Coaching

One area that I've an interest in is coaching. Why? Because I've not seen in many good examples during my tenure in management. I've had bosses who have said "I need this" but never define what "this" is - they just know that they want it. Providing them with "this" can be done but it is difficult when "this" is something that you've never done before and for which your peer managers have not done either. And when asking for more direction on how to do "this" getting an answer of just go figure it out does not help.

I've had several of these requests in the past year and found each to be a major challenge for which I didn't get the right answer after several tries and for each attempt I received the coaching of "it's not right - try again" without once getting even one minute of real coaching, such as "to get 'this' you need to do ...". I finally figured out how to do "this" when my boss became so frustrated that he did it on his own - and then never told me the why's, etc. and left me to intuit the steps from start to "this". Had I been given a few minutes of coaching the frustration on both our parts would have been eliminated and I would have improved as a manager in the process. As it is I've improved as a manager but only after a lot of frustration on the part of my boss and myself.

Coaching is more than just dropping someone blindfolded into the middle of the English channel in the middle of a moonless night and telling them to swim to shore after spinning them around several times. Coaching is, at a minimum, pointing them in the right direction and providing encouragement that you believe they can successfully swim to shore. Coaching is also being there when a wave turns them back out to open sea and providing guidance on how to get back on course. When you let the person swim out to the open sea then the coach is not doing their job and the swimmer is not able to learn and grow to do their job.

Imagine the coach of a professional football team during a game who just tells his team - "go win this game" and who then puts on the jersey of a referee and hands out penalties the rest of the game while providing no more guidance to his team. Chances are the team will loose and the coach will be upset. In this case the team owner will probably replace the coach whereas in the business world it tends to be the team that is replaced.

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