Archive for the ‘coaching’ Category
How Can Coaching Synergize a Community?
August 5th, 2009 | 
Author: Our ancestors, in the spirit of community, regularly sat around a fire to have conversations that deepened their own communal connections. This dialog assisted in increasing the quality of life in the places where they lived. In our modern-day communities, there is a longing for shared meaning, connections, and the deep conversation that coaching can bring to our world of electronic social media and speed-of-lightening pace.
Can coaching build and support community?
How can coaching support the individuals and organizations that sometimes struggle to define their roles and find their place in the modern community? What are the ways that these organizations can work synergistically to optimize the spirit of community? What does coaching have to learn from a community? What can a community learn from coaching?
Join us!
Senior coaches and community leaders will explore these topics through “Synergy in Community”, the first International Consortium of Coaching in Organizations’ (ICCO) Community Symposium on August 27-29 in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
The word “synergy” invokes the combined sum of individuals doing greater good than a single person can alone. In this ICCO community symposium, we will be exploring how the combined sum of individuals and organizations can work together to create and sustain greatness within our communities.
We’re all the “somebodies” responsible for our communities
In the places where we reside, people often pass by their next door neighbors without knowing them; they expect their governments or “somebody” to take care of the problems of crime, poverty, empty buildings, unemployment, litter and whatever else plagues the places they live and work in. These problems must be dealt with in order for us to enjoy the successes of synergy in our communities. They can be only be addressed by the “somebodies”(individuals and organizations) who are willing to roll up their shirtsleeves and work together for the common good of the places they live and work in. Does coaching have a role in supporting the somebodies who are responsible for enhancing the quality of life in our communities? Many believe it does.
Kalamazoo, Michigan is a mid-sized city with a cultural history of somebodies who have taken responsibility to assure that life in their community is the best that it can be. It is a city of business innovation, beginning with W.E. Upjohn and his “friable pill” that fueled The Upjohn Company growth, as well as a myriad of companies throughout its history, embraced the innovation that fueled prosperity and the growth of the community: Checker Motors, Gibson Guitars, Stryker and many others. More recently, it is the home of the ground-breaking “Kalamazoo Promise”, where an anonymous group of donors has funded the college education for every graduating high school senior. In refusing to accept the economic recession as reality, Kalamazoo has recently supported new and existing companies in moving here or expanding, resulting in several thousand new jobs in the region.
However, Kalamazoo, like any city, cannot simply sit back and revel in its success. The quality of life in any community requires an ongoing collaborative spirit of dedicated individuals and organizations willing to “grab the rope” and work together, as in this excerpt from the book, Community Capitalism: Lessons from Kalamazoo and Beyond, by Ron Kitchens:
“”Grab the rope!”
That is what you are likely to hear if you find yourself on a ship, becalmed and threatened. That is what you will hear when you have no wind to sail by or engines to propel. You must resort to kedging to get out of trouble.
?€¦..Kedging is the act of having a light anchor (a kedge) loaded into a rowboat and taken out as far as the lines tied to it will allow. After dropping the anchor, every man, woman, and child on the main boat grab the rope and pull the line as if his or her life depended on it, literally hauling the ship to the anchor. This is repeated again and again until the ship arrives at its destination or the fair winds once again blow.”
We hope that those of you who work, live, volunteer and have your heart in your community will consider joining us and grabbing the rope at the ICCO Symposium in Kalamazoo, Michigan on August 27-29, to explore and learn together how coaching can support the synergy in our communities.
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Hello, I'm Here to Change You
Helpful suggestions from others about what we should do to change our behavior aren`t always, well, helpful. This is especially true when they come to us unsolicited.
Many leaders have a compulsion to let people know what they are doing wrong and how they need to change to do things “right.” It is this striving to change others that gives performance evaluation a bad rap. Just the word “evaluation” shifts our anxiety into overdrive. Most of us don`t want to be evaluated; we prefer that a leader assist us with our own development.
As a leader, you may have found that telling others what they need to do to change doesn`t seem to generate loyal followers. In fact, when this unsolicited helpfulness becomes a regular habit, you might find people running the other way when they see you.
Okay, so your intentions are pure. You want to be helpful to someone, a good performer, who needs a little guidance. But intention is only part of the equation, and you may actually be weakening their ability to change themselves. Owning the power to change ourselves is much more energizing than having someone else try to change us. In fact, telling someone to change their behavior can be perceived as a threat and it shuts down their motivation to change. This leaves all kinds of human potential on the table.
So what`s a leader to do? Try coaching instead. Learning coaching skills has become a regular requirement for management in organizations. This skill set provides a means to catalyze individual development, including personal ownership of professional change.
Like many things in leadership, coaching skills are relatively simple. They are, however, often difficult to put into practice.
When I ask my clients if they know how to tell people what to do, they nod their heads enthusiastically, proud of the fact that they`ve mastered this skill. I admit this is a trick question. I know that many leaders haven`t mastered the skills of asking great questions and really listening.
Asking and listening are at the heart of coaching others. When these skills are first practiced, you may be surprised at how difficult they are, yet how effective they can be.
Asking and listening tools must be a part of your toolbox if you expect your followers to become whole, independent, empowered and incredibly effective. A great question, when asked strategically, can provide the fuel for enormous change within an individual. Great listening allows a follower to “think out loud” and it is a sign that you care (reminiscent of the saying, “People don`t care how much you know until you show how much you care”).
The days of telling people what to do are coming to an end. Leaders are discovering that they can`t change others; they can only change their approach to them. When you learn to listen and ask, you may find your frustrations with striving to change others have also come to an end.
Feedback vs. Coaching as a Leadership Tool
So often, “coaching” is used as a buzz term for almost any kind of interaction in the workplace (and everywhere else. Who would have thought there would be such a thing as a “knitting coach”?).
The term has been confused, misused, misunderstood and blasphemed. Yet, coaching is hot in the workplace. Executive coaches work with senior leaders and high potentials. More to the point, organizations are starting to consider the skill of coaching as an essential core competency for their leadership. Organizations that understand the importance of a developing, learning environment understand what “coaching” is.
But what I find is “coaching” most often confused with “feedback”, and sometimes “advice”. Here are some differences between coaching and feedback:
Coaching is:
- Focused on future behavior
- Developmental
- Inquiry oriented
- Used to help good performers move in the direction most appropriate for them
Feedback is:
- Focused on past behavior
- Evaluative
- “Telling” or “Advice” oriented
- Used to help poor performers move in a prescribed direction
In the end, coaching is about “letting go” and assuming the person being coached is whole, smart, and understands the best direction to head in. Feedback is more about control. Any questions?
See my favorite web sites on coaching: Professional Coaches Association of Michigan, International Consortium of Coaching in Organizations, International Coach Federation, Aspire Collaborative Services LLC.
Welcome!
Welcome to the premier blog for Mary Jo Asmus. This blog will be a forum for those who read my columns in Business Review and any other potential clients of Aspire Collaborative Services, colleagues and others interested in leadership and executive coaching. I look forward to the conversation.
