D&B Brief

Put Me In, Coach!

Miriam Bamberger, CPCC, and Heather Bradley, CPCC, are the co-founders of The Flourishing Company, which helps emerging professionals sharpen their leadership skills to generate immediate and lasting changes in their ability to successfully manage complex work relationships. For additional information, visit: www.TheFlourishingCompany.com.

The World Series brings out the baseball fan in everyone. For many of us, our first lessons in teamwork were learned on the diamond. Even now, having ceded the game to professionals and 10-year-olds, we remember how eagerly we responded to our coach's battle cry: "Everyone bats this inning!"

In the workplace, we're still just as eager to take our turn at bat. Indeed, we have yet to meet an attorney who isn't excited to get in the game, wanting to contribute, hone skills, and work on meaningful assignments. But as every coach knows, while having an enthusiastic staff can be an asset, managing a team of hard-charging individuals can also be a challenge.

Research shows that, just as a coach is blamed when a star player defects, a supervising attorney's role in influencing retention cannot be overstated. According to a comprehensive study by the Gallup Organization, an employee's direct manager is the most critical driver in creating high productivity, profit, retention, and customer service.¹ Further, the Saratoga Institute found 80 percent of turnover was related to an unsatisfactory relationship with one's boss.²

Adding to the complexity of managing these "players" is diversity. When managing a team, diversity stretches beyond race, gender, and sexual orientation; we find diversity of work style, diversity of personalities, diversity of expectations, and diversity of thought. More and more, lawyers are called on to lead and manage diverse teams of diverse people with diverse expectations—without even so much as a playbook.

A New Playbook

Today's "players" want ownership of their output, and they want to work in a challenging and satisfying environment. Many managers have discovered the old top-down, command-and-control management style is no longer constructive for today's players. Instead, many managers have begun using a coach-like approach.

With a coach's mindset, the focus is on learning, not results or outcomes. Coaching interactions do promote improved performance, but they go beyond simply showing someone the basic elements of a job. Instead, the goal is to guide people to learn the most effective way of performing their jobs.

Coach-like managers work hard to know their teams, rather than sending in plays from the dugout:

They ask powerful questions.

The most powerful questions are short, usually seven words or less, open-ended and begin with "what" or "how."

What do you want to be different?
What's important about that?
How will you know if it works?
What concerns you most?
How important is this?
How can I support you?

They encourage staff to come to their own conclusions.

Rather than telling people what to do, coaches brainstorm strategies and tactics together. Brainstorming is most effective when everyone suspends judgment until all the ideas are on the table.

They delegate more and supervise less.

Coaches boost productivity and help team members fulfill their potential by letting them make their own mistakes. They show them how to build on their strengths and rise to their full potential.

They provide regular feedback.

With regular feedback, coaches address items as they surface, before small concerns grow into big problems. Coaches act as mirrors for their staff members. They reflect what the staff needs to hear—positive or negative.

They challenge their staff to stretch by modeling.

It is easy to play it safe. Staff members look to their leaders for cues, so if you play small, expect your staff to do the same thing. Instead, coaches challenge staff members to leave their comfort zones, perhaps taking on assignments in a new area or assuming a leadership role on a project or team. Coach-like managers model this kind of stretching by taking prudent risks themselves. Even if team members do not meet a challenge, they will probably have stretched further than if left to their own devices.

In addition to developing a mature, self-directed staff, coach-like managers often experience less pressure, as more of the organization's capacity and energy is released in strategically aligned directions and overall performance is improved.

It's How You Play the Game

As a manager, you are still responsible for the results of your department, although you have learned from experience that different management styles are needed at different times. When a new team is forming, or when a new employee joins your department, a more directive approach may be useful. Laying down a clear structure can help ensure everyone is on the same page. With a mature team or seasoned employee, a more hands-off approach might work better. When an already cohesive team is called on to tackle a new kind of project, a collaborative style may be most valuable.

A coaching approach can be very effective in all of these scenarios because it is based on the premise that sharing ideas and experiences, without rushing to answers, leads to better solutions. Instead of simply giving orders, a coach-like manager will be curious and take the time to teach and influence. This approach offers the most flexibility to respond to the preferences, needs, and motivations of each team member. Being coach-like in these situations does not mean abdicating your responsibility or making decisions by committee.

We Have a Department to Do

This You may have heard of coaching as its own discipline. Indeed, many organizations use internal and external coaches to help individuals address specific development opportunities beyond the confines of their normal workday routine. In these cases, a formal coaching relationship is established, with specific goals; typically, sessions with "a coach" are confidential.

By contrast, coaching as a management mindset may or may not include formal meetings and development plans. Coaching as a management mindset is just that: a way of interacting with your staff to help them learn and grow, for the purpose of a more effective, profitable, and fulfilling workplace.

Sources and Recommended Reading

Co-Active Coaching by Whitworth, et al.
First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
The Inner Game of Work by W. Timothy Gallwey

Make Today Game Day

Perhaps you are already enjoying a coaching mindset; perhaps this concept is new. Whether you want to step up the intensity and reach of your coaching, or whether you want to get in this game, The Flourishing Process can help.

Clarity: Check the Playing Field

How well is your current management style working?
Is your team meeting its business objectives?
Ask your team members: How satisfied are they?
Where are you currently using coaching? What impact are you having?
What other opportunities exist to introduce coaching?
How could adjusting your management style benefit you and your team?
What is getting in the way of coaching effectively?

Choice: Pre-Game Strategy

If you are having a winning season and you and your team are satisfied, congratulations! Keep doing what you are doing.

If you are not satisfied, what needs to be different?

What do you need to start or stop doing to improve your satisfaction and team performance?
What do you need to do more or less of?
What do you choose to do with coaching?
Do you choose for coaching to be a priority for you and your team?

Action: Get in the Game

Adapting your management style may not happen quickly. In fact, the most effective managers use a range of managing and coaching styles.

What will you do to be more coach-like for the rest of the day?
What will you do to be more coach-like this week?
What will you do to be more coach-like this month?

Forget the cliché, "Winning isn't everything—it's the only thing." Coaching as a management mindset is a win-win. When you keep the role of coach at the forefront of your mind, you may find you are no longer managing a diverse group of individuals, but learning from the wonderfully diverse experiences and perspectives of your team. No matter what the circumstance, look for opportunities to coach. Your team will thank you for putting them in the game.

NOTES

First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.
Saratoga Talent and Retention Survey. The Saratoga Institute, a PricewaterhouseCoopers service offering, is highly recognized as a world leader in the field of HR metrics and analysis, dedicated to the premise that intelligent measurement is fundamental to performance improvement.

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Giving and Seeking Feedback December 1, 2004

From the September/October 2004 issue of Diversity & The Bar^®