Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Punchy, actionable insights and tips to make the life of the team leader a breeze.
[00:00:00] Pia: There's a myth about leadership that you can only coach someone when you are a better expert than they are technically. Well, that's wrong. The quality of the questions impact the quality of the conversation, so let's keep things simple and help you to build your skills in this really essential area of team leadership. I'm Pia.
[00:00:20] Dan: And I'm Dan, and this is Squadify Connects. Let's start again with the what and why of coaching. Coaching is a process that enables a coachee to perform better, to learn, and to become more autonomous. The most used process for coaching is grow by Sir John Whitmore. It follows the good old three Ws but has an additional element and the whole process spells out that word grow goal reality options, and will.
[00:00:49] Pia: So the W1, what do we want to achieve and why is the G of Grow, goal. Here you ask the coachee what it is that they want to achieve. Very often coaching situations present themselves as problems and resist the temptation to start there and get into problem solving. The first thing that you can do for your coachee is to help 'em define their desired outcome. It really will put the conversation into a completely different gear.
[00:01:19] Dan: And once that's done, the next step of grow is R for reality. This maps to W2, where are you now? This is a fantastic opportunity to ask some really good questions about the current state. Keep it really bored, and explore all factors in the current situation for self team and system. You can also even use the three Cs as a guide to help your coachee to get a full picture and also to build out your question set.
[00:01:45] Pia: And then W3, what next? In the Grow model, it's split into two. Options: what could we do, and will: what do we decide to do and commit to. In Options, your questions should focus on helping the coachee keep the lens wide and coming up with as many possible courses of action as they can. In Will, help the coachee to decide on their course of action and then use questions to help them plan implementation and ways to ensure that they stay on track and reflect along the way.
[00:02:18] Pia: It's sometimes a good practice to ask them to rate their confidence or commitment out of 10, and then can help them dig deeper to uncover any doubts or concerns and see if they can overcome them with a modified course of action.
[00:02:32] Dan: So that's the Grow process. A couple of final notes that need to be held in balance. First, keep your questions as open as possible. That will mean that you are leading the witness as little as possible, and it keeps the coachee in the metaphorical hot seat. It's them that has to own the thinking and also own the outcomes.
[00:02:51] Pia: If you find yourself answering one of your own questions, then you realize you're not doing coaching quite as well. Secondly, there are advocates of clean coaching where you ask only questions and in such a way that you bring in none of your own biases and input. Well, we take a little bit of a different approach. The key is to leave the coachee more capable to perform their task and to become increasingly autonomous. And sometimes that's best achieved by sharing frameworks for thinking, or even your own experience and possible advice. Keep the emphasis though. On questions, but bring these other elements in if they're helpful to the coachee.
[00:03:34] Dan: This week, seek out an opportunity to coach someone. Don't be afraid to be open that you are practicing your craft and see if there's something that you can help them with, you know, to work your coaching muscles. It could be about anything, even where that person is thinking of going on holiday. It all gets you into coaching practice.
[00:03:51] Pia: And that's the key word here. It is about practice, both in the sense that you need to do lots of it, but also that you do it consistently and focus on learning. It, it's not necessarily easy, but once you have some successes, we are confident that you and your coaches will find it fulfilling and effective. Next week, we'll be back in the full team setting, talking about decision making. See you then.