The following steps describe the basics of my behavioral coaching process. Marshall Goldsmith was pioneer in this process, and I am blessed to have learned from him. Marshall is the #1 Leadership Thinker, #1 Coach with the #1 Coaching process in the world.
1.- Involve the leaders being coached in determining the desired behavior in their leadership roles.
Leaders cannot be expected to change behavior if they don’t have a clear understanding of what desired behavior looks like. The people that I coach (in agreement with their managers, if they are not the CEO) work with me to determine desired leadership behavior.
2.- Involve the leaders being coached in determining key stakeholders.
Not only do clients need to be clear on desired behaviors, they need to be clear (again in agreement with their managers, if they are not the CEO) on key stakeholders. There are two major reasons why people deny the validity of feedback: wrong items or wrong raters. By having leaders and their managers agree on the desired behaviors and key stakeholders in advance, I help ensure their “buy in” to the process.
3.- Collect feedback.
In my coaching practice, I personally interview all key stakeholders to get confidential feedback for the leaders I coach. The people who I am coaching are all Executives, and the company is making a real investment in their development. This more involved level of feedback is justified. It is impossible to get evaluated on changed behavior if there is not agreement on what behavior needs to be changed!
4.- Reach agreement on key behaviors for change.
As I have become more experienced, my approach has become simpler and more focused. I generally recommend picking only 1-2 key areas for behavioral change with each leader. This helps ensure maximum attention to the most important behavior. Leader and their manager (unless my client is the CEO) agree upon the desired behavior for change. This ensures that I won’t spend a year working with a leader and have their managers determine that we have worked on changing the wrong behavior!
5.- Have the coaching clients respond to key stakeholders.
The leader being coached should talk with each key stakeholder and collect additional “feedforward” suggestions on how to improve on the key areas targeted for improvement. In responding, the person being coached should keep the conversation positive, simple, and focused. When mistakes have been made in the past, it is generally a good idea to apologize and ask for help in changing in the future.
As was stated earlier, leaders I work with have to agree to the basic steps in our process. On the other hand, outside of the basic steps, all of the other ideas that I share with the leader are suggestions. I just ask them to listen to my ideas in the same way they are listening to the ideas from their key stakeholders. I then ask them to come back with a plan of what they want to do. These plans need to come from them, not me. After reviewing their plans, I almost always encourage them to live up to their own commitments. I am much more of a facilitator than a judge. My job is to help great, highly motivated, executives get better at what they believe is most important — not to tell them what to change.
7.- Develop an ongoing follow-up process.
Ongoing follow-up should be very efficient and focused. Questions like, “Based upon my behavior last month, what ideas do you have for me next month?” can keep a focus on the future. Within six months I tend to conduct a brief mini-survey with key stakeholders. This survey asks them whether the person being coached has become more or less effective in the areas targeted for improvement.
If the person being coached has taken the process seriously, stakeholders almost invariably report improvement. WI then build on that success by repeating the process for the next 6 to 12 months. This type of follow-up will assure continued progress on initial goals and uncover additional areas for improvement. Stakeholders almost always appreciate follow-up. No one minds filling out a focused, 5-minutes questionnaire if they see positive results. The person being coached will benefit from ongoing, targeted steps to improve performance.
9.- End the formal coaching process when results have been achieved.
My goal is not to create a dependency relationship between coach and client. While I almost always keep in touch with my coaching ‘graduates’ for the rest of their lives, I do not have an ongoing business relationship.
This process is indeed simple, but not easy. And remember that what got you where you are now, won´´´ ´t get you where you want to go.