Coaching beyond the bubble

Jenny Rogers asks: What’s your image of a typical executive coaching session? Probably of a somewhat solemn conversation between two people engaged in concentrated discussion. Well first, the conversation is often not at all like that – indeed, some of my colleagues have been known to attract severe reproofs from people elsewhere in the building whose concentration has been severely interrupted by the gales of laughter coming from the coaching session. But a lot of the coaching that I and colleagues now do goes well beyond what happens in the coaching room – the ‘bubble’. The reason being that the coaching can be so much richer if coach and client together gather data from the workplace itself.

The battle of Will’s

Will is a senior lawyer in a big City firm and is making the tricky transition from hands-on legal expert to manager where for the first time he has direct responsibility for managing large numbers of staff. Quirky, lively and an amusing companion, Will admits to me in his first coaching session that he is ‘hopelessly disorganised’ not just at work but at home too. ‘Becoming organised’ is his No.1 priority. I ask what will happen if he does nothing. Will pulls a long face. ‘I won’t be credible in this new role’.

So this is why two weeks later I am trying to make myself as invisible as possible while shadowing Will at work. The first problem is his room. There are tottering towers of paper all over the floor and his desk looks as if a wild animal might have trashed it overnight. Will himself is waving and grinning at me –
difficult because he has a phone in each hand and appears to be speaking to both while imultaneously
using an elbow to inspect his email. Will’s PA is behind her desk with a don’t-blame-me expression on her face. Throughout the morning I see how Will spends a lot of time genially talking to colleagues in the coffee room or on the phone, actually transacting a lot of business; I see too how many of his colleagues have a haunted expression as they try to get into his diary or grab two minutes of his time.

Will is an eager client and the first thing I suggest is that we commission in-depth 360 degree feedback through structured interviews with ten of his colleagues. This affirms his many strengths and also makes clear how maddening his behaviour is to colleagues and how damaging it will be to his career as a leader if he does not address the weaknesses. Not least, he’ll be severely neglecting the must-dos of his new role unless he sets proper office systems in place and curbs some of those enjoyable random chats. So, instead of working with Will alone, I suggest a ‘snowballing’ process and a morning
is set aside at his work-place, starting with his PA. This is a process of negotiation facilitated by me where each side says what they want from the other. In half an hour it is agreed: the PA will strictly manage his appointments and email and they will start each day with a 15 minute meeting. The office will be cleaned and the redundant paper thrown away. Next in is Will’s most senior direct report. The process is repeated with the PA still there. And so we go on until by one o’ clock we have six people in the room and Will has renegotiated his role – and theirs – with all of them.

Going ‘live’

There are many other examples of this work being taken beyond the confines of the coaching room.
Some clients ask me to run a stop-actionprocess on their meetings and to coach them on their meeting management and chairing skills ‘live’ before the rest of their team. It takes a very grown-up client to ask for this but there is so much to be learnt from it. It can also be powerful to run sessions for clients where there is an important but problematical relationship, with both parties coming to the coaching session with a commitment to work on improvement. Perhaps most important of all, to kick-start the coaching process, we will arrange a three-cornered meeting or conference call. Here, the coach facilitates a process where the client’s boss outlines the organisation’s objectives for the coaching. This affirms that the organisation is investing in the client. This does not preclude the client adding goals of their own and it goes without saying that the coach’s promise of confidentiality from then on is very serious. The coaching should conclude with a meeting where coach, client and boss muse enjoyably on how
much everything has improved.