A Manager’s Guide to

Coaching
“The Success Equation”

Managers can learn to provide coaching to their staff members. To do good work, employees
need three crucial assets:

1. “Aptitude” – The professional skills to do the job. “Aptitude is about more than someone’s
innate talent”; it covers the entire toolbox a staffer brings to the job.
2. “Attitude” – The motivation, determination and focus to work efficiently.
3. “Available resources” – The “tools, equipment and time” to complete assigned tasks.

Coaching is helping people be more effective by setting up a “dialogue that leads to self-
awareness and action”. The following are its components:

• “Dialogue” – When people share a dialogue, they do not try to prove their points or outwit
and manipulate each other. Instead, they try to reach mutual understanding. In a coaching
dialogue, help your staffer identify what stands in his or her way at work. Initiate the
dialogue and move it along with intelligent questions and careful listening. Coaching is a
“two-way conversation” in which you will offer “questions and…support.” In this process,
your staffer will gain insights about making a positive attitude change.

• “Helpfulness” – As a manager who wants to function as a coach, you must have genuine
empathy for your employees and want them to achieve their goals. However, you are not
responsible for fixing someone’s problem, whatever it may be. This defeats the purpose of
coaching. Instead, your goal is to help people perceive how to fix their own problems.

• “Awareness” – Staff members can benefit from coaching only if they can become
cognizant of their personal obstacles. With coaching, they become their own teachers.

• “Action” – The whole point of coaching is for employees to take action to achieve their
professional goals. Without such action, coaching is just empty dialogue. Coaching works
because of its attention to awareness and action, the prime components of emotional
intelligence and the essential elements of self-management and good relationships.

• “Effectiveness” – Coaching takes time and moves at an easygoing pace. To help

someone become more productive, you must focus exclusively on that person during your
coaching sessions. The employee’s payoff is obvious improvement. Your payoff as a
manager and coach is a more productive, engaged, motivated staffer. You both win.

Although coaching often centers on concerns related to emotions, it is not therapy in any
way. Coaching explores employees’ lack of motivation, confidence and concentration to help
them find ways to improve these shortfalls and become more productive. Coaching is not a
cureall, but it can help people leave mental slumps behind and change negative attitudes
that block their potential. Make one core lesson very clear: A staffer must hold himself or
herself accountable for positive change to occur.
“W.I.N. B.I.G.”

To coach employees, use the W.I.N. B.I.G. formula. The W.I.N. activities, which “build
awareness,” are:

• “Wonder about root cause” – In this “discovery” phase, ask questions to get the employee
to identify his or her inner issue. Is it demotivation, lack of self-confidence, ennui or something
else? Design your questions to help the person attain self-awareness, not to “solve” his or her
problem. Coaching is not fixing. Don’t bog down in nitty-gritty facts or “he said, she said”
reports. Good questions to ask at this stage include: “How does this really affect you?” “What’s
underneath all this?” and “Which of your buttons are really getting pushed here?” Avoid “why”
questions. You’re a coach, not a judge.

• “Investigate wants” – This stage focuses on “visioning” because people whose goals are
clear stand a better chance of achieving them. Help your staff member discover what he or
she truly wants. Do not attempt to answer this question as the coach. Keep your questions
“forward-focused”: “What do you want?” “What would success look like?”

• “Name possible solutions” – This is the “problem-solving” phase. Every attitude issue has
a range of conceivable cures. Unfortunately, because people are prone to habitual thinking,
they often aim for a standardized solution, even if it may not fit. Your job as a coach is to help
your employee uncover numerous potential ways to tackle an obstacle, including concepts he
or she hasn’t already reviewed. To move ahead, use brainstorming. If you offer tentative fixes,
phrase them as qualified ideas – “This probably isn’t it, but you could…” – because your direct
report may feel obligated to agree with you. You might ask, “What would President Lincoln tell
you to do in this situation?” Or invoke any character you think would be helpful. You can also
say, “That’s a great idea, what’s another?” Or ask, “Which of the options gets you closest to
what you want?” The employee can grow through thinking about such self-discovery
questions. Do not advance to the next steps until your employee develops “at least three to
five good possible solutions.” Then embark on the B.I.G. activities, which “move” the staffer
to act:

• “Build a plan” – This stage is about taking action, since discovery without deeds is just
“introspection.” After the person attains self-awareness, help him or her develop a “SMART”
battle plan that is “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-specific.” At this
stage, details are important. You might ask: “What are you going to do?” “What steps do you
have to take to get there?” or “When will you do that?” Encourage the staffer to charge along
ambitiously. For example, if your employee says he or she will start to solve a problem by
having a conversation with a relevant person “next Friday,” you could say, “How about this
Friday?”

• “Ensure action” – This step centers on “accountability.” Just as discovery has little value
without engagement, creating a plan that your staffer doesn’t execute is a waste of time. Hold
your employee fully responsible for carrying out the plan. Insist on an “accountability system.”
Ask: “How will I know?” “How much time do you need before checking back in with me?”
“When will you let me know how it goes?” Coaching’s goal is to get the staffer to shoulder
accountability, but be sure you follow up.

• “Give affirmation” – “Validate” your employee’s progress. Validation is beneficial throughout

the entire coaching process, but it is most critical at the end. Show your staff member that you
see and appreciate his or her efforts. You might say, “I just want to…point out how much
progress you’ve made.” Obviously, developing and asking the right questions plays a primary
 role in coaching. Indeed, some coaching sessions may consist entirely of the coach asking
questions. Make your queries simple, direct and open-ended to encourage the employee to
give expansive answers. For example, ask, “What things stand in your way?” Use thought-
provoking, future-focused questions. Do not phrase questions to offer advice. If you have
exhausted your list of worthwhile questions, try: “I’m not sure what [to] ask you next. If you
were me, what would you ask?”

“Coaching Mindset”
Being an effective coach requires having the right frame of mind. You must be confident that
the staffer can improve with coaching. However, don’t become too attached to or invested in
your own ideas or solutions. Let your staff member discover his or her own truth. That is not a
discovery anyone can make for someone else, but many hands-on managers find it hard to
hold back from becoming their staffer’s Mr. or Ms. Fix-It. To help a person respond positively
to coaching, maintain an easy atmosphere. Use creativity and humor to make coaching
enjoyable. While you are coaching, pay attention to your personal reactions. Heed any
“nagging doubt, adrenaline rush or funny feeling.” Cite your instincts to get staffers to examine
their gut feelings.

“Coaching Actions”

Coaching dialogue is not repartee. It demands intelligent application of these skills:

• “Listen” – To coach people effectively, you cannot plan your responses while they speak.
Pay close attention to what the person you are coaching has to say.

• “Create space” – Coaching is the ultimate one-on-one exercise. Focus totally on the
employee and whatever is on his or her mind. During your sessions, turn off your phone,
intercom, email alerts and other sources of distraction or interference.

• Provide “feedback” – Make your comments specific. Target the employee’s behaviour and
how it affects other team members. Explain why acting differently will help.

• “Celebrate” – This validates the staff member’s hard work and great gains. Make the
celebration something particularly meaningful to that individual.

“Coaching Tricks of the Trade”

Coaches with years of experience have developed techniques for almost any situation, including
preventing coaching discussions from getting detoured. While you can’t hurry a coaching
dialogue, you also can’t let a conversation deteriorate into a wordy mishmash that inadvertently
conceals more than it reveals. Keep the discussion focused by guiding it along. For example,
you might suggest, “In two or three sentences, explain the issue to me.” If the staffer needs to
discuss a conflict, listen to the problem but don’t get sidetracked into talking about the other
party. Choose your words carefully. Avoid “everybody,” “always,” “never” and “can’t.” People do
not respond well to being told what they should or shouldn’t do; they need to reach their own
conclusions. An employee’s version of events is just one perspective. Help individuals see that
other legitimate viewpoints exist. Your staffer may need to adopt a different perspective to
overcome his or her attitudinal obstacles. In fact, sometimes people who need coaching don’t
want it. In that case, focus on the resistance, not on the session’s outcome, so you can help the
person smash through his or her reluctance. This will not be easy on you. When someone says
 coaching is wasting his or her time, ask something like, “What would have to happen for it to be
a better use of your time?”

Every coaching process is different. Spend as much time as you need on each phase. Don’t
expect the progression to remain linear all the time. If you need to return to the discovery phase
at some later point in the process, do so. Remember that the employee must attain awareness
before developing an action plan. Expect that your sessions will sometimes become emotional.
If the staffer feels upset, don’t try to “fix” his or her feelings; you cannot. So, how will you know
if coaching is working? The proof of coaching is in the pudding: You will see your employees
notably change for the better. Be proud that you could help them grow.

Sources:

Emerson, B. & Loehr, A. (2008). A Manager’s Guide to Coaching: Simple and Effective Ways to Get the Best out of Your Employees. New
York, USA: AMACOM
A Manager’s Guide to Coaching: Simple and Effective Ways to Get the Best out of Your Employees [Abstract]. (2010). Retrieved from
http://www.getabstract.com/en/summary/leadership-and-management/a-managers-guide-to-coaching/14459/