What you do | Coaching Handbook: An Action Kit for Trainers and Managers

The first thing you do is explore the reasons behind the request for coaching.

If you have initiated the coaching, ask yourself the following list of questions and be prepared to discuss your thoughts with the potential coachee .

What makes you think that this person will benefit from coaching?
What specific behaviours have you noticed that you would like to see changing?
What do you want this person to be able to do better?
What is the person not doing that you believe he or she is capable of?
What achievements do you see this person being able to make as a result of coaching?
What specific incidents can you describe that have led to you suggesting coaching?
What have you told this person about why you think coaching would help him or her?
Why have you chosen coaching, rather than other methods of development?
What support will you be able to give this person during the coaching period and beyond?
What do you think the impact of any changes in this person will be on the team and on others with whom the person comes into contact? What might the coachee need to do to deal with this impact?

If the coachee has initiated the coaching, it may be worth sending the person a revised version of this list of questions so that he or she can put some thought into his or her reasons for wanting coaching before your first meeting. This list of questions may then become the agenda for the first part of your initial meeting.

Is coaching the right approach?

In order to make sure that coaching is appropriate, very simply, go back to the definition of coaching:

The process of helping people enhance or improve their performance through reflection on how they apply a specific skill and/or knowledge.

Once a development need has been identified the main question is how will this need be fulfilled “ is coaching the appropriate answer?

The key questions to ask yourself at this stage are:

Does the person already have the skill or knowledge to perform this task?
Will the person be performing the task in the near future?
If you work with this person on a one-to-one basis, will you be able to help the person enhance or improve the relevant aspect of his or her performance?

If the answer to these questions is ˜Yes , then coaching is probably the way forward. If the answer is ˜No then the following learning methods should be considered :

classroom training;
e-learning;
on-the-job training;
self-study material;
action learning.

Other factors that need to be considered before starting the coaching process are:

Does the potential coach have the skill or knowledge that this person is going to use?
Do the potential coach and coachee have the time to participate in the coaching process? Have you considered the implications on productivity?
Does the potential coach have well-developed coaching skills?
Are there any known relationship issues between the potential coach and the coachee, eg previous conflicts?
Does the coach have a clear understanding of what the development goal is and how to measure its achievement?
Are there standards/competency statements laid down against which performance will be assessed?
Is the coachee aware that he or she has the development need?
Is the coachee willing to be coached?
Is the chosen coach willing to coach this coachee?
Has the coach considered the implications of coaching this person for the rest of his or her team members ?

Initial conversations

Having explored the needs for coaching individually you now enter the most crucial part of this stage, which is discussing these with the coachee. While this could happen over the telephone, there is much to gain by having a face-to-face meeting. The aim is to have an honest and open conversation around the question ˜Why are we here? . This is also an opportunity to explore what you both understand about the purpose of coaching in general, ie that coaching is not necessarily remedial and is actually about moving performance forward from where it is today, whether this performance is good or poor.

Another point to make during this conversation is your motive as the coach. This is especially important if you have an existing relationship with the person as he or she may be wondering about this. If you are the person s line manager you may be viewed with extreme suspicion unless you explain exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it. Equally, if you are not the coachee s line manager, he or she may wonder why you are doing this, what it really means, who else knows and what you will be getting out of it.

Part of this conversation will be about explaining the model of coaching so that the coachee understands the systematic approach that you are intending to follow. Go through the model and, if appropriate, give the coachee a copy of the process (shown in Chapter 3). As well as being open about the process, this allows the opportunity for you to tailor it to specific styles of working and opens the discussion about other requirements such as working hours and meeting places. This is also where you can talk about how you are going to work together, including any feedback that you will be giving to the coachees managers, or others; requirements that you both should meet such as being on time for meetings or the coachee completing ˜homework . Explain to the coachee your ethics and stance on confidentiality, making mistakes and receiving feedback yourself. Ask the coachee if there are any ground rules that he or she would like you both to work with.

At the end of your meeting, ask the coachee if he or she feels that you will be able to work together. Chances are that the person will not say ˜No , but the way in which ˜Yes is said will tell you a great deal. Observe body language, listen to the tone of voice used and decide whether you need to probe any further.

You may not wish to continue coaching this person if:

You cannot get on. There is little rapport between you and you question whether you will be able to work together in this way. Rapport takes some time to build, but you will have an initial feel for how your relationship is likely to develop. Remember that you do not have to like each other, but you do need to have mutual respect and be able to establish a working relationship. If you feel that rapport can never be developed, now is the time to withdraw from the relationship.
You don t feel that you are the right person to coach because you feel that you do not have enough knowledge of the subject matter. Depending on what you are coaching, it is not essential that you are able to perform at the level that the coachee is attempting to achieve. You need enough experience and knowledge of the subject matter to be able to help identify where the coachee could do better and help steer him or her towards the identified targets or standards.
Having talked to the coachee you don t feel that coaching is the right development solution. It may become apparent that the coachee has training needs or even that his or her learning or communication style is such that the intense nature of the coaching relationship will not be right for this person.

Having established the overall development needs and decided that coaching is the right solution, you need to summarize the main points and create clear goals for the coaching that are agreed with your coachee. A development goal describes the overall purpose of what you will be doing. It describes what the coachee hopes to achieve from the process “ the goal is about deciding where you are going, not how you will get there.

If practical, record this conversation in writing, and pass a copy of your notes to the coachee, so that you have the same understanding of what went on and an agreed way forward. Your notes here can then feed into Stage 2 of the process where you set the specific objectives for the coaching (see Chapter 7).