Episode #326: The Mental Game Of Coaching In Business

Today there is a lot of discussion about conscious and unconscious bias in the workplace, especially when directed towards women. This is a significant issue. What a lot of people don’t realise though, is that this also extends into the coaching area as well. The heart of the problem is how we see our people. In the 1960s, Douglas McGregor was researching the sources of motivation in teams and he came up with an interesting insight called Theory X and Theory Y leaders.

Theory X leaders see their people as being basically stupid, lazy, unreliable and disloyal. They have to be managed very closely and watched all the time. This means anticipating trouble, catching errors, looking for mistakes and watching their behavior carefully. They require very close supervision. We need to tell them what to do and how to do it in great detail, because left to themselves, they will make a big mess of it. We expect they will fail, so a lot of leader time is taken scanning the horizon for trouble, observing them closely for poor performance and berating them when they make mistakes.

This bias in how we see our people spills over into how we coach them. For a start we probably avoid coaching them at all, because we think it is pointless. Time is short, so we minimize our time spent with them. When we do spend time with them we are firing out orders, rather than letting them say much. We do most of the talking, we don’t try to source their input and we feel we have to guide them in everything, because they are so useless. They feel this too and they tend to respond by fitting in with the way we treat them.

In the case of Theory Y leaders, they see the potential in their people. They believe that basically the vast majority of people are smart, honest, decent, hardworking, loyal individuals, doing their best for the organisation and their families. They have good abilities, are committed and want to work hard. They can be trusted to run projects delegated to them. They can take ownership and can be held accountable for results.

When it comes to coaching these team members, we apply a different approach to Theory X leaders. We get them talking during the coaching session. We encourage them to come up with ideas. We use good listening skills, because we know that we all “own the world we help create”, so to get ownership, we want them to determine how the project should be run. We expect they will have ideas and that they are coachable.

Now there are four competency levels applying to our team members (and ourselves by the way). The unconscious incompetent is the person who doesn’t realise they lack skills. They think they are better than they actually are in reality. The conscious incompetent understands they need to become better because they are not at the level they need to be and they know it. The conscious competent knows their own ability quite clearly. The unconscious competent is someone who has great, as yet, unrealised potential. They have abilities but something is hiding it from their view.

Depending on whether we are a Theory X or Theory Y leader we will approach each of these situations quite differently. Theory X leaders are looking to fire people, while Theory Y leaders are looking to build people. If you are thinking I don’t care about the people, because I am here to get results then you are looking at trouble brewing. In today’s market for staff, retaining people is going to be the critical leadership skill. The way to do that is through the combination of training and coaching. Those who don’t get it will eventually work it out, when they have staff turnover issues, find they can’t replace people so easily and the fees for doing so are very high. This will be pure pain.

For the leader taking a positive view of their team, the unconscious incompetent needs coaching and training. They lack self awareness and exposure to training with others shows them where they have gaps. The conscious incompetent actually demands training and coaching because they know they are accountable for their results and they see their lack of skills as a career progression blocker. They are usually open to advice and are hungry to move forward.

The conscious competent wants recognition for their contribution and abilities. Funnily enough, as leaders we think they don’t need anything, because they are already very good. We tend to leave them alone and work on the people who are struggling or not performing. With the people who are good, we need to tell them are good and encourage them to aim even higher because we can see they have the potential. They recognise their potential too and are open to having resources made available to help them, to go further in their careers. If we don’t invest time in them, they are capable and will be likely to leave, seeking faster progression somewhere else. They need to be coached to get to the highest level possible and retained in the organisation.

The unconscious competent is like finding a gold nugget. Here they are working away under the radar, only doing a fraction of what they are capable of. They are not expensive and relative to their potential productivity are a bargain. We see the spark inside them and through and coaching start to help them see what they could become. They are often holding themselves back through lack of confidence. We need to help them gain that confidence by giving them progressively more and more responsibility to show where they can shine. Through training an coaching they can unlock their hidden abilities and become a strong contributor in the organisation.

So as a coach, how do you see your people? Theory Y leaders build organisations. They see their people in different stages of development and adjust their approach to suit rather than bundling many of them into the “hopeless” category and giving up on them. Take another look at your own unconscious biases towards your people. Check to make sure you are not creating a leadership nightmare for yourself, by the way you see your people in the team. Are you a theory X or theory Y leader? Have you segmented your people into the four competency levels and adjusted your coaching to suit?