Creating Coaching Cultures

Coaching Changes Everything

When I started coaching 18 years ago I was surprised to find that, regardless of the nature of the coaching engagement, I was teaching people how to integrate coaching approaches into their day-to-day interactions. It wasn’t intentional; it just made sense. 

The challenges that my clients faced, such as providing difficult feedback, inviting colleagues to embrace a different perspective or sharing a compelling possibility with a larger audience, were more quickly and easily resolved when my clients took a coaching approach to these situations. That is, when they focused on creating insight for others, rather than telling them what to do. These managers were not acting as “full fledged” coaches, setting goals and holding people accountable, they were simply using coaching approaches to create insight and move situations into effective action more quickly.

What was really interesting was how very small changes made such a huge difference. Asking a question instead of giving the answer created unexpected openings. Getting curious about how someone viewed a situation and starting the conversation from there, rather than arguing one’s point, became the foundation for more collaborative relationships. In retrospect I recognized theses as Coaching Moments – times when taking a different approach changed the trajectory of situation, often in significant ways. When people wove coaching approaches into their day-to-day interactions potentially contentious exchanges turned into opportunities for people to learn with and from each other. 

What was even more fascinating was how shifting to a coaching perspective changed everything – the people, the situation, their relationships, their willingness to take on new challenges.  People became more engaged and change happened more quickly and smoothly. It was exciting to see! 

Work with the Willing

When we work with clients to instill coaching-based leadership into the fabric of organizations invariably one of the first questions we are asked is, "Where should we start?" Our answer: "Work with the willing."

The current change management orthodoxy is very much about "command and control." This approach assumes you have to start with the C-Suite and roll down an initiative from there in order for the change to take hold. The backlash created by this kind "steam rolling" approach dooms many change initiatives to becoming a "flavor of the month," as people understandably resist what is being forced upon them. When it comes to instilling coaching capabilities into an organization it is far more effective to take a coaching approach to creating the change. 

Choosing Between Judgment and Change

We want to change the things that bother us the most. We don’t need to look too far to find people and situations we feel are overdue for an overhaul, such as the myopic turf wars that limit our opportunities to collaborate, chauvinistic leadership styles that don’t honor the value in diversity, or the self-centered leader who puts his own welfare above that of the people he is supposed to serve.  These are all things that legitimately make us angry and upset.  We want to see them changed.

Here’s the thing.  You may first need to change yourself before you are able to truly create lasting change in the people and situations that bother you most. That’s because you cannot change what you are judging.

Think about it. How do you feel when someone judges you? Are you willing to bend in that person’s direction and change your behavior to satisfy that person’s desire for you to be different? I doubt it. It’s more likely you will judge the person in return for judging you.  You will fire up your defense mechanisms of choice and the cycle of judgment begins. Once the cycle gets started, it can be very difficult to stop.

Here’s how the cycle works. Judgment springs from fear. We fear the things that we don’t understand, don’t know how to change and are concerned can threaten us in some way.  When we judge something we are afraid of it allows us to feel separate from whatever it is. Because judgment springs from fear, we respond to our judgments in the same ways we respond to fear – fight or flight.  When we respond with fight we attack the other person or situation, directly or indirectly, often in hurtful ways that enable us to feel safely superior. If we choose to flee what we are judging, we give ourselves permission to dismiss the person or situation as hopeless and walk away. In either case, we have forfeited any chance of playing a meaningful part in creating change.

Real Coaching = Real Engagement = Real Competitive Advantage

Early on in one of our Coaching in the Moment® workshops this week a participant looked at me with all earnestness and said, “I still don’t get why we can’t just tell people what to do? Why do we need to coach them?” What is implied is telling people what to do is faster and easier, so why bother taking a coaching approach.

The heart of the difference between coaching and telling people what to do lies in how are brains are wired. Real coaching focuses on creating insight – an “aha” experience” – that literally builds a synapse in the person’s brain. That new learning creates engagement. Telling people what to do results in people complying with your demand if you are able to imply enough of a threat or an appealing reward to compel them to do so.

Compliance is a very low and costly bar. People who only comply often shy away from taking risks, generally avoid taking responsibility and certainly don’t contribute any more than is needed to get by. People who are engaged make the extra effort, value learning, and contribute their creative efforts to addressing challenges.  

Cultivating Fearlessness

I recently read an article based on the newly released book, The Corner Office, in which New York Times columnist Adam Bryant shares the themes that emerged from his interviews with more than 70 chief executives and other leaders. He synthesized his findings down to five traits that CEOs look for in leaders:

• Passionate curiosity
• Battle-hardened confidence
• Team smarts
• A simple mind-set
• Fearlessness

While I found the list interesting, I was most drawn to the last trait – fearlessness. The article presented fearlessness as a somewhat rare character trait embodied by a few emboldened leaders who dared to challenge the status quo. What baffles me is if CEOs value fearlessness so highly, why don’t organizations put more emphasis on cultivating this quality to be part of the culture?  It often seems organizations do exactly the opposite.

The cost of valuing compliance and sameness over diversity of thought and risk taking comes clearly into focus when the stakes are highest.  During the height of the recession I watched some organizations get creative and take risks to better position themselves to emerge in stronger positions, while others retracted into fearful places, cutting everything in site without giving much thought to longer term implications, and resorting to intimidation to get compliance.  That’s the difference between fearless and fearful leadership.

Organizations can cultivate a culture of fearlessness by:

Authentic Influence

The role of the change agent is not an easy one. Often the people who see the possibilities for change are different in some ways from the culture in which they work. These differences are often what make them so valuable as change agents.

There is an old saying in consulting: “Watch out for the organization antibodies.” Just as in a physical body, there are antibodies in organizations that neutralize things that seem threatening or different. If you appear to be too different– particularly if you are threatening to create change – you too can be neutralized.

What to do? We want to be ourselves and we want to make a difference.  Do we hide the parts of ourselves we aren’t sure others will appreciate or can even handle, or do we dare to be different and risk the consequences?

The key is to use your authenticity to influence others, not alienate them.  It can be a fine line to walk that requires a certain level of self mastery. Authenticity is not a choice between “telling everyone how it is” or remaining silent. Influence comes from being relevant and real.  

Here are a few guidelines for igniting change through authentic influence:

Change has Changed

I remember learning Lewin’s model of change in my Psychology 101 class. The model has three steps to describe the change process: Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze. I think global warming has hit organizational change, because nothing seems to freeze anymore.  Change is now a constant; a fluid process we need to learn to flow with or we will surely drown.

Coaching-based leadership is like swimming lessons for leaders. It teaches them how to move with, and even grow and develop in, the constant state of change.   When leaders take a coaching approach to the change process they open up their thinking – and the thinking of others – to find new ways of responding to their ever-changing environment. 

When people do not feel equipped to deal with a situation they can become frightened and rigid.  For example, people who don’t know how to swim don’t tend to like spending time on the water.  What we often call “resistance to change” is just fear being expressed in a very rational way. People who don’t feel they can keep your head above water during the change process will do what they can to avoid the situation or stop the change.

The Fundamentals of a Coaching Culture

I just returned from a terrific conference for master coaches were we had the opportunity to be in dialogue with Brian Johnson, the creator of PhilosophersNotes. If you aren’t familiar with Philosopher’s Notes I highly recommend that you check it out.  Tag line:  More wisdom in less time.  Brian has summarized the “big ideas” from one hundred self-development books into six-page PDFs and 20-minute MP3s, where he shares his insights with a joyful and infectious enthusiasm.  

One of the “big ideas” Brian shared at the conference that particularly resonated for me was the reminder that its consistency around the fundamentals that separates great performance from the merely good.  Great performers in all areas give their attention and focus to mastering the foundational skills upon which their performance is based.  I know this from my experience as a dancer.  There’s a reason every dance class begins with bar exercises – whether you’re just starting out or are a professional dancer – you begin with the foundational skills. 

That got me thinking about the “fundamentals” for a coaching culture.  What are the foundational things that an organization needs to do consistently to create and maintain a culture where ongoing development, collaboration and creativity are part of the essential ethos of the experience?

Here’s my list:

Listen for meaning

The old adage that you will hear what you listen for is true.  Most organizations I’ve encountered have very poor listening habits.  Most are lucky if they listen well enough to accurately glean the information that is being conveyed, let alone the underlying meaning that is always present but rarely perceived.

Asking the Big Questions

Our lives are, in many ways, defined by the questions we are willing to ask and answer.  What’s possible?  What’s getting in my way?  What is truly meaningful?  It’s when we are willing to challenge some of the foundational assumptions that form the underpinnings of our lives that we discover new possibilities.  

The same is true with organizations.  Organizations can get locked in a stranglehold of their own assumptions about how things are and therefore must be.  They collectively say things like, “We are nice,” or “We are all about action.”  Often this way of being has become so familiar that they barely even notice the true impact of choosing to be this way, or the very fact that it’s a choice at all.  It’s “just the way things are.”

The Atlas Complex

One of the first lessons that coaches need to learn is that they can’t carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.  Often, with their deep desire to make a difference, coaches will take on responsibilities that rightfully belong to their clients.  When clients don’t take the actions they committed to take, coaches may feel like their coaching “weren’t good enough.”  Rather than calling the client on the broken commitment, they may feel guilty or inadequate as a coach.  And then they try even harder.  This doesn’t serve the client or the coach.  

The same dynamic shows up for imaginal cells -- people who are guiding organizations to evolve to coaching cultures. (See the 09.09.09 blog entry, Invitation for more information on imaginal cells.)  People who are guiding these large change efforts can burn out quickly if they are not effectively engaging their organizations in the transformation process.

Here are some signs that you may have an “Atlas complex” – the desire to carry the weight of the entire change effort on your back:

• You find yourself cajoling people to take any kind of action – and then picking up the pieces when they don’t, rather than having a deeper conversation about their commitment to create meaningful change
• You feel overwhelmed by all of the activities you’ve got going and underwhelmed by the response from the organization
• You seem to care about creating change a whole lot more than almost anyone else, and at times, this may make you feel upset, misunderstood and / or unappreciated