On Coaching

One of the leaders I work with is a football coach outside of his day job. As a former competitive athlete, I appreciate this because sports serve as a simple analogy for coaching and continuous improvement.

From the coaching side, you can tell a player where to be and what maneuver to use. If the player messes up the play once or twice, you don't think too much about it. But if he or she just can't get it, you start to wonder if it's the player or the play itself. 

What’s impactful about the coaching mindset is that it considers both possibilities.

Put another way: Most situations include the challenge itself (e.g. a complex play) and the people with a challenge (e.g. those running the complex play). When you stay curious and gain clarity into each, you can really open up options for growth and improvement.

One of the reasons I coach is because I find people to be the most fascinating aspect of any challenge or opportunity. In the context of running a complex play, maybe a player who is not executing sees something that other people don't see. Maybe they don't want to run the play. Maybe they don't believe the play is effective. Or maybe they physically can't do it. So we're talking about many possibilities involved in a single situation. 

Which leads to a question: How else can we think about coaching?

Coaching is many things. Awareness-building. Insight-creating. Problem-solving. Strategic thinking. Facilitating action and results. Making change. When we approach it from the people side (the who) in addition to the challenge side (the what) we can turn what might seem like an ordinary situation into possibilities and potential. 

I'm currently partnered with a company whose “culture champion” reached out to me and said, “My team is having some challenges right now with internal conflict. What if we focused more on conflict management instead of coaching right now?”

My response: “Conflict management is helpful because it creates awareness and provides tools on how to navigate conflict in general. But if we’re looking to get to the heart of a matter, and thinking about the conflict as well as the people in this conflict, I think coaching will be more effective.”

The result: We went with coaching. And the group felt more empowered to have some skills and frameworks to start influencing conversations and situations the way they wanted, as opposed to just managing a specific, tough situation. 

In summary:

As we continue to do this work at NextGen Center, I think coaching is more relevant than it has ever been. It’s a huge opportunity for companies and teams to think about how to navigate the constantly changing dynamics that they’re experiencing. 

This is how companies scale. This is how teams scale. It's by learning to empower people and teaching them how to think a little bit more broadly, so they can navigate the uncertainty with a clearer direction. As opposed to just fighting the daily fire.

When you approach challenges/opportunities with a coaching mindset, you're not just tackling the issue right in front of you, you're deploying a more reflective and deeper look into the root cause and the people involved. 

Coaching can happen in many forms. It doesn't have to be one on one. It could be a team. It could be a group of individuals from various places, companies, and walks of life. It could also just be a single conversation. 

Now imagine if every player on your team was equipped to be a coach. What would that look like? What impact would it have on your company and team?