My Articles
I was featured the March edition of JStyle, a magazine produced by the Cleveland Jewish News.
The article begins by describing a coaching client and the work we have done together. He started out as a life coaching client but soon begain working with me on other issues and problems.
He says, "Working with Barbara helped me find answers and be more honest with myself. She gave me the opportunity to talk, and she listened. She would call me on anything she felt I wasn't being honest about with myself. "
I write articles about coaching on a regular basis.
ARTICLE: How to Coach Associates (modified from an article that appeared in McVayMedia.com)
One of the important roles partners in a law firm have is coaching young associates.
But how can partners learn the skills they need to coach their associates?
What do coaches do?
Generally, coaches offer assistance to their clients in order to:
- Invest in the firm's most valuable asset: its people
- Maximize the client’s productivity
- Save the costs of losing an employee and hiring another
- Restore the client to an earlier high level of performance
- Identify situations where external resources would be useful
In a law firm, , the partner-coach's job is to help the associate reach identified goals. The partner and associate are working on a more even playing field. The power differential is set aside. For a partner and the associate, this is a real shift in perspective and role.
But what specifically do you as a partner-coach need to do to become effective.
How to coach
Here are some tips that you’ll find useful when coaching an underperforming associate:
Explain your role:
Coaching means shifting to a collaborative style. This is NOT the time to give a “Shape up or ship out,” speech..
“I’m wearing a different hat today. Think of me as a coach, working with you to get the best performance possible. I want to help you get more of what you want at work and improve your productivity. We’ll try to figure things out together.”
Say what you’ve seen
“You seem off your stride. I’ve noticed that you seem tired and not really focused. Your billable hours have dropped 25% this quarter. You've missed two deadlines in the last month. What’s going on?”
NOTE: Be specific about one or two important objective changes you’ve noticed. What is different about the associate's behavior? What do the numbers show?
Being subjective as a coach can trigger a defensive reaction from the associate.
Never tell associates that other people have said that their attitude and mood have slipped! That kind of information is subjective at best, and can create significant interpersonal problems after the coaching session ends.
Listen and Clarify
Give the associate time to respond to your comments. If there isn't a response, wait. Let the silence work for you. Almost inevitably, the associate will fill in the silence. By waiting, you’re communicating that the associate's input is vitally important and that you’re not in a rush in this conversation.
Check out your understanding of what the associate says. Use this tool repeatedly to be sure you’re both on the same wavelength.
Don't start criticizing or offering suggestions.
Listening well is your best coaching tool!
Diagnosing the problem
Together, you and the associate need to figure out what exactly is going on.
Your job is not to come up with solutions unilaterally or use an attack to motivate.
Instead, try: “So you’re saying...” (E.g., you’re just not up for the game”)
“Is that how you see things?"
Ask and listen more
Once the associate agrees that you’ve heard what’s been said, probe further.
- “And how are things going outside the office?”
- “How’s your family?”
- “Everything going well with the new practice head?”
- “Have you been feeling okay?”
- “Is anything at work bothering you a lot?”
As you hear what the associate thinks is going on, you can identify what’s most important to the associate:
- “So, your family problems are really having an impact on what happens here at the firm, right?”
- “Oh, I see. You feel overwhelmed by having too much to do, and too little time to do it in. Let’s look at how you’re spending your time and try to figure out some time management tricks.”
- “Do you think it would be helpful if I asked the guy you’re seeing as undercutting your work in to talk with me and you? I can help make sure the conversation is constructive and doesn’t end up with any name calling.”
Consider alternatives with your associate
The key element in coaching is action. Your job is to help your client make changes in behavior. Because you and your client are collaborating in this process, brainstorming together is really important.
“So, we’ve identified your being disorganized as a major problem for you. Let’s think about what might help with that problem.”
In this case, you might encourage the associate to do “research” with a better-organized colleague. How does the colleague set up his/her calendar? How are the colleague’s files set up?
And remember, there are self-help books to address almost any problem.
The more concrete the ideas are, the more likely they are to work.
Agree on action steps
The associate, and perhaps you, will have things to do after your meeting. Identifying what happens next is the final step in each coaching session.
“So let’s talk about what you’ll do to follow up on this meeting? While you’re doing those things, I’ll follow up on these items.”
Set the time for the next meeting
Coaching is an ongoing process. Monitoring how the associate is progressing iis critical. It's not enough to have a conversation and let it go at that.
"Will next Tuesday at 3:00 work for us to get back together?. In the meantime, let me know how you’re doing or if you’ve run into any problems.”
Before the next meeting
Ask the associate to complete these questions before your next meeting, so you have a clear idea of how things have gone before you sit down together.
- What went well this week?
- What have you gotten done since our last meeting? Be specific.
- What weren’t you able to get done?
- What are your biggest concerns this week?
- What was your biggest opportunity this past week?
- What would you like to focus on today?
Of course, you can also add any specific item you'd like to add to the associate's answers to these questions
These items will serve as your agenda for each coaching session. .
At the end of the meeting, be sure to identify specifically what each of you will do between this meeting and the next meeting.
Confirm the time of the next meeting.
This protocol can be the foundation for the coaching process
.
Give these suggestions a try and see what happen!
ARTICLE: When to Call in the Coach when You're the Coach (as appeared in McVayMedia.com)
Executives have a multitude of responsibilities: having a vision for the organization, setting and maintaining performance standards, supervising subordinates, hiring and firing, compensation planning and many others. And being a coach – although a lot of managers may not think of themselves in that way.
Coaching is a special role requiring special skills. With all of the responsibilities a market manager has, figuring out when coaching is needed can be challenging.
Coaching is particularly suitable when:
- An individual has the required skills and talents, but whose performance is lackluster.
- A professional with excellent technical skills does not have the necessary interpersonal skills.
- A new hire or recently promoted person is not meeting expectations.
- There is a rapid downturn in the productivity and quality of the work being done.
In each instance, the executive has a decision to make about how the employee should be approached. The exec can give him or her a pep talk, a lecture, a threat, an order or coaching.
I suggest the your first conversation with this employee should be seen as a coaching assignment.
Let’s look at what might be happening in each of the situations described above.
When a performance is lackluster, possible explanations might include:
- Problems that are not work related but interfere with concentration and motivation.
- A negative workplace incident that still is very troubling to the employee.
- Too much work, too little life outside of work.
- A high level of worries about the way the employee is seen by others.
The technically proficient professional with poor people skills might:
- Be overly demanding of colleagues and subordinates.
- Not know how to talk to people.
- Be inexperienced in leading or working as part of a team.
- Not fully understand the interpersonal requirements of the job.
Some possible issues a new hire or recently promoted person might have include:
- A lack of clarity of performance goals.
- Pushing too hard to demonstrate that management made the right hiring or promotion choice.
- Unrealistic expectations of himself or herself and others.
- Feeling excluded from the social aspects of the station’s culture.
- Being treated differently than before the promotion.
When there is a rapid downturn in productivity and the quality of the work, something significant could be going on for the employee, like:
- An escalation of drug and alcohol consumption.
- An episode of major depression.
- A family problem that is constantly interfering with time at work.
- A work-related problem that has not been addressed.
What’s going on with Cynthia?
Cynthia has worked for the company for five years as a sales rep. She’s been a high performer until the last few months. Lately, a lot of things have changed. She’s not as active in selling, she’s more disorganized and she doesn’t really seem to care that much.
She’s had an excellent working relationship with her boss and colleagues, but lately seems more irritable and negative. Usually personable and friendly, she’s been more and more isolated from her colleagues. She isn’t talking to colleagues about work … or much else.
She appears to have suddenly gained quite a bit of weight, and seems not to have as much energy as usual.
Cynthia reports to Jake, the Sales Manager. He knows something must be going on with her, but he doesn’t know what that might be or how to approach her to address the situation. Her poor performance is reflecting badly on him. He doesn’t want to lose her since she’s been so productive in the past. However, he knows the situation can’t go on indefinitely.
He schedules a meeting with her to try to find out what’s happening and come up with a plan both he and she can agree on.
What Jake should avoid doing:
Jake might decide that it’s up to Cynthia to turn things around. So he can list the ways her performance has declined.
He might give her a pep talk or lay down the law. He could throw his weight around, telling her in no uncertain terms to shape up or ship out.
He would do all the talking, giving Cynthia no opportunity to explain what’s been happening in her life or figure out a way to change the situation.
Those tactics are unlikely to work. She certainly knows her productivity has slipped. She’s putting a lot of pressure on herself. She is likely respond to such strong statements defensively or simply clam-up. Her attitude and motivation could get worse, and Jake probably will need to let her go. Jake loses and she loses. The company loses.
What Jake should do:
Jake knows that things need to improve or she’ll have to go. Having her leave just creates other problems. Who could take her place, how long would the training period be and would the new hire be able to handle the job?
Through asking questions in a way that welcomes dialogue, and listening carefully, Jake learns a lot about what’s going on with Cynthia.
She’s single and an only child. Her mother is becoming very forgetful and demanding. Her father has been a problem drinker all of his life and can’t be counted on for much of anything. More and more, she needs to take care of her parents – buying and cooking food, taking them to doctor’s appointments, doing their laundry and cleaning their house. She is very worried about her parents’ future, knowing that she’ll be facing some very hard decisions soon.
She had the flu around Thanksgiving and just hasn’t felt very well since then. She’s been more and more worried. She’s felt blue since Christmas, when her father embarrassed her in front of her friends and her formerly chatty mother just sat there, not talking to anyone.
Her closest friend just got engaged and will be moving away in two months. Her life is in turmoil. All she wants to do is eat and sleep.
On hearing all this, Jake has a better idea of how stressed Cynthia is. He recognizes that she is under-resourced and needs help in working through what’s going on.
Jake knows there’s an agency that provides services to the elderly. Because Cynthia seems so overwhelmed, giving her a specific name and number to call will be far more useful than just recommending Cynthia find one for herself.
He assures her that her job is not in jeopardy since her track record has been so good, as long as things turn around in the next three months. Specifying a time for reevaluating her job status makes clear to both of them that she needs to be making progress in resolving her problems, improving productivity and needs to follow through on the suggestions he’s made. Making expectations clear and holding Cynthia accountable is an important part of coaching.
Probably, most important of all, he needs to monitor on a regular basis how Cynthia is doing. Since she is feeling so overwhelmed, he should take the initiative in meeting with her on a weekly basis, at least until things settle down. Before their meeting ends, they agree on what their follow up meeting schedule will be so Jake can find out how things are going.
When they next meet, Cynthia reports she has met a social worker at the agency that Jake recommended. The social worker will evaluate her parents’ situation, particularly whether they are safe continuing to live independently. Cynthia says she feels less worried because she has an expert helping her figure things out. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Cynthia says she’s seen her doctor who ruled out an infection or something worse. He’s given her a prescription that should help her feel more energized.
She tells Jake what she has accomplished in the past week. They also discuss her work plan for the next two weeks – what clients she’ll be calling on, following up with and what new clients she’ll try to recruit.
While Jake recognizes they will need to continue to talk frequently, he has much greater confidence that Cynthia will be able to turn things around.
Coaching worked!
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