COACHING
HOW TO COACH LIKE A LEADER …
EVEN ( ESPECIALLY ) WHEN YOU ’ RE A SKEPTIC
Michael Bungay Stanier
Author of The Coaching Habit : Say Less , Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever , Michael Bungay Stanier is the Senior Partner and Founder of Box of Crayons , a company that helps organizations do less Good Work and more Great Work . It is best known for its coaching programs , which give busy managers practical tools to coach in 10 minutes or less .
BY : MICHAEL BUNGAY STANIER , SENIOR PARTNER AND FOUNDER , BOX OF CRAYONS
YOU KNOW who you are . You ’ ve been hearing about coaching ( or mentoring , its first cousin once removed ) for years now and thought , “ Yeah , yeah … that ’ s for those HR / ‘ people people ’ types , not me . I ’ ve got a real job to do .”
Or perhaps you ’ ve figured out how to do pseudo-coaching . You don ’ t tell people what to do directly , just cunningly ask , “ Have you thought of …?” ( Which is not so much a question as it is advice with a question mark at the end .)
Or perhaps you ’ re just too busy . You ’ re certain coaching and mentoring takes too much time , and as much as you ’ d like to sit down for a nice chat with everyone , you ’ re already overcommitted and overwhelmed . There ’ s no room for anything extra . There ’ s Good Reason to Be Skeptical … As our world has become more complex and more millennial-y , coaching ’ s importance to successful teams and organizations has only grown . I ’ m certain that if you work in an organization of any size greater than one , you ’ ve been encouraged to coach those you manage and lead . But what ’ s good in theory is proving difficult to put into practice .
A 2006 report from leadership development firm BlessingWhite suggests that 73 percent of managers have had some form of coaching training . However , it seems it wasn ’ t very good coaching training . Only 23 percent of people being coached thought the coaching had a significant impact on their performance or job satisfaction . Ten percent even suggested that the coaching they were getting was having a negative effect . ( Those must have been miserable meetings .) No wonder there are skeptics . And skepticism is okay . … Just Don ’ t Be Cynical The word cynic comes from the Greek word kynikos , meaning dog-like . In other words , they ’ re going to cock a leg on it , no matter what . Cynics have written the whole thing off , regardless of the evidence .
Skeptics , on the other hand , are pretty sure it ’ s not worth it … but are willing to be convinced otherwise . So skeptics , let me tell you why you should consider being more coach-like . 1 . You help those you lead Dan Pink laid it out beautifully in his book Drive , which shows that what really motivates people is not so much money and status but autonomy , mastery and purpose . There ’ s no faster and cleaner intervention than asking a good question — the essence of being more coach-like — to drive autonomy ( they answer it , not you ), mastery ( questions create aha ! moments ; advice does not ) and , to a lesser extent , purpose ( if the question helps make the connection to the why of it ).
If you want those you lead to be more engaged and to
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