The Skills and Expertise of a good Coach

In this first in a short series of articles on what skills an effective coach needs (whether it is the manager of an employee or a mentor/third party coach) the following oulines some of the behaviours/approaches that an individual coachiee should look for in terms of:

"The ability to build strong relationships and build trust"

A good coach should be able to:
• Communicate high expectations for individuals and have faith in their abilities to perform well.
• Avoid comparing the performance of the person they are coaching to the performance of someone else (or treat each individual as a unique situation and adjust their coaching style accordingly).
• Avoid ‘jumping in’ to coaching until they have a relationship working with the person being coached (and never stop working on the relationship until they stop coaching).
• When they do not know the answer to a question, admit it and offer to find the answer and provide it at the next coaching session (or sooner).
• Relate their real life experiences and stories (when doing so, using “I” and not the generic “you” to talk about themselves).
• Raise the individual’s status. They should know the individual being coached is likely to say things that the coach wants to hear, more than they would to a co-worker, spouse, or friend.
• Honestly examine the role they should be playing. They should examine whether they want to be a constant nag, a bully, a friend, a critic, a mentor, a leader, a teacher, a manager, a counsellor, a disciplinarian, or a role-model? Or even play multiple roles?
• Be available when needed by the individual and offer their time.
• Admit failure. A good coach should be therefore able to ‘model’ a key component of lifelong learning by being honest with their own performances and using them as an opportunity for learning.

Business Coaching in a Recessionary climate by Dr Jon Warner

With rapidly falling house prices, a significant credit squeeze and fast rising prices in the shops and we seem to have entered a "recessionary" period (at least in most of the western world). No-one knows how long this recession is likely to last or how deep it may go, but it is probably safe to assume that the next 12-18 months at least are likely to be much more difficult ones for most people.

For businesses of all sizes and types (no matter what sector they might be in) this usually causes a large-scale "tightening of the belt" as far as expenditure is concerned (and there is already plenty of evidence of this). One of the very first casualties of this tightening is employee development. In many ways, development at all levels (individual, team and enterprise-wide) is always a "soft" target. It is soft because the direct impact of reducing or eliminated employee development altogether is not usually felt immediately (and often not even in a single year budget cycle). This affords the organisation the opportunity to make visible savings immediately or to use the money saved in other areas that appear to have quicker pay-offs. Unfortunately, some of this thinking has been extended to the money that is spent on management development, and much of this may be in the realm of external coaching (that many leaders have benefited from in the economically healthier times of the recent past). Ironically, because "people factors" are likely to be most crucial in recessionary times and may make the difference between "riding out the storm" poorly or well, cutting back on business coaching may have significant consequences.

In tough times for any organisation its senior leaders need to be not only “fast on their feet” but act as role models in setting the best possible forward strategy for the organisation (or their particular part of it). This includes:
• Developing greater commercial awareness (to bring about better business results
• Setting up and successfully managing change projects
• Increasing sales through enhanced customer service strategies and practices
• Reengineering operational processes to reduce costs (and lift profits)
• Successfully managing poor performance
• Building strategic alliances (and the teamwork and collaboration to make it work)
• Engaging in more “out-of-the-box” problem solving and decision analysis
• Successfully managing time, pressure and stress

While a few managers are “fast enough on their feet” and sufficiently skilled to do some of these, the majority typically struggle with many of these demands and (in the absence of anywhere else to turn) look for some kind of assistance from their colleagues. Of course, in a tough economic climate, almost everyone is facing the same sort of challenges and consequently may have little time or energy to help a colleague when he or she may be in need of just as much support or assistance. In such circumstances, an experienced coach is a huge benefit, not only as someone to talk with who is not caught up in similar problems and issues, but because he or she is likely to have a number of independent and fresh thoughts and suggestions on the possible forward path (some of which are drawn from other non-competitive organisations who have found useful solutions to current challenges). In general, external business coaches have typically been hired by senior executives for very good reasons in the recent past. In a survey of over 200 executives in 30 companies in the US in 2007* (well before the current recessionary times occurred), the following were the top 5 areas of identified benefit to executives:

-Better Time management/focus on priority issues: 80%
-Optimised Career thinking: 75%
-Improved Business/Commercial thinking: 75%
-Better workplace relationships: 59%
-More focused/relevant goals (personal and team): 50%

With the exception perhaps of “optimised career thinking”, it is difficult to conclude that these benefits are not of equally high value in these more cost-constrained times. After all, a senior leader who is spending time on the most pressing issues of the day, thinking more commercially about better cash flow, communicating more effectively in business relationships of all kinds and setting and tracking relevant goals, is an asset that most companies would want to have around.
Of course, in a recessionary environment, there are other, additional demands on an organisation’s senior leaders. These include the need to:

• manage potentially negative personal and team moods and emotions
· be more creative or innovative in more challenging circumstances
• lift team morale as people face greater personal pressure
• set clear expectations of others to perform at their best
· better prepare someone for a significant career shift or exit from the organisation
• develop a more strategic perspective
• quickly drive/handle a major culture shift or change initiative
• Deal with a lack of personal or team action/follow through focus
• better manage budget or costs
• Deal with performance mediocrity

In reality, if managers needed help with the basic demands discussed earlier, they are even more in need of assistance with most items on this list. This is where a good business coach can potentially be worth their “weight in gold”.

A good business coach will work with executives to help discover where knowledge and experience shortfalls might lie to tackle the recessionary challenges being faced. They will also suggest particular areas where guidance and help to better tackle current problems and issues can be included. This input may not be immediately measurable in hard return terms, but it would quickly have negative impact if it were absent altogether.

Summary
Recessionary times often cause many organisations to simply accept that their employee development budgets and programs will be cut until there is greater financial flexibly within the enterprise. This thinking mistakenly can extend to managerial development and the often critical time that a leader spends with an external coach. Because people are an even more critical asset during cut-back times (and we need to make even greater efforts to retain and motivate individuals as much as possible in these periods), external business coaches can play a leading role in supporting senior leaders in a time of greatest need.
*TEARC Research, Coaching practices, 2007

Dr. Jon Warner
www.WarnerResultsCoaching.com


This article was written by Dr Jon Warner of Warner Results Coaching, an executive coaching business based in Kingston in Surrey. Jon is an experienced coach with over 20 years experience in assisting individuals of all types and at all levels of management. He is also an experienced author having published several books in the leadership and coaching areas, as well developing several assessment instruments including the Coaching Effectiveness Profile. Jon has an MBA and PhD in Organisational Psychology. He can be reached at jon@WarnerResultsCoaching.com

Coaching Effectiveness-A Six Step Model. Dr Jon Warner

We hear the word coaching quite a lot these days. There are personal coaches, performance coaches, executive coaches and many other types, but in all cases trying to achieve a similar goal-to help people to achieve a better outcome or result. This might involve help to achieve a particular goal or skill, such as to get fitter or to become more adept when making presentations to groups for example. However, it might also be coaching of a much less specific nature, in which an individual needs some broadly based but immediate feedback on how they are generally performing in a role (when promoted into a new management or leadership position for instance).

Whatever type of coaching we are trying to provide, formally or informally, we are likely to be most successful in helping the other person if we have a clear process to follow. In this brief article, we will be looking to provide you with some thoughts on what this process could look like, so that you can take your own approach. To assist us in dong this, we will be describing a six-step journey, which aims to progressively build overall effectiveness in the coaching realm. Let’s therefore get straight to the first of these steps-to recognise where a coaching intervention may be helpful and to think about what we individually bring to each situation.

All coaching can be said to be conducted along a simple continuum. At one end of this continuum, the coach does all of the leading and effectively operates like a teacher (with lots of directional comment and guidance. As the coach moves to the right in this model (and does a little less telling) he or she moves into “showing and helping” mode. This is still coach-led but allows for more independence on the part of the learner or “coachee”. At the next stage in the model, the coach moves into a mode in which he or she starts to stretch the coachee, or gives him or her a higher target or challenge (leaving it much more up to the individual to work out how to meet that challenge). Finally, the coach travels to the far right on the model and moves into becoming a “learning to learn” type of coach, with the prime role being mainly to encourage the independent efforts of the coachee (and offer very little in terms of particular direction or skill transfer).

Every one of these coaching interventions along the continuum is appropriate to use but only when it fits the circumstances. In other words, we have to learn when the task or person in question requires us to be more directive or more empowering in our approach. If we match our “style” of intervention well, we are likely to get much better results than if we adopt a “one size fits all” coaching style for every person in all circumstances.

We tend to think about coaching as a formal process most of the time. However, it is actually the informal or impromptu coaching opportunities that arise with much greater frequency. This gives each and every one of us a far higher number of situations in which we can offer coaching and hopefully build our practical application skills comparatively quickly. This is especially the case if we have a positive and helpful attitude towards those people around us. This means being available to listen to people at appropriate times and in suitable places to get the most out of each conversation.

Let’s now go on to the second stage in the model –reading the person to whom you wish to offer coaching support. When we are trying to build any kind of relationship, much of the early effort is usually concentrated on establishing empathy and rapport. In coaching, this is perhaps even more important because there is a need to create a trusting and honest relationship in which both parties feel that it is safe to be open and frank in the exchange. The responsibility for establishing this solid foundation of trust and honesty lies mainly with the coach. This means that it is the coach who needs to invest time in reading the other person and then applying the information gathered to build what we might call “bridges” of rapport.

There are many “perspectives” or “models” we could mention which help us to better read the person we are seeking to coach. However, we will briefly look at two of these.

The first perspective to think about concerns the similarities and differences in the person to be coached in terms of personality. We all know that it is a mistake to assume that others think in much the same way as we do on most issues. Nonetheless, we often act as if this is the case, and then wonder why we are not “connecting” very well. The person we are coaching may be more or less creative, analytical, flexible, people focused than we are for example, and we therefore need to appreciate this in order to tailor or “flex” our coaching style. Of course, in the early stages these individual characteristics may not be immediately apparent. In such cases, our relatively simple relating strategy is to determine whether the other person is broadly more extraverted or introverted. This basic distinction can immediately make a huge difference in a range of ways. In communication, for example, an extravert will typically be happy to brainstorm ideas with you as a coach. An introvert, on the other hand, will typically want extra time to reflect on what is discussed (meaning more time may need to be allowed to get the best results).

The second perspective to briefly look at is to consider another person’s possible learning style. Learning style relates to how individuals perceive and process information. There are a number of models relating to learning styles but a very useful one to use when coaching is the approach developed by Honey and Mumford. This suggests that there are 4 “style types”. These are the Activist, the Reflector, the Pragmatist and the Theorist. The direct implication of this theory for coaching is that a coach can best build an early relationship by providing input and guidance that is oriented towards a person’s chosen learning style (and if this is not immediately obvious you can ask them to read the definitions and pick the one that seems to be most applicable to them).

Once an individual has established a reasonable level of confidence in their relationship with you as a coach, you can perhaps then start to stretch them to consider other learning style channels. However, the “coachee” should drive this process and the coach needs to carefully watch and listen for the clues that the other person is ready. Once again, this leads us nicely onto our next stage in our model-receiving information.


To receive information sounds like a highly passive activity in which we act as mere collectors of sound-bites. But to receive effectively is actually a highly active process in which the coach invests considerable effort to both concentrate and listen attentively. In simple terms this involves:

-Watching for and responding to clues offered by the coachee
-Continuing to establish rapport (by genuinely opening up and sharing information)
-Seeking to build the relationship over the longer term.

This last point is particularly important because the success of any coaching effort is often based on the willingness of both parties to keep talking and maintaining high levels of engagement (and setting goals for the future, which look for higher performance or better outcomes). A good example of this would be in the sporting world, where coaches often have “partnerships” with the top players, commonly for many years (in swimming, running and tennis for example).

One of the reasons why an individual can benefit from a coach is that they can usually obtain a different perspective or have someone look at an issue, problem or challenge with fresh eyes. Although a coach can do this in an “ad-hoc” way, by adopting a more systematic reframing process, the individual can potentially be helped to see things in a new way quite quickly.

There is a simple re-framing process that you can adopt. It starts by clearly defining what it is that the coachee would like to focus on as an issue or do differently in the future. The coach then elicits input from the coachee relating to any negative or limited feelings they may have and why they may exist. At point four the coach works with the coachee to deliberately try to replace the limiting thoughts with new and much more positive ones, and then asks the individual to consider the implications and to form an action-plan based on the new mental experience. This is a straightforward process but a powerful one to use in practice.
Let’s finally now consider the last two stages of our effective coaching model – the first of these and the fifth overall is called recording.

Our initial reaction to “recording” suggests that the coach is often well-served to make copious, detailed notes when talking with the coachee. However, it is more accurate to suggest that in longer-term coaching in particular a summary record of what was agreed to in each conversation can be very useful to both parties. This includes the initial stages in the relationship when you are setting ground-rules, when you hold each separate conversation, and finally, when you think you have reached a reasonable conclusion between you.

Our final and sixth stage in the model is to review your own performance as a coach. Our goal in this stage is to reflect upon the overall circumstances in which the coaching took place, how good the experience was for both parties and what you can learn to do even better as a coach in order to evolve or progress in the future. If this is done honestly, your skills as a coach will continue to deepen and your capacity to achieve more in your own work and life in general will increase substantially.



This article was written by Dr Jon Warner of Warner Results Coaching, an executive coaching business based in Kingston in Surrey. Jon is an experienced coach with over 20 years experience in assisting individuals of all types and at all levels of management. He is also an experienced author having published several books in the leadership and coaching areas, as well developing several assessment instruments including the Coaching Effectiveness Profile. Jon has an MBA and PhD in Organisational Psychology. He can be reached at jon@WarnerResultsCoaching.com