Unleash Your Team’s Potential: Coaching Conversations that Drive Results

Ditch the Command-and-Control Model and Build a High-Performing Team (Part Two)

According to Gallup, nearly 80% of employees worldwide are either not engaged or actively disengaged.¹  Gallup further found that engagement levels would increase significantly if leaders had frequent coaching conversations with their team members.²

Despite the benefits of having regular coaching conversations with their team members, many leaders are still not doing it or, worse, avoiding it!

One common reason leaders say prevents them from coaching is the assumption that they don’t have time. They fail to realise that integrating coaching into their regular conversations with their team members (i.e., coaching-style conversations instead of formal coaching) would take much less time than they expect.

Another common reason that leaders cite is their lack of skills and confidence. They assume that coaching conversations require sophisticated skills that require significant time to learn and master. While coaching conversations benefit from using certain techniques, most skills involved are just conversational skills!

During my coaching training, many leaders were surprised that most of the skills were what they already knew. Yet, because they have not actively used those skills, they are unfamiliar and feel uncomfortable using them.

If you want to coach your team members effectively and unlock their potential, you must start by doing it, even if it means doing it badly. At the core of coaching is the idea of acting, reflecting, and learning. By taking the initiative to try, you are modelling the coaching spirit for your team members while also helping them get comfortable with being coached.

Suppose you have started working on the preparation steps outlined in the previous article. In that case, you are ready to take the next steps.

Transform Your Conversations

Contrary to what some people believe (or advise), you don’t need to have an organisational strategy, structure, systems, and processes in place before you can start having coaching conversations with your team members. While those would be helpful if you are trying to foster a coaching culture throughout your organisation, you can begin by simply transforming your existing conversations (e.g., your regular check-ins with your team members) into coaching-style conversations.

During your conversations with individual team members, whether setting goals, following up, dealing with issues, solving problems, or talking about their development or aspirations, you can transform them into a coaching style by using the following skills.

Skills that You (Probably) Already Know

Some of the following areas are not “skills” in the strictest sense. They also involve mindsets and behaviours that you might have to develop.

Be Curious

As you interact with your team members, curiosity is king!

Move beyond a “getting things done” mentality and be genuinely curious about your team members. To be curious, you must temporarily set aside your assumptions and preconceived ideas. Instead, assume that you don’t know anything and that what you think they are saying is not necessarily what they are actually thinking.

Once we have put aside our assumptions, there are many things we can be curious about. For example,

• What do they mean when they say [a particular word/phrase]?
• What is the reason behind what they are saying?
• What is their perspective about [an issue, problem, situation, etc.]?
• What led them to [a particular] conclusion? What is their thought process?
• What is their intent? What are they trying to achieve or accomplish?
• What specific results or outcomes are they looking for?
• What help do they feel they need?

By adopting an open-minded posture of “I wonder…”, you will likely find even more areas to be curious about.

When you approach your team members with genuine curiosity, you create an environment that encourages open and deep communication.

Listen Well

Listening well involves listening actively. In other words, engage with your team members to fully understand what they are saying as you listen to them.

Instead of “listening so that you can respond”, you “listen to understand.” This way of listening ties back to the posture of curiosity. You ask clarifying questions to help you understand what your team members say (remember those things you wondered about earlier?). As you ask clarifying questions, you are also helping them to clarify their thoughts!

Besides listening for information, there are many other areas you can listen for:

• Their underlying assumptions,
• Their beliefs,
• Their values,
• Their ‘story’ or narratives about themselves, the situation, the issue, or the problem,
• Patterns,
• What’s implied or not said,
• Emotions,
• How they say things,
• and more!

As you listen, give your team members your full attention. By doing so, you tell them they are important to you, and they will respond to you!

“Go beyond fact-finding questions and ask questions that explore assumptions, thought processes, beliefs, and more.”

Ask Better Questions

We all know how to ask questions. However, we also tend to ask certain types of questions (e.g., closed-ended).

To have good coaching conversations, you need to ask more open-ended questions.

Additionally, you need to go beyond fact-finding questions and ask questions that explore assumptions, thought processes, beliefs, and more (including emotions). As you ask better questions, you will see the quality of your coaching conversations improve!

Watch the tone and words you use to frame your questions nonjudgmentally. Doing so will help you create a safe space for exploration with your team members.

Maintain a Posture of Exploration

Most leaders want to get things done. This attitude helps them accomplish things but can also stifle innovation.

However, to have an effective coaching conversation, you need to maintain a posture of exploration. Instead of jumping quickly to solutions, explore the issues from different perspectives. Doing so could lead to unexpected breakthroughs.

To do this well, you need to be open-minded; there may be other ways of arriving at the same results! You need to frame your questions to invite explorations. For example,

• “What if…?” types of questions.
  • What if the assumption were not true?
  • What if resources were not an issue?
• Use words that convey ‘possibilities’.
  • What might be influencing this?
  • What could be possible?
• Questions from different angles or perspectives.
  • Who else might…?
  • How might [culture/values/relationships/laws/stakeholders/etc.] affect…?

You could use specific conversation frameworks to help your exploration, but posture is still the key.

What can leaders do to develop their coaching skills?

Most leaders already know the skills described earlier. To do them well, however, requires practice and experimentation. They are like muscles you have never used before, and developing them requires regular practice.

In addition to regular and consistent use, leaders can learn additional frameworks and techniques to help them coach more effectively.

Consider attending coaching skills workshops that help leaders integrate coaching skills into their leadership roles. Involving your entire team in the training will build a shared understanding that will make your efforts more effective.

Take the Next Steps!

Start applying these skills to your conversations with your team members. Remember, your goal is not perfection. It’s about continuous practice, learning from it, and then getting better at it!

By embracing coaching as a leadership approach, you will empower your team members, unlock their potential, and build a high-performing unit that delivers value and makes a positive impact.

What about you?

What skills do you need to develop in order to have more effective coaching conversations?

What steps must you take to start having coaching conversations with your team?

References:

1  Harter, Jim. “3 Key Insights Into the Global Workplace.” Gallup, June 2024. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/645416/key-insights-global-workplace.aspx.

2  Clifton, Jim. “Gallup Finds a Silver Bullet: Coach Me Once Per Week.” Gallup, May 17, 2021. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/350057/gallup-finds-silver-bullet-coach-once-per-week.aspx.