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Strategic Coaching Chess

Manager-Coaches Don’t Coach to Be Nice; They Coach to Be Strategic

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3 Mindsets and 3 Coaching Skills of Effective Managers

 

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The most successful managers I know are obsessed about pursuing excellence and delivering results. They are equally committed to talent development. Their site line is crystal clear – grow their people first, who in turn grow the business.

 

“If you focus on results you will never change. If you focus on change you will get results.” 

                                                            -Jack Dixon

 

Great coaches are usually born, but can be made. The mechanics and skills of effective coaching, of course, can be taught and learned. But great manager-coaches just seem to get it. Their coaching DNA drives their focus to help others be their best, while insisting on goal achievement and results. Yes, they are skilled but their skills are an outcome of their beliefs about people and business.

 

3 Mindsets and 3 Coaching Skills of Great Managers

#1 Coaching is a strategic business decision, not just a box to check. A talent management mindset is not murky – finding, engaging and retaining great people is a competitive business strategy. Great strategy with mediocre people produces mediocrity. Professionals committed to learning, growth and development will always find a way to increase market share and build long-term customer loyalty.

Coaching Skill: Conduct regular (3-4 weeks) one-on-ones that engage, inspire and insist upon positive action and accountabilities. Coaching without individual, measurable actions is a waste of company resources. Short on time? Use the 4-Step Coaching Plan to conduct one-on-one meetings in 30 minutes.

 

“Talented manager-coaches don’t lose people, they grow them.”

–Steve Rudolph

 

#2 The greatest business potential is in the middle. Every manager wishes they could clone their one or two rock stars. Sustained business outputs cannot depend on the few. The strategic coach focuses 80% of her energies on building the skills of the middle 60%, knowing she’ll need solid players to be resilient and adapt to a changing market place. For the rock stars, use this Coaching High Performers guide.

Coaching Skill: Require each team member to develop an IDP (individual development plan) and update it quarterly. Coaching one-on-ones always results in a SMART action plan that directly supports IDP goals. Managers who attract high performers have a reputation for growing future leaders. Implementing a clear system for developing talent forges coaching reputation.

 

“Change before you have to.” 

                                                            -Jack Welch

 

#3 Coaching is not a technique; it’s a strategic connection. Effective coaching cannot exist in low trust relationships. People want to be appreciated and understood. Great coaches get to know their team members, their drivers, values and aspirations. Money doesn’t produce inspiration, meaningful work and a connection with others is the fuel of motivation. It’s a trite adage, but powerfully true – people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Coaching Skill: Listen a lot more than you speak; adopt an active listening technique. Deep, empathic listening builds trust. Trust causes people to open up, to share useful information. Because leadership is the art of influence, trust makes employees more likely to listen and be persuaded by the manager’s ideas.

 

While great coaches are mostly born, not made, managers who make a dedicated, strategic commitment to coaching others often experience a renewed sense of managerial motivation. There’s just something special about connecting with others in pursuit of purpose and performance. Begin a rewarding journey by adopting the above 3 Mindsets and 3 Coaching Skills.

 

Keep it simple. Keep it focused. Definitely keep it inspiring.

 

Difficult Conversation

Managers, the Goal for Difficult Workplace Conversations is not Personal Comfort…

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It’s action and commitment

 

Manager Skills Boot Camp II: Improve your Difficult Conversation skills and more!

 

“An object at rest remains at rest until acted upon by an outside force.” –Newton’s First Law

 

Grant is a steady performer; an overall solid team player. Ellen, his supervisor, has given Grant feedback several times that his work lacks attention to detail and the quality is often marginal. Grant’s behavior has not changed, so it’s time to have a difficult conversation that gently provokes him at his edge.

Ellen’s untiring feedback attempts to get Grant to improve have failed. Ellen needs to amplify her expectations and become the outside force. Intensifying one’s tone while being prepared for the consequences naturally stokes levels of stress and anxiety, both for Ellen and Grant.

A critical challenge for Ellen is to appreciate that tension is a resource to gently increase and manage, not avoid. Why? Tension and struggle are the universal energy sources for human growth, change, and transformation. The chick embryo must work and struggle to break free of the eggshell to become a healthy chick.

Grant must experience constant, gentle pressure to understand it’s in his best interest to change. Tension, when harnessed appropriately, creates awareness. Ellen must develop a *safe learning container to leverage the tension in pursuit of Grant’s development. It’s a classic manager’s paradox.

*If managers have not created trusted working relationships with their direct reports, these conversations are often emotionally difficult with messy outcomes.

 

“The challenge for leaders is to disturb or disrupt the movement at the edge to provoke the desired outcome.” -Per Bak, author of How Nature Works

 

Two Outcomes of Turning Comfortable into Uncomfortable

#1 Ideal Outcome: Grant takes 100% responsibility for his sub-par performance and sincerely makes a commitment to change. Most managers report a mere 10-20% success rate with this highly desired outcome. When this level of spirited partnership is achieved, managers call that a great day at work!

On the other hand, being overly attached to this outcome is often driven by the manager’s need for comfort and control. In order for the outcome to be ideal, this need should be relinquished.

#2 Acceptable Outcome: Ellen is leveraging her personal relationship with Grant to persuade him that it’s in his best interest to change. She’s selling, he’s not buying. Now she must pivot from expecting an ideal outcome to an acceptable outcome.

Grant commits to taking concrete and specific actions, including changing his behavior, and understands the consequences if he does not do so. This uncomfortable condition is known as agree to disagree. Ellen must be okay with the fact that he doesn’t share her belief. Her goal is to demand expectations that serve the company, not for her or Grant’s comfort levels.

 

So What Now?

Monitor, Measure and Provide Feedback

Ellen’s previous feedback attempts were based on hoping Grant would change. The Situational Leadership Model instructs Ellen to apply a much more direct style until Grant has made observable behavior changes. Being more direct is not Ellen’s default leadership style, but that’s not important. Ellen’s primary objective is to help develop Grant’s full potential. This is Servant Leadership at its core – the sincere desire to help others be their best. This leadership style says easy, does uncomfortable.

 

Sometimes Acceptable is…Acceptable

Few management situations are more frustrating then having a difficult conversation, especially when the employee digs in and says, “I disagree with your assessment.” Managers must develop the emotional fortitude to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Tension is not a condition to be avoided, but instead, constructively managed towards an acceptable, not perfect, outcome.

 

Keep it simple. Keep it focused. Definitely keep it inspiring! –Steve

 

Manager Skills Boot Camp II: Improve your Difficult Conversation skills and more!

 

Managing a Tone-Deaf Boss Can Feel Like Riding a Cow…

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The cow doesn’t want to be ridden and the ride is rough

 

Watch the complimentary webinar: Difficult Workplace Conversations

 

Growing up next to a farm with a tribe of reckless boys, I had lots of painful and failed attempts at riding cows. If you’ve ever tried this, you’d know that it feels pretty similar to “managing up” a tone-deaf boss.

 

Like cows, tone-deaf bosses:

  • Don’t enjoy be ridden (e.g. “managed up”).
  • Ensure the ride is very uncomfortable and possibly risky for you
  • Purposefully attempt to rub you off the fence
  • Will throw you off (Falling off a cow is like falling out of favor with your boss: Bruising and dangerous for your career)

Inversely, in-tune bosses are on high alert for shifting workplace discord and proactively engage team members in sincere two-way dialogue. These bosses are engaged, hands-on, approachable, and biased toward democratic action.

Safety is your #1 goal while riding a cow. The same goes for managing up: The psychological and political perils are many and often hidden.

 

Cow-riding tips and parallels to managing a tone-deaf boss:

Rule #1 – Try to minimize surprising the cow. Cows, like bosses, possess a survivalist brain that easily spooks into fight or flight.

  • Boss Rule: Schedule regular 1:1’s with your boss. I recommend at least 20-30 minutes every week. Provide a clear agenda in advance that is solution-oriented, sensitive to tight budgets, and demonstrates your clarity around key priorities.

Rule #2 – Never attempt to change a cow. A cow has gotten to where it’s at by being a successful cow; bosses too. Nothing yields rigid thinking and outsized egos more than historical success.

  • Boss Rule: Show that your riding attempts will be a win-win. Point directly to the green pastures on the horizon. Your boss needs assurances that your obvious persuasion attempts consider her best interests.

Rule #3 – Cows are stubborn negotiators.  An armful of freshly cut hay usually provides leverage.

  • Boss Rule: Most bosses can be swayed by strategic solutions that support her objectives and the organization’s priorities. Complaining without a clear business plan promotes resistance to your ideas. Just like cows, bosses will simply ignore you, stare you down, or become agitated by your anemic advances.

 

A tone-deaf boss is a major source of frustration for many dedicated employees. There is no ‘grass is greener over the fence’ strategy, but take it from an experienced cow rider: There are trusted rules for what and what not to do.

 

Keep it simple. Keep it focused. Definitely keep it inspiring! –Steve

 

Watch the complimentary webinar: Difficult Workplace Conversations

 

Bad Managers Cost You Money!

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Three Actions for Building a Solid Talent Promotion Program

Promoting the right individual to a management role is, arguably, the single most important business decision. Need evidence? Consider Gallup’s research that those managers who meet the criteria of “high levels of talent…contribute about 48% higher profit to their companies than average managers do.”

And yet, smart people get this critical business decision wrong. In fact, Gallup has found that 82% of management hiring/promotion decisions fall short of optimal. Imagine if your business could make 48% higher profits just by choosing the right managers!

Just because an employee is great at coding, sales, customer service, or has been with the organization for 10 years, there is little correlation that these capabilities will contribute to becoming a great manager.  In fact, your organization will lose a great star performer and inherit a mediocre manager – a lose-lose decision.

 

Avoid the common promotion minefields by investing resources in developing a methodical talent promotion program for your organization. Here are three pragmatic actions to counter your current spaghetti-against-the-wall manager promotion approaches!

Action1: Require all managers to formally identify leadership talent, regularly. The accepted truism applies here – “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Management must be visibly committed to this critical initiative. Senior leadership should expect and inspect each manager to advance potential candidate names quarterly, for example.

Action #2: Assess a candidate’s potential against a balanced scorecard type criteria, such as:

  • Key management and leadership competencies
  • Core business values
  • Long-term business strategies

Action #3: Implement distinct talent development pathways, based on assessment ranking.  For example:

  • A “Ready Now,” top-tier candidate – Initiate new manager onboarding and training program. “Strong onboarding processes improve new-hire retention by 82 percent and productivity by over 70 percent” (SHRM, 5/9/2017).
  • A “Could Be Ready,” candidate – Initiate a 60 day Action Learning Project. Real-time business initiatives enable two constructive events: 1) Candidate is provided opportunity to demonstrate skill level in target “gap areas,” and, 2) Manager is able to observe and coach candidate, while receiving feedback on candidate’s potential from involved team members.
  • A “Not Ready” candidate – Provide individual a kind and candid assessment, along with a general development plan. After 12 months, candidate may re-apply for internal promotion. Thank them graciously!

 

Stop using outdated and ineffective reasoning for manager promotions – your business, customers, and team culture will benefit immensely! A wise manager promotion or hire will make your business a lot of money. It makes business sense to invest in a more objective and disciplined talent promotion process. A transparent process also helps mitigate the politics that often surround next-level promotions.

To learn more about promoting the right people, watch this video.  Stay tuned for a webinar on this topic where we will delve into the details of each step, provide resources for implementing organization processes, have live demonstrations, and be ready to answer all your questions!

 

Keep it simple, keep it focused, and definitely keep it inspiring.

-Steve

Learning Bulb Ideas

Learning and Performance: The Importance of Parallel Goal Setting

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You want high performance, so you demand it. But without proper education and support, your employees lose morale. We all know what low morale does to a workplace. Failure to keep employees engaged, inspired, and rewarded creates more of what you don’t want: loss of hope, frustration, and—sometimes—unethical behavior. But a manager who couples performance expectations with learning and process goals is a manager with a winning team.

 

“If you focus on results, you’ll never change.
If you focus on change, you’ll get results.” –Jack Dixon

 

Winning Managers Simultaneously Craft Two Types of Goals

#1—Performance Goals. These are often “the numbers,” and I warn you, be careful with them. Arbitrarily raising the bar may result in the negative actions above.

“The numbers” are tightly coupled with “forced ranking,” the management process made famous by Jack Welch at General Electric. Enlightened leaders and managers have long associated these archaic methods with Fredrick Taylor’s Scientific Management Theory. Rigorous coaching and development inspires and motivates people, not the pursuit of economic efficiencies at all costs.

 

“What’s measured improves” -Peter F. Drucker

 

#2—Learning/Process Goals. These are the identified competency areas necessary for the person to achieve the performance targets. It’s unethical for management to set performance goals but not provide the knowledge and training necessary for people to achieve success. However, front line teammates experience this shoddy implementation regularly.

Most of us would consider it ludicrous for a tennis coach to demand his player increase her first-serve speed (performance), but not train the athlete on the bio-mechanics (process) that generates more power. Sadly, the sloppy mandating of increased performance expectations happen every day in organizations. Talented managers act like talented coaches when setting performance targets.

Make sure you are nurturing and developing your people, and they’ll stick around longer, be stronger, and help you pave the way to more wins for your business.

 

Keep it Simple, Keep it Focused, and Keep it Inspiring. –Steve

 

art credit: Carlos Sarmento & Gregor Cresnar