Do you think of yourself as a coach?
When I ask this question, almost every single hand goes up. But what does that really mean? Do we have a process? Or do we confuse sharing our little bits of wisdom with coaching?
To be an effective coach, you must combine process with intention. Today I will focus on intention. You must first decide that coaching is what you truly intend to do. And you must also decide whether you intend to coach someone on the process or method, or coach them on the solution.
So that we can be more specific, imagine a situation where you spot a trip hazard in a work area. It not only shouldn’t be there, it should have been caught by someone in the area.
Coaching the solution
Starting with coaching the solution, it is when you care specifically about what final conclusion they arrive at. Take the example of the trip hazard; if you were focused on coaching the solution, as the other person is proposing a solution you would inquire into the robustness and quality of that solution.
For example, if they said they would just remind people to be careful, you would probably start to question how robust they feel that is, what happens when new people are introduced to the area, or how people might remember that when they are focused on other things. You would be coaching them towards a better outcome than telling people to be careful.
- “what are you looking for when you do a safety walk?”
- “what questions do you ask yourself when you see a potential problem?”
- “are you identifying things that are not getting resolved?”
Jamie Flinchbaugh helps individuals and companies execute to their ideal state. 
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post Jamie. Spot on.!!!
I was just thinking that it would be a good idea for me to wear a whistle and a stop watch around my neck all day at work. This will help remind me that I am a coach. (sometimes I forget that) The whistle will remind me to sometimes coach the solution. The stop watch will remind me to sometimes coach process.
Thank you for your insight.
Great post. One question that helps me determine if I am coaching to a solution or to a process is, “What is my stake in this?”
If I am accountable for the results and I am being held to that, I will coach to a solution more than the process.
If I am not accountable and there is time, I will coach to the process.
This isn’t a hard fast rule, but a guidance to get me to start thinking about my approach.
I like the idea of a whistle, but I imagine people might get annoyed if you blew it too often.
When approaching any coaching situation I think it’s important to also go into it realizing that the communication can be a two way street. I know within our organization one thing we are trying to do is train our supervisors and managers to truly assess whether an incident is the result of operator controllable factors or system controllable factors. Oftentimes they can potentially go into a coaching situation with a pre-existing notion of what the problem is, and if that initial idea is wrong, it can effectively negate any coaching that is done since it doesn’t effectively address the root cause issue.
During the coaching process we want sups/managers to ask 1.) Is process/program documentation truly reflect what is expected of the operator?, 2.) Does the operator understand what those expectation are (were they trained properly?), and 3.) if documentation is accurate and operator understands, then why are they not following?
Ultimately, we are trying to be more effective in our employee coaching, but also want to take advantage of an opportunity to identify any gaps in our system and address them if the company owns any of it.