1. What is Coaching?

2. Why Coaching helps your Project?

3. How to Coach your Team for Success?

What is Coaching?

Coaching is the day-to-day process of talking with your team to uncover their skill gaps, concerns, and performance goals, using discussion to identify and help them resolve their own issues.  And, where needed, supplying on-the-job training to up their skills and address knowledge gaps.

Coaching is how managers enable their team's success through the active use of 5 key skills:

• Listening

• Questioning

• Allowing for self-discovery

• Building skills

• Challenging

Coaching is about enabling the staff that reports to you. A coach's goals are aligned to the success of their team members. In business, like in sports - the coach's goal is to ensure the team works as one and that each team member has the right ability and skills to execute their role.  

A coach also needs to challenge team members to maximize their potential and give them the freedom to grow into new roles as they progress.   

Mentorship has a different goal and process. The Mentor is an external advisor. The goal is to support their mentee, but they generally do not work in the same company or area. Therefore, their goals and outcomes are not directly aligned. While every Mentor wants their mentee to succeed, their job is not day-to-day problem solving and skill-building, but rather, support their mentee to set goals and build a roadmap to achieve them.

Get an overview of Mentoring and the Mentoring Process Workbook here.

Why Coaching helps your Project?

Project Managers use coaching in a variety of ways:

1. Building individual skills and confidence

2. Creating a team environment

3. Ensure succession planning through staff growth

Your job is to shepherd the project to completion. Do this by leveraging the potential of each team member and the team as a whole. Create a culture of commitment to solution-oriented work and execution. Build day-to-day CoachingCoaching into this culture. Doing so will make day-to-day discussion-based problem solving a natural way of working.  

By unlocking the power of teamwork to self-manage issue resolution, the Project Manager creates a team capable of addressing virtually any issue confidently.

The Project Manager's job is to create the environment for staff to ask for help, talk things through and own the solution and the action plan.

Coaching is about offering questions to help staff assess a situation, understand the issue, and develop a solution.

Make a Coaching Kick-off

Work with your team on the project start to discuss the Coaching process. Share what they can expect and how you have used this in the past. Ask your team for input on the best way to implement CoachingCoaching. 

Ask a few open-ended questions to discuss:

• Timing - when is Coaching most helpful

• Framing - who should Coach and why

• Scoping - Coaching vs. Training

Some points for review 

Ask team members to consider their own values and the related impact to their best way of working (or work fulfillment). This can help them understand if they are a risk-taker or value consistency and known outcomes. Doing this personal self-assessment and sharing something of their values with the Coach/Project Manager will align Coaching styles to the style and values of each team member.  

While this process may take time, the Project Manager Coach needs to understand something about each team member to respect their values when Coaching. Coaching needs to be embraced by all to unlock the potential of each team member and not seen as a micromanagement tool for the Project Manager. 

Discuss your lessons learned and wins while Coaching to share the impact you have seen. Ask if others have had any experiences to share. If issues from past projects are defined, agree on how to avert them in the new project.

Clearly define how Coaching will work. Note the responsibilities and performance of each team member will not be directly related to Coaching- so everyone is open to asking and accepting coaching moments. 

However, also be clear that outcomes and actions agreed upon as part of Coaching are the team member's responsibility - follow-through will be key to each team member's success.

Once set up and in use. Review the effectiveness of Coaching:

• Team adoption - is it working as designed?

• Improved performance - is it measurable: reduced failures, improved deliverables or delivery dates?

• Individual growth - is the goal of personal growth in skills and confidence to self-management realized?

If the answers show that Coaching needs improve, take action to improve things. Challenge the team members to invite discussion and help to make the best outcomes the standard for your project.  

You can create a Coaching Corner in your team room to have a list of questions to kick off the process - to get the conversation started. But remember to use curiosity, not a specific list, to expand problem-solving. Have a flip chart of ideas generated from these exercises to create a badge of success for cooperative working.

When the Project has a "Problem," Ask:

• open-ended questions

• if the team has all of the information needed

• if someone else should be involved in solutioning

• what they would do if they were on their own

• what the impact of the solution would be

• how they want to feel once the solution is in place

• how the solution may impact and others and what they need to know

How to Coach your Team for Success?

As a Coach and manager, you don't need to know everything or solve every problem. Rather, you want to focus on working with your team members to unlock the ability to assess and define the problems they face. And then give them space to choose the best way to resolve the issue.

The type of information and time needed to share it will often drive the option used. It is not one-size-fits-all. Use each of these options given the situation and the team member.

3 things are key to the process of Coaching:

1. An Open and honest environment. People will not ask for help if they risk rebuke instead.

2. Curious questions. Asking open-ended curious questions opens the possibilities and creativity in the conversation. Instead of jumping to the first solution, options can be discussed and considered.

3. Self-directed action. Let the team members self-manage. Most will have the information and capability to do so, and those that don't will benefit from growing into their ability to self-manage. Whenever possible, steps 1 and 2 should unlock the solution from the team member.  

The "FACTS" model can be useful to define the Coaching process further. This model is detailed by John Blakey and Ian Day in "Transformational Coaching."

Feedback - open and honest input from the Coach ensures the conversation is real and will address the problem. It also increases the mutual respect of both people involved. 

Accountability - creates a sense of duty to own and complete the task. Discuss actions and follow-up dates once the solution is clear and agreed upon.

Courageous goals - when the coach believes the team member is 'aiming low,' them about it. Find out if they feel the idea is the best or the outcome or timing could be improved. Be clear if you think they are taking the easy way out without blaming. And be ready for their answer. They may have considered points not discussed and discarded ideas with good reason.

Tension - pressure drives peak performance. Stress is not good long-term, but taken in small doses can increase focus resulting in team flow. It can create unity (think again of sports teams that overcome to win).  

System thinking - solving problems can often create unintended outcomes. Use questions to ensure that the broader goals of the team are considered. Make sure that solutions are aligned to the larger objectives of the team and organization.

So what do you find important about Coaching as an approach to day-to-day project management? Please share your thoughts and success stories below.