Coffee Machine Coaching
Coaching is recognised as a highly effective and targeted method of creating change in individuals for both personal and corporate results. The growth in the number of organisations providing coach training and qualifications has been explosive in recent years as organisations realise the impact of these tools over more conventional training courses.
Professional coaches are often externally sourced, and there is an increasing trend for companies to utilise their own employees as coaches. An increasing number of people with roles central to business operations are becoming coaches. People from finance, sales, service, logistics, personnel, training and other functions are taking on a coaching role. So where are they being trained and how are they gaining experience?
Not everyone has the time to attend a coaching programme and those that do need to build a reputation through experience within the organisation in order to be credible. We were speaking to a senior learning and development manager in a multi- national organisation recently and he was concerned at the number of coaches in his company who either return from coaching programmes or develop an interest in coaching and want to immediately be ‘given’ clients to practise on. Their excitement and desire to help is commendable but in the early days credibility is invariably an issue.
Large companies sometimes try to fit coaching into a highly structured programme, as if it were like organizing a formal training matrix. The complexity of modern business benefits from formalised structure and routine. Some companies attempt to apply this same kind of rigidity to the process of coaching and fail to get the best from their efforts. The best time to coach is when it is needed, not the last Tuesday of every month. The best coach is the person you respect and feel comfortable with, and this person could well be a member of your team, your manager, or someone in another part of the company you can call upon for support when needed.
So here is a solution –
First reframe the way you think about coaching. If you think of coaching as a ‘formal session between coach and coachee’ with a designated time limit, think again. Coaching can be a lifestyle. If you genuinely want to help people to move forward then develop a ‘coaching way of being’. You will be surprised at the opportunities which present themselves once you are focused on them. The ancient Hawaiians have a saying – ‘energy flows where attention goes’. Stay focused on the opportunity and the energy behind your coaching skills will gather momentum whatever the time or place.
Next build a reputation. Good project managers are invited to lead projects, people who demonstrate great leadership skills become leaders, people who are great speakers are invited to take part in corporate presentations, people who build natural rapport with customers are invited to deal with them on a one to one basis and so on. The secret to being a great coach therefore is to build yourself a reputation by demonstrating great coaching in the work place on a daily business. A reputation is key to attracting coaching clients. Over time you will be sought out for your abilities to help people overcome their limitations and make great strides forward.
Use your integrity. The opportunities to do so are endless – there are probably more opportunities to coach in the workplace than opportunities for anything else. However, if you seize them all then you will soon start to turn people off and you will find yourself going to lunch alone. A step by step measured approach will enable you to first identify appropriate opportunities, sense the appropriateness of what you want to do and deliver effectively without the person even realising they have been coached. This way you will develop a reputation as someone who listens and asks great questions and people will find themselves gravitating towards you when they are next perplexed about something.
In summary – develop the Art of Coffee Machine Coaching
Step 1 – Identify with the qualities of a coach –
- good listener
- genuinely interested in helping people to overcome issues and achieve outcomes
- accept that people have all the personal resources they need to solve their own issues and they don’t need advice
- able to ask the one targeted question which will create a shift in thinking (The NLP metamodel is a superb coaching tool. It is a series of questions which work on the everyday language patterns which people use – patterns which indicate the way a person is thinking. Sometime such patterns are positive and productive but at other times they can be negative and disempowering. A good coffee machine coach listens for such statements and picks one to work with. (See Brilliant NLP by David Molden and Pat Hutchinson for more on the metamodel questioning technique.)
- able to walk away without people even knowing they have just been coached
the courtesy to ask if someone needs help with a particular issue before you offer it
Step 2 – Go about your daily work with your ears open and choose your moment well. Remember to build rapport and pace the person elegantly – you won’t gain brownie points for showing off your skills.
Here are some examples of coffee machine coaching (CMC) in action –
Example 1
Sue – I really don’t understand Dennis – every time I ask him about the layout for the new marketing brochure he goes off on one about how we need to make sure that all our materials are aligned.
CMC – I know what you mean but isn’t it great that he can think so strategically?
Without knowing it Sue’s mind has been focused on Dennis’s strengths and at an unconscious level she will take this on board when next communicating with him.
Example 2
Jen – Tom really isn’t interested in my project.
CMC – Oh what makes you say that?
Jen – I went in to update him on Wednesday morning and he really wasn’t listening. I could have been talking about flying to the moon for all he cared.
CMC – Any idea what was in his diary for Wednesday?
Jen – Yes, he was attending the board meeting where they are going to discuss …………. Oh no! No wonder he was preoccupied. I must ask him how it went.
It is very easy for people to become so wrapped up in their own agenda that they forget about other people’s. Jen has fallen into this trap and put a meaning on Tom’s behaviour which is completely untrue. Simple questioning allows the CMC to open Jen’s mind to other possibilities.
Have fun with coffee machine coaching – its called being human!
Pat Hutchinson
