Setting Effective Goals for Coaching with SIFO Statements

Coaching skill is one of the most crucial skills that leaders need to have. When we’re leading a team, we often need to conduct formal coaching such as performance reviews for our team members. We may also be doing informal coaching when the opportunity arises to speak to a member of your team in a more relaxed moment. For leaders, coaching sessions are vital and necessary to get your team aligned and progressing forward towards the goal.

Setting Clear Goals in Coaching

At the beginning of each coaching conversation, it’s important to set a goal so that your team member will be able to identify some action steps to work on at the end of the coaching session.?

However, during this stage, you may face certain challenges. For example, you may wish to discuss your team member’s performance but your team member has something else in mind, so this causes some misalignment during the conversation.?

Another common challenge is when there are too many goals to work on and there is difficulty in prioritising them. It is also possible that your team member changes the goal along the way. They articulated something at the beginning, then deviated from their goal and brought up something else later.

Today, let us explore a useful technique called the “SIFO statement” to help set clear goals and achieve better engagement during the coaching conversation.

What is a SIFO statement?

SIFO stands for Specific Intent, Future Orientation. The SIFO statement is divided into two parts. The first part is the Specific Intent, while the second part is Future Orientation.?

Let’s take a look at the first part. ‘Specific Intent’ is the part of the statement which contains facts that are specific to the content you wish to discuss. These do not involve any judgment or emotions. The purpose is to state just the facts of the issue at hand, without sounding like you’re laying the blame on anyone.?

Part two of the statement is ‘Future Orientation’. As a leader, it’s advantageous for us to highlight the future direction that the team member could head to instead of focusing on past mistakes. This prevents your team member from feeling defensive or being uncooperative during the discussion.

SIFO Statements in Action

Here are some examples of the kinds of SIFO statements versus non-SIFO statements.?

Non-SIFO statements are judgmental, non-specific and focused on the past, while SIFO statements are non-evaluative, specific and future-oriented. Note the difference in the tone and impact that they have.

Scenario 1: Your team member is not meeting deadlines.

Non-SIFO Statement: “You are not meeting project deadlines. This is recurring often. What is the problem here?”

SIFO Statement: “I want to talk about your goal for the next quarter. In particular, I would like to discuss the ABC project timeline (specific intent), so that we can learn how to handle future projects more effectively (future orientation).”

Scenario 2: Your team member handled a call badly and upset the customer.

Non-SIFO Statement: “I'm very upset about that call. You didn't know how to handle the customer.”

SIFO Statement: “I need to talk to you about how to handle phone calls especially when the person that the customer asks for is not available (specific intent), so that you can manage it better next time (future orientation).”

Scenario 3: Your team member missed the weekly status review.

Non-SIFO Statement: “You couldn't be bothered to appear for the weekly status review.”

SIFO Statement: “I need to talk to you about the importance of you coming to the weekly status review (specific intent) with the hope you could show up in the future review (future orientation).”

More Tips on Setting Coaching Goals

While conducting a coaching conversation, it is beneficial to use questions to lead your team member so that they speak about the benefit, impact or outcome they wish to achieve. This is an effective way to get your team member to have ownership over the outcome. As a leader, we’ll help to make a summary of their statement using SIFO.

It’s also helpful to give acknowledgment to our team members about the situations or difficulties they are facing. This makes them feel listened to and understood. Additionally, try as much as possible to use words like ‘we’ instead of ‘you’ or ‘I’ to bring your support to their level. This prevents any unnecessary gaps that would make them feel inferior.?

Here's an example of a well-managed coaching conversation.

Leader: I called for this conversation today so that you could share with me about the challenges of having to balance between your work and also your family while you work from home.

Team Member: It has been very challenging for me especially in trying to find the right balance between working and spending time with my family.

Leader: Within this half an hour coaching conversation that we are having now, what do you hope to achieve?

Team Member: When I’m working, I hope that I can focus more on my work.

Leader: I see. What benefit does it serve when you are able to focus more on your work?

Team Member: Maybe I can be more productive and I can spend more time with my family.

Leader: Great! If that is the case, for the next half an hour, let's figure out a way that can help you be more productive at work. Hopefully you could manage your time well for work and have more time for your family.

From the sample conversation above, the leader guided the team member to identify the benefits of being more focused on work, which was to be able to spend more time with the family.

After asking a few questions, the leader concluded the goal-setting process by using a SIFO statement to identify a clear goal for the coaching session.?

In this case, the Specific Intent was to figure out a way for the team member to be more productive at work, and the Future Orientation or outcome they hoped to achieve was to manage time well for work and have more time for their family.

In conclusion, ending the goal-setting stage with SIFO statements helps both the leader and team member to set a clear-cut and aligned goal for the coaching. Additionally, Inviting the input of your team members regarding the outcome they hope to achieve creates buy-in and a sense of ownership over the end result.