Who's next? What would you like? I mean the mood for a coaching culture. Sure, large or small?
Maybe small? Nah, let's go for large. We might as well. Okay, it might take a while to prepare that.
Just take a seat. Right, well, thanks for joining me for episode number two of Management Cafe, where we can consume some evergreen theories and models from our main menu, while considering today's specials, those movements and trends that surround organisations today. If we haven't had a coffee together before, my name is Pilar Orte, and in this Management Cafe, I'd like to share the evolving role of the manager in organisations today, mainly looking at what sometimes is referred to as soft skills. Those skills that have to do with interacting with others and which are from being soft or very, very hard.
So today I've ordered a coaching culture, and if you want to see what else is on the menu, head over to virtualnotdistant.com.com.com where you will find the other episodes of Management Cafe, as well as those for 21st century work life. Virtual not distant is the sponsor of this podcast. So have a look at our website and see whether we can help you and your team transition from working regularly in the office together to operating more like a virtual team. And in today's episode, we will indeed be touching on how do you create a coaching culture also in virtual teams, when coaching is such a personal thing.
But as with most of our practice in virtual or remote, the principles are the same as when we work face to face. We are still human, even if we are behind the computer. It's just the way in which we tackle these issues is different, of course. Finally, before settling in for our coffee, if you just want to subscribe to this podcast, you can do so via your podcast app, or if you want to receive an email with a new episode, then go to managementcafepodcast.com.
Here's your order. Great. That wasn't too long ago. A large cup of coaching culture.
I'm about to start. Coaching was almost a buzzword a decade ago. We started to realize that one size of training doesn't fit all and that a really personal approach to development was probably a better investment of an organization's money. So better to employ a coach to help with behavior change, especially at the senior level, when it's more difficult to identify the problems we need to address, better to employ a coach than send everyone on a course.
Now, during today's coffee, I'm not really interested in talking about employing external coaches or even how to work with internal ones. I think that's a completely different conversation. What I wanted to share with you today is whether it would help us to create a coaching culture in our teams and organizations. Okay, you're almost creating another annoying buzzword.
I hear you say coaching culture. You can probably Google that and so much stuff is going to come up and yeah, sorry, you're right. And I'll explain what I mean by that because the learning and development world, HR world is actually using coaching culture to mean the use of external coaches and coaching practices and tools by managers. And I like to go just a bit further than that, further and broader.
So what I'm talking about is about building an environment where we are all encouraged to solve problems ourselves by taking the time to reflect by asking ourselves and others questions instead of immediately looking for answers from others. Let me be a bit more specific on this too, rather than looking for quick fixes, which actually might not even be addressing the real problem because we haven't even had time to identify what the real problem is. Rather than quick fixes, let's see whether we can start to support each other by really digging into what's going on. And sometimes this involves asking questions rather than providing solutions.
So that's exactly what taking a coaching approach as a manager is for me. Or even as a team member to support each other, it means asking questions before coming up with solutions to other people's problems. And that is really hard, especially if you are in a management position where traditionally you've been led to believe that you are there to make sure everyone does a good job and solves everyone's problems. And if you're someone used to working in a very hierarchical organization, then you'll be used to manage your solving your problems for you.
And you might have even heard that's a management's problem. So yeah, asking questions is not that easy. For one, I've come to realize that people sometimes are suspicious of questions. I've run workshops when I've asked after an exercise, okay, how was that?
How did that make you feel? And people have indeed told me whatever. And then they follow their answers with, is that what you were looking for? To which my answer was always I wasn't looking for anything.
That's why I asked your question. I just wanted to share how you felt. That's why I asked it was a real genuine question. But I think we are so used to leading questions when people who know they can solve our problems pretend they are asking questions when all they're doing is leading us to verbalize what is actually in their heads.
So that's the first barrier to a coaching approach to management. On the whole, we're not used to being asked questions, like real questions where our answer is not right or wrong. It's just our answer. I mean, coaching is not just about that.
I had a lovely interview on the 21st century work live podcast. I think something like episode eight with Phil Hayes, who is a coach. And he said, well, coaching is a coach is just someone who sees the potential in someone else and helps them to get there. So I like that also from in this context, because it means that we are seeing the potential in other people.
And instead of trying to lead them through the road that we think is best, we're just going to try and help them and help them and just support them. So I also like that. So, yeah, I mean, the main problem I think is that asking questions takes time. So what's faster to say?
Oh, yes, if it's not working for you in that way, try this. That's how I do it. So yeah, granted, in some situations that might be the best course of action. But in other things, it might actually be better to stop and ask.
So why do you think it's not working? Or what exactly isn't working? Or what exactly is bothering you about that? And you see what I mean?
It will take ages, won't it? What if you never take time to help people identify for themselves, how they can move forwards? And they is very important. It's about how they would move forwards, not about how you think they should.
If you never take the time for people to figure it out for themselves, then you will end up as a problem solver. And then when you go holiday, you'll be checking your emails every day. Now, before I carry on, I know that sometimes we want people's opinions when we ask for help. There's nothing more annoying than asking someone for help and then then replying, well, how would you do it?
I don't know that I'm asking you. So, you know, we like always do everything, take everything with a pinch of salt and also just give you a common sense. But I hope that you know what I mean. So as always, if you are in a position of formal authority, you will be role modeling behavior in your team.
Group norms will form around what you are perceived to be doing, like it or not. And no matter how flat your organization is and how much of a non-bossy boss you are. So if you are seen to be asking questions and you're really interested in supporting people to find the answers for themselves, then maybe others will start to do the same around you. And who knows?
Maybe you have your team members helping you in that way. If you want to feel supported by your team members, then you need to let them start to know that you're okay with that approach as well. So something else, something else for you to think about that creating that coaching culture is not just about you changing your management style to coach others in a day-to-day interaction, but also to allow for your own development to be influenced in that way. So I know that there will be many instances when this approach will not work because, hey, not everyone is perfect.
And although most people do want to do a good job, then some people can just be problematic. Some people might lack skills. So this is not going to work all the time for everyone. So feel free to share your concerns around any of this or even better.
Share your stories with us. And you can do this in the blog for managementcafepodcast.com and look for episode two on coaching. So tell us. We like to read them.
And I love to hear from you. So coaching culture, it's all about asking questions. It's about probing to identify the real problem before jumping in to give advice. And here I could say, well, quick reminder of open questions, which are preceded by what, how, when, who, and why.
And this last one is the most difficult one to make work. I'm not even right way of saying that. Because why sometimes feels like we're accusing someone. Like, why are you doing that?
Why did you decide to go down that road? So, yeah, but we can change all that, can't we? And that was not a real question either. I was just trying to get you to agree with me.
Oh, yeah. So why is a coaching culture useful to have in your team? Now I could post this and like I could just wait now and let you answer it for yourself, calm, give it a try. Although this was a rhetorical question because I'm about to give you the answer.
Or at least I'm about to give you my opinion. So why is a coaching culture useful to have in your team? Well, unfortunately, you're going to have to trust me on this one because for the life of me, I haven't been able to find any data on this. I found some stuff on the coaching, coaching culture was mentioning earlier, which is all about bringing in external coaches, etc.
But haven't found anything around what I'm talking about here. So if you do have the data handy, either way, because if I'm wrong, I also want to know, then let me know, managementcafagaportcast.com, or if Twitter is your thing at plar or t. But let's put to one side of that. I can't present some data here to support my argument.
Let's see what you think of it. Things are changing now faster than ever before. That's like, I don't know, the sentence that we've been hearing in blog post on articles for the last five years, but it's true. And processes that we have been using for ages start to become irrelevant.
And surely you want people to stay nimble, to be trusted, to solve their problems, to feel like they can innovate. And you don't want people to think that only managers can identify problems, to see opportunities to improve things. But people need to be trusted. And now that we're starting to work from anywhere, or that we're able to not be office bound for work, then this becomes even more important.
So I'll tell you a bit about the coaching approach in virtual or hybrid teams in a moment. But before I do that, let me just share a quick story from work rules. And I love this story by Laszlo walk from Google. So this story, I really like it.
It's not a tool of story illustrating a coaching conversation. But I think it illustrates where we want to get to with this approach. So Laszlo talks about a time at McKinsey and Company when he had a manager called Andrew. And you know, I'm just going to read this bit to you, because why paraphrasing when he puts it so beautifully.
So in 1999, we were serving a financial services company and doing one of the first e-commerce projects our firm had ever done. Remember e-commerce? I brought a draft report to him to Andrew, his manager. And instead of editing it, he asked, do I need to review this?
I knew deep down that while my report was good, he would surely find some room for improvement. Realizing this, I told him I wasn't ready and went back to refine it further. I came back to him a second time. And the second time he asked, do I need to review this?
I went away again. On my fourth try, he asked the same question and I told him, no, you don't need to review it. It's ready for the client. He answered, terrific, nice work, unscented to the client without even glancing at it.
Now, wouldn't it be great if we all worked with people like that, with managers who trust us and with people we can trust. Of course, there are many other things that need to be in place for this to work, like good recruitment, great skills, etc. But I hope you see my point. It would have been very easy for last-less manager to pick up the report, make lots of corrections to it, and then say, here you go.
But isn't this a much better way of working? What signals does it give out? What kind of behavior does it encourage? Right, I won't post too much here because my cup of coaching culture is getting cold.
So let me move on to why this kind of team culture is becoming even more important now. Why as managers we have to stop trying to solve problems for everyone and support people to learn by themselves on the job. Now that people are starting to work from home, now that it's more normal to work with others across the globe, now that virtual teams are becoming so common that I can just see we're going to drop the word virtual very soon, we have to find ways of people working independently. I don't mean in isolation, that's very different, but I do mean that our interactions become more purposeful and our teams and organizations become flatter.
Everything I've been talking about in this episode can also be done online through tech. For example, next time you're commenting or giving advice on something in writing, read through and ask yourself, what kind of behavior am I encouraging here? Is there a different way of approaching this? What questions are going to help them or even help us to come to a better conclusion?
And if you're posting on a collaboration platform, this becomes even more important as your behavior is in public and therefore you're likely to be role modeling. And as you can see from my suggestions, ask yourself lots of questions too. Take a breath. The most important thing about this coaching stuff, whether we're talking culture, management style or even working with external coaches, is that we actually stop to think, to reflect, to ask, to correct or to sustain.
That is the most important thing. Everything else, the questions, the tools, if you absolutely must use them. Even the coaching sessions, if you want to make them more formal, all that comes later. The first thing you need to do is acknowledge that stopping is important, that giving space to your team members to grow is important.
Then the difficult part comes, which is figuring out the kind of questions that are going to help the person figure out and understand the nature of the problem, granted. But the first thing is to pause. Well, I think that Kathy's getting busy, so I'd better go. But if you'd like to keep the table, I can recommend you grab the coaching habit by Michael Fungastania, the coaching habit.
He talks through the kind of behaviors that will help to make asking questions a habit and easier, and he makes the case for this really well. In all honesty, it's not the kind of book I usually recommend. It's a bit too much. This is how you do it for my liking.
I like stuff that is more full of stories and examples and I can draw my own conclusions, but I like it. And this is something that you, if you would like to explore, then it's really worth reading. So I'll leave you with that. I'd love to know what you thought of this episode.
I'd love to know what other topics you'd like me to cover in this podcast. So if you want to say hello, or if you want to subscribe to this podcast, go to management cafe podcast, and you can find me there. And Twitter is also a good place to connect. I'm at Pilar or T.
And finally, if you are making the transition to virtual or hybrid, then check out the website virtualnotdistant.com and the 21st century work live podcast. And yeah, and there you can contact me through that website or Pilar at virtualnotdistant.com is my email if you want to get in touch. And also, I might as well say this now, virtual not distant has indeed been set up to help managers and team leaders or virtual teams or those in transition through training, coaching, yes, the external coaching type, and team facilitation, which is like team coaching. The idea is we help you to sort it out for yourself because you usually go on the answers.
You just need the space and permission to work them out. And then we move on. And yeah, it's a terrible business model because we come in help make yourself sufficient to move away. But hey, I have to practice what I preach.
So my little management challenge today is to keep an eye out and see if you can catch yourself trying to solve other people's problems when actually in the long run, it would be better for them to solve them by themselves. So let me know how you get on. And I hope you'll join me for another coffee soon.