Coaching for peak performance
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Aston Business School Expert Perspectives 1 March, The leader as torchbearer for coaching
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Coaching for peak performance
- 1. The leader as torchbearer for coaching
- 2. Reminders – the leader as coach Allison Taylor
- 3. Coaching What? Benefits How? A small step Allison Taylor
- 4. What is it? ‘A facilitative one to one mutually designed relationship between a professional coach and a key contributor who has a powerful position in the organisation. The focus of the coaching is usually upon organisation performance but may have a personal component as well’ OR ‘Unlocking people’s potential to maximise their own performance’ John Whitmore Allison Taylor
- 5. ‘Performance = potential minus interference’ Timothy Gallwey – The Inner Game of Tennis Allison Taylor
- 6. Secret to winning our inner game Not trying too hard Letting go of judgement Letting yourself learn Over to you – Allison Taylor
- 7. Applying the theory Allison Taylor
- 8. Pull Push Continuum Allison Taylor
- 9. What’s in it for you? Get things done faster and overcome challenges Reduce stress More time More visibility More respect More job satisfaction Become known as a developer of people Allison Taylor
- 10. Benefits to your organisation?! Best choices and decisions possible Personal confidence improved Enhanced leadership capability More effective personal skills Prepared for new role Improved job performance Developed skills to manage conflict and change Achieve more Improved communications Clarified causes of behaviour and actions Allison Taylor
- 11. Commissioning tips Sponsor Begin with the end in mind! Evaluation Characteristics Coaching professionalism Coaching Agreement Allison Taylor
- 12. A small step Be curious Look for Potential Be Aware Take Responsibility No Judgement Your workplace is your university Lead – what for? Allison Taylor
- 13. Contact details Allison Taylor MBA info@addato.co.uk www.addato.co.uk info@addato Allison Taylor
Editor's Notes
- Thank you Simon. Well it’s the end of another day at the office and when I come to these events I want something a little bit lively so so lets get cracking shall we. I hope no one has come for a lecture, I just wan to share some insights with you and . The Olympic torch has been carried from Los Angeles to London, from Berlin to Beijing, the four corners of our Earth, it has climbed snow clad mountains and arid desserts for over a hundred years. It represents dark to light, leading and encouraging, enabling and courage. It is my deeply held conviction that effective coaching is a key to enabling you and your teams to achieve better performance and results. I’m delighted to have been asked to share some insights with you and invite you to carry this torch for some of our journey. Imagine if every one of us in this room tonight took this torch for just a part of its journey to all parts of the globe, the difference we could make. I was thinking about images that represent coaching to me, let me share with you some triggers.
- They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I give you 4000 words! The tennis ball, an aeroplane, a torchbearer and a seedling. For me, the tennis ball represents the seminal work of Timothy Gallwey in his book, called the inner game of tennis. The torch is about all of us carrying the torch for coaching in a way that has a really positive impact in the way the workplace operates, I mean the whole thing, changing the way we work from telling people, why wont they do what I just tell them, I’ve told them I want it done this way, well I shouldn’t think there's a person in this room that think that that’s OK but really none of us are perfect and sometimes the short cut is very tempting. If we change the approach I think we can change whole cultures.I chose the aeroplane for a few reasons, is anybody here a pilot, anybody like messing about in boats? Small inputs can have a big impact. Let me give you an example…….. Coaching is often a small input, a good question, a good exercise to get the other person thinking to get them back on their track.For me the seedling is about the fact that we are all resourceful and whole. In the coaching context we are not in the business of fixing people and fixing things we come from a place that assumes that we are resourceful, we might sometimes get ourselves in an unresourceful state but we have within us everything we need. Nettle or tree, Now growth is relative and some of us have become might oaks, but we still make seeds and we still have the potential for growth.
- So I thought it might be helpful f we have a shared understanding about what we’re going to cover, a bit of relevant background, what we mean by executive coaching including a short demonstration. Do we have any jugglers in the room? No well in that case then you’re all candidates to volunteer for the demo! After the demo you’ll get the opportunity to try something out.I shall crystallize the point of the demo with some real examples of coaching. We’ll talk about what’s in it for you and your organisation, I shall make some bold claims and as we all love research so much I thought you might like a little bit of independent evidence. I have at the front here a list of the papers with evidence you might like to download and a recommended reading list for you to take away if you wish. I promised you some commissioning tips so we’ll cover those and then we will take a look at what actions you can take after you leave here today. So that shared understanding about what we’re going to cover…
- It’s not therapy, its not counselling, its not mentoring, its not life or career or skills coaching, its not consultancy IT IS about you being ever more resourceful to achieve your potential for peak performance. Like the SEEDLING, you are resourceful and whole, you have everything you need already within you for growth. Coaching and a coaching approach are key levers for motivation. I talk about what its not because you might like to check the terms you use when talking with colleagues and commissioning what you actually want. Sometimes any of these things like mentoring or indeed counselling might be the most appropriate intervention. Choose wisely. Coaching is most successful when the focus is on learning and quality. Where time is the most important thing is time or a lack of time coaching might not be most effective tool. Situational leadership springs to mind.It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said ‘what lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us’.Today our focus is on one to one coaching in a formal sense. Business coaching has now reached what MalcomGladwell called the Tipping Point, it is seen as a badge for talent rather than dealing with deficiencies. The Sherpa Executive coaching survey has found a trend moving from more leadership development and less emphasis on fixing specific problems. We will also talk about your role in informal coaching opportunities.
- I chose this image for a number reasons, it shows Raphael Nadal, at peak performance, focused and ‘in the zone’ or in the flow as MeehyCheeksentmehyee would say. I specifically chose tennis because one of the most influential people in the coaching world wrote a seminal work called the Inner Game of Tennis, the classic guide to the mental side of peak performance. Coaching has been around for a very long time, In the western world its foundations are more readily visible in the pursuit of sporting excellence. 20 years ago if I told people I coached, I would have been asked in what sport? Sporting coaching or instructing, ski instructor for example, has evolved and much of it has stayed stuck in in what might be called the technical instruction method. Business coaching, perhaps because it doesn’t have a shared history or baggage I would argue has moved on from that and indeed overtaken much sports coaching, perhaps because so many people in business are interested in motivation? For sport it’s a little bit different isn’t it? Its got the obvious ingredients of choice, self esteem, reward, responsibility for your own results. The external workplace is more challenging I would suggest so coaching has had to be somewhat more agile. I am not able to do full justice to his work as you’ll appreciate, its on the recommended reading list, what I would like to do now is a short demonstration with a member of the audience. DEMO the point of this demonstration is that I want you to notice the approach, I take I’ll ask you what you noticed. So I want to reassure the volunteer that the the emphasis is on me as a coach not you as a learner! I have never juggled in my life by the way! Observe, feel, notice, sense. Thank person for participating, I think we can all agree that X will be able to juggle if given more time to learn. INTERACTIVE What did you notice? Not technical instruction, awareness questions.Let me explain the purpose of the demo. What Timothy Gallwey found was as a tennis coach he got better results when certain things were present. He talks about the inner game what goes on in our minds, our thoughts, the way we condemn ourselves, lack of concentration, nervousness, self doubt I could go on but you get the idea? Does anybody here talk to themselves at the gym, on the golf course, at work? That inner voice? There’s a quote up here about performance = potential – interference. The interference, the noise, is what gets in our way, usually self created or a part of ourselves. When we curse ourselves, we give ourselves a really hard time because we missed something. Our performance is our potential, that seedling, minus the interference we put in the way or let get in the way.
- Then there’s the outer game, the external obstacles, the external opponent. The secret to winning any game is not trying too hard. Similar to when we learned to walk. It uses the intuitive capabilities of the mind It doesn’t have to be learned we already know it like our SEEDLING does. We just need to unlearn those habits which interfere with it, and then just let it happen. Self one the teller and self 2 the doer so he talks about 3 things, clear images, get the clearest possible picture what you want, learn how to trust self 2, learn to see none judgmentally. Stop assigning a negative or positive value to an event. No good, no bad just feedback, seeing things as they are, not ignoring reality. Let go of correcting faults, letting it happen is not making it happen if you don’t know what to do let your mind learn! Get a clear visual image of the results you want to achieve. Philip and golf.Albert Einstein said most teachers waste their time by asking questions which are intended to discover what a pupil does not know, whereas the true art of questioning has for its purpose to discover what the pupil knows or is capable of knowing.Exercise for the group – what do you do when you get stuck? 5 mins each way ’Over the last 20 years coaching has taken off and there are more coaching models than ever before. There’s GROW and FAST and NLP and Gestalt and coaching and many many more. It can get confusing so I want to share with you two examples.
- So the point of our demo , remember we’re talking about a business context, It’s one to one. There is a coaching relationship, an alliance some people call it. It’s high trust, confidential. Its non directive, we’ll come back to that, it may be an opportunity to use some feedback from MBTI, a strengths profile, a 360 degree feedback questionnaire for example. The focus tends to be on improved performance. Its not about fixing people, it comes from a place of assuming you’re psychologically healthy, whole and resourceful. So how can this coaching actually make a difference? I will share with you two stories. One is about a man we’ll call him Joe. Joe comes with his agenda for the coaching session and he’s brought his MBTI feedback from a leadership programme he’s involved in. Are people here familiar with Myers Briggs Type Indicator? Ok well for those that aren’t it refers to what are described as our preferences and of the 4 pairs of things we are measured on one is described as the thinking or feeling preference. Joe had been told he had shown a preference for what's called feeling. Now this doesn’t mean he doesn’t think but the significance of it for him was about sources of stress. He focussed, like all of us tend to do by the way on the negative sides of the type descriptors, there are lots of positives. So, we talked about what he noticed, what he was aware of in his responses, what the triggers were for him to ‘go up like a rocket’ to quote him. Violation of core values,, people belittling the efforts of his team. What is fascinating is that once he could see it (feedback), he was able to realise that he could make autonomous choices, take responsibility and he came up with various strategies that would help, such as time to reflect, prioritising things more objectively, talking to third party who was impartial for example. Sitting in second position and third position. For him he would say it improved his performance because he made better choices about how to act and how to respond to emails! My role in this……………I want to share with you some thinking by David Rock, author of Quiet leadership, has anybody read his work?Let me show you something, go to flip chart, draw diagram, make the point its on utube ‘The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution – Bertrand Russell. And you’ll have heard - The harder you are working for them the less likely they are to commit to your solution paradoxical but true! One of the things that struck me about this is that I do workplace mediation and conflict coaching and this resonated for me, I have to get people to see the light bulbs and turn them on. There is further evidence about the impact of TELLING done by IBM and the Post Office of this table, pre pared in flip chart, ask people to guess to guess recall after 3 months if just told. told told and shown, told shown and experienced, recall after 3 weeks, 70, 72, 85Recall after 3 months, 10, 32, 65Hold that in mind when I share with you the next exampleThis is a story about a woman, we’ll call her Clare, talented head of a high performing and well regarded organisation, looking for the next opportunity, just a small issue, a lack of self confidence, self belief. Now remember this is about the Inner game, our own noise getting in the way. A lot of coaching books have a chapter devoted to this, our inner voice, gremlins.There was a guy called Zander who did some work with an orchestra, Boston Philharmonic I think it was and asked the musicians to keep a journal focussing on the capability they had shown each week not technical shortcomings and failings. You have to win the inner game first before you can win the outer game. So what NLP refer to as pressure words such as should, must, ought, mustn’t , Clare is a resourceful person in an unresourceful state of mind. Its not helpful to her. So as a coach I can offer a lens with which she can see the world differently, notice what is happening and expand the choices. For this to be successful the person has to believe it is Possibility, Ability, Worthiness. We all have habits with anchors to hold them in place. Be aware of the anchors that support the habit, create a new habit, make new anchors to support the new habit My role with Clare was to ……….
- Let me explain this picture. When we’re coaching we’re operating in this space here. Does anybody here drive a merc or a BMW or another rear wheel drive. Now when times were tough what was it like being pushed along by your rear wheel drive in the snow> Not good . I know those of us with front wheel drives tend to fair better when the going gets tough. We can all get out and give you a shove but when it snows again your back in trouble! I’m suggesting a memorable way to remember to help someone to solve their own problems! Sometimes the lines get blurred, I was recently asked to coach someone on strategy………..Now the metaphor starts to break down with 4 wheel drives so lets move on!
- as a torchbearer, as a manager coach, what might be the benefits to you? Research suggests the following is an indicative list. From research, ILM CIPD, so lets look at what these mean. We are doing this because most of us want an easy life and I know that you will not carry that torch unless this proposition is doable, it has a pay off and makes you feel or puts you in a superior position. So lets look at these shall we what do they actually mean? Examples grouping first 3, next 3 and last one. As a manger coach you have advantages over the external coach in some circumstances, you are able to have informal conversations that can take place by the coffee machine in the most timely way, in the moment when it’s most needed. Difficult meeting, that client presentation, for exampleWhen are your opportunities for informal coaching, do these benefits stack up in your experience? Opportunities and benefits you have experienced?…... motivating staff, delegating, problem solving, relationship issues, performance appraisal, business results, team building, task performance, planning and reviewing, staff development, team workingAsking managers to describe the best manager they ever worked with rarely focuses on the budget or project management, its usually about people who stretch us, fairly, supportively, trust us, listen, give great feedback. You can do this. I do not however pretend it is easy. I have been a manager a coach and sometimes it worked really well formally or informally and other times in the early days I was sat there thinking I cant do tis I have a vested interest in the outcome, I’m leading. In fact I’m managing because I need the report done in this way in the next 2 hours and its for the board and its not negotiable. Being clear on when you can be a manager coach is important, be thoughtful about it. As leaders whilst there may be a pay off for us as individuals we are expected to look at the bigger picture, so What do you think the research said about benefits to your organisations? Spend a few minutes now talking about that with your neighbours and be prepared to call one out.
- After a few hav been calledout………….OK as you can see some of the benefits you have identified correlate with some of the research that has been carried out and you have some others too, the list I have is not exhaustive so thank you. Now as a manager coach you have a really important role, sometimes you might want to commission coaching it might be that someone needs more than you are able to give ether in time or feel competent to give. So I said I would share with you some commissioning tips so lets see what they are
- Who is sponsoring the coaching?Is coaching the right intervention, if you want consultation or mentoring for example this can happen but be clear can it be internal or external?How will you evaluate success? ROE ROI/ Will you use tools such as MBTI or 360 degree feedback results? Remember to connect to other T&D initiatives Personal chemistry and characteristics, usually not important for them to be in your sector, but some heads of talent are clear that they want particular characteristics and want confidence that someone will have the gravitas if you like to challenge their senior people. Coaching professionalism by this I mean are they accredited, what code of ethics do they subscribe to? Do they have coaching supervision, professional indemnity insurance, methods and models they can describeContracting, form, face to face, phone, Skype, email, get a coaching agreement drawn up and signed, we tend to have standard templates and this covers those things like what if you need to cancel or rearrange etc.
- Imagine that your workplace is your university, observe, notice actions and feedback, consider what you lead for as well as how to. Being curious means letting go of some rational thinking and using your powers of deduction, suspend them for the purpose of this information gathering, just notice, be aware and when you are judgmental, notice it. Look at someone's potential, not talking about ignoring reality but consider it. When we have a seed it is resourceful and whole, we just need to nurture it with a little water in some some good growing mixture but it has everything it needs to transform itself into whatever it is meant to be.This proposition doable, it will bring you benefits and make you stand out from the crowd. Remember the aeroplane, small changes, big impact.I invite you to think of one thing you might do differently tomorrow and the day after. Spend a moment now thinking of it. You’re not going to be asked to share it. On a scale of one to 10 how likely are you to it? Just acknowledge that to yourself. Anything less than a 10, think about what would need to be in place to shift it up one point closer to 10.