So you have knowledge workers, who are trying to build habits, but what about building your own coaching habit?
In this 7 part series, we will cover questions that will help you be an effective coach. This is for any role in which you might be leading or coaching others. Think about it like this, you should be able to coach someone in ten minutes or less, and it should be a daily informal act, not a “It’s time to be coached” event.
When you develop good coaching habits, it:
- Encourages knowledge workers to work on their own with little oversight from you
- Prevents you from being overwhelmed
- Helps people do more work with meaning (both the coach and the knowledge workers)
We all know it’s a challenge to change our habits and old ways of behaving. To build an effective new habit, think about these five things:
- Reason
Be clear on the payoff. The habit is not about helping you, it’s about helping others. - Trigger
Be specific. If you don’t know what triggers the old behavior, you’ll never change it. - Micro Habit
Make it short and sweet - define your new habit as a micro-habit that takes less than 60 seconds to complete. - Effective practice
Repetition, repetition, repetition. Keep repeating the action. - Plan
No one is perfect – we are going to miss an opportunity at some point. Have a backup plan in place to know what to do when that happens. When something doesn’t work in the way you had planned it, your next step is obvious and already planned.
The best part is there is no right or wrong way to use this series of questions. You can feel free to use one question at a time, or use them all at once. You can even experiment by using it with someone who is so good it won’t screw it up, or so bad, it can’t get any worse.
So before we get started, let’s recap the three parts to building habits: (Look familiar?) You probably read about it here.
- Identify the trigger – When this happens
- Identify the old habit – Instead of
- Define the new behavior – I will do this
Ready to get started?
What's on your mind?
This is the Question #1, also known as the Kickstart question.
If someone asked you this question, consider how it would make you feel? It would most likely encourage you to talk about what is most important. It’s also focused – it gets straight to the point: what’s going well, and also what’s not. When you get down to it, it says: “Let’s talk about the thing that matters most.”
3 P's
To narrow it down and get to the root of any issue, use what’s called the 3P model to determine what might be the biggest pain point for the person.
- Projects – what’s going on with the situation, things that are being worked on, challenges
- People – relationships, any issues with team members, colleagues, customers, etc.
- Patterns – looking at patterns of behavior and ways of working that you’d like to change (is there anywhere that you are getting in your own way?)
I suspect most likely that when it comes to KCS, you might only be up against the first and third P’s.
Imaginary conversation regarding “What’s on your mind?”
Coach: “What’s on your mind?”
Knowledge Worker: “Creating KB articles.”
Coach: “So there are three different things we could look at: the project side, the people side, or patterns. Where should we start?” Start with one P and move onto the other two by saying: “If this was a thing, what would the challenge be for you?”
Oh and one last thing… don’t be a serial questioner. It may be tempting to just get all your questions out there so the person can pick what they want to answer, but it’s a lot less overwhelming for the person you are coaching to just ask one question at a time. And then be quiet, while you wait for an answer.
Let’s build your new habit
This is a fill in the blank for you, using KCS as an example:
When this happens: write out the moment, the person, and maybe even the feelings that are your trigger.
- You are having a 1:1 with a knowledge worker, and it’s dead-silence. Like pin dropping on the floor, staring at the ceiling, avoiding eye contact quiet. Or it could be worse, it could be the dreaded get nowhere small talk.
Instead of…write out the old habit you want to stop doing. Be specific.
- I want to stop going along with small talk or total quiet silence while one of us waits to talk. It’s so uncomfortable.
I will…describe your new habit.
- Ask, “What’s on your mind?”
See if this will help you transform your conversations. Like what you read? Stay tuned for more in the series, and check out alternatives to the question “What’s on your mind?” under Starting Strong: What’s on your mind?
