How coachable are you?
I recently commented to a member of my team on how ‘coachable’ he was. He was a little curious as to how to receive my comment so I quickly assured him it was a compliment.
It could have sounded patronising coming from me, given that he is currently coaching executive leaders, has 30 years experience and is already highly successful.
To back up my comment I went a little further to give him some context. I let him know that one of our team mates had mentioned to me how good he was in an area that I knew was unfamiliar to him, only one month before.
What had impressed me was his willingness to take on board the advice I had given. He quickly embraced my suggested approach and integrated it into what he was already doing well and 'owned it' - to the extent it appeared it was something he had always done.
It is no surprise that he is a highly successful person and his expertise in new areas is rapidly developing.
How coachable are you? I have seen that people who are coachable share these characteristics:
1. Humility and self-belief – In the context of being coachable they have high self-esteem and self-belief but also recognise that there are limitations to what they already know and that there are opportunities to do things better. Someone who is coachable is able to self-reflect with honesty on how they may be tracking and they are open to feedback and new ideas.
2. Desire to be better – The best people to coach are those who have a deep desire to be better or to get better results. A good coach will be able to tap into individual desires or passion but the person being coached will benefit the most if they have their own passion for peak performance.
3. Willing to take risks – Change is not easy for some people but the most coachable are those that are prepared to take a risk. Sometimes taking a risk is a challenge for individuals who are unable to trust that there is a better way to do things or believe in the credibility of the coach. Sometimes the results won’t be immediately obvious and so there may be a period of time where the person being coached has to rely solely on the trust they have put in their coach - until such time as the result come in. This can be one of the most contentious times for a person who is usually risk-adverse.
4. Putting new knowledge into action – In the example of my teammate who was so 'coachable' - it became visibly obvious that he had embraced the coaching tips and put them into action very quickly. It’s much easier to 'know' there are better ways to do something than putting that knowledge into action.
Many years ago I was working with then Retired General Peter Cosgrove, one of Australia’s most impressive leaders. We were doing some work for a client in the private sector involving leading-edge thinking on executive level crisis management capabilities to respond to a diverse range of global risks.
We had already captured many of Peter’s great insights and experience but some of what we were doing was also new to him. As I was leading the project, I shared with him my own coaching tips in working with executive leadership teams. He made it clear he wanted this coaching by the depth of the questions he was asking.
For someone so accomplished, his humility was disarming. His openness to learning and his desire to excel in this particular engagement was obvious.
What has left an enduring mark on me was the way in which he searched for the ‘gold nuggets’ of advice and then how he interpreted them, based on his own experiences.
What he did next was to synthesise what I had shared with him - with what he already knew - integrating the new information with his existing knowledge and; becoming an authority on the topic in a very short space of time.
It was quite remarkable to witness and it is no coincidence that one of the most successful leaders in Australia is also one of the most coachable.
What can you do right now to be more coachable?
- Reflect on areas that you want to improve and be open to change
- Actively seek out coaches, experts or literature on the areas you want to improve
- Make conscious choices to do things differently and take action
- Be prepared to take risks and track your progress
- Celebrate your wins
About Janellis
Janellis is an enterprise consulting firm working with leading organisations across many industry sectors and government agencies. Janellis helps organisations execute their strategy and are specialists in transformation and change management; organisational resilience; risk, compliance and assurance; crisis and emergency management; and portfolio and project management.
Good write up. Its no surprise that those who identify with being transformational leaders, are themselves a great coachee at heart. It's virtually impossible to facilitate non-directive change in another person without having a deep sense-of-self, empathy and understanding of your own cognition and biases.
Share Holder of CF Technologies Pty Ltd
8 年Thank youNattalie. As a mentor since the early 90's and being numeric try this. C = context V = vision and P = process. C x V x P = total understanding to do anything. You said your person has " .....30 years experience and is already highly successful" Your tolerance / time line appears quite long. Thank you. Cheers
Corporate Consultancy Partnership
8 年Interesting article. Uplifting to realize that there are always areas of fine tuning that we can learn as mentors to business leaders
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8 年The matters you highlight are important and your examples most interesting. Thanks. As you note, these examples are highly motivated people and open to new ideas. As you also note, not all people are like this. When I work with clients, although I am ostensibly coaching, I flex dependent on my client's skill and enthusiasm for the issue, applying a coaching matrix to guide me in my approach. Where skill and enthusiasm are high my efforts are minimal. I trust them to solve the issue for themselves, asking a few questions to help this occur; where enthusiasm is high, but skills low I may instruct and/or provide some good texts to read; where the enthusiasm is low my work becomes much more motivational and may even take on a supervisory role where both skills and enthusiasm are poor. I am not sure who first created this coaching matrix but I find it useful. I expect that you do too.
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8 年Great read. Thank you!