FLUFFY ISN'T IT? You may have come across coaching in some way, shape or form previously. You might have been coached, or you might be aware of coaching around you. I want to share with you my take on what coaching is (and what it isn't!)
The difficult thing about talking about coaching from my perspective is lots of different things get badged as coaching. And, I love coaching, but it has built up a certain reputation and associations that aren’t always as helpful as they might be. Let me draw a distinction between two other (extremely useful) development tools, mentoring and training.
Mentoring and training are very much about giving information, sharing ideas, sharing of knowledge. They both rely on an individual imparting knowledge from one person to another. Coaching is the exact opposite. Coaching in its purest form is when, as a coach, we learn pause and ask rather than tell. So coaching is not about imparting new bits of knowledge.
From the coaches perspective, it’s about helping the coachee (the person you are coaching) explore, understand and identifying new ideas, new ways of working, new possibilities for them as an individual. This can be a massive challenge for new coaches, because if I’m honest it’s much easier for us to lean on telling others what to do. I think this is because telling others what to do seems to come to very easily to us all. When we train coaches, we often spend half a day breaking down these myths, ideas and preconceptions that people have about coaching. I remember one senior manage starting a three day coaching course saying: “Coaching is all soft and fluffy isn’t it”. By lunchtime (and unprompted) he stood up again, having learned what coaching was, and said “This could be the single toughest thing I have to do as a leader, I have to learn to stop telling other what to do.” Yes, I would agree it is tough, and it is challenging, but boy oh boy is it rewarding! When you see the spark of a new idea or the flicker of flame grow stronger as someone identifies ways to overcome a barrier they saw as insurmountable. Or when your coachee finds new creative and effective ways to achieve their goals the personal satisfaction as a coach is incredible. So why would being able to coach help you as a manager, leader or business owner? Well, the first benefit is you will be on track to getting the very best from everybody around you. Your team around you are going to be sharing new ideas and new approaches. Why does this help? Well, for one thing, it’s not just your perspective and you are not just relying on your own thoughts, ideas and approaches. We trained one director in coaching techniques and they were adamant they were the authority in their business in a particular topic so coaching wouldn’t work for them. We shared our coaching methods and asked them to apply the ask rather than tell approach. They were (extremely) sceptical and explained that his role as the technical authority was to give answers not to ask questions. It took around three weeks until he phoned me to tell me that he had asked a group of people about a complex technical problem, rather than tell them what to do. To his surprise the most junior member of the team came up with a solution that no one else (including him) had considered that was the best fix for the issue. He was astounded and hadn’t realised how much talent and ability the people around him had. It’s this kind of result you can get when you choose to coach and ask rather than just tell those around you. Seeing organisations create a coaching culture, one where people can ask for and get coaching, support and challenge from those around them is fantastic. When directors, leaders and business owners know what coaching really is. When they realise it’s not just spending time with people one on one “telling them what they did wrong”. When they take the time to explain to their teams what coaching is and how it will benefit them is key. In sports, underperformers, top performers and everyone in between gets coaching and support. It should be the same in business.
Ask yourself, when did you last see a top performer being coached, supported, challenged and kept accountable? Seeing a business owner who can ask the right questions, provide the right feedback, challenge, and keep accountable the team around them is brilliant.
Coaching is a journey, and as a coach I am still learning (I’m only about 17 years in) and it is tough but if you really want to create a great team around you, coaching is a key tool you need in your own personal toolkit.
