Managers: Make These Three Shifts To Maximize Your Coaching Conversations

As a manager you are given an opportunity to have regular developmental conversations with your direct reports. Most managers call these conversations coaching. But what really makes coaching conversations beneficial to both parties is the content. What goes on in those small, but very important opportunities could greatly affect what kind of people you develop.
As a coach, I have noticed that some managers (and even myself) tend to focus on certain areas when doing these coaching conversations. I’d like to share three focus shifts I made to my conversations that got me more developmental insights from the person I am coaching. The key is not for you as a manager to become a professional coach but just to employ a coach-like approach in your conversations as you develop people.
- From focusing on your own experience to focusing on the experience of the person being coached. Many managers, becaus eof their vast relevant experience naturally default to being mentors instead of coaches. Mentoring is a powerful way to teach people what you learned from your own experience but if you want people to learn from their own experience, then shifting the focus from you to them is going to be beneficial.
- From listening to respond to listening to understand. Do you ever find yourself listening to a person talking but at the same time formulating a response (more like a rebuttal) at the back of your head? This is exactly what it means when you “listen to respond”. You are more excited about spilling that piece of advice, than understanding the context of the other person. This was a very hard adjustment for me considering I love to talk and teach. I had to do tell my brain to focus and listen attentively without formulating a response.
- From remediation to appreciation. Not that remediation doesn’t bring development. The difference is that remediation intentionally seeks mistakes or a problem to correct. On the other hand, appreciation seeks to find an existing value, encourages it and builds on it to create plans to improve and develop the individual. In this sense, appreciation would encourage a more positive and open discussion.
I noticed that when I shifted my conversations, my coachee became more open and they felt safe sharing their thoughts and experience. The idea here is not to rid your conversations of your own experience, impartations, and to not solve problem areas but instead to open your coaching conversations to these three focus areas to truly maximize the learning of the person.
The above is not an exhaustive list of areas you can focus on. If you’ve done coaching with your direct reports, please comment below any areas you focused on that allowed your coachee to have a better developmental experience through their own insights.
If you need help to learn or apply coaching to your team, please let me know by getting in touch with me.
