Stage 1: Seek to understand

First, begin the process of questioning and listening, so you can reveal the full facts of the situation. For example:

• So what are the key facts – for example what happened?
• What seems important in this situation?
• What else seems relevant?

Here is where we build quick clarity of the situation for both the manager and the team member. Let’s continue the Neil example. During the following dialogue Neil is encouraged to ‘work’ in the conversation, as the manager uses simple questions, summaries and observations. This begins the conversation in a way that allows Neil to maintain a sense of ownership. It also becomes a way of ‘interrupting’ a manager’s old habits, as the manager focuses on understanding, rather than ‘fixing’. As usual, I’ve simplified the dialogue to reduce your reading time. Here’s how the conversation might sound.

The manager is questioning the team member in order to display the facts of the situation, to both of them. The manager is doing that in a way that helps make a decision for the current issue, and also teaches Neil how to think through a similar future issue. Next time Neil has a similar situation, he’s likely to ‘walk through’ the same process himself, for example saying to himself ‘Okay, to make a decision, what do I need to consider?’

Let’s continue to the next stage.

Coaching is a different kind of contribution

When you coach you add value in a different way, i.e. you facilitate the thought processes of someone else. That can take a little getting used to. Literally, you might know the answer to a situation and not offer it. That’s because you’ve decided the benefits of developing people’s thought processes for themselves is more valuable to you than a ‘fast fix’. That’s what we mean by ‘teach a hungry man to fish’. Over time, your subordinates learn to expect this process, which teaches them to adopt the same thought process by themselves – and that’s empowerment.

Stage 2: Focus on the potential of the other person

This stage requires the manager to shift their typical ‘fix-it’ mindset, as they assume that Neil is the source of the solution. As you imagine yourself as manager here, you must ignore your own compulsion to have the answer. In our scenario, after hearing what Neil has just said, the manager is probably very able to make a decision. But instead they must work to gain conclusions, options and actions from the subordinate. For example, the manager can ask:

• So what options do we have?
• Alright, what are you proposing?
• What do you want to do now?

So our manager facilitates the team member to think and come up with proposals or ideas. Of course, the team member might not be able to think of anything, or what they do suggest may be unreasonable or inappropriate. But remember, the manager has other things they can do first, before giving a direct instruction. For example, the manager can:

• offer a summary (for example, ‘So he’s hardly used it – and you trust him about that – and it’s just the starter cord that’s broken. You’re concerned that we need to offer good service and you need to decide what that is’)
• give an observation (for example, ‘Well, you seem to think we should do something to help – what’s fair, do you think?’)

Here’s how the dialogue might continue.

The manager has effectively ‘walked through’ a logical decision-making process with Neil that has encouraged Neil to form his own conclusion and decision. The manager has influenced Neil’s thoughts, without controlling them. For example, by asking ‘What’s reasonable?’ the manager reminds Neil that he needs to keep his suggestion within logical commercial boundaries. This helps Neil balance a ‘wonderful’ solution, with a reasonable one. If we wanted to reduce the manager’s influence further, we would have asked a question that was even more open, for example ‘So what do you want to do?’

Stage 3: Encourage action

This stage creates engagement and motivates your team member to act. We make sure that ownership of the solution remains with them, and leaves you, the manager, to offer support as appropriate. For example the manager might say:

• That sounds a good plan, what’s the next step then?
• Is there any support from me you need with that?
• Great – it’ll be good to hear how you get on.

This example is fairly straightforward, plus we need to come to a conclusion quickly (the customer is on hold, remember!). Here’s a simple close to this example.

This is a simple example to demonstrate the three-step Response Coaching model. The model isn’t doing anything clever or complex. But it does encourage an important shift in mindset, from fixing to coaching. As a manager, your challenge isn’t to understand the model, it’s remembering to use it! To coach consistently, you must be self-aware in these circumstances – and recognise when you don’t need to give the answer.

But surely fixing the issue is faster?

Here’s the same example where the manager chooses to ‘fix it’ rather than coach the situation.

Bish bash bosh (boss) . . . sorted – so where’s the issue?

Some people would argue that the above exchange is shorter and the time pressure justifies simply telling Neil what to do. But remember that while this directive exchange has a time benefit, it also has a time cost, because the next time Neil gets a similar question from a customer he’s likely to come back requiring the same ‘Solomon’-like judgement on a situation.

Neil is also likely to feel like his role is pretty low level and he’s required to obtain permission for even the most mundane of decisions. Neil might prefer that (for various reasons), or he may be frustrated by it, especially if he considers himself as having some potential, ambition or intelligence.

Where the manager’s response is consistently a coaching one, Neil is likely to feel able to work out for himself what he should do and that his manager trusts him to decide. This achieves the goal of many organisations – an empowered workforce who think and act responsibly.

Learn to coach people by email – it’s often easier!

Coaching by email is the perfect place to practise your coaching responses, simply because in the written form you have time to review, reflect and respond from your coaching principles, such as:

• I need to keep ownership of the issue with them.
• I need to encourage them to reply with suggestions, proposals and ideas.
• I’ll avoid taking ownership of the situation too quickly.

First, find out how directive (or not) you have been; go back and read some of your email exchanges with team members and ask yourself:

1. How quickly do I give people an answer to their problem, or tell them what to do?
2. How often do I leave a matter with them, and encourage them to decide?
3. How much do I impose my own will/opinion on the situation when actually I don’t need to?

Of course sometimes the situation does not allow you to coach; if that’s true then simply tell people what they should do. Your challenge is to find all those other situations where actually, you took quick control of a situation/or rescued it and you didn’t need to. Here are some ideas of phrases you might use.

• ‘I’m interested in your thoughts for a potential way forward – what ideas do you have?’
• ‘You seem to have good knowledge of the issue here – can you give me some options for a way forward?’
• ‘So clearly this is an issue we need to resolve. What do you suggest will work here?’

You can also create your own pretty quickly, i.e. in a style and manner that feels natural for you.

As you practise coaching responses during your email exchanges, over time it’s likely that your mail inbox will have less in it, as people anticipate your response and get straight to action. Alternatively, the content of people’s emails may be less frustrating to you, as people are asking for support only when they really need it.

Application

You can adopt coaching principles in a variety of everyday work situations. This ranges from a formal review meeting to discuss someone’s performance, to a bite-sized conversation in the canteen, on the telephone, etc. The Coaching Path and the Response Coaching models are designed to help you in any situation you might encounter. Much of your challenge is to stay self-aware, for example of your own compulsions to help or fix the situation, by giving quick and easy answers. When you (and your colleagues) experience the benefits of your coaching, then coaching becomes a behaviour you’ll naturally want to use more often.