Inclusive Coaching

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Inclusive Coaching

One of the most influential people on my academic career was Dr. Mark Naison.? There are many reasons I consider myself lucky to have been his student, but one of the things that truly sticks out is that Dr. Naison pushed me further than I thought I could go without pushing me further than I could actually go. I was the first in my family to go to college, and it seemed like everyone on campus knew something I didn’t know. But Dr. Naison listened enough to learn my goals and stayed with me long enough to help me achieve them.

Years later, I still remember sitting in Dr. Naison’s famous red chair responding to his questions as he guided me through problems. Working with organizations trying to improve retention, I remember those meetings as models for effective coaching. Leaders who want to be more inclusive must focus on their words. More specifically, they need to pay attention to the specific language they use when providing feedback. Does it tear down or coach up?

Organizations with functional communication see 59% better success with retention, problem-solving, accuracy, productivity, and profitability. One study found 94% of employees willing to stay longer at an organization with opportunities to learn and grow. Beyond these stats, think about your own experience. Think about that person who helped you become a fuller version of yourself. Chances are they knew how to use inclusive language. With a few turns of phrase, they could help you and transform entire companies. Because this form of communication is so important, here are some tips for language that helps with coaching up.?

1. Use the positive form

The more we think about an idea, the more it expands. If you tell people not to do something, you draw them to that behavior even more. If leaders only engage with employees when there’s something wrong, they send the message that people who underperform get rewarded with personal interactions with the boss. Instead of telling people what you don’t want, tell them what you do want. Rather than giving people a list of the behaviors to avoid, emphasize the behaviors to pursue. In coaching, take the words “no,” “never,” “none,” “nobody,” “not,” and contractions that end with “n’t,” and replace them with their positive form.?

2. Articulate Goals

Managers can be 21% more likely to notice mistakes by people from underrepresented groups than the same mistakes by people from centralized communities. Unsurprisingly, people from underrepresented groups are often socialized to expect negative criticism. But things are changing. The millennials that are set to make up 75% of the labor market expect more. Instead of bosses who only respond with criticism about what they shouldn’t do, they expect proactive feedback that articulates what they should do. These cultural factors aside, the best leaders are those who can get past their frustration, anger, and negative responses to articulate goals. They can inherit a confusing cloud of negativity and create coherent instructions. Achieve this level of clarity that is essential to inclusive coaching by flipping the negatives to which you’re responding into the positives you want to see.?

3. Use majestic plurals

People from underrepresented groups are more likely to be socialized to be insecure when it comes to intellect, work ethic, and competence. With this background, they are more likely to take criticism harder than their counterparts. In fact, they are 56% more likely to interpret negative feedback as proof that they’re frauds who should quit. This kind of spiraling is called “belonging uncertainty,” and it leads to productivity loss and retention issues. One way to avoid it when coaching up is to use majestic plurals. These refer to words like “us,” “we,” or “our” that you can use as if talking about an entire group when really addressing one person. They help communicate negative feedback while avoiding unnecessarily aggressive and accusatory words like “you,” “your,” and “yours.”?

But What If…

People share nightmare scenarios where this kind of coaching fails. “What if I use the positive form and an employee misses how serious the situation is?” “But if I articulate goals for the future won’t people overlook how bad they’ve messed up in the past?” “Deanna, I know if I use majestic plurals with Tom, he’ll think I’m talking about everyone but him.” Central to all these responses is the fear that using more inclusive language in coaching will compromise productivity.?

But how productive are traditional responses. Direct criticism might save you time in the weekly check-in, but how does it impact your retention rates at the end of the quarter? Brutal honesty might scare people into coming up with ideas in a particular meeting, but how about all the innovative ideas your employees become scared to share over an entire year? Most contend that “coddling people’s feelings” wastes valuable time. But how much time do you waste in losing employees, hiring replacements, and training hirees when workers aren’t “tough” to handle your criticism??

I Get It

A while into these conversations, I hear what most opponents are really saying.

“No one gave me this much respect. Why should I give it to others?” “What makes them special enough to deserve dignity?”

Also, there’s often a bit of “Why wasn’t I given the same dignity I’m now being expected to give others?” Oftentimes, we can use the badge of being efficient or following tradition to justify all kinds of questionable behavior. But taking a few moments to use the positive form, articulate goals, and use majestic plurals can improve long-term efficiency in the areas of retention, productivity, decision-making, creativity, and accuracy more than traditional criticism ever did. Improving the wellbeing of others, the wellbeing of myself, and the wellbeing of our organizations all from just taking a few milliseconds to turn a phrase?

To be a more inclusive leader, use more inclusive language and practice more inclusive coaching.?

Book Talk

Don't we all love a good book talk?! Well at the Uplifting Impact we have created a 4 show special just for those book lovers, DEI lovers and the leaders in between! Check out our latest podcast below! We discuss much of what many people have asked over and over so take a listen and drop your questions below. Subscribe Here!

Join the book club here! Preorder the book here!

What's in the Book Talk?

-The book as a letter to her younger self

-How the book strikes a balance between personal experiences and provable data

-Why vulnerability in leadership is a strength

-How inclusivity in the workplace is built on people's actions

-Parts of the book that had to be edited out

What We're Reading.....

???Walton, GM & Cohen, GL. (January 2007). “A Question of Belonging: Race, Social Fit, and Achievement.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 92(1):82-96.

??Reeves, Arin N. (2014). “Written in Black & White: Exploring Confirmation Bias in Racialized Perceptions of Writing Skills.” Nextions. https://nextions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/written-in-black-and-white-yellow-paper-series.pdf

Some immediate ways Uplifting Impact is overhauling workplace culture:

• Professional DEI Certification Program
• Uplifting Impact Podcast & Subscribe to our Youtube Channel
• “How to Be an Ally” Virtual Summit

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Being an #ALLY is ongoing work. Any uplifting impact we make now, no matter how big or small, will build a better world for future leaders and generations to come. So, let’s keep working together to affect change. Subscribe to continue these Uplifting Conversations!?