Everyday Coaching Opportunities
In the Hoffman household, we are HUGE football fans, with a special place in our hearts for the Philadelphia Eagles. We’re die-hard through every high and every heartbreak — loving this team is not for the faint of heart!
From our fond memories of Dick Vermeil (who we still see at the local hardware store) to the unforgettable Super Bowl win in 2017, we've celebrated and persevered through many seasons.
Win or lose, football is woven into the fabric of our family (see photo for my three at a recent Eagles game).
And so it’s no surprise that often, as I head into a coaching call, my husband John (we both work from home some days) will be unable to resist making “The Joke”… Do you have your whistle and your coaching shorts on? Happens. Every. Time.
In my life, of course, coaching is a regular occurrence. It’s a big part of how I spend my days and I love it.
Many leaders, however, view coaching differently: they think of it as an event — something that happens on Tuesday at 3 PM in a scheduled one-on-one meeting. But to me, restricting coaching to those preplanned times is a missed opportunity.
Coaching Happens All the Time
Opportunities to coach the people we work with are everywhere and available on a near-daily basis. But we need to look for them and remember that as leaders, our primary role is not “chief problem solver.” Rather, it’s continually finding ways to develop the skills, experience, and confidence of others (i.e., coaching).
Doing so frees up time for us to focus on other things, while improving the overall efficiency and collective intelligence of the organization. Together, these lead to better results over the mid- and long-term.
Still, I get it. Reorienting ourselves towards coaching is hard, especially if you are a subject-matter expert with a clear idea of how to fix a given challenge. Plus, when you let others do things “their way,” they invariably do things …their way.This may deliver inferior results (at least at first) compared to what you might have done.
But if you insist on jumping into every problem that arises, your people will learn to bring you more problems — instead of solutions. They will miss the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and you will always be the bottleneck.
With that in mind, here are three common situations in which coaching opportunities are present.
#1. When Someone Comes to You With a Problem
As the mother of three (wonderful) kids, I am often called upon to fix things:
How do I get BBQ sauce out of corduroys? What does it mean when the check oil light comes on in my car? Why isn’t my phone receiving text messages?
It almost kills me not to swoop in and make their lives easier by offering solutions. But I know that if I do, I prevent them from developing agency — the ability to solve other problems when I am not available.
Instead, I coach them: How have you tried to fix this so far? What else could you try? Have you fixed a similar problem in the past?
The key is to offer questions, context, and perspective — not solutions.
As a leader, you’ve got the same opportunity. The next time someone shows up with a problem, see if you can guide them to uncover possible options, as opposed to giving them “the answer.”
#2. When Someone Has Made a Mistake
Someone once said we don’t learn from success, we learn from failure. I couldn’t agree more. Trying and failing is an opportunity for self-reflection and long-lasting insight for future improvements — none of which occurs when things go perfectly as planned.
Mistakes that occur in the natural flow of daily business are tailormade opportunities for you, as leader, to provide feedback and help others learn. Guide them in thinking through what they could have done differently and how they might make changes in the future if a similar situation arises.
There’s an added bonus: People are much less likely to hide mistakes out of fear if they know you are on their side and will support them in their learning efforts.
#3. When You Are Hearing Lots of Complaints
When complaints abound, think “Time for coaching!” Why? Because when people are dissatisfied with the way things are working, there is a golden opportunity for them to add value and make things better.
If Angela from Accounts Payable is not responding to your person’s third request to get a vendor paid, maybe there’s a process issue that needs attention. Instead of letting people gripe about dear Angela, help them think through the issue, why it matters, what a better outcome would look like, and how they might approach resolution.
Make Coaching a Habit
The fundamental job of a leader is to workthroughother people, not tell them what to do and how to do it every step of the way.
Make coaching part of the natural fabric of your day. It doesn’t have to be official, formal, or time-consuming — it just needs to be constant and ongoing.
As Dick Vermeil once said, “Leadership isn’t about being in charge. It’s about inspiring action.”