During normal times it can be a challenge to get managers to formally coach their people. They complain “We’re really busy. I’ve got no substantive issues with any of my team members. Can’t I just meet with them when things slow down?” If it weren’t for HR-imposed deadlines, developmental coaching might not occur at all.
Today is different. In the middle of the largest business disruption since the Great Depression, it can be argued that formal coaching between managers and their direct reports may well dictate business survival. We have what might be called “Coaching Exigence” – an urgency to coach.
Why is there such a burning need?
1) People are scared. “Nonessential” service providers are afraid of losing their jobs almost as much as their “essential” colleagues are frightened about performing theirs. Those fears, compounded with worries for the health of loved ones, can combine to produce crippling stress.
A manager as coach can help direct reports surface and purge their fears or adjust and address them. She can guide and encourage them to take action.
Some things can be discussed in a group, but deep-seated fears often need to be dealt with more privately. The CEO can sincerely proclaim he’s got an open door, but in a crisis we need him focused on matters strategic. In an organization, the person best equipped to help an employee ground negative emotions during a crisis is the immediate boss.
2) People are sad. Most readily realize when it is necessary to make fundamental changes to what we do or how we do it. During a global pandemic it can be argued that both our lives and our livelihoods depend on it.
The mandates are clear. Work from home. Wash your hands. Stand six feet or more apart. Wear masks when outside your quarantine bubble. We can do that. Most of us will do that. But that doesn’t make it fun.
Stop shaking hands. Cease giving hugs. Abandon your vacation plans. Postpone your daughter’s wedding and skip your nephew’s cancelled graduation. Draw down your retirement funds to make your mortgage payments. We can do all of that. We mourn having to.
Clearly, a boss cannot change these newly required safety measures, but he can be aware of their sadness and express sympathy. And sometimes what a manager learns when coaching through a crisis can influence work distribution and impact. For example, he might assign overtime to the worker whose spouse is laid off and be more flexible with work hours for another who is homeschooling three children under ten.
3) People are confused. When this year began, I had a plan for myself and my career. It was built on an assumption that people would continue to gather in groups of more than a dozen. It assumed people would work in offices, travel in airplanes, stay in hotels and go out for dinner. That plan is now obsolete and it’s unclear how to replace it.
Your employee may have spent the last eight years working toward a degree for a job that may no longer exist.
Company leaders can be clear and persuasive in describing the absolute necessity for the company to make a strategic pivot. They downsize and reorganize and expect workers who get to stay to work hard and be grateful. They also expect them to shift and grow, quickly.
But… do people have concrete plans to build new competencies? Will they be effective if they don’t? How do they find joy in this new role? What is the personal development plan to get to the New There from the New Here?
So, what can I do to deal with this coaching exigence? How can I assure that my people will receive coaching makes them less scared, sad, and confused?
Use a Scalable System. Employ a structured approach to coaching that gives managers a template to work through. It’s okay for coaching interactions to vary from good to great. Not so useful if the variation includes modest to poor. Adopting a well-designed standardized process greatly reduces the low-end experiences and increases the quantity of high-end coaching conversations.
Listen Before You Speak. To be effective, coaching must institutionalize listening. Fear and sadness cannot be forced away. Purging emotional issues through dialogue paves the way for action plans that might actually work. Managers that actively listen during their coaching conversations will also find vital insight into HOW to coach individual team members.
Coaching is a Skill. I can call a foal a horse, but it probably won’t pull my cart very well. Don’t expect managers to be good at coaching just because you call them a coach. Like any skill worth having, coaching can be studied and learned. It will improve with education and practice.
Trust, but Verify. Expect your managers to make their best effort to follow the company’s chosen process but check for quality. Pay special attention to the coaching documentation submitted by managers with a high turnover rate and/or who struggle most with recruiting. Those coaches may benefit from some additional training or attention from their own coach or a specially trained coach of coaches (Coach2).
Garold (Gary) Markle is the creator of Catalytic Coaching and author of Catalytic Coaching: The End of the Performance Review. He brings real world experience from 17 years in HR leadership in major corporations coupled with 20 years of teaching small and mid-sized organizations how to cultivate their leadership and ditch their detrimental performance reviews for a proven Coaching process.
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