Coaching

By Venkat Manthripragada

Unlike the skilled and unskilled manpower of yester years belonging to traditional industry,
knowledge workers involved with the new age industries require more direction and guidance.
With high knowledge and restlessness much higher than the yester year workers, knowledge
workers take more managerial time if not properly coached and directed. This article touches
some important aspects of coaching the knowledge workers.

Introduction

The modern day workers are knowledge workers and are highly empowered.
They are as forceful as the river water; always find ways to direct their energies
in directions that allow them to. Because of the dynamism and flexibility the
knowledge workers may go in all directions which was not the case in case of
skilled and unskilled workers of yester generations.

It is said that knowledge workers probably require more direction and guidance
than skilled and unskilled workers of manufacturing era. Because they can see
more world than what their predecessors could see, the opportunities to loose
themselves into the wilderness are more.

Be it a research assignment, new product development, a short term

engagement or a long term project, directing the workers is the only way to
achieve even intended results. One of the effective ways of directing the high
power knowledge workers is coaching.

Coaching in the knowledge environment

Coaching in the knowledge environment needs to be handled with a high degree

of involvement from the coach who is normally the leader in charge. The leader
may or may not hold a formal managerial position in the team to act as a coach.
A senior member of the team with sufficient maturity can act as a coach in
directing the energies of the team in to intended directions.

Modern day workers can be motivated, their energies can be directed and can be
guided but these workers cannot be controlled by organizational barriers. It is
important to motivate the employees to improve continuously. The knowledge
workers possess inherent urge to learn and move up both from learning and
organization perspectives. In the absence of proper direction, the learning can go
into directions which may not be useful to the organization and can prove to be
hindrances to achieve the target performances.
Why coaching

Coaching is a technique aimed not just to help the employees to achieve a

specific intended goal. It should trigger a success which can engender another
and instill the self confidence that leads to high levels of performance and
productivity of all subsequent tasks. The employees under coaching should
eventually transform themselves into high power dynamos to energize the rest of
the workforce.

How to coach

Coaching is a leadership function that calls for directing and influencing skills of
the leader. While coaching the leader in charge should follow some fundamental
principles to influence the team under coaching. A systematic nine step approach
towards the Coaching exercise can deliver good results.

Step 1 - Taking responsibility

Being a coach involves taking responsibility. Coaching is an exercise taken up to

impact and improve someone’s workplace behavior be it interpersonal behavior
or executing assigned tasks.
The coach should take the responsibility of observing the team member under
coaching, providing positive feedback without distracting the employee from the
focus, keep providing the required inputs during the coaching period and
rewarding the positive response.
Coaching requires complete attention and time of the leader and the commitment
of the leader to act responsibly to direct the team members under coaching is the
key factor for a successful coaching exercise.
The coach should be assertive enough to keep the focus on the intended results.
Team members under coaching can offer justifications for a specific act/behavior
pattern the leader is focusing and thus try to get away from going through the
painful process of change.

Step 2 - Showing path

The leader who has taken the responsibility to coach an individual or team
should show the path by walking the talk. The leader should resist temptations of
following shortcuts while executing tasks because the team members under
coaching look up to the leader to mould their personalities.
The leader if commits a mistake should accept the mistakes candidly. Any
attempt of justification for a specific behavior can bring the leader’s position in the
eyes of the team member down and the leader will loose the ability to influence
the team members.
In the conditions of formal authority where the leader’s decision can impact a
team member’s growth opportunities, the team may show patterns of following
the leader’s advice but the intended results of coaching can be achieved only if

Coaching by Venkat Manthripragada

the leader can exercise individual influence because of the strength of
personality and principles.

Step 3 – Involving the Team

Often coaching exercises may not target entire team as such. Growing a team
started fresh is different from coaching a team. Coaching often is required to
motivate the team members to work towards a positive result when they are
showing the behavior away from the goal.
In majority of the cases, leaders try to use their single heads to generate ideas to
resolve team’s issues in turn wasting the most valuable asset – the good ideas of
the team. Often the ideas generated within the team results to be much simpler
and close to the intended solution.

To generate good ideas from the team, it is important for the leader to show that
the team’s opinion is valued and used. Also while taking ideas from the
employees the leader should use active listening skills – to listen, understand
and respond. If the leader does not respond to a team member’s advice, the
team may stop talking to the leader.

Two important issues while dealing with the ideas generated by the team are –
leader’s ability to handle the ideas on their merits and tendency to assign the
task to execute a specific idea to the person who came up with the suggestion.
Leader’s often try to interfere their own interpretations or small diversions
to the ideas generated within the team and try to claim the credit of
generating the ideas or innovating the basic common thought. This will de-
motivate the team leading to new issues rather than resolving the existing
issues.

It is also a general pattern to assign the task of executing a good idea to

the same person who generates the idea. Generating idea is a different
skill from executing the same. The act of assigning the idea back to the
owner can lead to closing the team’s ability to generate good ideas.

Step 4 – Challenging the Team

Coaching is a two level exercise. The coaching exercise should start at the team
level and then focus on individual. The common direction for the team should be
established at the group level and individual different should be observed to
focus individual coaching.
To make the coaching effective, the team members should be challenged with
some achievable results rather than just involving in motivational lectures. The
motivational lectures often become idealistic leaving the team members
bewildered about their fundamentals and action points required to reach the
levels mentioned as a part of the motivational lecture.

Coaching by Venkat Manthripragada

It is important to put a challenge with clearly defined goal, provide necessary
resources and the leader just need to stand back observing the team members
emulating themselves to meet the challenge. If executed carefully, this can
become a better learning exercise for the team than direct class room teaching or
motivating lecture.

Step 5 - Reward the deserving

It is important to have a fair system of rewards for the team under coaching.
When the team responds to the challenge, it should be rewarded. A fair system of
rewards doesn’t mean that the rewards will even out over time. All workers must
have an equal opportunity to compete for the reward, but the rewards must go to
those who earn them.
Rewarding the group evenly can impact the team’s cohesiveness and balance. It
is important to establish the acceptable parameters transparently; the rewarded
can be admired within the team resulting into a good balance of providing internal
guidance within the team.

Step 6 - Coaching Individually

The actual coaching takes place in one on one session with each individual
employee. The group level coaching direction through lectures and challenges
will have individual impacts. Each of the team member takes the challenges at
different levels depending their maturity and confidence. It is important to have
one on one coaching sessions where the leader should bring out the topic
directly, positively and honestly.
One on one session may involve review of individual performance or behavior
patterns. How the leader is communicating with the team member in individual
coaching session is as important as what is being said. The tone and eye contact
are as important as the content itself. As much as possible, the coaching
discussions should focus on the issues positively rather than touching individual
limitations which can divert the team member from the topic leading to counter
productive results.
When a leader is resorting to coaching, the key intention is to convert the team
member into positive and more productive and these outcomes should be clearly
communicated to the team member through the conversation and tone and body
language play a vital role in establishing the same.

Step 7 - Keeping the focus on the subject

While designing the coaching for an individual or team, it is important to keep the
purpose very clear and staying honest about the motives.
The discussion and questions during the coaching session should strictly be on
the subject and on target. If the answers are straying off the point, the discussion
should be refocused tactfully. Because the coaching deals with behavior patterns

Coaching by Venkat Manthripragada

and improvements, it is highly probable to get emotional and divert the whole
discussion and thus defeating the very purpose of the coaching.

Step 8 - Giving feedback

During the coaching period, the leader should keep regular contact with the team
members. It is important to move around the team members motivating them.
The leader should provide feedback to employees – especially the positive
feedback which can energize the team to achieve the intended results faster.
The feedback provided to the team members should be honest, strait and
objective. The team members should not become conscious about their
capabilities or behavior patterns which will lead to developing defense
mechanism. The response from the team members to coaching should always
be positive.

Step 9 - Closing the Coaching Exercise

The coaching session at individual level should be closed formally with clear
feedback to the employee about the whole exercise from the beginning of the
coaching session to achieving intended results.
The coaching session should not be left incomplete else the whole effort will
leave the team members confused about the intended direction.
Often one successful coaching session motivates the team members so much
that they keep on working towards continuous improvement consciously similar
to the coaching session concluded.

Conclusion

In the knowledge work environments increasingly challenged by the Globalization

and Competition, it is important to maximize the value of Human Resources. With
high growth patterns viewed in major economies of the world, shortage of skilled
manpower that can fit the bill directly and deliver the expected results quickly is a
rare happening. To meet these challenges and bring up the right workforce to
meet your business needs, groom all your managers dealing with your workforce
in understanding the challenges and limitations to move towards a model where
Coaching becomes an institutionalized exercise in your Organization.

Coaching by Venkat Manthripragada