Asking questions instead of giving advice or instructions Even when a coach ‘knows’ the answer to a question, s/he will typically ask the other person for his ideas rather than tell him. This is because one of the main aims of coaching is to facilitate someone’s thinking and get them to use their own creativity and initiative. If you tell someone what to do, you take away a learning opportunity and condition them to rely on you for guidance.
This can be difficult for new managers, or those who have a lot of expertise in the area in which they are coaching - the temptation to tell someone how to do it or even do it yourself can be irresistible! The ability to act as a facilitator rather than a performer or instructor is one of the hallmarks of an outstanding coach.
Giving observational feedback instead of making judgments Coaches have a low tolerance for poor performance, so they deliver feedback in the way that is most likely to effect a change in behaviour. This often means avoiding pronouncing judgement in favour of giving specific, observational feedback that helps people examine their own performance and come up with better options for the next time.
So a coach would be unlikely to say ‘You didn’t handle that meeting very well’ - this is a vague judgement that could mean anything and immediately puts the other person on the defensive. Instead, the coach might ask ‘Did you see the look on the client’s face when you told her we couldn’t change the text at this stage?’ - which draws attention to the consequences of a specific action and invites reflection on whether it would be better to do things differently in future.
In the previous chapter I answered the question What Is Business Coaching? Now I’ll sharpen up that definition by distinguishing coaching from other approaches - training, mentoring and counselling.
Coaching is not Training While training and coaching both promote learning, they do so in different ways:
