Coachability ... The Missing Piece?

It's so interesting we provide training and support for this providing coaching yet we seem to lose sight of the fact people receiving coaching & feedback also need to be trained & supported in their reception. What a great opportunity. Here are two charts we did  from polls on linkedin that are quite revealing:

Poll # 1: If employees were taught how to accept feedback & coaching as well as attended practice sessions to do so what would be the result?

Would help tremendously 62%

Would help a great deal 25%

Would somewhat help 8%

Would have little impact 4%

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poll # 2: If leaders were taught / retrained how to provide strength-based & constructive feedback what would the effect be on the workplace culture?

Would be tremendously helpful 76%

It would be helpful 22%

Somewhat helpful 3%

Would have little impact 0%


Progress Coaching has been helping organizations leverage the power of coaching for over 25 years by positioning managers to become conversational leaders. We offer a number of training reinforcement courses, in addition to one-on-one and group coaching, to provide unique support options tailored to YOUR company’s needs.

It doesn’t end there! Our Coaching Enthusiast Community offers a platform for managers, training leaders, and HR professionals to swap stories, access live events, exclusive content, and more!

Visit progresscoachingleader.com or email Stephanie@progresscoachingleader.com for more information.

Welcome to Coaching Conversations

We have created a NEW and Innovative line of books called Workplace Coaching Books. These books use QR codes with embedded audio and video lessons speaking directly to the reader. Each book comes with assessments and journal based coaching pages where they document what they've learned and what they've applied. In addition each book comes with the self analysis link that prompts them to share what they've learned and what they've put into action leading to greater learner application a

Progress Coaching 360 is a dynamic leadership development system that equips managers and teams with powerful coaching skills through a blend of training, real-time practice, peer learning, and feedback. It combines expert-led instruction, a train-the-trainer model, group coaching certification, and monthly coaching pods where leaders practice, share wins, and tackle challenges. With built-in accountability and hands-on application using Coaching Cards and best practice sessions, Progress Coaching 360 turns coaching from theory into action—building a sustainable culture of growth, feedback, and performance.

Progress Coaching 360 teaches leaders how to coach and employees how to develop coachability skills. This unique combination helps build great workplace cultures.

Get More Info Here: https://form.jotform.com/251187914739165

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

When I think about coachable, I think about a number of things from our ability to accept feedback, our ability to receive coaching advice, mentoring insight. I also think about a person's ability to accept in seek change. And let me think about a term called emotional readiness. Now, coachability is really one half of the equation. We also have to have people who provide feedback and coaching in a thoughtful and professional manner that goes without saying, and that continues to be a challenge and an opportunity for organizations with that being said, we must, we must train, support, nurture our people's ability to receive coaching, to receive feedback and training. It goes without saying that often things are taken out of context, whether the leader provided feedback or coaching in a thoughtful and professional manner and, or in combination with someone who tends to take things defensively, that's a pretty wicked combination. Recently, I was in a conversation and I had an employee, not a leader, really complaining about management in a session that we were conducting with a client and she kept going on and on and was very critical. And I finally said, you know, I don't want to change your mind. I don't want to make one attempt. I don't want to make one effort to change your mind or to persuade you in any way. What I would like to do is give you a factual representation of something. If you would be open to it. And we were on a zoom call, she looked very curious at me. And she said, well, sure, what's it in regard to, I said leadership and she got this really weird look like I was about to reprimand her. And I said, no, I just, I just want to give you insight to leadership. I'm not saying you should change your mind, but would you mind if I gave you a factual representation? She said, sure. I said, think about leadership in a pyramid. The higher you go up, the platform becomes thinner. And at the base of that pyramid are typically the collection, the large volume of people in an organism. And they talk about you. They talk about you behind your back. You have opinions of what you're doing right or wrong yet. Very few people ever say it to the person's face. I said, factually, it's been proven that the higher you go up in the organization, the less trust a leader, whether fair or unfair yet people go into those jobs, knowing it's going to be unpopular. People take those jobs, knowing people are going to be watching what they do. And after I gave a few more bullet points, she looked at me and she said, yeah, but I think everybody has an opinion. I said, absolutely. Everybody has an opinion. Absolutely. I said, do you think people have opinions on you? And she got a weird look. I said, what if I were to tell you that there were a bunch of people in the session right now talking specifically about you, how would you feel? She said, I feel terrible. I said, okay. I said, when I gave you my factual representation of leadership, did you agree with what I was saying from a high-level standpoint? Now, if this situation that you're, I sense frustrated with, but overall she said, yeah, I, I would agree with the things that you said. I said, so why don't you go into leadership? She said, I haven't been given an opportunity. I said, have you gone for leadership positions? She said, no, I haven't. I said, so can I play something back for you? She said, yeah. I said, well, we're in a session right now. And you're kind of criticizing upper-level management and you could be a hundred percent cracked. Have you said it directly to them? Have you shared those thoughts and feelings with them? She said, no, I haven't. I said yet you did it in an open forum here. How confident are you? That's not going to get back to upper level management. She went so tomato red. So later I contacted her and I said, let's do a one-on-one session. Got, and she said, Hey, I want to apologize. I said, no, don't apologize. You were willing to have the conversation yet. You were exposing yourself. And what you were doing is you were being critical. You could be a hundred percent right in your criticisms yet you weren't saying it to the source. You were saying it to other people. And do you honestly think everybody in that room a hundred percent agreed with you and was not going to undermine you and say something to somebody else? Cause that's exactly what you're doing. You can't, you can't complain. I said, so what you have to ask yourself, how vulnerable do you want to be? How coachable do you want to be? How open to feedback do you want to be? Because it's easy to criticize other people's decisions when you don't know the basis for those decisions. And she said, wow, I have not thought of any of this. And I said, I want you to become, I want you to think about the concept of becoming the most approachable and coachable employee. And I promise you, your career will change. So about 60 days, she contacted me. She said, I have to tell you something. I just had my first coaching, upward conversation. I was sharing with an upper-level manager. I use the word insight. I use the word visibility. I asked for permission to share some perspectives and ideas. She said it was an awesome conversation. And she said, I thought about you. And I said, why? And she said, well, during the course of the conversation, I found out some reasons why some decisions were made and I had no clue. I said, interesting, isn't it? I said, conversations, build perspective conversations, build our acceptance of coaching conversations, build our understanding of feedback yet if we always take it personally. And yet, if we always take coaching and feedback is our opportunity to vent and complain about others. We've lost a huge opportunity as corny and cliche as that sounds so when we think about coachability, I think about a great article that was written by a gentleman at Forbes called Jeff Kauflin. And he is one of the most interesting pieces of research. He actually shared in his research that he believes that people, when we're talking about coachability and self-awareness, he found that 95% of people think they're self-aware yet only 10 to 15%, truly are sites. Three reasons for the disconnect, we have blind spots, we're wired to operate on autopilot, unaware of how we're behaving and why there's also the feel-good effect. We're happier. When we see ourselves in a more positive light, again, calls this factor, the cult of self, the idea that we've become more self absorbed as social media has exploded in popularity. So again, when you think about in the study done, and it was written by Jeff Kauflin, there was a study in a book by Tasha Yurik that we are lacking self-awareness that is the number one key in coaching. It is the number one thing we need, you should do to become coachable and approachable. Every one of us know somebody in our lives, whether at work or socially, the thought of approaching and coaching or providing feedback, feedback to that person is like scratching a chalkboard. We'd rather not do it. So think about that in her research, she States people 95% of the people in our study felt they were self-aware yet. She found only 10 to 15% were actually correct. That's almost 80% air, right? It's tough to look in the mirror. It's tough to look at yourself and say, here's where I have some faults. Here's where I have some opportunities to improve. Yet. If we cultivate a safe, psychological, safe place in a vulnerable place where people can say, I'm nervous about this, I don't feel like I do this very well. And a boss or a peer says, I love to help you. That will dramatically change workplace cultures.