The Coaching Revolution
THE COACHING REVOLUTION by DAVID LOGAN & JOHN KING
The main theme of the book is that today managers are giving up the “command and control” model for “a coaching model” and it is for Managers who recognize this and want to be coaches for people they manage. Managers can use Coaching to Empower people and unlock their full potential.
The book boils COACHING down to 3 things: SEE, SAY and DO.
It emphasizes that managers must create a safe space for coaching where there is confidentiality and trust, and the starting point is listening as then MANAGERS learn to SEE.
Listening “for” and not “to”, you must listen for the employees Angst, motivation, reason and that will enable to “see “without filters, for core values, deep motivations and unrealized potential. Simply put you get WHAT you listen FOR.
A Manager coach can help the employee “SEE” a culture around them, where they are on the culture ladder and where they want to go.
A few interesting tools to enable a Manager -Coach to “see” are discussed but the common tool highlighted is the LIFELINE TOOL. This tool helps people to “see” how they are doing against the kind of impact they want to achieve on each sphere e.g., career, family, health, relationships, recreation, spirituality etc. as they choose to be the 6 most important areas they want to impact. THE graph then plotted shows them where they are and where they want to go, hence “SEEING “is the first step in their (employee’s)journey.
SAY is to empower employees by Declarations. The power of speaking out is explained with examples and the message is for coaches to recognize employees core values and help them live them. My favorite message was “A coach reminds people who they are even if they forget”. I enjoyed how the authors compared a culture of “GRIPES” to an epidemic (strongly resonated as we are living through one), how it spreads, leads to discontent, employee turnover and isolation. Tools explained with examples and how Manager COACHES can help employees turn NEGATIVE GRIPING to positive.
DO another quote “Brilliant insights are powerless without ACTION”. YOU must hold people responsible for action, but the culture of the company needs to support it. The tool most used for culture in a company was the J CURVE, interestingly as people start to implement coaching, things might get worse at first but eventually their performance will exceed their starting point. The HOW to coach people through quadrants where there could be fear, shock, anger (NEGATIVE) to Hope, anger, resentment (NEUTRAL) to Optimism, celebration and resentment (POSITIVE) was well dealt with.
Putting all this (the 3 steps) together if you use a simple connect the dots there could be danger, hence it gives insights of the differences between generations and what’s different about each generation. Of course each generation are still people!!
To summarize this book should help you adapt coaching techniques to become a winning coach to help employees outline a plan of action, with clear goals for improvement, and hold employees Accountable to what they “say” they’ll deliver.
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Reviewed By - Arunanjali Maria