"That's Not Coaching!" - A 32-Year Veteran Sets the Record Straight

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Transcript

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What is Coaching?

Speaker 1 0:37

So what is coaching ? You know , with everything going on with artificial intelligence , you know coaching and training and instructional design , learning and development , lms platforms everybody is going through really fast-paced , rapid , transformational change . Yet I go back to one fundamental we're going to have to talk to each other , so how is this affecting coaching ? What is coaching ? You know what's really amazing to me After 32 years , we do something very unique as human beings I do it , you do it , everybody does it and that is , we tend to put our own spin , our own definition on things . I want to just share with you just a quick reference point . This is not in reference to everybody , it's just in reference to this situation .

Speaker 1 1:23

I was talking to somebody who was telling me what they were doing and they kept putting the phrase coaching in there . They said , well , I was coaching him , I was trying to provide coaching , and I said , well , walk me through what happened . And the person started to tell me how they felt and their frustration and their anger , and then they shared some comments they made to their coworkers and even management above them . This was not coaching everybody . This was frustration and feedback and then even more anger that the people didn't receive it . Well . So think about what I just said . Fundamentally , if I come to you and I say , oh , I'm angry , you know you're really frustrating me . I need you to be a better teammate , does anyone in their right mind hearing that , say , yeah , you know what ? I could be a better teammate ? It does not happen that way . So what's so interesting to me is how we put the title of coaching or leadership or mentoring on things when we're actually not doing that .

Speaker 1 2:29

So let me give you my three definitions of coaching . Number one we have something called situational coaching . We have to coach to a situation , and this is where we make a mistake in the workplace . We've got two employees not working together . We bring them in . We say John , you got to get along with Susie , susie , you got to get along with John , and we walk away from that meeting thinking , oh , I provided wonderful coaching . No , you didn't . You had a command and demand . That will not behaviorally have any type of long-lasting change . The next day might be better , but it does not facilitate change . Now , in the

Three Types of Coaching Defined

Speaker 1 3:05

moment , do we need to situationally coach ? Absolutely .

Speaker 1 3:08

The second type of coaching which is very popular and that is called observational coaching . We call it spot coaching . We tend to spot something , we see something . We want to coach to it . So we have to be really honest Are we triggered ? Do we spot things that are positive or are we triggered by things that are negative ? Typically , when I ask that question , most people will say well , yeah , you know , negative things we want to fix and correct . So now we got to think about the psychology of that . If , out of every 10 times , we provide spot or observational coaching and it's correcting and fixing , even though we might be right , what is the impact on the people that receive that ? Is it inspiring , is it motivating ? Do we even know how they're taking that insight , that spot coaching , that observational feedback ?

Speaker 1 4:01

Then the third , which is something we subscribe to at Progress Coaching , and that is continuous coaching Scheduling time every week , every two weeks , focusing on a specific area and driving improvement and using what we call a coaching framework . Now we have something called qualms . There's grow coaching , there's other frameworks out there , and the reason I think a framework is so important to mention is if you don't have a framework , it's a lot like getting up in front of 500 people and doing a speech with no outline and no clue what you're about to say , coaching is just a different stage , but it still deserves people's attention . So why do I share this At your companies ? If you're coaching , create a definition . Coaching is fill in the blank by doing what and then list the attributes and actions . That's a methodology we teach called defining coach . I promise you , if you do not have a definition at your company ,

The Importance of Defining Coaching

Speaker 1 4:56

you will have vastly different interpretations of what coaching is .

Speaker 1 5:00

So I was traveling out to a client site about six months ago and I was riding along and we went to a couple locations and one of the gentlemen that was driving me was telling me of his coaching and his visits . And by the time we got done , I thought to myself wait a minute , none of that was coaching , it was all feedback . Now , intentions were good , there was a lot of strength-based feedback , yet there wasn't a lot of coaching . See if we go back to some fundamental statistics . Number one the Gallup organization reports people engage eight times more . Eight times more when we lead with their strengths .

Speaker 1 5:42

Come on , let's be honest . When we call someone into our office and say , bob , I need to see my office right away , what's the employee's first response Every time I ask that question ? For 32 years I've never had a positive feedback , never had a positive response . Typically people say , uh-oh , I must be in trouble . Why ? Because we've conditioned that . In addition , tasha Urich reports 85% of people significantly

Feedback vs. True Coaching

Speaker 1 6:05

lack self-awareness . So if we're giving feedback , 8.5 out of every 10 people are discounting it , they're dismissing it , they're rolling their eyes , even if they're not physically rolling their eyes . So what happens is we have to ask questions . So what's going on ? What are you going to do to positively engage ? What are two things that you're doing well and what's that one thing that you have an opportunity to raise your game . Notice , I did not say the word constructive feedback . Coaching is by doing what . Make sure you define what coaching is . Don't leave it open for interpretation or you're going to have extremely inconsistent application and inconsistent results across the organization .