To Coach or Not? That’s the Question

Let’s assume you’ve practiced (or mastered) holding performance feedback conversations. 

Now you are ready to explore deeper and more expansive coaching conversations (for career aspirations or personal development).

In general, the difference between the two is that performance-feedback conversations are held specifically to develop skills, behaviors, and attitudes that are performance-related. These conversations require you to wear your manager hat.

Coaching conversations, on the other hand, are broader. They include discussions about current opportunities and challenges or career aspirations. These conversations require you to wear your coach hat.

Our recommendation: Schedule separate sessions, naming them differently to set them apart.

The Coaching Hat

Before we dive deeper into when and how to use the coach hat effectively, let’s review when each hat is best used:

• • Managing: Clarifying direction and fine-tuning processes and systems.
  • Leading: Sharing inspiring direction and compelling visions through words and actions.
  • Consulting: Offering advice and solutions to specific challenges.
  • Mentoring: Informal or formal processes where the flow of information is casually shared (less action-focused and more conversational). Can include career-based conversations and encouragement.
  • Coaching: A formal process where the leader asks powerful open-ended questions to allow the coachee to uncover solutions. It’s action- and accountability- focused.

As you can see, the manager hat is particularly powerful with performance feedback, as it refers to established goals and expectations. The consulting hat (while tempting to use when coaching) can hinder the deeper conversations required to get to the core of issues as it offers advice and solutions generated by the manager, not the employee. Mentoring is the hat most closely linked to coaching, but it is a less formal process and should be clearly distinguished and used separately.

When to Coach (and When Not to Coach)

Think of coaching as a strategy to help those who are open to accelerating their performance. Do not use it as a corrective strategy.

Before opting to coach, consider if the issue is appropriate for coaching, or if it falls under one of the other key skills of managing and leading.

Performance or attitude issues usually fall under the “manager hat,” requiring a clear and concise review of standards, expectations, or training. Pervasive performance issues can also require you to conduct an audit of your personal management effectiveness.

EXERCISE:

• • Consider a current issue you have with someone who isn’t performing to your expectations.
    
  • Follow the flow chart to determine whether coaching is (or isn’t) the appropriate strategy to resolve the issue.
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  • Consider all team members, and place them on this grid based on your perception of their motivation and skill.

For example, if they are highly skilled and internally motivated (requiring little motivation to move into action), they would fall in the top righthand corner. They are excellent candidates to coach, as they need less assistance to produce significant positive momentum and change.

If a person falls in the lower righthand quadrant, they are motivated, but they need your coaching to develop their skills. These are excellent employees to invest time and talent on.

For employees in the top lefthand quadrant, you will need to have a deeper conversation to uncover what may be holding them back. This may be when your leadership or manger hat is a better choice.

Employees falling in the last, bottom left, quadrant, tend to have few skills and are not internally motivated. They may be newer to the job or need clearer directions and expectations to become re-engaged and motivated. Avoid using the coaching hat with them. Instead focus on making processes and expectations clear (manager hat). They may also benefit from basic skills training.

• • Create actions for each person.

For example, if they fall in the top righthand quadrant, ask if they are open to being coached on next steps. It’s easy to forget to coach top performers who are already excelling in their jobs. Having career-aspiration conversations tends be especially powerful. For people falling in the bottom lefthand corner, consider whether a performance-improvement plan (PIP) is appropriate, or explore their openness to training opportunities designed to increase their skills.

Once you’ve identified the people most open to coaching, you’ll need to check on their motivation and commitment to change. You can do so by diving deeper into this post on The Coachability Index.