Manager-coach: The new business imperative

Nitasha shares an article with us today that highlights the importance of the manager as a coach in the professional environment. She feels that coaching is a key ingredient in the relationship between a manager and her team as well as a key factor in fostering ones professional  growth. 

Managing people today is becoming less about command and control and more about development and empowerment. This means that to manage people effectively, managers have to give up power and become cheerleaders and coaches to their employees. Flatter organizations and frequent downsizing means that employees need to cope with new requirements in skills, responsibilities and performance. Individuals are called upon to take ownership for their own development and even training. And that is where a manager\`s role is evolving to that of a coach. Guiding, encouraging and suggesting rather than directing and delegating is the new expectations from the \\\"Manager-Coach\\\".

Coaching is a purposeful ongoing one-to-one dialogue between a manager-coach and the employee, for the purpose of developing skills, improving performance and enhancing potential. It is distinctively different than performance assessment because it focuses on encouraging, motivating and guiding the protégé to achieve higher goals.

Effective coaching: 

A management mantra

Coaching, that works, consists of constructive and consistent feedback aimed at increasing awareness that results in improved performance. The key to delivering effective coaching feedback is that it is observational and non-judgmental.  However it does not shy away from giving feedback on what could have been done better.  The focus therefore is on future more than the past. Though sometimes it may be helpful to analyse the past and determine what went wrong. This too is part of coaching. Apart from providing feedback, a manager-coach also provides suggestions for the future that might help achieve positive change in behaviour. This feed-forward helps employees revise and focus on a positive future while critically reviewing past performance. 

The traditional formal classroom training is fast losing its effectiveness unless reinforced by subsequent reinforcement.  According to a study conducted by the Xerox Corporation, 87 per cent of the newly taught skills were lost, in a controlled group, without follow-up coaching. The message is clear. No matter how good the classroom training is, the effectiveness is sustainable only through on-the-job reinforcement.  

Marcus Buckingham in his book \"First Break all the Rules\" describes factors that lead to an effective workplace and concludes that an employee`s manager, not the company, is the critical link to employee engagement. Of the 12 questions used in Buckingham`s study, three questions directly correlate to the importance of coaching as an effective employee development tool. Questions like `Is there someone at work who encourages my development?` or `Have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?` Or `Does my manager, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?` are clear indicative of the importance of the role that the immediate manager plays in developing an employee. It is no wonder that employee`s expectations are high from this one single source. Attrition analysis of any organization will demonstrate that highest reason for leaving an organization is an employee`s dissatisfaction with his or her immediate supervisor, though in exit interviews this reason is most often camouflaged.

In adopting coaching, as a management style, managers help their employee unlock their potential. This has direct correlation to improving current performance of the employee. The crux of this approach is encouraging employees to learn on their own steam instead of providing them solutions straightaway. The manager-coach creates an environment that fosters learning, independent thinking and opportunities to contribute. They facilitate team members to achieve their results without making them dependent. Most often such manager-coaches are role models themselves and are excellent listeners and communicators, providing perspective and encouragement whilst setting high standards and expectations. 

What makes an effective manager-coach?

Managers with strong coaching skills are good at deploying questions to draw solutions to problems out of their employees. They use every opportunity to ask employees questions like \"What do you think?\", \"How would you deal with this situation?\", \"What options do you see for addressing this issue and what are the pros and cons of your preferred option?\" Thus they cease to be prescriptive and instead they provoke a thinking process in the minds of their employees to self-seek the solutions. A little bit of prodding and nudging helps the employee remain in the right direction while seeking a solution. The end result is a remarkable belief that develops in the mind of the employee that they themselves found a right solution. A good manager-coach thus prefers to stay in the background but privately feels proud of having groomed yet another protégé to be self-reliant.  

The benefits of this approach are obvious. First, an environment of self-respect is infused into the team. This invariably increases the innovation level for resolving issues and thereby improving the team productivity. Second, every interaction with manager-coach becomes an opportunity to learn and grow. This stimulates broader and deeper thinking. Individual development is thus enhanced due to the encouraging environment where one can speak up one`s mind or feel comfortable in suggesting out-of-the-box solutions without fear. Also, age and experience level cease to be the sole qualification.  Effective manager-coaches thus evolve into becoming a catalyst that helps employees think for themselves. In contrast, managers who like to be solution generators themselves are effectively disempowering their employees by continually offering their suggestions and thereby stunting growth of individual employees.

Graham Alexander`s GROW model later championed by Sir John Whitmore, is a well-established treatise on coaching. It is an acronym for Goal - defining what is to be achieved, Reality- exploring the current situation, relevant history and future trends, Options - coming up with new ideas for reaching the goal and Will - deciding on a concrete plan of action. This simple yet powerful approach has been the foundation for many successful coaching endeavors.

A way forward

In today`s economy, it is critically important to get optimal productivity from every employee. Organizations need to ensure that every employee performs to the best of their ability and deliver significant value. Research has shown that employees who receive coaching from their managers are more productive, more engaged in their work, contribute better and in a significant way, advance in their career rapidly and thus stay with the organization longer.  

Coaching is thus a business imperative more than a feel-good concept. A manager-coach will thus be leading the charge in the new world of employee empowerment and higher productivity.  Faster the current sets of control-centric managers evolve into manager-coaches, the better it is for any organization.