The Coaching Habit By Michael Bungay Stanier - Thoughts and Review
My Story
When I started as a Software Engineer, coaching or receiving feedback from my boss was a yearly session and done around the same time as the salary performance review. I am sure my boss genuinely tried to help me, but I never found the sessions helpful and didn't look forward to them. The feedback was always around the projects and my behaviour, with comments on what I did well and advice on what I could do better. Whilst it did point out things, I never improved from it.
Since becoming a team leader at work, where a large part of my responsibility is to help people grow, I've realised how hard it is to do coaching well. Our company has a clear list of capabilities for each job role, from Engineer and Support to Sales and Product. But helping people improve in those capabilities can be challenging and sometimes not well received by the person. People can get defensive if you give them advice, but without direction, they can't always improve on their own.
And it can also be very time-consuming. According to the Harvard business review article, leadership that gets results, there are 6 essential leadership styles. Coaching was one of them and was described to have a "marketable positive" impact on performance, culture and bottom line. But it was also the least used. The reason being "many leaders told us they don't have time in this high-pressure economy for the slow and tedious work of teaching people and helping them grow."
The Coaching Habit
This is where the book "The Coaching Habit" by Michael Bungay Stanier really helped. Contrary to the title, the book isn't targeted toward coaches but managers or leaders that want to become good inspirational leaders or help their team members grow. Michael draws from years of experience training more than 10,000 busy managers in practical, everyday coaching skills. He summarises that coaching can be done effectively using seven essential coaching questions. And that coaching doesn't have to be a demanding task. In fact, coaching is simple and can be done in 10 mins or less. And it should be a daily informal act, not in an occasional formal meeting.
Coaching Methods
To better use Michael's coaching method, it's important to understand two coaching styles:
- Coaching for Performance focuses on giving targeted advice to help people learn things fast.
- Coaching for Development focuses on the person learning, improving and solving issues independently but can take longer.
Michael argues that great leaders coach for development, not just for performance because it's deeper and more impactful.
"Coaching for Development involves turning the focus from the problem to be solved and onto the person who is fixing it. By turning the conversation from a situation to a person, you're really asking that person to learn, improve and grow from the situation, and not just to simply deal with the issue at hand." - Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit.
Breaking the Three Vicious Circles
Michael also adds that coaching for development can make your job easier by breaking three vicious circles.
Creating overdependence
If you are always the go-to person for getting something done or the teams often rely on you to make decisions, it's a sign the team is too dependent on you. The result is disempowering your team, and you can become the bottleneck. The negative feedback loop here is the more you help, the more the team needs your help.
Getting overwhelmed
When you are busy doing work that your team should be doing, you can quickly become distracted and overwhelmed by too many meetings, emails and different priorities. And the more overwhelmed you feel, the more you lose focus, which feeds that negative circle again.
Becoming disconnected
Finally, it can make you disconnected from the work that matters. As Michael puts it, it's not just about getting things done. It's about doing work that has impact and meaning. And the less you do work that has meaning, the less you will be engaged and the less likely to create great work.
7 Essential Questions
Michael's coaching method revolves around seven essential questions he shares chapter by chapter with explanations, examples and ways to build new habits to use them.
List of the 7 essential questions:
- "What's on your mind?"
- "And what else?"
- "What is the real challenge here for you?"
- "What do you want?"
- "How can I help?"
- "If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?"
- "What was most useful for you?"
The seven questions are designed to focus on the person and what they want to solve, then guide them to understand their actual issues and encourage them to solve them themselves.
My Key Takeaways
There were four big takeaways from me.
Takeaway 1
The first is to begin a conversation with "What's on your mind?". I had always started with small talk, and whilst it builds trust and relationships and shows care, which is all very important, it doesn't help the person grow.
Asking the person, "what's on your mind?" sets an agenda and lets them decide what to talk about or what matters most. However, if there is someone new to the team, I would still recommend that small talk for a while until a relationship is built. Then, after they've settled into work, start gradually introducing coaching sessions.
Takeaway 2
When listening to someone talk about a problem, resist immediately jumping in and offering advice. I've seen this at work from many colleagues and used to do it regularly myself. I'm always looking for a chance to help someone or suggest ways to improve what they're doing. This is also called "playing the hero". On the surface seems like you are helping the person, but it's the opposite. As Michael put it, though unintentional, this action raises your status but lowers the other person. It does get things done faster and gets the person to do things correctly but doesn't help the person grow.
The "Drama Triangle" from Stephen Karpman helps explain this in more detail. The "drama triangle" describes three roles is usually play out when a problem arises. The three roles are the Victim, the Persecutor and the Rescuer. The Victim doesn't help themselves, while the Persecutor blames them. The Rescuer comes to help but can become angry (the Persecutor) when their help fails to achieve change. And it also has a negative effect in that the Victim continues to depend on the Rescuer. All three roles are unhelpful in the long term and dysfunctional to each other.
Instead of always coming to the rescue, help the person to grow so they can help themselves.
Takeaway 3
It's OK to be lazy and ask, "How can I help?"
This question forces the person to make a direct and clear request and stops you from thinking that you know how best to help and leaping into action. It also helps the person help themselves, as, during the process of answering, they need to consider ways to address their issue.
Takeaway 4
The last point is about making the person understand the impact of their decision. Ask, "If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?". For example, What project are you saying no to or delaying? What relationship do you need to give up? What process or ways of working do you need to change?
This is fantastic and doesn't just apply to the person but to myself with everything in life and work. For every decision or change, there is always a cost to something, whether it be time, money or giving up another thing.
Building New Habit
Even with the essential questions and ideas, coaching can be tricky. But like all things, you can get better at it with time. The book also covers habit-building techniques for you to become a better coach. Now that I think about it, it explains why the book is called "The Coaching Habit".
I adopted some of Michael's suggestions below and found coaching wasn't as daunting or complex as I thought, and it also made it easier for me to gain confidence in doing it well.
Some suggestions to start are:
- Try to start with someone easy
- Buddy up
- Find a coach or mastermind group
- Keep doing it, even after falling.
Final Words
In a company environment, everything is a business, so I understand that results and performance are necessary. But I've always liked to help people grow and are confident that results will follow if you give people enough guidance and provide plenty of education. So the Coaching for Development method works perfectly for my style. Still, I know others who prefer Coaching for Performance.
The audiobook is a little over 3hr and could be finished in a couple of sittings. The ideas are easy to follow, and I've already been able to apply some of them in my role, so it's definitely worth the listen. And I would recommend it even if your style is more Coaching for Performance, as it has some good ideas to become a better coach in general.
