Risk & Business Magazine General Insurance Services Magazine Spring 2018 | Page 21

CAREER REINVENTION
W
hat does great
leadership really look
like? It’s easy to say
something vague like
“To be a great leader,
you must be a good coach.” After all, a
good coach has the ability to help team
members unleash their potential, and
isn’t that the perfect example of great
leadership?
While it’s easy to make that claim, it’s
harder to really understand what being
a good coach actually means. Coaching
for performance essentially involves
addressing a particular issue with your
employee, with the end goal of solving
it. Issues at work come up constantly, so
there’s no way to get around this kind of
coaching — it will always be necessary
and an important aspect of your job.
But to really help people learn and grow
in their careers, good coaches need to
look for ways to coach for development,
rather than just performance. Coaching
for development involves turning the
focus from the problem to be solved and
onto the person who is fixing it.
By turning the conversation from a
situation to a person, you’re really asking
that person to learn, improve, and grow
from the situation, and not just to simply
deal with the issue at hand.
THE 3PS: PROJECT, PERSON, PATTERN
Work issues almost always revolve around
a project, person, and pattern — the 3Ps.
Keeping the 3Ps in mind when you’re
coaching will help you narrow in on
development opportunities.
Start off by exploring the project your
employee has approached you about.
This is where you can easily coach for
performance — by establishing the
pressing, everyday issues revolving
around a project and getting them out of
the way. Clearing up those issues will help
make you both feel less anxious.
Now it’s time to shift gears and examine
the people and patterns involved (the
two other Ps). First, take a look at any
interpersonal challenges. We’ve all had a
job where we’ve struggled to work with a
particular team member.
“IF YOU LEAVE
ROOM FOR
DISCUSSION,
YOUR
EMPLOYEE WILL
HOPEFULLY FEEL
COMFORTABLE
DISCUSSING
DIFFICULTIES
THEY ARE HAVING
BECAUSE OF A
LESS-THAN-
PERFECT WORK
RELATIONSHIP.”
need. Indeed, they might have resolved
the issue themselves, had you noticed
and acted on the opportunity to coach for
development. Instead of offering advice
(the usual pattern), you could have asked
questions that encouraged them to come
up with their own solutions.
You’ll find that if you ask the right
questions, the real issues your employee
is grappling with when it comes to any
of the 3Ps will come to the surface. The
more often you ask questions of your
team members, the easier it becomes
for them to answer them, and the less
difficult it becomes for you to ask them
— and this is actually a good habit to
develop.
Start off with the pressing request
(project), find out what the interpersonal
challenges are (people) and then look at
how you can change a particular behavior
for the better (pattern). Asking your
employees questions will lead to learning
opportunities for them, and that’s what
great leadership is really all about. +
There are different ways of approaching
relationships, depending on the
circumstances, and the sooner you
figure out what the best way is in each
instance, the better. If you leave room for
discussion, your employee will hopefully
feel comfortable discussing difficulties
they are having because of a less-than-
perfect work relationship.
Examine the patterns of behavior that
could benefit from change. Often we fall
into a vicious cycle where the manager
leaves a meeting feeling overwhelmed
and the employee feels disenfranchised,
all because of a behavior pattern we don’t
even notice we’re stuck in. For example,
as managers, we’re quick to jump in with
advice and solutions, but doing that can
often address the wrong issue, and your
employee doesn’t get the solution they
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. BoxofCrayons.com
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