17 April 2006
Successful Intentions Newsletter
Hi ,
The Easter holidays are drawing to a close and it's time to slink back to work. Back to the corporate cathedrals that dictate the pace and sustainability of life as we know it!
Yet, a chosen few are anointed to coach the "clergy" of these enterprise churches in the ways of leadership. They come form within and from without. So, how do you get to become an executive coach and how do you keep it up? The answers lie in The 10 Commandments of Coaching in Organisations!
#1 "Honour the gatekeepers"
Whatever you do, start with what you have, who you meet, and where you are. Your particular network is unique, and so are you! The "gatekeepers" are the HR and Learning & Development people, or the Heads of Department. You must coach them at every meeting! Make successful "clients" of these stakeholders and you stand a better chance of admission.
#2 "Be OK with yourself, others, and the situation"
You must be OK in your own skin. "Gatekeepers" have been known to sense under-confidence at distances of several Kilometers! You must be able to weave sustainable relationships with just about anyone and to view others with non-judgmental positive regard. Most importantly, you must be OK with regard to money. Know your value and set commercial rates for your time with clients. And finally, do not feel "less than" or envious of your clients' social or professional identity. Their life stories have their own trajectories.
#3 "Remember the contract and keep it holy"
Expectations and contractual arrangements can occur between the coach, the client, the client's director, the sponsoring "gatekeeper", other stakeholders in the client's success (or otherwise!) and the organisation "cultural" expectations. Identify these relationships and make them clear in some kind of overarching agreement to which all parties are signatories. What is the identified problem? What ought to be done in the light of this diagnosis? What results are expected?
#4 "Establish safe containment"
Fundamental to a sustainable coaching relationship is safety. Clients will look for predictability and reliability from you. They need to have clear agreement about time, fees, meeting location, confidentiality, cancellation policy, information exchange, and goals. And you need to display respect, consideration, understanding, courtesy, accurate empathy, and to consistently challenge the client and interact in a non-defensive, authentic, and genuine manner.
#5 "Acknowledge level of complexity"
You need to match the clients' level of cognitive processing and to recognize the information complexity of their operating environment. "Skills coaching" is at a lower order of complexity than coaching around personal identity or coaching for strategic thinking. Successful managers (and successful coaches) have mastered 7 capabilities:
- They accept complexity and uncertainty as the way of the world.
- They establish guiding principles for setting priorities and making decisions.
- They make timely decisions.
- They manage the information flow.
- They nurture and sustain relationships.
- They acknowledge and process emotions.
- They are continuous learners.
#6 "Calibrate willingness to change"
How willing is the client to change? How willing are you to change? What if you want the change more than the client? The assumption that change is inherently good is based on the notion of a "path of progressive development". Your mission (should you decide to accept it!) is to manage the motivation of the client towards some desired change through overcoming resistance and obstacles along the way.
#7 "Establish a diagnosis"
They key challenge for the "high priests" of the boardrooms is to recognize what's really going on in their professional, personal, existential, and spiritual lives. You can bring various 360 feedback tools and psychometric evaluations to arrive at a "diagnosis". Integrated management arises out of interplay between the personal, operational, organisational, conceptual, role, and educational contexts of the individual. Making a clear diagnostic statement of what's going wrong can be a powerful springboard for successful change.
#8 "Enact intervention"
There are two main strategies to intervene in the client's problem. "Fish!" or "Fishing Rod". In "Fish!" the coach attacks the problem side by side with the client, offers his point of view, or suggests theories or models that will assist the client in understanding the problem. In "Fishing Rod" the coach refuses to offer a fish (provide a solution first), but enables the client to come up with his own solution. You need to find an appropriate balance between the two approaches, yet always looking to encourage the client that he is OK and capable of finding his own solutions.
#9 "Manage the here and now"
Be in charge of your own energy and seek to control the circumstances of flow in the coaching engagement. You must be flexible enough to deal with the reality of the clients' time and focus of attention. And at the same time establish your own command of the coaching engagement. It's their time but it's your performance!
#10 "Derive meaning"
What occurs "above the surface" has a different meaning to "below the surface". The manager's environment and behaviour are immediately visible to everyone. But meaning derives from attitudes, beliefs, values, and the "deep structures" of the individual that lie "below the surface". You must facilitate the client's discovery of meaning:
- Meaning as direction.
- Meaning as significance.
- Meaning as experience.
So , make your way in to the Promised Land by following "The 10 Commandments of Coaching in Organisations!"
If you received more than one copy of the previous newsletter, our apologies. There was a problem with the Web server, and it has now been fixed.
Watch out for the next edition of the Successful Intentions Newsletter
Keep your intentions clear,
Peter Webb
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