When I encounter an organization that is doing well with complexity and adaptivity, I always know that leaders and managers are all actively engaged in routine coaching and regular check-ins with their teams, teammates , and direct reports. Furthermore, I know that they have not reduced this to a formulaic interaction, but instead see this as a structured dialogue and development process to improve the professional competence to execute the organization’s strategy and strategic intent.
Now, the dictionary defines a coach as someone “who instructs or trains the fundamentals.” The original definition of the word coach came from an old French word meaning “a vehicle to transport people from one place to another.” And while these are good and simple definitions, I like that the definition that Rodd Wagner and James Harter use in their book, 12: The Elements of Great Managing (Gallup Press, 2006). As they write, a coach is “anyone who, in the eyes of the employee, ensures she successfully navigates the course…. The important aspect is not which of many terms this protector goes by - friend, coach, advisor, sponsor, counselor, support - but whether the employee feels she is not abandoned inside the business.” Whatever the term, a coach is someone who is an ally and a confidant during times of challenge.
With this in mind, we need to help all who are coaching understand that coaching is a structured dialogue about purpose, strategy, and relationships. It involves questions, analysis, action planning, and follow through. It happens with a person, not to a person. And finally, during coaching, we may not always be able to solve all the problems that come before us, especially given the presence of complexity and the need for adaptivity, but, we can emphasize the choices, and a framework for finding the right answers and solutions needed over time.
Next, when it comes to the language around coaching, we need to define some key words and concepts. First, there is a difference between coaching and supervision. The goal of supervision is to observe, direct, or oversee the execution of a task, project, or activity. Coaching, on the other hand and as I mentioned earlier, is a structured dialogue and development process to improve the professional competence to execute. In short coaching is not supervision, and supervision is not coaching.
Second, many people interchange the words coaching and check-ins. Many younger leaders and managers, who are required to coach someone who is older and more experienced, use the term check-in. I understand this choice, and recognize that the change in words can be helpful.
However, in the literature on this subject, most people frame coaching and check-ins as being two different things. Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall in their book, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019), define a check-in as “a frequent, one to one conversation about near-term future work between a team leader and a team member.” This check-in involves “two simple questions: What are your priorities this week? How can I help?” Whether you call a coaching session a check-in is not the point. Instead, it is the clarity about the purpose of the exercise and the desired outcome. During times of complexity and adaptivity, we need regular and effective supervision, coaching, and check-ins.
Next, we need to understand something that Kevin Cashman wrote in his book, Awakening the Leader Within: A Story of Transformation (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2003). As he explained, “stories are the language of leadership” and “questions are the language of coaching. “ The reason this is important is that routine coaching over time builds a common language, and a shared mindset.
Within the world of coaching, Kevin Cashman in the aforementioned book notes that there are two different types of coaching. The first is transactive coaching which focuses on the transferring of competencies, skills and/or techniques from the coach to the person being coached. The second is transformational coaching which focuses on the shifting of a person's mindset about what they are dealing with at an operational and/or strategic level. The former focuses on skills and knowledge while the later focuses on willingness, commitment, understanding, and perspective.
When I dive deeply into the most effective coaching I’ve seen during complexity, I notice one very interesting element. The coach and the person being coached engage in deliberate practice. Now, some coaches will focus their coaching on the things that someone already knows how to do with the hope of helping them to do it better. But when coaching people within complexity, the best coaches focus on helping someone learn how to do something new and different. They understand that this form of coaching involves creating new cognitive road maps to move through complexity and adaptivity. In particular, it involves scenario based thinking, i.e. helping an individual achieve a strategic mindset by exploring different possible scenarios. They do this kind of coaching through open-ended questions such as “If this happens, what would we do?”, or “If that happens, what would we do?”. In essence, the coach is seeking to improve the skills and knowledge someone already has while simultaneously seeking to expand their range of skills and knowledge. When this is combined with organized and structured learning and constructive feedback that challenges someone to excel to the next level of their expertise, they empower people to be more independent and interdependent. In short, I agree with K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely in their article, “The Making of an Expert” in the July-August 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review. As they write, “good coaches help their students learn how to rely on an inner coach.”
When we understand the importance and the value of regular coaching, we comprehend that we are creating a structured space for dialogue, engagement, and sharing. All of which will strengthen relationships across the organization and with key people outside the organization. It is the combination of both actions within this relationship centric space that create the capacity to handle adaptive challenges and complexity over time.
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