Everybody seems to accept that coaching can help make breakthroughs in people’s performance. What is less clear is where do you find people with the skill or will to actually do the coaching? Our knowledge about how to run our professional firms is improving all the time. For example:
- We all know that we’re doomed to failure if we go around telling partners or staff what to do – they might nod apparent agreement but they usually won’t do anything
- We all know that our one main source of competitive advantage is the performance of our people and the successful collection and dissemination of know-how
- We all know that just giving people an annual appraisal is a waste of time – they perform better when they have clear objectives and constructive feedback throughout the year
- We all know that we need to create a climate in which people can learn – often this requires a culture which encourages risk-taking and forgives failure
- We all know that coaching people rather than telling people is at least part of the solution
So far, so good. The only problem…and it’s a big one….is that very few firms have got anybody that can be effective as a coach or even wants to be a coach! Assuming firms are interested in introducing a coaching approach, what should firms do to address this?
Remind me again…what exactly is coaching?
The usual definition of coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise his or her own performance. Coaching is helping people to learn rather than teaching them.
So what skills do coaches need?
Good coaches tend to have a number of skills, as follows:
- The ability to observe well and not make judgements – this is much trickier than it sounds
- Good listening skills – not of course just to the words but also for clues as to what might really be going on for the person being coached
- Good questioning skills – most managers ask too many closed or leading questions to be effective as a coach
- The ability to provide positive and negative feedback – most of us don’t give enough praise and struggle to give negative feedback in a way that motivates the other person
- The ability to get agreement to an action plan – the trick here is for the manager not to dictate a solution
Good coaches tend to be good at working one-on-one with people in an informal way.
Some commentators (like Max Lansberg in The Tao of Coaching) believe there are direct rewards for coaches. Others believe good coaches tend to be the sort of people who are happy to get their rewards indirectly through the success of others (a bit like parents!). Let’s face it….there are never likely to be many of such characters in senior positions in professional firms.
So who could provide the coaching role for partners in your firm?
There are really only four options:
- Partners in leadership roles, such as the managing partner or practice group leaders
- Other partners in the firm who are naturally good coaches
- Senior support professionals, such as the marketing director or HR director
- Outside coaching specialists
In the next section I go on to discuss the pros and cons of each option.
Partners in leadership roles (ie the boss)
This would seem to be an obvious place to start. They should at least have some time available…assuming time has been budgeted to be a leader. Also such partners might be thought of as being well equipped to provide coaching across a range of areas, ranging from technical professional issues to business development and people-handling.
However there are some problems in practice. For example, some people say it is difficult to be both a coach and an appraiser, because the person being coached often does not trust the coach.
Also being a technical expert in the same field as the person being coached can get in the way of good coaching. The temptation to be diverted on to technical issues can be too great because many would find this a safer, more comfortable area to address.
However, the most fundamental problem is that, even though they’re happy to be leaders, it doesn’t mean they want to coach or have the skills to coach. It’s difficult to know how best to deal with this. Some firms have achieved some success by promoting these leaders to chairman-type positions and use better coaches as leaders.
Other partners (ie peers)
This may not seem an obvious way of providing coaching but it should be recognised that some of the best coaches have not been technical experts in the same field as the person being coached. An interesting experiment was carried out in the sports world that showed that there were certain circumstances in which ski coaches performed better than tennis coaches at coaching tennis! This was because the ski instructors were forced to focus more on the person than the technique and this has often been shown to produce better results. This is the so-called inner game in which the opponent in tennis was considered to be more in one’s head than on the other side of the net!
And if you think about it, why should a good coach also have to be a leader?
So, if you’re interested to explore this option, where are you going to find the good coaches in your firm? I reckon a good place to start looking is for the partners that already have a reputation for running motivated assignment teams and are generally popular.
One of the difficulties of adopting this approach is engineering opportunities for providing on-the-job coaching. For example, in a law firm it is difficult to see how a lawyer specialising in personal injury claims arising from road traffic accidents could sensibly receive on-the-job coaching from a corporate finance lawyer.
Another potential barrier is that you would need a particular culture in the firm (ie a true partnership culture) to accept this idea of using coaches outside the practice group.
Nevertheless, despite these issues, this approach provides some exciting opportunities to get coaching off the ground and I know one eminent law firm that is making this work.
One of the potential spin-off advantages of using peer coaches is that it could also be good for cross fertilisation of ideas and help break down some of those potentially unhealthy departmental boundaries.
Senior support professionals
So what about senior support professionals as coaches? A factor which should work in favour of this happening is that coaching tends to work better if there is a specific focus to the session. For example this could be working on business development plans or cross-selling skills with the marketing director or improving team morale with the HR director.
The only problem that stops this happening is that unfortunately most marketing and HR staff are not skilled in coaching. I think most of them tend to feel more comfortable telling people what to do rather than coaching. And maybe we shouldn’t be surprised to find this is the case….after all how many of us have had training (or should that be coaching!) in how to be a coach?
The good news here is that a programme has now been designed to address this need and any readers interested in receiving some coaching on how to coach should get in touch with me. See the end of this article for details.
Outside coaching specialists
One of the obvious advantages of using such people is that they will obviously have the skills. The main downside is that, unfortunately, many may not be sufficiently aware of the cultures of professional firms to be credible or effective.
Also for coaching to work it is essential that trust is established and it is time-consuming for an outsider to do this.
So, if you come across someone outside the firm that can relate to your partners, grab them before someone else does!
So where does that leave us?
The first thing to acknowledge is that it clearly isn’t going to be easy getting coaching off the ground in our firms, despite the obvious rewards. Part of the problem is that many firms try the equivalent of trying to climb Everest every time they tackle an issue and become disheartened when they don’t reach the pinnacle after a short period. I recommend a less ambitious programme. Try some foothills first. Something that you are confident you can achieve.
All firms are different and the option or options you choose depend on your circumstances. One thing is certain. Without a commitment to introduce coaching from the top, you are unlikely to succeed. Good luck!
Contact Tony Reiss
The original version of this article was published in Professional Marketing
