VOL & VOLF

Week 4 (16/3 – 22/3)

It is absolutely vital for a coach to raise the coachee’s awareness – especially of self. The higher our expectations of performance, the greater the need for self awareness. The specific areas of awareness may vary but the objective is the same - increase the coachee’s insight in relation to:
• The effect of coachee’s behavior on the work environment, including the people around him or her.
• The external world’s effect – including other people’s behavior - on the coachee.

“When we are ordered to be responsible, told to be, or even given responsibility, if we do not fully accept it, performance does not rise. We might do the job because of the implied threat if we do not, but doing something to avoid a threat does not optimize performance. To feel truly responsible involves choice. This raises the oft-avoided but inevitable matter of personal commitment.”
– John Whitmore, “Coaching for Performance”

Since managers cannot do all the work or be everywhere all the time, it’s necessary to help people to take on responsibility themselves for their effectiveness and their results. This is part of what a manager coach does for optimal results.

Taking responsibility does not come easy in environments that do not encourage risk taking or where fear of uncertainty is programmed into the “cultural DNA.” Therefore, it is important to take cultural context – corporate as well as national – into account before coaching a coachee on taking responsibility. In any culture, however, the root of all motivation is personal commitment. Without personal commitment a person cannot be said to be fully engaged. He or she is not fully and truly committed. In order to develop and nurture commitment, a coach must help the coachee through a process that identifies what personal values – wants, needs and expectations – are met if he or she delivers on what the organization expects. Without that broad intersection between personal values and company expectations the coachee is likely to hedge or perform below potential. “What’s in it for me?” is a perfectly legitimate question and its answer is the basis for determining the level of personal engagement or commitment.

Fear of consequence is the other factor that leads coachees to be ambivalent and reluctant to commit or take risks. The influence of these two factors: personal values and internal attitude toward risk taking need to be understood if anything meaningful is to be achieved in terms of coaching a coachee towards taking greater responsibility. The personal dimension can be effectively addressed through coaching, but operating in a culture that does not promote risk taking or individual initiative presents a systemic challenge that requires coordinated action and agreement to foster change by the organization.

Almost any top athlete will tell you that it is the mind that leads the body. Top performance in business demands no less. The mind is key. As in sport, bright intellects are many in business. But these alone – technical ability, intellect and even experience – do not make for decisive advantage. They do not guarantee success. However, a winning mind is a different thing. There was a time when coaching was essentially directive. Responsibility was withheld and awareness suppressed. By doing so, coaches – and managers – contributed to their players’ and employees’ limitations. They might have gotten reasonable results from their players and employees. But paradoxically that very “success” likely kept performance levels stagnant at best because employees and players alike were not motivated to try anything new.

The coach is neither problem solver nor guru. He or she is not a teacher, adviser nor even an expert. Rather, the coach is a sounding board, a facilitator, and an awareness raiser.

John Whitmore gave the list of essential qualities to be an effective coach. In his writings, an effective coach is:
• Patient
• Detached
• Supportive
• Interested
• A good listener
• Perceptive
• Aware
• Self-aware
• Attentive
• Retentive

Of these, perhaps the effective coach ought to develop a bias for patience and detachment. Patience because it is the key to listening which, in turn, determines the quality and completeness of input. Detachment because as we get better at what we do and consequently become more engaged, we need to work ever harder to detach ourselves from the process and remain centered on improving coachee performance, not centered on the coachee. In addition to the foregoing, these add value but are not absolutely essential:
• Technical expertise
• Knowledge
• Experience
• Credibility
• Authority

Whitmore hastens to add that certain conditions need to be met if we are to include the last five. If they are to be of any real value, the coach must use or refer to them carefully. Technical expertise, knowledge and experience can be useful – even important – for processing information and insight gained in the course of coaching conversations.

Credibility and authority on the other hand are things a coach will have to earn from the coachee. Credibility comes from authenticity. It should be assumed that coachees can intuitively sense insincerity. You either are or you aren’t. Authority is not something to be projected; it is earned and renewed all throughout the coaching relationship.

The excerpts above would be very important in the coaching exercise. The coach need to be able to have the necessary patience and also to be professional enough to realize that performance coaching is to improve performance of the coachee, not of the coachee. In real life however, I would like to think that with improved performance of the coachee, it will create a positive image / outlook by the coachee and to a certain extent will encourage the coachee to raise his / her performance levels.

Will pursue on the improvement of the work order process. Had some advice from the Project Director on how to go about it. Had decided that data need to be collected beforehand, in order to support my observation. Had discussed the matter with the HOUs, sensed their resistance on it and tried to clarify the matter and highlighted the benefits to the organization. Since not all HOUs are particularly keen on the exercise, ultimately made the decision and issued a directive for data collection to commence for approximately 2 to 3 weeks.