A Coaching Power Tool Created by Eva Gysling
(Executive and Business Coach, SWITZERLAND)
Introduction
Working with leaders, I often experience that it is very common for leaders to blame employees for making mistakes. What happens if a team makes mistakes in its work? Depending on the severity of the mistakes, the team lead (TL) or even the department lead (DL) will blame the team. Most likely, the department lead will blame the team lead and the team lead will blame the team, all according to the hierarchy.
What is the consequence of this? Rather than making fewer mistakes, the team keeps secrets and hides errors if they find any. They avoid looking for and finding mistakes. Thus, they needn’t have a bad conscience when presenting the product. The aim is to avoid being blamed, not necessarily making fewer mistakes.
But do the mistakes disappear when the employees don’t find and report them? No, the customers find them and say “this delivering company is a bad company”, “their products have a bad quality” or simply “they are unreliable”. The customers will order fewer products or the company even loses some customers.
The shift from “Error Focus” to “Success Focus” is a change of behavior, mindset, and perspective and thus needs a lot of time and patience to incorporate and to make the change sustainable.
Explanation
The “Error Focus” mindset:
The department lead will tell the team lead that his or her team mustn’t make mistakes anymore.
What will the team leaders do? She or he goes to the team and tells them that they mustn’t make mistakes anymore. His focus lies on the mistakes. He concentrates on mistakes, he looks for all possible mistakes in the product only.
The team lead keeps in mind: my team makes mistakes, and they are the reason why the department lead blames me. Thus, he is annoyed.
The team keeps in mind: our boss perceives the mistakes only. He is not aware that we deliver good work all year long, that we have clever ideas, that we don’t make only the absolute minimum, that we handle customer complaints immediately and to the satisfaction of the customers. Or maybe he is aware but he doesn’t mention it with a single word. For him, only these mistakes are important.
Does this contribute to the motivation of the team? No, it doesn’t at all. Whatever the team contributes to a good product, it doesn’t count, the team lead is probably not even aware of it, he only sees and mentions the mistakes. The team adopts a negative attitude, feels deceived, and starts thinking of their team lead as being a bad guy. The relation between team and team lead suffers extremely. The team doesn’t see their leaders as part of the team anymore, rather as “one of the guys above”. The team is no longer willing to support the team lead to reach his goals. The contact and the confidence go back. It is well known and proved that contact and confidence are much easier to keep than to regain. To build up confidence is very challenging, all the involved parties need to be willing and it takes a huge amount of time.
The “Success Focus” mindset:
What would happen if the team lead is free to assess his team? Then maybe, he evaluates the work of his team holistically. He looks at what this team does, how much they work, what they have accomplished, how creative and supportive they are, not judging the quality of the work yet, just commend what was achieved. Then he could look at the quality they deliver, the mistakes they find themselves, what the customers say about the team’s work, what other teams and their heads with which his team collaborates say. This is a so-to-say 180°-assessment of the team as there is no one below the team. He would get so much more input than just the fact that they make mistakes. He would lay his focus on the team’s achievements at least as much as on their errors.
This could lead to a different approach: the team lead acknowledges them for what they have done well and say that a few mistakes occurred and ask them what they need to prevent such (and other) mistakes. With his behavior, the team lead could support the team to take responsibility to inspect their mistakes and adapt their approach, learn from it and improve their work. It would definitely bring a lot of motivation to them to work transparently, stand by mistakes, and be seen as competent and motivated people.
Application
What would happen if your client started focusing on success instead of errors? It is about how the client thinks about errors. The errors could also be successes as well for several reasons: they were found before delivery, the team learned from these errors and more. As a coach, you can help your client to decide to focus on success. Even errors may lead to success if the client learns from them. The client needs to discover and experience this new perspective in some depth so that your client’s mindset changes gradually. To make it sustainable the client needs to practice focusing on successes and acknowledging his team(s).
This Power Tool is closely linked to the ICA Power Tool “Responsibility vs. Blame”[1]. Focusing on errors often ends in blaming the subordinates. To date, the coaching client blames his team, which may not bear all the blame. As a coach, we can support our client to explore what tells him that the team is fully responsible for the errors and earn the blame. Behind errors, there are always different factors the team might not be responsible for and cannot change easily when other parties are involved. As a coach we could also help the client to get aware of his role, considering what he could have done differently to support his employees, to reach a better result and what he could improve.
This change is even easier to achieve if your client is supported by his leader as well.
How can you support your client (leader) to move from “Error Focus” to “Success Focus”?
The approach needed is nothing less than a change of mindset and perspective, to set the focus on success rather than on error. It takes a complete rethinking from ‘Are there errors?’ to ‘motivate the employees’ to avoid errors.
The following process helps the client to move forward
Your client
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Awareness& Acknowledgment:
In business, as an employee, you often imitate your colleagues. But as soon as you become a boss yourself (e. g. a TL) you imitate your own boss. Already as an employee, you learned (like many generations before you), that people who make mistakes must be blamed. Your own boss does it, the other bosses do it. Obviously, that’s the way the story goes. That’s the game, being blamed and blaming the ones below. There is no need to put into question this process. Everybody does it. When there is no need to change it and your boss does it this way, it needs a certain maturity and self-confidence not to do it the way your boss told you. And it needs the awareness that if in general friendliness helps and that “acknowledgment” motivates it may also help here. Thus, maybe, “acknowledging” instead of blaming could help. “Creating awareness also supports us in identifying the areas of our life that work for us and the ones that don’t”[2]. But you can’t “acknowledge” your people for making mistakes. However, you can acknowledge your people for finding and correcting the mistakes before the product is delivered to the customer(s).
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Understanding of current mindset/perspective:
When your client is aware of how he behaves in which situation he is ready to explore his mindset/perspective he uses to look at his situation when working with his subordinates. Moreover, it is helpful to support your client to dig deeper and get aware of the underlying beliefs he has regarding his mindset. Moreover, it is very important to acknowledge your client for his insights and openness, but as well as for being where he is in this moment. Help your client to get ready for changing his perspective and mindset. It is crucial for the client’s success that he is open to this change and aware that the old mindset/perspective will try to push back again.
- Shift mindset/perspective:
We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are. – Talmud
The concept of “Reframing Perspectives” is an essential coaching skill that helps your client see things differently and, as a result, come to different, more empowering conclusions or feelings about events or experiences. Supporting your client to reframe a situation can provide a new perspective and, with it, new possibilities. Things that seemed impossible now seem possible”[3]. This new perspective helps your client to look at the challenges without being biased from his boss’ behavior and expectations. Thus, the client gets able to look at the whole topic with fresh eyes and explore what is really true for him.
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Take responsibility & commit:
Taking responsibility is a crucial but challenging step. It is a long process from “Ignoring the existence of something” to “taking responsibility for something”. When we reach the state of Responsibility, we “own our ability and power to create, choose and attract”[4]. You need to help your client take responsibility for his new mindset and perspective. When we take responsibility, it is much easier to commit to something and to keep to this commitment.
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Practice new behavior:
It is the basis for practicing responsibility for our own mindset, perspectives, and behaviors. But this is not the only thing to make change stick. Like in Sports, we need to practice new mindsets, perspectives, and behaviors daily to become used to them and to act accordingly without even thinking about these actively. We need to incorporate this new learning. It often happens that new insights, resolutions, behaviors, etc. end in smoke. To avoid this, it is crucial to help your client keep practicing, practicing, practicing.
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Inspect & adapt the mindset:
As life goes on and situations, beliefs, experiences, circumstances, and others change, it is crucial to always reflect on the focus we have and on our mindset, perspective, and how we behave. We have to learn all the time. We can reach this by inspecting our (re)actions, behavior, and others and adapt these in a meaningful and fitting way. “Adaptation in this context is about continuous improvement, the ability to adapt based on the results of the inspection”[5]. Like this, our focus is always geared to the newest and true factors and helps us to move forward constantly.
Reflection
Awareness & Acknowledgment:
What is behind your “Error focus” mindset?
What would change if you were able to look at your challenge from a different perspective?
Which feelings best describe what’s coming up when you think about your “Error focus” perspective?
Understanding of current mindset/perspective:
What impact does “Error focus” have on moving you forward?
What tells you that the team is fully responsible for the errors?
What could you do differently to support your team?
How is “Error focus” in alignment with your dear values?
Shift mindset/perspective:
What’s coming up for you when you see your new mindset of “Success focus”?
What will be possible for you if you react from this mindset?
How are your dear values connected to your new “Success focus” mindset?
Take responsibility & commit:
How is your commitment linked to your new “Success focus”?
What’s coming up for you when you think about taking responsibility for your new mindset of “Success focus”?
What might come in your way of taking responsibility?
Practice new behavior:
What do you need to practice to make your new behavior ingrained?
What can help you stick to your new “Success factor” mindset?
Inspect & adapt the mindset:
How is your new “Success focus” mindset supporting you?
What do you need to adapt to reach higher contentment?
References
Avery, Christopher (2016), The responsibility Process, Available at:
https://responsibility.com/responsibility-process/ (Accessed: January 2021)
Doshi, Hiren (2016), The Three Pillars of Empiricism (Scrum), Available at:
https://www.scrum.org/(Accessed: January 2021)
ICA, 2020, Creating Awareness, Available at:
https://docs.google.com/(Accessed: January 2021)
ICA, 2018, Reframing Perspective, Available at https://docs.google.com/(Accessed: January 2021)
ICA, 2018, Responsibility vs. Blame, Available at:
https://docs.google.com/(Accessed: January 2021)
[1]ICA, Responsibility vs. Blame (2018)
[2]ICA, Creating Awareness (2018)
[3]ICA, Reframing Perspective (2018)
[4]Avery (2016)
[5]Doshi (2016)