Does Coaching Matter?
By Dale Biron
Nov 11, 2004
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began -- Mary Oliver
In 2003, nine years into my Aikido career, and with apprehension, I became a candidate for the rank of Shodan, also known as Black Belt. At the start of this yearlong intensive, things were going well. The extra practice and special attention from my teachers and the other students in our dojo (or school), felt great. I said to myself, "I can do this."
But then it happened. Like many before me, I hit a wall. I got stuck, and in ways I had not experienced before. Basic Aikido techniques, I had been practicing for years, were unraveling. Friday nights were especially frustrating, as the teacher (or sensei) would call me in front of the class for a special session of "randori," a challenging martial practice with multiple attackers. Often, I would start out fine, at least until the sensei would add an additional attacker, speed-up the action, adjust the lights, or anything else to increase the pressure. And that's when the trouble started.
I tried everything at first: speed, finesse, muscle, and force. But none of it was really working. All were attempts to compensate for poor habits and incorrect forms that had crept unconsciously into my practice. With strong support from my sensei, I began to see some of my blind spots. With coaching, I slowly returned to basics in areas where my skills had become fuzzy and unreliable. I focused on the fundamentals of breathing, posture, breaking balance, getting off the line of attack, entering, and blending with incoming force. To eventually go fast again, I had to first slow down, even though my ego complained mightily. After all, slowing down to refocus and refresh, felt like being a rookie again. But despite my bruised ego, the slower practice allowed me to more closely study my techniques. Thankfully, as my fundamentals improved, so did my Aikido.
Today's Organizational Environment = Constant Randori!
A highly skilled senior executive and friend from one of our client organizations recently said to me, "Time is the essential rare resource to managers these days. The U.S. economy is not appreciably picking up new jobs because we are all doing more. We are doing it with less management level people. We are a microcosm of the economy."
Like this seasoned executive, many of our clients are engaged in the organizational equivalent of constant randori. Instead of literal attacks, in organizational randori there is a constant stream of urgent emails, voicemails, meetings, complex change efforts, new competitive pressures, various stakeholders to persuade and influence, conflicts to manage, etc. And just like in Aikido, our performance may be just fine, at least until so many duties and challenges stack up, that we loose our edge and begin to see our results and relationships suffer. Often the changes may not be so dramatic, more like a gradual build up of stress as we throw more and more effort at our work, with fewer and fewer results. Does it mean we aren't conscientious, experienced, and skillful? No! It's just that our old ways of working are simply being overwhelmed. It's like the man struggling to chop down a tree with a blunt axe. When he was told he'd do better if he sharpened his axe, he replied, "Can't stop now, I have to finish this!"
The Natural Appeal To "Winging It"
Fact is, absent some degree of discomfort, we're all prone to improvising. Increasingly, however, the demands of our organizational environments have revealed the weaknesses in our personal processes and systems for getting things done. Consider this exchange:
How was the meeting this morning?
Excellent!
Great, what makes you say that?
Well, to begin with everyone except Jim and Mary were on time. Then we had a great brain-storming session. People really seemed up for the conversation.
Good. Did you make any decisions?
Well no, but at least we all understand what the issues are now.
So what are the issues?
You know, better communications, more collaboration, less mistrust and tension between the departments. All the things we've been working on.
Right. Well, will team members do anything different going forward?
I would certainly hope so with all the great ideas we uncovered.
What are the next steps?
Well unfortunately we ran out of time before we could plan our next steps, but we did all decide to mull things over until our next meeting.
A skilled team coach would ask multiple questions at this point, concerning perhaps the use of an agenda, the decision-making process, a basic accountability structure, etc. As illustrated above however, this meeting fits a classic "winging it" structure, which makes high performance nearly impossible to achieve. At its "core," coaching is concerned with raising the level of awareness of an individual (or) team, along with increasing the level of responsibility, or more simply put, the "ability to respond" to whatever is happening.
From Sushi To Leadership
Consider this. Anywhere we consistently get good results, we have a system for doing so, from pancakes to painting to planning our business day. The system may be formal or casual, but we do have a system. When my wife and I first met, she was impressed by my ability to make sushi. Does that sound exotic? It's only exotic if you don't have a good system. If you try and "wing it" at sushi making, I suspect you'll not like the results. Is it because making sushi is beyond all but the most talented? No way! But the best system for making sushi is filled with small steps that are often counter-intuitive, such as adding sugar to the rice, or dipping the sushi knife into vinegar just before cutting. How about the fact that the strongest leaders are often the ones that can "be" vulnerable and let others help lead. Or what about the coach that refuses to give "quick" advice, and therefore we learn to treasure for allowing us to really learn. Are these natural behaviors? Often not. Are they effective behavioral systems that can be developed? Yes!
Try this experiment for yourself. Let me, through this article, coach you on the leadership duties listed below. Let me understand both the "why" and "how" of your approaches. Related to each item below, my coaching questions for you are: What is your system? What are your core principles? How do you know when you're on track, or not? Are you more planned or improvisational? What steps do you actually take to accomplish this duty, and in what order? What are your personal blind spots you watch for?
1. Self-management: selecting personal priorities, handling stress, etc.
2. Managing interpersonal relationships.
3. Leading people.
4. Coaching, acknowledgement, performance feedback.
5. Persuading others: either internal team members or external sales.
6. Resolving differences and conflicts.
7. Making and/or facilitating critical decisions.
8. Managing commitment to significant change efforts.
9. Facilitating productive meetings.
10. Thinking strategically from a "systems" perspective. "Connecting the dots."
Now you may ask. As a leader and manager do I need to be excellent at all these duties? Of course not! However, I would argue strongly that to maximize our effectiveness, each of us must be able to first describe, and then perform, in all these areas. And if you find yourself saying, "well, I know what I do, I just can't describe it," you might flag those duties, and ask for some feedback from colleagues you trust. In Aikido, I've discovered if I cannot describe the underlying principles and actual steps required by a particular technique, it means I really can't do it, or at least not very well under pressure.
As the saying goes: Things can't go as planned, if you don't have a plan. Fact is, we're all on a continuum from totally impromptu or winging it, to well thought out and planned. And, of course, no one is saying that we should adhere doggedly to any plan or process, squeezing out the spontaneity and creativity. Rather, creative freedom actually arises after we have mastered these, or perhaps other critical duties. One of the great ironies in Aikido (and, of course, in organizations too) is that advanced practitioners often look like they are "winging it" while their deep mastery of fundamentals is hidden by their ease and naturalness. They "make it look easy," even with multiple attackers!
Earning Your Black Belt in . . .
Most people agree that coaching is a powerful tool for learning and performance building. Yet, despite its proven power, there remain barriers. Some see coaching as a tool only for "the afflicted" and many organizational cultures unwittingly reinforce this idea. Sometimes it's our "puppy training" where we confuse good coaching with a past experience of being told, fixed, and/or judged. Still others believe that learning itself is for rookies, and that "not knowing" is a sign of weakness rather than curiosity. Or finally some view coaching as a luxury, reserved only for senior managers and executives. My experience of coaching and being coached challenges every one of these assumptions.
In fact, my Aikido career has deeply taught me a new model and system for leveraging the power of coaching. We can earn the organizational equivalent of a Black Belt, for example, in leadership or management or sales. For me, coaching played a fundamental role during my intensive year of Black Belt preparation. There was one-on-one coaching from the sensei; team coaching during the special randori practice sessions; peer coaching among my fellow students; and finally specific "goal oriented" coaching for special skills such as weapons work. Is it possible to structure a kind of organizational or team dojo, using the power of coaching inside a new, innovative structure? Yes, it is possible.
Self-Coaching is the Ultimate Goal
At its core, coaching has always been about optimizing performance. The overarching goal of coaching, however, is to help us become better at coaching ourselves. Of course, by definition some issues are beyond the capacity of self-coaching. Clearly we can never be as objective as a skilled, external coach. With support, however, we can learn to spot certain "blind spots" on our own, and we can build structures to help ourselves. We can learn to recognize the early signs of unhealthy stress, before our health, family, and performance are affected. With practice, we can monitor our thinking patterns, so that over time we can build a more resilient attitude. We can learn to hold ourselves accountable, yet still forgive ourselves for being human, with occasional lapses of skill or judgment. We can regularly remind ourselves that nothing significant happens without collaboration with others, and that mutual trust, shared vision, and good teamwork is never an accident. We can learn to use just the right amount of systemic process to create good, sustainable results. And finally, we can call on outside coaching help as needed.
Stepping on the Path of Learning and Performance
Coaching is much more a path, than an event. It's a philosophy, a way of leading others and ourselves. It builds both performance and learning. It's a skillful way to address our challenges and blind spots. And more importantly, it helps us grow and leverage our unique strengths as well. And with coaching, we can address our challenges before they become so critical we're forced to play the difficult game of catch-up. Coaching can be skillfully provided by either external or internal coaches. I've seen both scenarios work well. The coaching provided, however, must be skilled; it must be timely; it must be unhitched from the raises and promotions of those being coached; the program must receive unambiguous organizational support; the participants must be free to choose coaching; and finally, the resources for the program must be set-aside up front. So we ask ourselves again: "Does coaching matter"? And without exaggeration or puffery, and with direct experience both on the Aikido mat and in the Boardroom. . . I say yes.
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People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.
— Samuel Johnson |
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