Chapter 11
Coaching Trouble Spots

Good intentions and skills alone won’t make you a good coach. Even applying all the great advice from the first 10 chapters of this book aren’t enough to get the job done if you fall into any of the potential pitfalls we discuss in this chapter.

These coaching land mines can be hard to spot, but once you locate them they’re easy to avoid.

Lack of Authentic Purpose

A dog often circles—sometimes several times—before settling down to sleep. The most popular explanation is that this is a defensive behavior left over from wilderness days. The dog circles to get a 360° look at the surroundings to make sure no enemies are near. The fact that dogs sense the presence of other creatures primarily through smell, not sight, seems to weaken the theory.

Basically, dogs circle because that’s what dogs do. Dogs circle, owls hoot, and washing your car seems to make it rain. It’s just the way things are.

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You and your workers may be doing a bit of circling around before you settle down in the workplace, too. Rituals can be important, such as getting that first cup of coffee and sipping it while processing e-mail, before getting to the meat of the work day. Although this kind of habit might not be strictly productive, it may allow a person’s brain to “wake up” and get focused. Habits such as a daily “walkabout” to casually chat with coworkers might not serve much purpose and may hinder productivity.

When you first study the principles of time management, you may be amazed at how often you’ll catch yourself doing things that have no clear benefit to you or anybody else, simply because you did them the day before, and the day before that, and the day before. A time audit can be quite enlightening!

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Make sure your management behaviors don’t fall into that category. Have a purpose for everything you do. Remind yourself not only of what you should do but of what you hope to accomplish by doing it.

Here are three ways to avoid performing purposeless activities.

1. Don’t just do it to be doing it. People do certain things because they’ve always done them. They do them because the person who had the job before them did those things. They do them because someone told them to (or they read it in a book). They do them so that someone will see them. They do them so that they can say they did them.

These are not strong or compelling reasons to do anything. Look for the real reason behind the practice—and abandon it if it doesn’t serve a useful purpose.

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2. Don’t mistake the activity for the results. Does the rooster really believe that his wild crowing makes the sun rise?

When people link cause and effect erroneously (as when the baseball player refuses to wash his lucky socks during a hitting streak), it’s called superstition. In the workplace, it’s called a waste of time. But people don’t always spot erroneous cause-and-effect links. So they go on mistaking an activity (such as reading a document) with the desired result (making sense of the words on the page), resulting in the assertion “Yeah, I read it, but I didn’t understand it.”

The goal is peak performance. If quality circles or mastermind groups help employees perform better, then have them. But quality circles—and meetings, committees, reports, memos, phone calls, and training sessions—must not become an end in themselves.

It’s easy to be seduced by hot business trends, tools, and buzzwords—tiger teams, TQM, Six Sigma, and so on. It’s natural to want to jump on the bandwagon, keep up with the competition, ride the cutting edge by establishing what’s new and hot right now. Be sure any new initiative has a clear purpose and goal behind it. They must be the means to some clear goal. If the activity doesn’t get you the result you want, do something else.

3. Keep it relevant. Most people would rather be busy than bored or active rather than idle. It feels good to produce, especially when the output is tangible.

Writers feel a sense of well-being as the computer screen fills with words. But they don’t get paid strictly for filling screens with words; they get paid for writing something that other people want or need to read. That involves thinking, and sometimes the thinking requires that they stop “making progress” at the computer screen and instead spend some time staring, pacing, and muttering.

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Don’t mistake motion for progress. You may be making great time, but if you’re heading in the wrong direction, your speed is only taking you further from your goal.

How often do you hear the following dialogues?

Dialogue 1

John: Hey, boss! Have you got a minute?

Mary: Not now. I’m busy.

Dialogue 2

Bill: Hey, Mary. Have you got a minute?

Mary: Of course!

These conversations occurred within 30 seconds of each other. Mary was busy one moment, then the next moment she could spare some time. What was the difference? Simple: position. John works for Mary, and Mary works for Bill. Mary was too busy for John, but not too busy for Bill.

Take your “work pulse” from time to time. Are you using “busy” as if it really means “important”? Remember: it’s good to be busy with important things, but it’s bad to be busy doing things to be important.

Anxiety (Yours)

No one likes to admit it, but most people experience some level of anxiety in their day-to-day dealings with others. The anxiety can become especially acute when they must deliver bad news, correct unacceptable behavior, improve inadequate performance, or many of the other tasks that can burden a manager.

Anxiety is natural and unavoidable. It can even be helpful if you focus and channel the anxiety as energy available to help you do the job. Think of being “keyed up” instead of nervous or scared.

The first step in dealing with anxiety, then, is to admit you’re feeling it. Then decide if you can harness that energy or if you need to work on reducing it (a good moment for self-coaching).

Nothing combats anxiety better than preparation. Some managers choose to prepare obsessively, making sure that everything is planned carefully, down to the last detail. But sometimes you just don’t have that much time to prepare. Sometimes all that preparation can hurt you if you encounter something unexpected—such as an unusual question, a mechanical glitch, or a last-minute schedule change.

What if you can’t prepare? How do you deal with anxiety then?

Here’s a little lesson from Linus in the comic strip Peanuts. He deals with the anxieties of his world by carrying around a security blanket. Whatever happens, he can fight his anxiety by holding his blanket close.

What works for Linus might work for you, in a more metaphorical sense. You might keep something in your pocket that will give you a lift, inspire you, remind you of what really matters to you. It could be a picture of someone you love, a lucky penny, a pebble that reminds you of a vacation by the sea, or the keys to your Porsche.

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What do you miss most when you’re at work? What keeps you grounded or makes you feel most at ease when you leave the office? Carrying a piece of that good feeling as a totem or touchstone may help you through your times of anxiety.

Fear/Distrust (Theirs)

Employees may be afraid of you or distrust you simply because you’re the boss. It’s nothing personal, but if you sit in the boss’s chair, behind the boss’s desk, you may evoke those feelings. Even if you used to work side by side with them, when you’re promoted, you are then seen in a different light.

Although that’s not your fault, you need to take responsibility for managing their fear and distrust.

Fear may wear many disguises. It may cause employees to react defensively, be excessively deferential, frequently make excuses, or avoid you. On the theory that the best defense is a strong offense, some employees may challenge your authority in various ways, acting out their fear aggressively.

Many frightened people adopt an unconscious strategy called passive resistance. When you coach, manage, or mentor them, they nod pleasantly and mumble agreement. They just don’t do what you told them to do, because they’re afraid to displease you by doing it wrong. They’re only giving you lip service and aren’t really invested.

Once you become aware that fear is motivating any employee, you can begin to combat that fear.

The first step is to acknowledge that you might be doing something to create or nurture the fear. Examine your own behaviors for anything that might appear threatening, even though you don’t intend it that way.

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Once you’ve mitigated potentially threatening behaviors, work quietly to overcome employee fear by offering genuine assurance. Something as simple as a smile can be enormously helpful here.

(Of course, it should be clear that you shouldn’t do anything to punish a fearful employee. Don’t say anything about it. No matter how kind your intentions, making a reassuring comment such as “Well, now, I hope you’re not so scared of me anymore” punishes the employee.)

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Resistance to Change

Most people resist change—in their routines and patterns, the way they think, and the assumptions they hold. The familiar is comfortable, the unknown is scary. Even if the status quo isn’t great, at least it’s the “devil you know.”

Here’s a quick exercise to demonstrate how comfortable we get with even simple habits. Fold your arms across your chest. Now unfold them, and put the “bottom” arm on top. Most people, when they do this, feel weird and uncomfortable. It feels unnatural to have your arms the opposite from how they normally would be. It takes thought and intention to change them.

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The same thing will happen if you take the “wrong” shoe off first when you undress tonight or brush your teeth with your nondominant hand. People are creatures of habit, and anything other than the habitual way of doing things can feel downright weird.

When you coach an employee toward peak performance, you may challenge well-established habits and thought patterns. When you adopt new coaching strategies, you disrupt your own sense of well-being and balance.

First acknowledge this resistance in yourself and others. Look past the initial unwillingness to try, the automatic “no.” Be patient, with yourself and with others. Acknowledge and allow for backsliding. The moment you stop concentrating on what you’re doing, you’ll revert to old patterns. Give yourself and employees time to establish new patterns. True growth happens when we push beyond our comfort zone a bit (or a lot).

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Lack of Coaching Skills

Think of something you do well. Perhaps you’re a better than average bridge player, possess a dangerous backhand on the tennis court, can whip up a mean stir fry, or have the touch to lay a dry fly just upstream from a feeding trout. You weren’t born with these skills. You had to first learn and then develop them.

You weren’t born with all the skills you need to be an effective coach, either. Some of the behaviors might not come naturally to you. Acknowledge and work on (or around) your weaknesses. It’s just as important to celebrate your strengths and build on them. Note your progress as you continue to become a better coach. Support yourself by reading coaching books, attending training seminars or online classes, and getting mentorship from another coach if you can.

Workers may lack the skills they need to receive coaching effectively. They may have never experienced a manager who discusses problems and procedures with them and values their input. They may not know how to participate in problem solving. They may not be used to looking at their roles in the big picture of the business and industry. They might have difficulty tapping their own resources and potential because no one has ever challenged them to do so.

Don’t assume that either you or any particular worker will take to this procedure naturally. You both might have to work at it. That will help, not hinder, the process—as long as you work together.

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Explain what you’re doing and why. Admit your own uncertainties about the changes. Then learn the processes together.

Language Barriers

Aquì se habla coaching? If you speak only English, and your employee speaks only Spanish, you know you’ve got a communication problem, and you must work to solve it. That may not be easy, but at least you recognize the communication barrier.

But what about the invisible language barrier? That happens when you both think you’re speaking the same language, but you’re not communicating. You may have a problem and not even realize it.

Two types of language barriers can block effective communication between you and an employee—jargon and assumption.

The Jargon Barrier

If your third base coach ordered you to put down a suicide squeeze, would you know what you were supposed to do?

You would if you understood baseball jargon. You’re being instructed to bunt the next pitch, preferably hard enough to get it past the charging first and third basemen. The runner at third will be breaking for the plate as soon as the pitcher releases the ball. If you don’t make contact with the ball, he’ll be an easy out. But you can’t hit it hard enough that the charging infielders have a play at home. Got it now?

Each sport has its own jargon. So do all industries, hobbies, and professions. Most of us wouldn’t know a butterfly stitch from a Butterball turkey, but any good medical intern knows what it is and how to tie one.

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Managers develop jargon (including buzzwords), too, and then forget that the rest of the world doesn’t understand their language—and may have no interest in learning it. Don’t bury your workers in phrases from your last management seminar unless you’re willing and able to translate and unless they have some need to know the terminology. If not, stick with a language you both understand.

Employees who don’t understand your language may not say anything to you about it. They don’t want to appear “dumb,” so they are likely to just nod and smile, as if they get it. They could also feel that if you use too much jargon or too many buzzwords that you’re just talking to talk and you don’t really mean anything by it, again discounting what you’re trying to say.

Don’t let your words get in the way of your intentions.

The Assumption Barrier

People use language just as they use money. They exchange words and they exchange currency, trusting in a shared understanding of the value of both words and money. After all, a dollar is a dollar, right? Not always.

What would you do for a dollar? Probably not much; it’s just change to you. But to an eight-year-old, it might mean a treat from the candy store.

How about $10,000? Now you’re interested! But would it interest Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Ted Turner? For them, it might not even buy a decent suit.

Similarly, everyone knows the face value of words (more or less), but individuals tend to have different values for many words.

Take ASAP, for example. Most folks can tell you that “ASAP” stands for “as soon as possible” and that it means “do it right away.” But if you tell an employee to get the job done ASAP, you may mean “within the next five minutes” or “before I get back from lunch,” but the employee may think you mean “as soon as you get done with what you’re working on now” or “before you go home this afternoon.”

Such common coinage can be dangerous because both sender and receiver assume they know what it means. Only later do they discover that their assumptions didn’t match.

If you need it done before lunch, say so. Be very clear and recheck as necessary.

Coaching Obstacles

Under the category of obstacles, we take on a handful of some of the more minor but still troublesome trouble spots you may find along the road to effective coaching.

The One-Way Street

If you’re doing all the communicating, you may not be communicating at all.

Written communication and voice-mail messages carry an obvious danger: Without feedback from the receivers, you have no way of knowing if they’ve gotten (let alone understood) what you said. If they don’t respond, you might think that they don’t like what you said or that they don’t agree with it. If you react to that assumption, you could really mess things up.

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Even face-to-face communication can be deceptive. Workers may appear to listen attentively, even nod in seeming comprehension, smile, and say “Yep” at all the right places—and still have no idea what you’re talking about.

Why don’t they just ask? Perhaps because they don’t want to look stupid in your eyes. As children, we all learned to bluff in school, where looking confused can draw the teacher’s fire.

Ask for questions and, of course, be open to them. But you must do more. Rather than passively waiting for the listener to indicate a lack of understanding, provide specific information and then actively seek confirmation of understanding. For example, when you finish a series of complicated instructions, follow them up with “Now, tell me what you’re going to do.”

The Interrogation

When a homicide detective on TV says, “These are just routine questions,” the poor subject is in serious trouble.

Asking good questions and then listening from a coach position (see Chapters 5 and 6) are two of your best coaching tools. But it’s easy to misuse and abuse the technique when questioning becomes the third degree.

Avoid asking questions in staccato bursts, and avoid rhetorical questions, fill-in-the-blank questions, and pointed or leading questions.

Rhetorical questions come with a built-in right answer. When the insurance sales representative asks if you want to be sure that your family is adequately protected when you’re no longer able to bring home a paycheck, you know you’re supposed to say “yes, of course.” The rep is trying to get that first “yes” response to involve you in the sales pitch.

Rhetorical questions are manipulative and don’t represent honest communication. They may get you hostility instead of dialogue and cooperation. They certainly don’t do much to move the conversation forward.

Fill-in-the-blank questions treat the person giving the answers like a somewhat slow fifth-grader, struggling to pass a quiz.

“Who can tell us the six major trouble spots to effective coaching discussed in this chapter? Someone? Anyone?”

Pretty simple stuff, if you limit your questions to that level. It’s hardly the kind of probe that would encourage a worker to enter into a serious discussion. Remember to ask a more open-ended question, like “What are some of the ways we could improve this situation?” A question like this invites brainstorming, creativity, and resourcefulness, rather than looking for a checklist of certain responses.

Pointed or leading questions, like their rhetorical cousins, also carry implied “right” answers: “You wouldn’t really want to do that, would you?” A worker wouldn’t even have to know what you’re talking about to know that you don’t think she ought to do it. These aren’t even questions really: It’s an opinion (or direct order) disguised as a question.

Ask real questions that need real answers.

Focus on Fixing

An employee brings you a problem, and you fix it. That’s your job, right? Yes and no.

Making sure the job gets done is part of your job. However, coaching employees to peak performance is a more important part of your job. This doesn’t mean “fixing” them or fixing problems.

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It may take a bit more time—and a lot more patience—to coach employees to fix problems rather than to take the problems out of their hands and do the fixing yourself. But in the long run, you’ll wind up fixing the same problem time after time, all the while nurturing frustration and dependence in employees. They won’t know how to do it. And they won’t grow and develop if you constantly do it for them.

The Blame Game

“Hey, boss. The copy machine’s jammed again.”

“Who fouled it up this time?!”

Instead of fixing it yourself or, better still, coaching the employee to fix it, you spend your time and energy trying to figure out whose fault it is. You wind up with two frustrated people—you and the employee. You may or may not know who gets the blame, and you haven’t done a thing to solve the problem.

Blame and shame is an endless negative spiral. Finger-pointing doesn’t really solve anything, and it can quickly devolve into name calling. People start dredging up the past and focusing on the negative: “You never put toner in the copier, you’re just lazy, and obviously you expect everyone else to do it for you!”

It may feel good, momentarily, to find a culprit and even reprimand him or her. But it does nothing to get to a solution and move forward. Keep your focus on improvement.

Failure to Follow Through

Follow-through is crucial in golf, tennis, and coaching. Coaches support their clients in a major way by providing accountability.

When you give an assignment or coach someone to a solution, establish clear criteria for evaluating progress and set a plan for follow-up. In less formal situations, jot yourself a reminder to check on a worker’s progress. Don’t wait until the deadline is past due to go looking for the producer.

Ask the employee what you can do to help her stay accountable to the tasks she committed to. She may surprise you and say, “Send me an e-mail in one week asking how it’s going” or “Stop by my cubicle every day and ask for a five-second status update.” Or she might want a little more independence and say something like “I will e-mail you a daily report, and just check with me if you don’t receive it.”

You’ve got the tools you need to handle problems, to prevent problems from happening, and to turn negatives into positives.

In the next chapter, we take a close look at a specific coaching session by breaking it down into component parts.

The Coach’s Checklist for Chapter 11

Eliminate activities that lack a purpose. They undermine your effectiveness and that of your employees.

You can’t avoid anxiety all the time, so recognize it and develop a personal method for handling it rather than letting it handle you.

Examine your behavior and attitude. Make sure you aren’t doing things that will strike fear into your employees. Fear gets in the way of communication and performance (yours and theirs).

Understand why people (including you) resist change, and you can deal with the resistance to everyone’s benefit.

Make sure your employees really understand what you’re saying. Don’t use language and jargon that gets in the way of communicating clearly.

Avoid one-way communication, interrogations, and the urge to personally fix all problems.