Hey,

I hope you are safe and well. It's been a while since I sent a newsletter, or did anything with Cultivated Management. Life has a habit of getting busy.

Well, today I'm happy to be writing this again and back at it.

Today I'll share some insights into how to be a good coach. Before then though, a little housekeeping.

I've been putting the final touches to my book about running award-winning workshops (working title "Workshop Mastery").

It's been a real joy to write and it will be super helpful for anyone looking to run workshops or tutorials in their workplace, or at events like conferences.

I've also properly launched my Creative Soul Projects Etsy store where all of my current books and courses are now held, including the newly revamped Communication Super Power course.

I also managed to squeeze in a family city break to Budapest last week, which was epic. I will be back in Budapest later this year, sharing insights about how to climb YOUR career ladder at the HUSTEF conference.

How to be a great coach

There's a whole world of people I will offend with this article.

Why? Because coaching means a lot of things to many people.

There are organisations and people breaking "coaching" apart and coming up with different approaches, techniques and names for all of this. It's great, but it's not how I see the world of coaching.

I'm very straight forward when it comes to coaching. I like to keep things simple. I don't buy into the myriad of complexity that coaches bring to this space. No doubt, there is much I could learn, but by keeping it simple, it keeps it simple in my client's minds too - and this is a win.

Since quitting full time work 9 years ago, I have been fully employed as a business, management, HR and agility coach, helping hundreds of leaders and people get smoother, quicker and faster at delivering value, whilst cultivating better workplaces.

Let's firstly clear up a simple but often overlooked confusion, and my take on it.

Coaching and Consulting are different things.

  • Consulting is about providing answers, direction, guidance and is more of a tell.
  • Coaching is more about supporting the person, and helping them grow, letting them discover or learn.

I ALWAYS use both. Always.

Let's explore this further.

Sports Coaching

I used to play pro basketball (many many years ago) and spend a significant amount time reading about sports coaching. I see my style of coaching as being like a sports coach.

I am there to support people in pursuit of their goals. I am there to correct, nudge, provide "technical" insights into how to do the work and to grow each and every person I am coaching.

A lot of people react to this - and hate the sports coach approach. But it works.

They don't know all the answers

The main reason someone hires a coach is because they don't have all of the answers. If they did have the answers, and they knew how to tackle their current challenges, they wouldn't need a coach.

And therefore, if someone doesn't have all of the answers, it's fair to say that the coach they hire must know more than they do - and have the answers, or at least know how to get them.

As such, there will be times when you literally provide the answers (consulting), AND times when you help someone discover the answer and grow (coaching).

Provide feedback without being resented

A good coach builds a relationship, is confident in themselves, speaks with care and authority and ultimately can provide feedback without being resented.

If people resent you correcting them, providing alternative insights or giving them feedback about behaviours - you have not built a strong enough relationship.

A good coach is respected, trusted and listened to - and this is not just about relationships, it's about how you carry yourself too.

Learn more with the Communication Super Power course.

Know a lot about a lot

The best coaches know a lot about a lot.

I often work with coaches who are coaching leaders, but have never led a team before. It rarely works out well.

I often work with coaches who know a lot about one or two subjects, but not a lot else.

A good coach, in business, will be supporting people with a myriad of challenges, obstacles, goals and issues. As such, the more widely you understand people, the world of work and the business you are in, the better placed you are to coach.

Read widely, learn, and where possible learn through actually doing the work. It's not enough to merely possess the information about something, you must know it, by having put information into action to create knowledge.

A clear direction

It must become apparent quickly what the person you are coaching is moving towards. What do they want? What are they trying to achieve? What does success in their work look like?

It is a waste of time and money to be coaching someone who has no clear outcome they are driving towards.

This is not about what they want to achieve as a person (like confidence, assertiveness etc), but about how they will apply what you coach to their work (be more confident in winning the sales bid, be more assertive in meetings to advocate for the customer, etc).

Sure, there is a place to coach about behaviours and people skills alone, but these should ideally be tied to a business outcome they are aiming for.

Are they looking to solve systemic issues in delivery, or organise their team more effectively, or be more confident around the exec table to garner budget and support, or start their own company, or deal with poor performing people?

It's nice to see someone grow in confidence, but it's even better to see them apply this to real business issues that generate value for the company - that's why you're there.

Note: I use confidence here as an example.

Work on problems towards progress

Given there is a clear direction and outcome the person you are coaching wishes to achieve (and if you don't have that, see point above), you must now tease out what is preventing them from achieving it.

In other words, why do they need coaching?

This should come from them, with some insights from you.

Ask them what is preventing them achieving their business goals.

The answer is never a single thing.

A lot of coaches make this mistake. They focus on the one or two things and work on that, not realising that success for the individual you are coaching is rarely a single improvement or focus point; it is always a systemic challenge.

Keep asking, create a safe space to discuss, ask good questions and tease out the myriad of problems, challenges and opportunities that you, as a great coach, can help them with.

Here are the areas I aim to get insights and opportunities for coaching around - and I rarely, when I dig in, find anyone who doesn't have ALL of these:

  1. The system of work they are working in is not helping them deliver
  2. They want to improve their communication skills
  3. They have "problem" people that they don't know how to deal with
  4. They have technical challenges they don't know how to overcome
  5. They don't have clear visibility into all of their work and how it hangs together
  6. They wish they were different! (more confident, more relaxed, better communicator etc)
  7. They are overwhelmed
  8. Their personal life is being destroyed by work (THIS IS A HUGE ONE)

It's rarely one thing that you will need to coach someone on. And that's why it's important you have experience, knowledge and expertise in many aspects of work and life.

You are a cost

Realise you are a cost to the business.

Everything inside the business is a cost. Value is always created external to the business. As such, tied to the points above, you must be helping them create value to justify your cost.

This is a mistake a lot of people make.

They focus on the person and their needs, skills and behaviours. This is good. But these improvements must help them generate more value - which is external to the company.

Find out how you're going to do this early on.

Not only should coaching contribute to making the people and business better (external value, or internal improvements that generate external value) but you will also have fewer questions being asked about why someone needs a coach!

You don't coach a team

I see it often, coaches trying to coach entire teams with training, nice pithy phrases and general feedback and guidance. I call this "coaching from the back of the room".

But you don't coach a team, you coach individuals - and each individual will require something different.

If your gig is to work with one person, then you will need to understand that person, and get to know those around them and those who they work with too. But your focus is on the individual.

If your gig is to coach a team, you must get to know each individual in the team - and work out what coaching each of them requires.

This is where the sports coaching approach works so well.

A sports coach, a good one anyway, does not coach the team as whole all the time. Maybe there are some drills, some team work, some games together.

A good coach studies the team working as a whole and identifies the areas for improvement in each person, relative to their role and place in the team.

They focus on individuals and what each of them needs to make the whole team better.

Some people may need their core skills sharpening, others may need some communication coaching, others may need some team-work coaching, others still may need some understanding of the business context.

You coach individuals, who all come together to form a team.

A good way to look at this is to realise that "team" is merely a collective noun for a group of people coming together to achieve some outcome.

Teams don't exist. People do. Focus on them. They will likely require different coaching.

Be nice. Be humble. Be clear. Be confident. Listen.

Of course, it goes without saying that people will resonate more with a coach if the coach is humble and open to learning too.

It pays to be a nice person of course. But nice does not mean a push over - your job is to guide, give feedback, observe, critique and provide direction when needed - all without being resented for it.

A good coach is crystal clear in their communication and takes the time to listen.

A good coach should also possess internal confidence in their skills, ability, thoughts and ideas. You will get push back. You will get disagreements. You will have to back down sometimes. You will need confidence and a thick skin.

Don't coach on something you're not experienced in

I have no qualms in making it clear to clients what I am not good at and what I cannot help them with.

This is important. Many a coach makes the mistake of assuming they have the experience in one thing, and that same experience can be applied to something else. It may work. They may be right.

But remember, you are a cost.

You owe it to the business you are working with to deliver value, not best guesses, not good wishes, not best intent and not potential theories. If you do this and it pays off, you've been a success but it was a gamble.

It's risky and you should be clear up front about your abilities and your limits.

They may choose to go on the journey with you - and embrace the learning together. That could be good for both of you.

Or, I prefer to make it very clear what I don't do and where my limits are. I double down on my strengths and focus on what I can do. Let some other coach work on the bits I can't do. You don't need to have all of the answers.

Not everyone can be coached by you

There will be times where you simply cannot coach someone, even though you have the skills, abilities and competency. Sometimes, people just don't resonate and it could be that a different coach is better suited.

There is no shame in this at all.

Sometimes though, someone is simply not coachable. They are too resistant to feedback, insights or change. They may "believe" they are already awesome. They may not acknowledge that they could grow. They may be happy with the way they are. This can happen.

Final thoughts

You could spend forever in the weeds of coaching approaches, styles and certifications.

Trust me though, I have worked with coaches who are guru master level coaches with every certificate under the sun, who couldn't generate better business results and an improvement in behaviours in their clients. It's very common.

The best coaches are those who do all of the above with humility and kindness and confidence. And of course, appreciation that you're in a lucky position to be able to help people.

And remember, coaching should be about improving outcomes for the person you are coaching. You are a cost after all. But a cost that can unleash huge realms of value when coaching is done correctly.

If you'd like me to help you or your business through my own coaching service, or you'd like some fun and insightful training, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Support Cultivated Management

This newsletter is a labour of love and will always be free, but it's not free to create it - if you’d like to support my work please consider:

  1. Sharing this content with others you feel would get value from it.
  2. Downloading the free ebook 10 Behaviours of effective employees.
  3. Buying a copy of Zero to Keynote
  4. Sitting the online Communication Super Power Workshop to develop your super power in work

It means a lot. Thank you.

Until next time. Have a great week.

Rob..

The link has been copied!