OK. I have been traveling a lot. I have been working with clients, which means I have been working with managers constantly for the past many weeks. Which also means I have been speaking with managers about coaching. We have been discussing the reason for coaching, what to coach and how to coach it. We have been role-playing it. Excuse me for a sec, I realize no one likes to role play. The mere mention of the word strikes fear in the hearts of many. I have often thought that even changing the word doesn’t change the reaction. Simulations and quasi-pseudo-interactive-portrayals still create the same fear. And yet everyone I have ever worked with say they want more role-plays. Really? Go figure. Anyway, so we have done all that stuff about coaching and last week something hit me. With all that we know about coaching and the efforts, knowledge, analysis and process – do we know if the team member (1) understands the reasoning, (2) understands the method and (3) understands the action needed?
You see, my fear in educating managers is that it is only one-sided. The implication is that the “now trained” manager goes back to the team and starts coaching. Maybe they did before, maybe they didn’t. I never know for sure. What I do know is that someone paid me to educate the process of coaching and the manager feels (or is made to feel) compelled to coach their team. They try the “thing” or tip I suggested, and then what happens? Unless there is something in place to observe and monitor the practice, how successful is it really? We can talk about measurement and adoption all day long. When the manager is back with their team in the store, is the first thirty seconds into this new coaching thing working or not?
I contend while the extent of the manager’s skill is always up for debate concerning the coaching act’s impact (success or not so much), it is the reality of the receiver that is the thing. At some point the knowledge and skill of the act quickly becomes irrelevant if equal time is not spent to understand the team member and their relative understanding of the act, its reason for being and how to manifest its next step.
I am Skippy. I am one of your team of five. I am whatever age I am. I have been with you for over a year. This is my second job. My first one was with another retailer but not the same types of product. I was a friend of the manager in the last job. I am unsure what I want to have happen in my life. I am thinking about going back to college, but it is pretty expensive. I have two roommates. We love to do that thing we all love to do. I have a girlfriend and we have been dating for about six months. It is pretty serious, I guess. I come to work. I don’t mind it. I get commission so I check in the POS system what my check looks like pretty often. I know our company is growing. This product is pretty important and has people coming in pretty frequently. I am good with the product and can speak easily to customers about what it does. I don’t mind the hours and will do pretty much what the manager asks. This won’t be my career, but I am OK for right now. Oh yeah, my manager is just back from training. I wonder what they will try out this time.
You are back from training and thirty seconds into your day with your team, how is that “shiny new toy” going? What if you never coached before? They will probably think you are odd or drank some type of Kool-Aid at that training thing. To be fair, maybe you coached. Kinda. It wasn’t a formal way to coach or give feedback. It looked like something else. Maybe you never gave praise. All of your feedback and coaching was corrective in nature. Maybe you tried that tip and it seemed weird or didn’t work. You know…that tip where you do that thing or say that thing in a certain way. It worked so much better when you saw it role-played at the training. That one manager with the crazy hair style said it and it looked cool and sounded great. Now you tried it and it just fell flat, for some strange reason.
I have always believed and shared that “we all know what to do but do not always do what we know”. I will extend that even further. This concept lives primarily in a singular context. In other words, you and the act alone. It is when you and the act add another person (or persons) that the act’s impact is now incredibly dependent on two mindsets. Give yourself a moment for that last comment. I can teach you about coaching all day long and for a week if you want. It is when you go back to your team that the success of failure of the coaching is not just up to your ability to know the process. It will also be up to the team member’s understanding and abilities. They provide at least half of the success (or failure) of your coaching thing. It will also be up to your knowledge, as manager, to be able to influence and stimulate their choices and behavior. So there is the act of coaching (and its intent) and then there is the “coached” with their reaction to it.
The reality may be that we think we know what the team member knows. We may think that when we get back from training, some magic pill will cause our team to just turn around and respond well to our coaching. We think we know how they are motivated or what may motivate them. Take the training to heart, embrace it. Then,
Tell your team what happened. Share your understanding. Apologize if you have to.
Ask what they think. Find out what they need and how they prefer it.
Respond to them, not just the act. Make the act an extension of what you know about them and what is needed.
Rinse and repeat.
I was speaking with a respected peer yesterday and we were aligning some curriculum design. When we got to a part where we would be instructing the targeted managers on goal management, I mentioned this message. Whatever we teach…managing goals or coaching performance, if there is not at least an equivalent amount of effort in considering those receiving the goals or coaching, specifically in how they understand, interpret and are able to act on what is given, how successful are we really? It is like teaching someone to be a life guard and not teaching the swimmers to swim. OK maybe not exactly the same thing. Sorry. Todd is the manager and Skippy is the team member. Todd is informed on the best practices in coaching and Skippy is informed on what exactly?
Cheers