I was recently engaged in a conversation with other fellow middle managers on how we were coping with our leadership challenges. Without doubt, the group were formed by like minded people with passion to grow and develop each member in their team. The conversation was energising and buzzing until one of them asked, “When should I stop coaching the poor performer in my team?”
There was a moment of silence. We could felt a tinge of fatigue in the voice because he had been providing all possible support to his team member for coming to 2 years.
Coaching – A Trending Solution?
Coaching has been very much the go-to solution in my organisation in recent years. It seems that coaching is a solution to almost every possible employee issue. Unfortunately, it is not.
No doubt, coaching is an apt approach to several employee issues ranging from developmental, engagement, challenging perspective and limiting beliefs, etc.. However, it is not the solution to all issues, neither is it a good tool to resolve issue without having difficult conversations.
Here are some of the situations that would not present a coaching opportunity:
1. Aptitude or lack of skills
If the employee lacks skills or competencies to complete a job task, he is then lacking in aptitude. In such situations, coaching is not an appropriate intervention as asking questions around the topic would not support the employee’s acquisition of skills. It would only be appropriate to explore other more direct intervention such as teaching the employee or getting him to attend a suitable workshop to learn the required knowledge or skills. To put simply, someone need to show the employee the steps or processes to operate a mail merge function in Microsoft Word as opposed to asking curious questions about how mail merge could be done.
2. Affected by outside factors beyond sphere of influence or control
Some of our work performances are highly dependent on external factors such as current and future market conditions, availability of resources or opportunities, or relationships with external stakeholders/partners. Many of these are beyond the control of the individual and would not be reasonable for the supervisor to hold their employees accountable for something beyond control.
When to Coach?
If the issues is about the individual themselves, such as motivation, lack of focus or confidence, lack of clarity of one’s commitment, etc., it would be appropriate to use coaching as an intervention. Very much, we are dealing with the attitude or the individual. It could be a conversation that could uncover limiting beliefs that brings about lower self confidence, or gaining clarity over one’s career goal to ignite that motivation and commitment to work.
Going back to the conversation I was having with fellow middle managers, the manager had given sufficient training intervention to support his team member to acquire the needed skills. However, things were not working out and he adopted coaching as a means to avoid the difficult conversation on managing the member’s poor performance. The coaching conversation was not suitable and created a lot more tension than support for the employee.