Let’s break the coach vs. manage decision down further. When should you manage and when should you coach, and how can you make this decision quickly? I suggest a three step process to accelerate your behavior in this critical Flight Deck Decision arena.
Step 1: Examine your personal bias and understand the consequences of both approaches. Do you consistently fall on the side of management and control, or do you prefer the coaching approach? Do you have the temperament to be a coach (patient and understanding), or do you have a strong appetite for taking action? Avoid the tendency to answer this question in terms of how you like to think of yourself and answer the question as you actually behave. Coaching is getting a lot of positive press in the management literature and management sometimes gets a bad rap. Don’t let the court of public opinion in this area sway your self-assessment. If necessary, monitor your behavior over a period of time so that you can get a better sense of what side of the scale you end up on.
As you self-assess it is important that you understand the pros and cons of both approaches. Management is quicker but tends to create a state of dependency. If you tell someone to do something and then tell them how to do it, you have effectively retained ownership for the issue. The person may do what you tell them, but by over specifying how you want it done you effectively get compliance. Compliance rapidly breaks down when pressure or stress is applied. And many a leader has been negatively impacted by mistaking compliance for commitment.
While coaching improves the skills of people around you it takes more time. By treating everything as a coaching situation you can fail to act decisively when the situation demands it. Your team can come to see you as a leader who is unwilling or unable to take decisive action or resolve disagreement efficiently.
To be a truly effective faster leader, you will have to develop proficiency in both approaches and be able to deploy either approach quickly.
Step 2: Understand the person you are dealing with. Some people are not coachable-at least by you. They might not see you as credible or be open to your input. Or they may simply be resistant to change or feedback. Resistance slows you down. People vary in their appetite for learning. Individuals who are receptive to feedback and seek out opportunities to get better and improve are more favorable coaching candidates. In the accelerating world we live in, receptivity to coaching is an important attribute in your team members. It allows you to coach faster.
While all of your team members have value- some have more value than others. Because of their position in the work food chain or the value of their skills, some team members are more important than others. Everyone is not equal in terms of their impact. While you don’t necessarily want to broadcast this fact at a high level, you want to remember it when making a coach/manage decision. Be sure to cultivate your high value team members.
Another important variable to consider when making the decision is the size of the skill gap or discrepancy you are dealing with. Think of it as the distance between the actual and the desired behavior. If the individual is performing at a fairly basic level and the goal is to get them to perform at higher level you will need to budget more coaching time. Where the gap is small, you are more able to do surgical coaching. Also think also about the complexity of the skill or behavior. Complex behaviors are more challenging to coach and take longer to manifest.
Finally, remember this important point. The biggest mistake a leader can make is spending large amounts of time coaching a poor performer and neglecting a top performer. This is exactly the opposite of what it should be. Don’t let yourself get bogged down in a protracted coaching scenario with someone who is a low performer. These situations have a real tendency to end up being a time management disaster. We often make the mistake of neglecting our top performers because of their performance. Coach your high performers and manage your low performers.
Step 3: Assess the situation. Sometimes the urgency of the situation demands quick action. For example, a crisis generally requires quick and decisive action by the leader to prevent events from spiraling out of control. You don’t have a lot of time to make decisions and the consequences can be quite significant. At other times, the pace of events allows you to take a more measured approach. Every situation has its own set of unique demands. When making the decision to coach/manage be sure to evaluate the environment for level of urgency.
The expectations of others is another variable to consider when assessing the environment. Management may have expectations that you personally manage a situation versus you coaching someone else on how to handle it. They may expect you to be personally involved at a high level and to take control of the situation.
Think of the environment as your runway. Sometimes you have a long runway and other times you don’t. Will you be able to get the plane in the air before you run out of runway? While you might be able to coach someone to a desired skill level if you had infinite time-you don’t. You don’t determine the length of runway you have. The environment does.
Here is a pre-flight decision checklist you can use to speed your decision making:
- Is the situation a management or coaching scenario?
- What is your level of personal ownership in the situation?
- Do you have the personal bandwidth to devote to coaching? Will you be able to carve out the necessary time to do a good job of it?
- Does the situation and target skill area address a strategic need? Is the skill an important one?
- What type of team climate are you trying to establish or reinforce?
- Is the urgency of the situation within manageable limits?
- What is the gap between the current level of behavior and desired level, and is it consistent with the length of the runway?
- Is the target behavior one in which you have some skill? Are you able to break the skill down into teachable components?
- Is the target individual someone who is highly valued, is a top performer, and is open and receptive to the coaching process and you?
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 12:49PM