Changing Your Identity from Content Expert to Coach
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If you're creating digital content, you already have a hybrid role. As modern content teams start to adopt Agile techniques and processes, the key skills and practices involved are transforming the way we collaborate. Rather than focusing purely on our own 'core' skills, we need to embrace the fact that - by collaborating closely - we're already sharing our skills and helping the people around us become more 'T-shaped'. At the Agile Content Conf 2015, I described the last year of my journey, and the techniques I've learned and applied as I've embraced a more multi-faceted role.
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Changing Your Identity from Content Expert to Coach
- 1. Changing Your Identity From Content Expert to Coach Chris Massey @camassey
- 3. Being A Digital Content Creator
- 4. Context
- 5. Where Is This Going?
- 6. No One True Way™
- 7. Chris Massey @camassey Redgate Software • Editor • Copywriter • Social Media marketer • Product Marketer • Quasi-Product Manager • Community Architect
- 9. A Fork in the Road
- 10. We’re Going On An Adventure!
- 11. 1 – Ask Questions, and Listen
- 12. Active Listening
- 13. There Are Limits • There are limits to what you can learn with Active Listening etc.
- 17. •Our channels •Their motivations •Their skill & confidence •Their team What Blocked People?
- 18. 2 – Share Ownership
- 19. Shared Ownership doesn’t mean we both agree to work on my goals
- 20. Shared Goals Shared Control Shared Language Shared Commitments Shared Skills "Junior at Darlington edit" by Purpy Pupple. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Junior_at_Darlington_edit.jpg
- 24. 3 –Give Situational Leadership
- 28. What’s Changed?
- 29. • Listen • Reflect • Verify • Repeat • Find Common Goals • Share Control • Unblock each other • Recognise that you’re different things to different people at different times. • Support that.
- 31. Think Like a Chef…
- 33. Additional Reading • http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_44.htm • http://www.learn-to-be-a-leader.com/situational-leadership.html • http://blog.red-gate.com/user-research-better-team-sport/ • http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/active-listening.html • http://ideas.time.com/2013/03/18/four-ways-to-give-good-feedback/ • http://agilecoach.typepad.com/agile-coaching/2014/05/conference- club.html
Editor's Notes
- Who has ever been asked for advice? You are helping someone else to think a little bit like you do. You are already coaches.
- Your role is not homogenous. Especially if you work on digital content, you’re already either a hybrid, or doing different things for different people.
- I’m going to talk about (professional) Identity Mine is still evolving & growing I don’t have all the answers I have hindsight. My growth has been largely accidental, so I want to share the techniques I’ve found to be effective so that you can evolve deliberately and to greater effect.
- It’s also important to realise that what I’m going to describe is not the one true path. There are lots of ways to other techniques you can focus on, other ways you can mix them – I’m just going to talk about what I’ve encountered, how you might use it to create great content without working yourself to death in the process.
- Commissioning blogs & articles Push for social media activity Pushing for conference presentations
- The common factor is what *I* need & my processes Classic content creation processes – linear, demand driven, fairly focused on our own goals. We valued control, clear responsibility, and defined branding. Regimented – either requires a superhuman amount of clarity, or for everyone’s goals to be very directly aligned. It’s exhausting How to Scale?
- Joined a team who were committed to building our engagement with our dev community and trying new approaches Scary to release perceived need for control. Scary to open up other people's processes (but necessary for change) BUT Need to scale I’d been through a variety of roles, picking up experience in different parts of the business.
- You’re an expert in your domain and workflows, not theirs. Wanted to change behaviours and processes, so we needed to understand the status quo.
- Started with people I knew well & sat down over lunch / with a coffee. Keyword is ACTIVE – not just waiting for them to finish talking, listening to words, body language, tone of voice. Internalise info so that you can… REFLECT: compare to what you already know, and then… VERIFY what you understand from them. Oscillate towards shared understanding, and then progress. We learned some things immediately, but...
- Active Listening isn’t magic. It can’t reveal everything. People don’t always want to open up face-to-face. People deflect away from topics / skills they’re uncomfortable with. So, we also ran an anonymous survey alongside.
- [Road blocks / walls / bars] ST "feels" wrong. Code, not prose Can't write / nothing to say Can't get support from team / manager / org.
- Once you’ve worked out where the problems are, keep collaborating!
- This is bullying. Or, if you do it professionally, politics.
- You may have to reframe each other’s goals so that they align/stack (example in a mo) Common working environment / sign-off Communication basics! You have to commit to unblocking them as well: Actively work to develop someone’s skills Help someone get support from their team Help someone achieve THEIR goals (e.g. Career development, downloads, product feedback) Deadlines! Example of Al / Revathi So far, so agile Helping others think like you – coaching!
- From ~4 regular speakers to ~15 (30 interested) my goals sorted, but New problem Colleagues needed support Team leads needed budget & leave guidance Head of engineering needed… ?
- Recruitment!
- Shared goal for teams, as well. Still a work in progress Active listening and improved negotiation skills were important to making this work - had we failed to agree a clear set of support guidelines, it would have made it almost impossible to continue to grow and improve our ability to create content and presentations with the engineers at the company.
- The next challenge was to find a good framework to guide how we worked together. Unconsciously started using aspects of something called Situational Leadership Used extensively at Red Gate, technically a tool for managers. Boils down to: When you're supporting people's development, they're all going to need different things from you at different times.
- Skill and Commitment / Enthusiasm vary as people grow. Need different things through that. Start with lots of direction, add support as they struggle. Ease off the direction, switch to feedback, become a sounding board.
- SOUND FAMILIAR? Remember: feedback is a skill. Be clear, open, constructive.
- Emma’s Progression, and my changes around that Directive (twitter + initial blog posts) Supportive / coaching (blog posts + initial abstracts) Delegating
- Acknowledge and adapt. Not all sunshine and rainbows – Shift in my output and behaviours Challenges in getting teams around me to adapt. You’re taking on new responsibilities before you’re letting anything go. Ultimately, you’re relieving creative pressure You’re helping people grow You’re building more robust processes / reducing your bottleneck.
- Recap Don't apply these separately They're describe a working culture This is all happening continuously, in parallel.
- If you’re a content expert of any sort, you are going to be asked for advice. There is no conflict – don’t be scared about who you are. You don’t have to entirely let go of being an expert to become a coach! But you also can’t JUST be an expert if you want to help more people get better
- You’re responsible for creating delicious content, and lots of it. You are the expert. Working by yourself, there is a hard limit of how much you can create. You’re helping the teams around you become your line cooks, sous-chefs, pasty-chefs, butchers… You’re trying to help others think like you do, letting YOU focus on just the finishing touches / big picture / delivering more.
- Accept that you’re already helping other people to grow, actively share what you know and get involved, and you’ll find – like I have – that it’s possible to help create lots of tasty content without burning yourself out in the process.
- Follow me: I'm very happy to answer questions, talk about experiences, or be told why I'm wrong I'll tweet a link to the slides and (eventually) a blog post of this Thank you all for your time The next move is yours!