3. Promote deep reflection: Expert coaches think deeper reflection is important for the following reasons:
David Rock for example, frequently speaks about what he calls “Aha! Moments. He talks about this as a moment in which the coachee gains powerful new insights and important realizations. He suggests a model called “ARIA” [Attention, Reflection, Insight, Action] in which focus (attention density) and new insights enable realization and motivation to change.
Figure 2
Four Faces of Insight©
4. Assess / Categorize Readiness to Change: Coaches widely believe that
coachee willingness to commit her/himself to change is one of the most crucial determinants of the success of coaching. They point out that categorizing the coachee’s readiness on a regular basis through the coaching journey is key. Drs. Nowack and Heller in fact use a change readiness framework to determine their coaching strategies – as per the diagram given below.
Figure 3
Readiness to Change and Sample Strategies
As can be seen from the framework above, coaching strategies need to be selected based on “where the coachee” is currently located on “Readiness to Change” stages. For example, a manager may hold values that being absolutely honest and frank in their communication “is the right thing to do”. It is only when s/he is made realizes that what they consider to be frank and honest, is experienced as “blunt and insensitive” by the recipients of feedback / communication AND works against their interests that coaches will be willing to consider change in behavior.
In the example above, the coachee is currently in the pre-contemplation or at best contemplation phase. Hence the appropriate coaching strategies at this time ought to focus more on “Self-Evaluation” and “Consciousness Raising” for the coaching process to be truly effective. Only when the “unfreezing” part of the journey is completed, the coach can initiate “Changing” aspects like “Stimulus Control” and “Reinforcement Management”. Premature introduction of “Changing” interventions is likely to be ineffective.
Best Practices – Learning & Action:
1. Maximize Individual Choice: As Marshall Goldsmith aptly states, ultimately it is the coachee who must decide to change and put in the effort for real and sustainable behavior change. The coach is at best a facilitator and catalyst.
Hence, the more the coachee is in charge of the process, the more effective the coaching is likely to be. Great coaches seem to believe that executives are more likely to grow and develop in areas they decide (choice of competencies and goals to focus on). For the same reasons, it is important to match the learning process designed to the coachee’s needs and preferred learning styles.
For example, some people are conceptual learners. Giving such a person some thought provoking articles to read is useful. If the coachee is an “action learner” who prefers experiential methods, then offering a role-play is likely to be more effective.
In these ways, maximizing individual choice can aid in the coachee feeling s/he is creating their own destiny, will take more responsibility and be more motivated / optimistic about making the desired behavior change.
2. Structure Goals into Manageable Steps: The more practical, concrete and actionable we make the coaching journey, the more effective it is likely to be. Breaking larger learning goals into challenging but attainable steps or “mini” behavior change goals is helpful. Facilitating the coachee in being able to visualize and articulate what exactly they would be doing in terms of the change in actions and behaviors brings the needed cognitive clarity, promotes better recognition of “why and how that will make a difference” and most importantly, brings the required emotional engagement / confidence of the executive to try to implement changed behaviors.
Terry Bacon gives an example. He shares the story of Pat. Pat’s stakeholder feedback indicated 3 priority developmental goals:
- Improve Pat’s inter-personal skills so he is more sensitive to people.
- Pat needs to become a more strategic thinker.
- Pat needs to develop more sales focus in the division he runs and, improve the division’s sales.
Related to the goal of creating more sales focus in the division, Dr. Bacon and Pat asked themselves a key question – “What would be different if Pat were strongly focused on sales?”
The answers to this question were:
As can be seen in the above example, Pat could clearly see how these actions and changes in behavior would lead to accomplishing stakeholder expectations. He could also see these were manageable steps he could take.
3. Use of Experiential Techniques: The key aspect of coaching is putting new behaviors into action. Research suggests that action learning and experiential methods facilitate deeper and faster change. Work sample simulations, on-the-job activities like a specific task, project or stretch assignment or role-plays on dealing with difficult appraisal discussions work better than sedentary or “input oriented” methods like reading books and attending seminars.
This also helps the coachee to practice the new approaches and behaviors. Coach and coachee can review how was the experience and either reinforce or modify the approach till the executive “gets it right” and feels confident on implementing independently in future.
4. Build a Support Group or Network: Marshall Goldsmith says he increasingly recommends / relies on involving a support group or network of stakeholders in an ongoing manner. He believes the support group is equally (if not more important) than the coaches themselves. Marshall states he spends more time now with key stakeholders around the coachee than with the coachee.
Dr. Goldsmith says he asks key stakeholders to support the coachee in a regular, ongoing manner and helping the coachee learn continuously from all those around her / him. Marshall says “I ask key stakeholders to support the coachee in 4 critical ways – a) Let go of the past as it can demoralize the coachee when s/he is trying to change. Instead, he asks them to focus on the future and how the coachee can continually improve in future. b) To be helpful and supportive, not sarcastic and cynical or judgemental. The idea is to increase the motivation of the coachee to improve through encouragement and supportive attitude. c) Tell the truth rather than saying things are better if they actually are not. d) Pick something to improve yourself. Marshall suggests this makes the relationship between coachee and key-stakeholders “two-way” and helps stakeholders to be “co-travellers” not judges who are pointing fingers at the coachee’s behaviors!
5. Develop an Ongoing Feedback and Review Process: Nowack and Dr. Heller speak of the importance of focused ongoing feedback regarding what the coachee is doing well and what s/he needs to correct immediately to ensure success. Dr. Marshall Goldsmith believes ongoing feedback and follow-up ought to be very efficient and action focused. He feels questions like “Based upon my behavior last month, what ideas do you have for me next month?” are most useful. He also recommends a mini survey of 4 to 6 items after 6 months. According to him, the questions should focus entirely on whether the person has become more or less effective in the areas targeted for improvement.
Dr. Terry Bacon uses a cumulative “Balanced Scorecard” to continually assess whether the behavior change is more and more effective or not – as shown in the figure below.
Figure 4
Pat’s Sales Focus Measures
David Rock and Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz emphasize the importance of “attention density” as an important factor in real and lasting change. They postulate that attention density is extremely important for our brains to be reminded regularly of the change needed, without which coaching will not be fully effective and behavior change may not sustain. To quote them “The more focused we are, the number of times we think about an idea, the closer we look, the higher the Attention Density. It brings into play the proper brain circuitry to be held in place in a stable-dynamic way. With enough Attention Density, individual thoughts and acts of the mind can become a part of who we are, a part of how our brain works and hence changes the way we see and interact with the world, in the direction of change we need to become”.
All of these highly acclaimed coaches believe this type of follow-up and review is critical to ongoing improvement and ultimate success. They also believe that like peeling an onion, it will uncover additional areas for improvement.
II] Role of the Coach: As discussed previously in this section, there is broad agreement across many research studies that the role and contribution of the coach is a significant determinant of the success of executive coaching. Four common themes have emerged as follows:
- Relationship Building
- Encouragement and Support
- Challenge and Reflection and,
- Enhancing Executive Performance.
We will explore what executives’ and coaches’ seem to suggest is important with regard to each of these factors.
Relationship Building: Executives interviewed in these were very particular about the coaches’ “intentional development of the coaching relationship”. They were very clear about the importance of the relationship with their coach. The specific aspects of this are:
Creating trust and a safe environment.
This is considered by all studies to be foundational to the entire coaching process. It appears it is a good idea for the coach to make the confidentiality part explicit.
Coachee 1: “The confidentiality is supreme. He is always been quite clear about the confidentiality aspect, and what he is there for, and he is primarily working for me, and all that sort of stuff”
Coachee 2: “it was a kind of relaxed and free-spirited place for me to open up and get to places I didn’t even realize I needed to go. I really was as honest as I’ve ever, ever been. I really made sure I gave adequate information so coach could get a clear snapshot who Ted is, So I could get the maximum out of the coaching”.
Coachee 3: “It just felt really comfortable. Whether or not he was working overtime to keep up with the way I was thinking, I don’t really know because of the flow and the feel and just the way we interacted. That was really being able to put myself at ease. It was just…really made you feel relaxed”.
Unconditional positive regard from the coach towards the coachee.
Being judgemental was on the other hand, identified as diminishing coaching effectiveness. The research studies concluded that executives were very definite in indicating that they valued highly the elements of unconditional respect and acceptance. They felt this allowed them to be themselves, say anything and freely let out their feelings. A couple of coachee comments underline this:
Coachee 1: “I feel very comfortable with coach. I’ve never had any discomfort talking about particular issues or raising anything….”
Coachee 2: “He never belittled you even once. His demeanor, his comments and his attitude was professional consultant, but genuine. I tell you, his input and his interest in me I detected and valued as being really caring and genuine.”
High commitment to the coachee’s goals and to her / his success
Making these the central focus. The studies also show that coach’s personal agenda or bringing in issues that are not aligned to the coachee’s goals and expectations diminishes coaching effectiveness.
The several research studies indicate that most coaches attributed the effectiveness of the coaching to the sense of ownership they felt with the agenda. It appears they embraced the process because they were in control and the coach did not interfere with their autonomy. Some comments of individual coaches who were interviewed are enlightening:
Coachee 1: “I felt completely, 100% ownership…. I felt completely in control the whole way through”
Coachee 2: “It was always as if coach would start a session with either “so what can I help you with today? Or “what’s happening in your world that you would like to talk about? It never ever felt like coach has his own agenda of why and what I need to change or that he was going to push me to go where I did not want to go”.
Psychological mindedness (awareness of self and others)
Executives seem to expect an almost intuitive ability in the coach to understand, connect and empathize with their issues and context. Poor timing, any indications of being pre-occupied or use of words / language that conveys impatience or lack of caring on the other hand, diminishes coaching effectiveness. The following comments offer insight into what seems to be important:
Coachee A: “Coach’s concentration, attentiveness, understanding … Mmm.. these were critical factors. It was his ability to absorb and reflect upon what it is you were really saying, and what you actually meant which helped us get to the crux of issues very quickly”
Coachee B: “He was a great listener, he was very empathetic. He could contextualize the situation very easily, didn’t require a lot of explanation. He had a sort of innate sense of what needed to be done and what needed to be said. He had a very strong, I think perceptual understanding of all of us. He was fantastic”
Coach A: “It is presumed that people like us will walk in the door and will contribute to building that relationship so that we will be able to understand what is being said and what’s not being said… and that we will have something insightful to their situation and build intuitively a relationship.”
Coaches’ professional behavior and conduct.
The coach needs to be experienced as credible, self-assured, maintain confidentiality and demonstrate high ethical standards of personal conduct (honest, reliable). It appears that the coaches’ personal character and as “a model of behavior” stems from a conscious or subconscious expectation coachees have, that a person guiding me ought to “walk the talk”.
Expertise in skills of coaching, genuine and honest feedback, fairness and objectivity in assessing situations accurately demonstrated with confidence and in a self-assured manner were very important to coachees. If coaches appear confident, coachees believe they are “in the right hands”. Executives were impressed by simple, memorable, clear models and suggestions that clarified situations and created “a way forward”.
One coachee explained the anxiety many of them had felt and what made the transition for them:
In our minds, we worried initially – is he working for them or me, to finally a point where we just knew – no he is in it for me. In my case, the way coach continually pushed me to take personal responsibility for change somehow convinced me coach is investing in the best result for me
Encouragement and Support:
Coaches’ contribution to the coachee’s confidence and emotional state was a significant factor in many studies. Inspiring”, enhancing self-belief and a sense of validation (I am ok, I am doing ok), reaffirming strengths, reinforcing / encouraging and “being available when needed” are found very valuable by coachees.
The research studies that dwelled on this factor suggest that executives appeared to lack this kind of encouragement and support in their workplaces. Hence, the coach filled a vital role by doing so. The comments of some coachees quoted in the study exemplify this.
Coachee A: “I didn’t have anyone else to help me solve this issue; it just came along at the right time. I was sort of like a wreck at the start. And by the end of it I was flying high with a pay rise!”
Coachee B: “ To me he became like a bulwark. A familiar face in the chaos. To go, coach I’m tearing my hair out you know, what am I going to do here? And also him saying that I could ring him for a conversation or flip him an email or do whatever. Just to know I could reach out……”
Coachee C: “I guess I kind of reaffirmed talking with coach about certain things. I had an instinct that I was going ok but…to step outside and know that you’ve got transferable skills and you’re on the right track, its good.”
Coachee D: “It’s confidence building, it’s empowering. It makes you feel that the potential you have inside of you that you might self doubt a little bit. But with guidance and support that actually enables you to think ok, well yes, I can do that”.
Clearly, encouragement and support seem to have made coachees look forward to meeting their coaches. It also seems to have lifted their level of engagement and motivation to move forward on the path.
Challenge and Reflection:
Research studies indicate that virtually all coachees see the coach’s role of “challenge and reflection” as essential to coaching effectiveness. They valued the opportunity to be challenged by the coach – expecting that it be confronting but non-threatening.
Coachees perceived that continual challenge would stretch them out of their comfort zones and bring fresh perspectives / alternatives to the situations they were faced with.
Executives also seemed to appreciate the coaches challenging them to take personal responsibility for their situation and hence, the need to make changes. Taking ownership for their attitudes and actions and also, to find an effective solution. In hindsight, they recognized that it was a vital element of behavioral change, and had helped them achieve their goals. Some coachee comments help bring out this aspect:
Coachee A: “So that’s where the not relenting comes in. Every time you have a discussion, coach just brings it back around onto, well, this is for you and I understand you are busy but come on, we need to get this done because the quicker we get it done, the less you will be busy”
Coachee B: “Coach would frequently ask questions like – well, how do you think you might do that? Or what could help you achieve a better and more acceptable result? Basically, it was back on me… It was clear that the solution had to come from within”