Sometimes a powerful question for personal change has the obvious answer of “no.”
For example, are you sure you want to eat that donut? And be one step closer to being unhealthy, maybe even diabetic and hypertensive? Is that who you want to be?
The power lies in connecting motivation with identity, which in turn is shaped by values. If you value short-term pleasure, then no wonder why it’s hard for you to resist that donut. But if you affirm your values of purpose and vitality, then the siren song goes down a few notches.
Let’s go back to that donut. What if you answer: “Who I want to be is someone who’s so healthy that I can enjoy life with my loved ones.”
I know you may still want that donut now and worry about life later (no thanks to temporal discounting). But I’d bet it will at least make you think twice before sinking your chompers on that sugary and fatty concoction.
So the next time you want to defeat that bad habit or spur yourself to be better, ask:
“Who do you want to be?”
If you’ve been in some meetings on succession planning, you may have heard some leaders saying, “Oh, my successor is not ready”, “She still has a lot to learn” or “Maybe after two more years.” Then as you ask for specifics, the discussion sinks into vagueness.
“He’s not ready.” So WHY is he not yet ready?
“She still has a lot to learn.” So what precisely does she have to learn and how can she learn them?
“Maybe after two more years.” So what needs to happen within those two years? (The “maybe” was a dead giveaway.)
In my experience, there are many who agree that succession planning is critical for business continuity, yet never get around to devote the three Ts: time, thinking, and tasking.
Obviously, intellectual assent is not enough. I’m also aware there may be emotional resistance, for example, the leader who ties his identity with his position and thus find it hard to let it go. Cue Idina Menzel’s song.
If you hesitate to do succession planning because it looks daunting to you, here’s a three-question starter kit:
What is holding your potential successor back from being ready?
Beware: that reason may be you. If you’re reluctant to have a successor, it helps to explore “What is making me reluctant?” Also, what is the unintended consequence of not having a successor? For me, I can’t take long vacations!
Then again, maybe the obstacle is in the successor. For example, he already knows the ropes but doesn’t believe he can do your job. In this case, perhaps what he needs is building up self-confidence in a safe environment.
What will make your successor ready?
I suspect we leaders are so busy that we want HR, specifically L&D, to make the successor ready. But that’s actually your job. HR is there to facilitate. If the issue is limited L&D, congratulations! You’re now his L&D.
If what your successor needs is core knowledge and skills, my favorite tool is an individual development plan using the 70-20-10 framework with scheduled check-ins. Co-create it with your successor because what YOU think he needs may be different from what HE thinks he needs.
For example, I knew my successor needed financial analysis skills. But I was surprised when he asked for training in public speaking. (P.S. He’s now with Toastmasters.)
What will tell you that he is ready?
Unless you’re immortal, you cannot have a succession plan that extends forever. So have a clear end-in-mind that will be documentable evidence that he is ready to do your job. Is it him finishing a capstone project? Chairing meetings? Making presentations?
Remember, the enemy of succession planning is vagueness; that includes how it will turn out in the end.
So the next time the business owner asks you, “Do you have a successor?”, have the delight of replying, “Yes. In fact, he’s ready now.”
Who knows? Maybe that business owner will say, “Great! Now I can promote you.”
As we celebrate InternationalCoachingWeek, here is my humble contribution to the craft.
Early on my coaching training, a valuable tip I got from a mentor coach is this: “Nelson, listen carefully to the client. What is this REALLY all about?”
Yet as I go through coaching training and observe my fellow trainees, I notice that a challenge that keeps cropping up is the ability to shift from the what to the who.
For example, the client told his coach, “I want to have an action plan for a better relationship with my boss.” Then as the conversation flowed on, the client shared, “I know I should talk with my boss, but I keep postponing it.”
In a heartbeat, the arena has shifted from the what (making the action plan) to the who (unable to go through with it).
A good coach would have picked this up and explored what’s behind the postponing. Instead, the coach-in-training kept asking the client what he would say to the boss. He may even end the session without tackling this personal aspect. An opportunity for powerful insight and transformation is lost.
Some possible reasons why this is so:
- We don’t know what to do when the client expresses angst.
- We feel awkward or clueless when that happens.
- We don’t know where the transformational route will lead to. And that scares us.
- We may not even know how to process our own feelings.
- We prefer action than empathy.
- We are too cerebral. The client may be cerebral, too.
Whatever the reason may be, a good coach partners with the client to evoke awareness for meaningful breakthroughs. Transactional approaches like GROW have their own value in solving a client’s problem. But what if the problem lies within the client himself?
In one practice session, I heard a client say, in effect, “I know what to do, I know it is important for me, so why am I not doing it?” Three words came to my mind: Cry. For. Help.
I agree that this can be a bias or judgment on my part. But my thesis is that if our ears are pricked when the client seems to send us an SOS, it motivates us to park the transactional and explore what is this really all about.
The subtle trap is that when the coach hears a “cry for help”, his impulse is to jump to the rescue and switch to advising mode. Resist the Messiah complex. There is a wonderful paradox about coaching: while the client senses his need for help, he is complete and capable to find that help within the co-creative coaching process.
We are all learning. In a practice session, I thought I nailed the who part. Then the mentor coach showed how I could have gone deeper. I was, like, “Why didn’t I catch that?” But I welcome exercises like this to sharpen my ears for that cry for help so I can serve my clients better.
Mastery is a journey, not a destination. So if my post has raised your responsiveness to the client’s who, then I count that as a huge win.
Happy coaching!
One bad listening habit we must unlearn is listening to respond rather than listening to understand. The diagram above shows the contrast.
The bad listening habit is that while the other person is still talking, we tend to formulate our response in our heads. Then when the other person is finished – and sometimes we interrupt him! – we shoot what we were itching to say.
Undoing this bad habit is more relevant to coaches, who are expected to abide by the ICF competency of being present. On a practical level, if we are composing our next inquiry while the client is still talking, we are actually listening to our own thoughts and miss out what the client was trying to convey. This means that our inquiries can be premature or half-baked. At worst, we feel that all-too-familiar sense of being stuck.
The better habit is to park our responses until the client has finished talking. That would be the time we pause, reflect, inquire and explore. Look, if we are going to respond anyway, why not do it after the client has spoken, rather than during? It’s the same process, but better timed. We can even think of it as “productive procrastination.”
So how can we strengthen our listening muscles? Here are three suggestions:
Ponder. Just WHAT causes us to formulate our responses while the client is still talking? Is it impatience? Is it our analytical mind kicking in? Is it a belief that we know what the client’s problem is and we can’t wait to “fix” him? Whatever it is, surface what’s driving that bad listening habit, then flip it or challenge it.
Practice. Here’s a penetrating question: do you listen to your spouse, children, or co-workers the same way you listen as a coach to your client? Ouch. Chances are, we don’t. I confess to times when I’m the boss listening to a staff, I was afraid that I’ll forget what I wanted to tell him, so I cut him off and unloaded what was on my mind. Therefore, keep rehearsing the listen-to-undersrand principle until it becomes a part of you.
Persevere. Deep habits take time to change. If we have been listening to respond for most of our lives, don’t be dismayed if we stumble more than we succeed in listening to understand. But if we are committed to be excellent coaches – not to mention excellent spouses, parents, or leaders – we will learn from our mistakes (re-read Ponder above), watch our triggers and flex the conscious competence of good listening. Remember, the aim is progress, not perfection.
This concludes a three-part post about helping fresh college graduates transition to the “real world” of employment. I have argued that ICF-quality coaching can help these young folks in terms of self-awareness and self-confidence. Here is one more example. (And don’t miss my tip for the fresh graduates about getting a coach this early in their budding career.)
Self-leadership
Coaching is wrongly understood as giving advice or “fixing” people. I would add that it’s not really about helping the coachee find clarity, insight and answers for a particular issue. A terrific objective of coaching is capacity building: the coachee acquires a new and expanded way of thinking so that he can navigate through opportunities and challenges even after the coach is no longer around.
These include the dismantling of self-limiting beliefs, committing to non-negotiable core values, nurturing a growth mindset, practicing emotional intelligence, staying curious and pro-active, making informed decisions, and more.
Thus, instead of the early-career employee slipping into the loss frame of awkwardness, coaching would direct him to what are positive and possible. It’s now a matter of reflection and courage. And we are not yet talking about coaching the “who” (the coachee) aside from the “what” (the challenge).
A word to the early-career person
If there’s a formative time to be coached, it is when you have landed your first job. Don’t wait until you have the money or attained some leadership position before getting a coach. In fact, it may accelerate your career success.
If paying fees is an issue, remember that there are coaches who can serve pro bono as part of racking up a certain number of coaching hours to get ICF accreditation.
Conclusion
There are many other issues this article lacks the space to tackle such as communication, networking, accountability, introversion, assertiveness, diversity, stress, conflict, work-life integration, ethics, resilience, and negotiation. I exclude mental health as I believe these should be referred to a professional therapist, not a coach.
These can hound both the rookies and veterans alike, thus coaching is applicable at every part of the career spectrum. But there is a special place for those who just realized there are things not taught in college textbooks and they have to figure things out all by their lonesome.
If you are a trained coach, just think of the alternative reality you will co-create for these up-and-coming people.
Just think of the possibilities.
May 28, 2024
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