Christoph Schalk
Is it possible to incorporate coaching into a review meeting with an employee? It certainly is. Is your co-worker free to make own choices in his working area? Does he need help in reaching his goals? Can you help her move forward in her personal development? If you have answered yes to one or more of these questions, then go ahead and start coaching!
A coaching talk consists of five stages:
- Getting started
- Taking stock of the current position
- Discovering skills and competencies
- Planning concrete steps
- Conclusion
The procedure is the same whether you are talking to a co-worker in a church or an employee in a company … whether it’s an ad-hoc interaction or the annual review meeting. The following example from a church situation is a useful illustration: The church bulletin has switched over to a new graphics software program. Unfortunately this software does not work on the computer of one of the volunteers. A meeting is scheduled with the volunteer and the leader of the editing team in the hope of finding a solution to the problem.
Get started
The best way to get started is to formulate a solution-oriented question: “What ought to happen in our meeting to make it worthwhile from your point of view? What else needs to be done? What is your goal?” The goal which was defined in this case was: “I would like to find a solution which would enable me to use the new software on my computer. I also need someone to give me a hand with technical problems.” At first the coachee might be hesitant in approaching these questions and unsure of how to formulate the answers. The coach might then vary the questioning technique. He could ask how people would notice that this problem has been solved, or what the consequences might look like. By the end of the introductory phase, the goal should have been defined as precisely as possible, the discussion should have reached a certain depth, and a break-through should be in sight as far as the key issues are concerned. There may not be any pointers towards a solution at this stage, but there should be a clear concept of what things would look like if the problem no longer existed. Once the goal has been defined, it is time to move on to taking stock of the current state of affairs.
What is your present position?
It is helpful to ask questions using a rating scale here: “What is your current position on a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 stands for achieving your goal and 0 stands for the opposite?” The object of this exercise is to obtain a realistic assessment of the actual status quo and to encourage the person to move away from thinking in rigid black and white terms such as “I’ll never manage it!” The coach asks questions designed to find out what worked well in the past and why. The aim of this is to heighten the coachee’s awareness of his skills and resources. It was initially thought that the church bulletin problem would be easy to solve, but it turned out to be more complex than expected. The technical possibilities had already been exhausted and none of the worker’s computer-specialist friends had managed to come up with a solution. The diagnosis: It was not possible for the new software to operate on the worker’s computer. The consequence: The worker could no longer work on the church bulletin because the software was essential for the page layout. This appeared to be the end of the matter, but coaches don’t give up as easily as that. A different approach was attempted: “What do you think about the idea of helping out with the church bulletin in some other way?” This steered the conversation around to focusing on the worker and the worker’s potential, while also highlighting the areas where help was needed in producing the church bulletin.
Discover competencies…
“What sort of thing are you good at? What made you already move up the scale from 0 to 4? What functioned well in the past? On what occasions did you experience positive exceptions?” The coach directs the coachee’s attention towards the sort of things that function well and helps him to break away from set patterns of thought such as “But that’s the way we’ve always done things.” He encourages the worker to get fresh insights from people outside the team such as colleagues or other church members. The positive situations which were the exceptions in the past may contain the seeds of a solution for the future: “Now you know what works well (=what you are good at), so just keep on doing that – and leave all the rest.”
… and make use of resources
Resources are things which can be used in order to find a solution to a problem. This may be knowledge, skills yet to be acquired, assistance from colleagues, materials, work environment etc. The coach helps the coachee to discover which resources are already at his disposal and how he can acquire those he is lacking and put them to optimum use.
After taking a good look at all the worker’s talents, gifts and skills, a surprising solution emerged. The worker was also a keen worker in the Sunday school and always had plenty of good ideas. She also found it easy to get to know newcomers to the church. The church bulletin had two permanent sections which the editing team had always found hard to cover: the children’s page and “Insight” - the column where church members introduce themselves. The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle were gradually being put into place: The worker was full of enthusiasm about taking on the responsibility for these two columns because they matched her technical skills as well as suiting her personal talents and preferences. They were also clearly defined as far as time and contents were concerned.
Be specific
“Imagine you were already one step further on than you are now. What would you be doing differently? What would you be spending more time on? What would make other people notice you had taken a step forward?” This is the stage where things start to take on concrete shape and a plan of action is drawn up. Goals are established, the coachee’s determination is strengthened and supporters are found. Specific questions are asked: What will the coachee do when and how? At the end of this process a concrete plan of action has been formed which helps the coachee achieve his goals independently.
Conclusion
At the end of the meeting a résumé is made of everything which has been discussed so far - the issues which have been dealt with as well as those which have yet to be resolved. The coach expresses his appreciation for the contributions made by the coachee during their conversation. He also asks the coachee to evaluate how helpful the talk has been from his point of view. The coach may give him an experiment to do in the meantime: “For a few days or hours try to imagine that the problem has disappeared. Don’t tell anybody about it and see how people react towards you.” This is quite a simple experiment but it can have amazing effects.
Finally, don’t forget to arrange a new meeting (This way your worker will not feel so alone with his experiment). This could be in the form of a simple reminder of the next scheduled meeting (“We’ll be getting together again in three months time as usual…”) or a special appointment if the subject matter is urgent.
At the next meeting, start with the introduction again and continue in the same pattern…
As soon as the task had been formulated, the worker in our example couldn’t wait to get going. She soon forgot all the frustrating hours she had spent on the technical problems. The final outcome was a first-class children’s page which fitted in perfectly with the Easter edition of the church bulletin, a contented worker, and an editing team leader who was delighted to have two problems solved in one go.
Christoph Schalk is a psychologist (M.A. in Organizational Psychology) and works as a coach and coach trainer. During the last 15 years he has personally coached more than 300 leaders and executives as well as trained 600 coaches in over 25 countries. His favorite topic at present: “The leader/executive as coach”.
