To get the best out of people, we have to believe the best is in there – but how do we know it is, how much is there, and how do we get it out?
I am able to control only that which I am aware of. That which I am unaware of controls me. Awareness empowers me.
Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their growth.
The carrot and the stick are pervasive and persuasive motivators. But if you treat people like donkeys, they will perform like donkeys.
Building awareness and responsibility is the essence of good coaching.
Probems must be resolved at the level beneath the one at which they occur.
Coaching focuses on future possibilities, not past mistakes.
As with any new skill, attitude, style, or belief, adopting a coaching ethos requires commitment, practice, and some time before it flows naturally and its effectiveness is optimized.
Whether we coach, advise, counsel, facilitate, or mentor, the effectiveness of what we do depends in large measure on our beliefs about human potential. The expressions “to get the best out of someone” and “your hidden potential” imply that more lies within the person waiting to be released.
Unless the manager or coach believes that people possess more capability than they are currently expressing, he will not be able to help them express it. He must think of his people in terms of their potential, not their performance. The majority of appraisal systems are seriously flawed for this reason. People are put in performance boxes from which it is hard for them to escape, either in their own eyes or their manager’s.
MENTORING Finally, since I am defining coaching, I should perhaps mention mentoring, another word that has crept into business parlance. The word originates from Greek mythology, in which it is reported that Odysseus, when setting out for Troy, entrusted his house and the education of his son Telemachus to his friend, Mentor. “Tell him all you know,” Odysseus said, and thus unwittingly set some limits to mentoring.
The capacity is there, the crisis is the catalyst. But is crisis the only catalyst? And how long are we able to sustain extraordinary levels of performance? Some of this potential can be accessed by coaching, and performance can be sustainable, perhaps not at superhuman levels but certainly at levels far higher than we generally accept.
A manager must be experienced as a support, not as a threat Here.
Coaching is unlocking people’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.
The blame culture that still prevails in the majority of businesses works against this, as it causes “false reality syndrome” or “I will tell you what I think you want to hear, or what will keep me out of trouble.