“Almost all organizations are presently caught between two paradigms in how they organize themselves and how they are led,” wrote Warren Bennis in his book, Managing People Is Like Herding Cats (Executive Excellence Publishing, 1997). When we are dealing with a wicked problem, this situation of being caught between two paradigms can make things extremely difficult for people in leadership positions.
One solution is to engage in proactive coaching to help people who are struggling with this situation. Recognizing that coaching is a structured dialogue and development process to improve the professional competence to execute a task, project, or activity, most leaders do not know that there are two forms of coaching, namely transactive coaching and transformational coaching. The former, transactive coaching, is focused on the transferring of competencies, skills and/or techniques from one person to another. The later, transformational coaching, is focused on shifting people's view about what is happening within the company, their team, and themselves. In essence, the former is about skill set and the later is about mindset.
When we take the long view on coaching, we release that it is a framework for building better leaders and better employees. Bill Conaty and Ram Charan in their book The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers (Crown Business, 2010), write, “In the fast-changing global marketplace, the half-life of core competencies grows shorter.” With this amazing insight, they explain that “Only one competency lasts. It is the ability to create a steady, self-renewing stream of leaders.” Ron Nersesian, the head of Agilent Technologies Electronic Measurement Group, builds on this perspective when he wrote, “Developing people’s talent is the whole of the company at the end of the day. Our products all are time perishable. The only thing that stays is the institutional learning and the development of the skills and the capabilities that we have in our people.”
“Winning organizations are teaching organizations,” writes Noel Tichy in his book, The Cycle of Leadership: How Great Leaders Teach Their Companies to Win, (HarperBusiness, 2002). “Everybody teaches. Everybody learns.” For at the heart and soul level of good coaching is a lot of teaching and a lot of learning. These interactive learning moments are critical to handling the two paradigms of how we are organized and how we are lead. As Tichy notes, “The mistake that many people make is thinking that winning the game today and building a team for tomorrow are two separate activities.” In reality, they are all part of the same thing, and the depth of clarity and understanding about this is usually found and/or discovered through in-depth sharing that takes place during the structured dialogue within a coaching framework.
What most leaders forget in their rush to get coaching checked off their list and back to solving the wicked problem is that coaching needs to happen on a regular basis and to be structured. What I have observed over decades of doing this work is something so basic but often missed, namely to be a good coach you have to know the company’s framework for coaching, i.e. the outline for the structured dialogue, and you need to have a good coach. While each company may do it differently, the key is that all leaders across the company are using the same basic framework and then coaching with it on a regular basis. Experience has taught me that frequency is more important than perfection.
Furthermore, these structured and interactive moments of learning and sharing need to take place in a relationship based space where all involved feel safe to share openly and freely. This element of feeling safe makes a particularly big difference, because when dealing with a wicked problem, assumptions, priorities and habits may be called into question, and have to be explored or re-evaluated in order to discover a better or improved way of doing things. The sum of these interactive moments of coaching, sharing and co-learning will also help the coach and the person being coached to better cope with the paradox between how the company is organized and how it is led. It also will result in the growth of more allies and confidants within the company to cope with the challenges before the company. In summary, a wicked problem may be wicked, but it is not insurmountable when we build a consistent infrastructure that scales up a mindset and set of relationships built on clarity, healthy relationships, and the capacity to handle that which is both complicated and complex.
FYI: To be continued on Thursday.
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