reward any degree of success.
(Remember, all of us listen to our favorite radio station, WIIFM--what’s
in it for me.) Some employees
are afraid of taking on anything new because they’re not sure of
their own capabilities. Here you must engage them in incremental
learning, by letting them experience success through the
completion of easily attainable “baby-steps.”
In addition, you should point out where and when they have
succeeded in the past. Then you must express confidence in their
capabilities by saying, for example, “I know you can provide
leadership to this team. Remember how well you did last month,
when you headed up the compensation review project?” In other
cases, you may have to provide team members with informal or
formal training before they are ready to assume the additional
responsibility. How
to Coach Like a Pro Stage
1: Agree on the Project This is where you
and your team member sit down and agree on the specific project
that she is going to be responsible for. These stages, by the way,
assume that it’s a major project and that you’re communicating
face to face with your team member. It is also assumed that this
project represents an area of strength for you and an area of
weakness for your team member-- something that would enhance your
team member’s competence and, once mastered by your team member,
would take a load off your shoulders. Of course, traditional
managers hesitate to provide this type of coaching because,
according to them, they lack the time. Deep down they are really
afraid that they will coach themselves right out of a job.
Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. Stage
2: Mutually Identify the Goals and Outcomes Expected I like to call
this defining a good job. So often, things don’t go the way you
expect because your team member didn’t really understand the
outcomes you wanted to achieve in the first place. When you’re
done with this stage, both of you should be very clear about the
when, where, what, who and how. Let me emphasize that you should
always set high expectations because that will help determine how
successful your team members will become. The reason is that, in
the long run, you get the type and quality of performance you
expect and accept. Furthermore, research tells us that most people
are performing well below their maximum potential at work. Stage
3: Facilitate Self-Discovery This is the stage
that distinguishes coaching from delegating. It is probably the
most difficult stage for most managers, especially those who are
used to telling others what to do. You can best
facilitate self-discovery by: • Listening
actively--listen for the meaning, not just the words. This
requires you to make your own mind quiet. It also requires you to
talk far less than you’re used to. Remember, there must be a
reason that you were born with two ears and only one mouth. Maybe
you were meant to listen twice as much as you talk, especially
when coaching others. • Helping
your team members think through the process and consequences of
their proposed actions--this means that they do the thinking. To ensure that this happens, you might ask:
“What would be the consequences of you taking this action?”
Remember, your role is to facilitate their thought processes, not
think for them! Similarly
if a team member comes to you and asks you to make a decision, ask
him: “What do you think?” Then let him go with that decision
unless it will inflict harm to customers, goes against the
organizational philosophy, or costs more than you can afford. • Sharing
your good and bad experiences--your team members will learn from
both. Most managers hesitate to share how they have messed up.
They feel they must maintain a facade of perfection. However,
sharing what hasn’t worked for you, especially your really bad
goofs, is particularly helpful here. It makes you more human, gets
you off the pedestal, and gives your team members’ permission to
be less than perfect--which is what both of you are anyway!
Remember: it
is very hard to get off your high horse gracefully. Stage
4: Agree on the Boundaries If you have
identified and implemented a widely shared organizational
philosophy-- your mission, vision, and core values, most of stage
4 is already done. (If you don’t have a philosophy, it’s time to hire an
external facilitator and get one fast!)
After all your philosophy represents the mutually accepted
parameters and boundaries in your organization. They are, what I
call, the “gold standard,” for everyone on your team. Of
course, you may need to verbally supplement them so that your team
members know where your comfort zone is and where the danger zone
begins. You may also want to define when you want to be briefed
and what type of feedback you want; for example, Stage
5: Authorize and Empower To get the job
done, team members must have authorization. I refer to this as
giving your team members “rope.” That includes the appropriate
spending authority to get the job done. And please don’t be
timid here. After all, if housekeepers at Ritz Carlton hotels have
the ability to spend up to $2,000 to solve customer service
problems, what’s your excuse? To make this work, you must also
master the art of letting go. I mean really letting go, and giving
away not just your money but also your power. You see, it’s
virtually impossible to learn by doing if your team members have
to check with you every time they need to make a decision or a
change. They would spend all their time running after you, instead
of taking care of business. In other words, you must tell your
team members how far they can go without coming to you, and then
you must stay out of their way and let them do their thing. This has been
particularly difficult for managers who are afflicted with that
dreaded disease I call “perfectionitis.”
When they see something wrong, they instinctively want to
correct it right away. The better way is to let the team members
learn from their own mistakes. “But,” you protest, “let them
make a mistake, and not say anything?”
Yes, that’s what I mean. “All the time, regardless of
the consequences?” No, that’s why being a highly effective
manager is an art first and a science second. You must do a
risk/benefit analysis. That’s what physicians are taught to do
anytime they prescribe medication. They weigh the benefits of the
medication against the risks associated with it. You must do the
same thing when making a decision about how much rope you should
give your team members. Stage
6: Summarize and Reality Test The purpose of
this stage is to enhance communication accuracy. If the project is
critical, I would do some reality testing by having the team
member state in her own words what, specifically, the two of you
have agreed to. A good way to accomplish this is to say to your
team member: “As you well know, Jane, this is a critical project
for us. Please be kind enough to summarize for me what it is that
you’re going to do between now and the next time we meet.”
Assuming that at this point you are both singing from the same
sheet of music, you’ll be ready to move to the final stage. Stage
7: Track and Follow-through This stage is
designed to make sure that nothing falls between the cracks. It is
especially critical if you’re coaching someone for the first
time. In that case, you will want to be sure to put a note on your
calendar or computerized tickler file that will remind you of the
date and time your team member promised to provide you with a
report, update, or any other kind of feedback. Once that’s
achieved, stand back--yes, really stand back--and what ever you
do, don’t--let me say it again, don’t--interfere! Now, watch
your team members grow, and watch the dramatic improvements in
performance, productivity and profitability.
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