When your report needs your support, think like a coach. A coach is a leadership figure, booster, experienced source of knowledge, a trusted confidant, and expert in assessing technical skills.
The best coaches are also experienced players (hey, Phil Jackson!). They know the intricacies of the game and what differentiates a good player from an all-star player. They know that different players need different styles of coaching, and that different situations call for different levels of their involvement.
There are a couple different coaching techniques. All of these take time to perfect and plenty of practice, especially in choosing which technique to use when.
Coaching can be applied to a specific situation, e.g. your report is stuck on figuring out the tasks needed to complete a project. Coaching can also be applied more broadly to your report's performance, e.g. they're struggling with meeting role expectations and in need of your ongoing support as they correct.
Directive coaching is telling your report what to do. Maybe they come to you, stuck on how to proceed with a project. There are a couple reasons giving them directive coaching might be the best option.
- Your report lacks the skills or knowledge to reach their own conclusion.
- The work needs to get done urgently. There's no time to coach them through a decision.
- There is only 1 correct course of action. Engaging in interactive coaching when there's only 1 answer defeats the purpose of interactive coaching.
This approach is straightforward and "easy", but of course it comes with some significant drawbacks. Directive coaching doesn't stimulate engagement in your report. It also assumes that you know things that your report doesn't. Maybe that's the case in this situation, but it's not always a safe assumption. Finally, directive coaching doesn't build capacity on your team. If you're telling people what to do instead of teaching them how to think and problem solve, you're forced to act in that authority capacity every time your report needs help.
This is the more difficult coaching technique to master. Non-directive coaching is the opposite of directive coaching and involves entering into a conversation with no end result in mind, asking open ended questions, actively listening, and withholding your own opinions and judgment. You're seeking to systematically draw out your report so they can access their own creativity and insights, and reach their own conclusions about the path forward.
Unlike directive coaching, your primary goal here is the help your report learn to problem solve on their own. And also unlike directive coaching, it's a highly engaging form of coaching and doesn't undermine your report's existing experience and expertise.
To practice non-directive coaching, you don't even need to be knowledgable about the topic being discussed. Your role is to act as a reflective presence, so your employee can do the work to determine a course of action on their own. Some techniques for being that reflective presence:
- Practice active, reflective listening. Don't interrupt, don't formulate responses in your head while the other person is speaking, verbally & visually show you're listening, and don't judge how your report answers your coaching questions.
- Ask open-ended questions, not yes/no questions. Open-ended questions often start with "why", "how", and "what if", like "Why did you decide to do that?" or "What if you tried another approach?".
- Constructively challenge your employee. Ask things like, "could you do more?" to encourage them to dig deeper and consider new ideas.
- Have your report clarify their position. Ask them to synthesize what they're saying, or summarize for them what you've heard and have them repeat it back to you. Help them see their conclusions and how they got there.
The most difficult aspect of non-directive coaching is reframing the way you see your role as a manager. You're not showing up to non-directive coaching conversations to problem solve. It sounds a little woo-woo, but you're there to help open up your teammate's mind. Clear the cobwebs, help them see that there is a path forward and that they're fully capable of finding it without your explicit direction. Moreover you should look at these conversations as opportunities. It's a good thing that your teammate approaches their work differently than you would. Encourage that diversity in thought and use coaching conversations to help your team hone their productive instincts.
Situational coaching is the combination of directive and non-directive coaching, using both techniques to the advantage of your team's operations. As stated above, in some cases it's wise to use directive coaching, and in other cases non-directive coaching is the better option. When you engage in situational coaching, you're able to shift back and forth between both techniques, depending on the situation at hand.
In your position, it's easy to default to relying on your experience and knowledge to inform your conversations with your report. Realistically, nine times out of ten, you'll know the best answer to a question or a solid, tried and true way to approach a project. But telling a teammate what to do every time they hit a road block isn't building capacity at 37signals. When we coach, over time, we build teams made up of people who are capable of high level problem solving and who have reputable judgment. Highly performant teams engender a deep sense of trust that ripples throughout the organization, up and down and across teams. As stated throughout this project, when we teach our reports how to solve problems versus what step to take next, we are developing a teammate with long term, broadly applicable potential. Coaching is time consuming and hard work, but I encourage you to build it into your conversations with your reports whenever possible.
Practice makes perfect better
If you're unsure about your non-directive coaching skills, you should be! It's unnatural and most people aren't great at it without practice. A good way to practice non-directive coaching is in conversations with your peers. As I mentioned above, you don't need to be an expert in the topic being discussed when engaging in non-directive coaching. Have your peer share a dilemma they're having and try to coach them through it using the techniques above. You can also integrate coaching into your regular 1-1s with your report, when there are low stakes for the outcome.