Creating Coaching Cultures

Choosing Between Judgment and Change

We want to change the things that bother us the most. We don’t need to look too far to find people and situations we feel are overdue for an overhaul, such as the myopic turf wars that limit our opportunities to collaborate, chauvinistic leadership styles that don’t honor the value in diversity, or the self-centered leader who puts his own welfare above that of the people he is supposed to serve.  These are all things that legitimately make us angry and upset.  We want to see them changed.

Here’s the thing.  You may first need to change yourself before you are able to truly create lasting change in the people and situations that bother you most. That’s because you cannot change what you are judging.

Think about it. How do you feel when someone judges you? Are you willing to bend in that person’s direction and change your behavior to satisfy that person’s desire for you to be different? I doubt it. It’s more likely you will judge the person in return for judging you.  You will fire up your defense mechanisms of choice and the cycle of judgment begins. Once the cycle gets started, it can be very difficult to stop.

Here’s how the cycle works. Judgment springs from fear. We fear the things that we don’t understand, don’t know how to change and are concerned can threaten us in some way.  When we judge something we are afraid of it allows us to feel separate from whatever it is. Because judgment springs from fear, we respond to our judgments in the same ways we respond to fear – fight or flight.  When we respond with fight we attack the other person or situation, directly or indirectly, often in hurtful ways that enable us to feel safely superior. If we choose to flee what we are judging, we give ourselves permission to dismiss the person or situation as hopeless and walk away. In either case, we have forfeited any chance of playing a meaningful part in creating change.

Real Coaching = Real Engagement = Real Competitive Advantage

Early on in one of our Coaching in the Moment® workshops this week a participant looked at me with all earnestness and said, “I still don’t get why we can’t just tell people what to do? Why do we need to coach them?” What is implied is telling people what to do is faster and easier, so why bother taking a coaching approach.

The heart of the difference between coaching and telling people what to do lies in how are brains are wired. Real coaching focuses on creating insight – an “aha” experience” – that literally builds a synapse in the person’s brain. That new learning creates engagement. Telling people what to do results in people complying with your demand if you are able to imply enough of a threat or an appealing reward to compel them to do so.

Compliance is a very low and costly bar. People who only comply often shy away from taking risks, generally avoid taking responsibility and certainly don’t contribute any more than is needed to get by. People who are engaged make the extra effort, value learning, and contribute their creative efforts to addressing challenges.  

Change has Changed

I remember learning Lewin’s model of change in my Psychology 101 class. The model has three steps to describe the change process: Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze. I think global warming has hit organizational change, because nothing seems to freeze anymore.  Change is now a constant; a fluid process we need to learn to flow with or we will surely drown.

Coaching-based leadership is like swimming lessons for leaders. It teaches them how to move with, and even grow and develop in, the constant state of change.   When leaders take a coaching approach to the change process they open up their thinking – and the thinking of others – to find new ways of responding to their ever-changing environment. 

When people do not feel equipped to deal with a situation they can become frightened and rigid.  For example, people who don’t know how to swim don’t tend to like spending time on the water.  What we often call “resistance to change” is just fear being expressed in a very rational way. People who don’t feel they can keep your head above water during the change process will do what they can to avoid the situation or stop the change.

The Fundamentals of a Coaching Culture

I just returned from a terrific conference for master coaches were we had the opportunity to be in dialogue with Brian Johnson, the creator of PhilosophersNotes. If you aren’t familiar with Philosopher’s Notes I highly recommend that you check it out.  Tag line:  More wisdom in less time.  Brian has summarized the “big ideas” from one hundred self-development books into six-page PDFs and 20-minute MP3s, where he shares his insights with a joyful and infectious enthusiasm.  

One of the “big ideas” Brian shared at the conference that particularly resonated for me was the reminder that its consistency around the fundamentals that separates great performance from the merely good.  Great performers in all areas give their attention and focus to mastering the foundational skills upon which their performance is based.  I know this from my experience as a dancer.  There’s a reason every dance class begins with bar exercises – whether you’re just starting out or are a professional dancer – you begin with the foundational skills. 

That got me thinking about the “fundamentals” for a coaching culture.  What are the foundational things that an organization needs to do consistently to create and maintain a culture where ongoing development, collaboration and creativity are part of the essential ethos of the experience?

Here’s my list:

Listen for meaning

The old adage that you will hear what you listen for is true.  Most organizations I’ve encountered have very poor listening habits.  Most are lucky if they listen well enough to accurately glean the information that is being conveyed, let alone the underlying meaning that is always present but rarely perceived.

Linking Coaching-Based Leadership to the Business

When I am in initial conversations with an organization about starting an initiative to integrate coaching-based leadership into the DNA of the organization, one of the first questions I ask is “How do you envision coaching-based leadership adding value to the business?”  If the answer sounds something like “Well, we just need coaching skills” that’s a huge red flag for me.

In my experience, if the people spearheading a coaching initiative can’t articulate the value to the business one of two outcomes is likely:

The initiative won’t get off the ground, usually because there’s insufficient support (read, insufficient budget.)

OR

The initiative will be sputter out under its own weight, since no one is quite sure why they are investing in something with no clear expected return.

“Just because” isn’t a good enough reason to engage in coaching-based leadership. 

The Foundation of a Coaching Culture: Coaching-Based Leadership

Recently I’ve been hearing more about coaching cultures and personally, I think many people are missing the point.  There seems to be an assumption that creating a culture of coaching implies that all leaders and managers should essentially open up their own mini-coaching practices, conducting lengthy coaching sessions with all of their employees on a regular basis.  This of course, on top of ALL the other things they have to do.  It makes me tired just thinking about it!

It takes a lot of training and practice to be able to conduct successful ongoing coaching engagements.  A well training professional coach will often have hundreds of hours of specific coach training, in addition to working with a mentor coach (or coaches).

I think we need to learn to walk before we run.  To me that means helping leaders learn how to use basic coaching skills in day-to-day conversations. That’s what we call coaching-based leadership.

What is coaching-based leadership?

Coaching-based leadership occurs when people integrate basic coaching approaches into their day-to-day conversations.  Coaching approaches such as asking questions to gain insight instead of just gathering information, listening to understand what’s stuck, and appreciating how the other person views the situation are a few of these approaches.