Coaching in Pandemic time: Challenges and Workaround

Coaching challenges during the pandemic time. What to watch out for?

All of us as a coach always managed to obtain the maximum benefits from our face-to-face session with the team during ordinary time.

The group coaching with the team used to provide us tremendous satisfaction, and team members were also gained maximum impact from Coaching.

The benefits demonstration was also remarkably rapid.

New Pandemic has produced an abundance of challenges for the coaches.

The results and accomplishments are taking more time and the organization was shying away from investing in more coaching effort during the pandemic time.

Though coaching has grown into more critical at this crisis time due to cost pressure, many coaches are confronting challenges to demonstrate value add at a faster time.

As a coach, what we do? For most of the coaching conversations, what we essentially do.

• We Observe,
• We listen,
• We ask questions,
• We understand our team members better,
• We build a relationship with the teams
• and we provide feedback to progress.

All these things take place in the correct way when communication is a powerful medium.

When that medium gets many hindrances, our coaching effectiveness breaks down.

We have to turned into more innovative to deal with the ongoing crisis.

Some of the challenges as a coach we were experiencing are

• In the earlier pre-pandemic moment, coaching setup we managed to study the body languages of the team members, now in virtual coaching hardly we can study the body languages of the team members. We can merely learn through the face with a small laptop or mobile window! if the network is not stable, the video will be turned off! Very challenging to understand what is going only through audio.
• In an earlier pre-pandemic coaching setup, we managed to have the casual conversation before the scheduled coaching session or after the session. We managed to have coffee sessions formal and informal and we managed to have a lot of greetings, handshakes, etc. In the new virtual setup, team members are hopping from one meeting window to another. The coaching window we get starts sharp on time and closes on time! Not enough moment for a personal connection or chat as the time window is pivotal for all the team members. Hardly coaches can obtain space for a coaching session as delivery is so central at this time for business continuity.

In such a setup, most of the conversations are formal and team members are on guard of their emotions! Many aspects of coaching engagements, opportunities are missing to get an absolute connection with the team members.

• In earlier set up due to many opportunities to connect with the team members at a personal level chances are immense to understand the people on a deeper level, e.g. discovering the personal challenges they are going through, their emotional state, their motivational state, their beliefs, and values, etc. In the virtual setup, it takes a lot of time to bring someone to the right stage to have an open conversation. People are scared to open up on the digital platform. Many personal challenges and work pressure also generate an abundance of emotional stresses.
• In the new setup, the technology sometimes causes most of the issue, Connectivity, and bandwidth, ambient of the setup, video and sound quality, background noise and disturbance, lockdown, etc causes disturbance in focusing the coaching conversation to be accomplished effectively.

If most of the team members are not have such an issue, but even one person from the team will have such digital error, the coaching achievement could not be met at a full team level.

• Most of the team members are panicked, anxious, and stressed up in the present pandemic situation. Though a coach gets remarkably little time to have coaching conversations with the team, in this small window, team members are still carrying loads from previous meetings or work pressure or not getting the team support appropriately in the virtual setup. Team members are constantly wondering and battling with the delivery pressure and figuring out the numerous technological challenges. Personal development focus time is truly little. Everyone is running. As a coach, bring the conversation into such personal commitment and development takes a lot of time, which team members do not have.

To figure out why let’s read at the philosophical concept of Hanlon’s razor.

Coined by author Robert J. Hanlon, Hanlon’s razor is used to remove explanations for human behavior. The concept suggests that we should, “assume ignorance before malice.”

When communicating online, we can’t read the non-verbal signs we’re programmed to identify when face-to-face. Because of this, we have a habit of assuming the worst of people. That’s because we’re missing a critical form of context that helps us understand meaning and intent.

As a result, if you lack rapport with someone when there are communication issues, we generally judge the individual who dislikes us or our idea. We should have patience and take some more time to understand the team members better.

What some of the steps we can do

• Prepare well and ahead as a coach. Clearly communicate ahead, what will be discussed and what will be the possible conclusion (High level). So that the virtual meeting becomes focused and compelling. As a coach, you join early on the platform and ensure everything is ready and working. Create the mental map, how the meeting flow will happen, and what if something is not as you predicted?
• First 10 mins let us not talk anything about business. Everyone shares only about their feeling, likings, and happenings and last 5 mins, also let us talk about the informal discussion. Let us take that as a norm and focus on team members’ well-being.
• Let us create coaching conversation as a platform where team members can express, share and open up. So, it is critical that we create that conversation platform as safe as possible. If some team members are not able to connect with video or bandwidth issues. Connect with these individuals personally and communicate similar types of messages. Spread this as a team habit where team members connect later and share what has been discussed. Communication, connection, and collaboration are vital in such time to get the coaching benefits.
• Let us have a frequent fun time with the team. As a facilitator, we drive such events for the team. it will create that caring feeling and team members will feel to express whatever they are going through. Every team member also can share what they are doing other than work e.g., cooking, drawing, music, and that becomes a steady cadence. The one common aspect is consistently demanding to on the video.
• As team members are using Slack, or any other messaging platform to express their thoughts, let use an emoji as possible to convey the expression. Use emotional rich positive icons. Create the ambient, conversation as positive, as optimistic, as vibrant as possible.
• Watch out for the sentence we use during the meeting. Maximize the positive and optimistic approach and comments. The small window we get, how to drive the positive conversations, and learning from our mistake approach. As a facilitator, we can moderate such conversation. If there are any specific topics that are negative, we can have a separate call with few necessary team members. Create an effective safety net for the team. And continue to engage with the team members through powerful coaching.
• Taking care of self! As a coach, it is important for our emotional state is at the finest level before we start having this coaching conversation. We have to on top of our energy and motivation. It is much easy to create an impact with all the challenges and impediments when we are supercharged. Those traits have to be reflected in our communications. That energy has to radiate to the teams to make them charged positively. Be fully present during the session with full focus.
• Observe the incredibly minute level details with the short digital window, when we have with the team communication. Watch out for the clue of stress, anxiety, self-limiting beliefs. Note down all the clues you are getting in the conversation. Positive and negative, whatever it is, take action subsequently, with one-to-one and share your observation with the team for enhancements.
• Let us set small goals and Document all the objectives as a coach we are discussing and share with the team members. They can access those and study those objectives at a later period of time. Continue to have one-to-one conversations with those pointy, online and offline.
• Coach for the individuals to transitioning into the new changes what is coming, in tools, process, and approaches. It is complicated for the team to adopt when so many changes are thrust upon team members. As human beings, we are not so comfortable with ambiguity; we prefer to make things certain. Coach the team to understand the change management steps and how to surmount those changes.

 I am certain most of the coaches are taking many innovative approaches to engage the teams in this pandemic time. As a coach, we are rewriting some of the coaching engagement during the pandemic time.