Overview
Coaching for Top Tier Managers: Maintain Excellence
Climbing the Peak
When you’ve been managing for a while, you get more comfortable in the role and you move up.
Nearer the top, you have to be more directive. It’s more political. You have to be decisive. Your reputation, and your job, can be ruined by one poor decision.
To cap it all, you’re isolated. It’s unlikely that you can have an open discussion, rehearse your strategies, or reveal your internal process to your peer group. You can feel that you’re on a tightrope, or even climbing with no safety line.
It’s a long way from the relatively comfortable days with the foot soldiers.
At the Summit
Now you’re in a very different world; senior management is a much more abrasive culture. You have to deal with infighting, self interest, turf wars, protectionism, and of course those that would engineer it that your next move makes you the fall guy for their last bad call.
Eventually, you’ve left the others behind you and you are pretty much out on your own.
Life at the top is Different
In this rarefied atmosphere, (we all reach our own personal ceiling at some point) the world is different. Some decisions we have to make are difficult. They involve other peoples’ roles, careers or livelihood. We have to make choices that may be the best for our organisation, but not necessarily for ourselves, or other individuals.
We move in a world of change and conflict; just one aspect is the overlap between logical and emotional decision making. Long term tensions of this kind have a serious affect on your stress levels, and in turn your health.
Being Coached
As your coach, I’m not part of your environment, and that gives me an advantage. I’m not involved.
You may think that I may not have any expertise or authority in your world. Good. The last thing that you need is another domain expert. Your coach needs expertise in the coaching process, which is quite different.
Proper coaching isn’t something that you just pick up as you go along. It’s a separate discipline in its own right, with its own protocols and procedures.
At this level of coaching some relatively sophisticated areas may come under review.
Just one example is the separation of actions that you take and being able to deal with the related emotions that you might feel. This could be described as how you operate from your position as opposed to how you operate from your person.
You may have it all figured out. If that’s the case, fantastic! Life at the top, however, is tough.
Because you spend a great deal of time working from position, it’s important that you also get opportunities to operate from person. This may be a key part of what you do to maintain work-life balance, which is important too.
When you are out there on your own, often you have to take into account absolutely everything around you. Unexpectedly, it can be difficult to maintain the same independence of thought to apply your knowledge and skill to your own personal position.
As your coach I’ll hold your agenda. If you ask me to, I’ll even hold you to be accountable to your own objectives.
Try me out.
Part of the success of coaching lies in the collaboration between you as a client and me as a coach.
- For some clients and coaches, the relationship quickly gels. By working together the client creates truly exceptional results.
- Sometimes the client and coach make a workable relationship and the client gets results.
- Sometimes the prospective coach isn’t a good match for the client.
I usually avoid advice based on my subjective opinion. I’ll make an exception here. I’m only interested in the first option. Don’t accept anything less.
Even if you have training in place and everything under control, technique is only one part of the story. Another part is having an independent resource that you can turn to, where you can externalise your goals and safely explore what comes next. You can rehearse before it becomes real.
(This may not be what you are used to. Recall that, on your earlier request, I may be holding you accountable to your own agenda.)
You can only benefit if you find out how things could be even better. Even in one free call you may find a way to help you to move forward.
|
|
|
For Managers and Team Leaders |
Coaching for Team Leaders: Expand your Capability
Moving Up
When you’ve been working at the coalface for a while, you gain valuable experience. More experience generally leads you to having more of a say in team decisions. People start to value your opinion and you have influence.
You may choose to maintain your position at the top of the ‘Developer Tree’. Or you may realise your dream, you become a team leader. For some, it’s their worst nightmare.
You may have been promoted out of your safe world of building software, depending on and collaborating with your team-mates, working with an engineering process, a methodology.
Staying There
Now you’re in a very different world; the free-form world of management, where you’re directly exposed to the buffeting of external forces; budgets, finance, leadership, politics, infighting, turf wars.
Once you get promoted, you’re expected to do the job right from the start, but it’s very different to what you’ve been used to. Most likely you haven’t been given the training that you really need, and haven’t yet gained the necessary management experience.
It can be very difficult. Your technical safety net isn’t there anymore, your relationship with your colleagues has changed (let’s face it!) and you have to back-fill skills and still do the job competently.
The last thing that you want to do is depend too heavily on the person that promoted you or your new boss for help and advice.
New Responsibilities
As you mature in your role, it may even be your first management position, you may have to deal with new and very unfamiliar responsibilities;
- Delivering unwelcome news
- Taking difficult decisions
- Making demands of team members
- Monitoring and reporting on team performance
- Possibly your previous peer group now report to you
This first management move is potentially the most challenging. You may sit in the hard-to-manage space between the ‘layer that produces’ and the ‘layer that makes demands’.
Whatever the situation you probably need to quickly expand your experience.
What are you going to do to make sure that you grow your management and inter-personal skills to respond to this change?
Being Coached
One of the reasons that this transition is difficult is the change of perspective; from managing your own performance to managing the group, yourself, how the group views your actions and how your manager views your actions. A delicate balancing act for your first leadership experience!
Part of the challenge in your transition is the tendency to measure your performance using historical capabilities, value and beliefs. To everyone else your identity has changed but to you, it’s the same.
Coaching helps you to break down boundaries held in place by the ‘previous you’ to let the new more resourceful you emerge.
While it’s your responsibility to do the work, I may help you to:
- Clarify your values
- Explore your beliefs about your capability
- Identify self imposed limits
- Expand your circle of influence
And I might deliberately interrupt you to:
- Encourage you in your growth
- Redirect you where you start to limit your own potential
- Challenge you where you are holding back
- Call you to action
I’ll hold your agenda. If you ask me to, I’ll even hold you to be accountable to your own objectives.
Try me out.
Part of the success of coaching lies in the collaboration between you as a client and me as a coach.
- For some clients and coaches, the relationship quickly gels. By working together the client creates truly exceptional results.
- Sometimes the client and coach make a workable relationship and the client gets results.
- Sometimes the prospective coach isn’t a good match for the client.
I usually avoid advice based on my subjective opinion. I’ll make an exception here. I’m only interested in the first option. Don’t accept anything less.
Even if you have training in place and everything under control, technique is only one part of the story. Another part is having an independent resource that you can turn to, where you can safely explore what comes next. You can only benefit if you find out how things could be even better. Even in one free call you may find a way to help move forward (or upward!)
|
|
Coaching for Technologists: Achieve your Potential
Starting OutI’m sure you realise that technology is in a never ending state of flux in the IT environment.
You’ve worked on the basics. You have the training or the experience to do your job. Meanwhile, development tools, languages, databases, operating systems, and all the rest, move on at an ever increasing pace.
Keeping Up
An important part of your job is keeping up and you spend a lot of time making sure that you are up to date. That means that any training, quite rightly, is focussed on technology subjects.
But what about the rest? That’s important too. It often gets neglected. Do you have access to the resources and the time to invest in organisational and people skills that you need? Do you have a program to develop the most effective way of working closely with your colleagues and customers?
Getting Ahead
Not only do you have to keep up, you have to push forward.
You may have to deal with changing circumstances;
- New projects
- New teams
- New managers
- New challenges outside your field of experience
Whatever the situation, you may need to expand your role, change direction or even, perish the thought, take one more step towards management.
Perhaps you’re frustrated because your technical skills and contribution aren’t fully appreciated. You may want to move sideways, upwards or to another company; occasionally, all three.
What are you going to do to make sure that you bridge the gaps in your soft skills that have been opening up while you concentrated on the technical skills to get the job done?
Staying in Front
Once technical people get promoted, they are expected to do the job from day one. More often than not, they don’t get the training. It can be very difficult. Your technical safety net isn’t there anymore and you have to back-fill skills while still doing the job competently.
The last thing that you want to do is depend too heavily on the person that promoted you or your new boss for help and advice.
Being Coached
While the coaching concept originates in team sports and has some similarities, individual coaching has many differences, and a lot to offer you both in your work and personally.
It is very unlikely that your coach will shout at you from the sidelines to “run faster” or “go on then!” (At least I won’t.)
While it’s your responsibility to do the work, I may help you to:
- Clarify your objectives
- Explore potential
- Investigate opportunities
- Make difficult decisions
- Resolve conflicts
And I might deliberately interrupt you to:
- Encourage you
- Challenge you
- Call you to action
I’ll hold your agenda. If you ask me to, I’ll even hold you to be accountable to your own goals.
Try me out
Part of the success of coaching lies in the collaboration between you as a client and me as a coach.
- For some clients and coaches, the relationship quickly gels. By working together the client creates truly exceptional results.
- Sometimes the client and coach make a workable relationship and the client gets results.
- Sometimes the prospective coach isn’t a good match for the client.
I usually avoid advice based on my subjective opinion. I’ll make an exception here. I’m only interested in the first option. Don’t accept anything less.
Even if you have everything in hand and under control, you can only benefit if you find out how things could be even better. Even in one free call you may find a way to help move forward (or upward!)
|
|
|
Take a small step? While coaching has arrived as an independent discipline, with increasingly formalised training, protocols and accreditations, its success is founded on the quality of the relationship between the coach and the client. If you haven’t experienced working with an independent external professional coach, it’s difficult to grasp by reading about it. It’s far better to take a personal recommendation, talk to the clients of a particular coach and try out the coach with a sample session. Some coaches do a ‘taster’ session before you have to commit to anything. |
|
|
Coaching in the world of technologyThere have been some great shifts in the world of software engineering. In the early 2000’s it became clear that the era of lone hero programmers working in the backroom using some mystical art are very definitely over.Software engineering is maturing very quickly, catching up with disciplines like building bridges and designing aeroplanes. We expect a high degree of reliability through the application of rigorous professional standards. While some questions remain unanswered, the role of the programmer as an individualist has changed from a mysterious highly paid profession to a commodity. Developers are seen as replaceable, and outsourcing is a high likelihood. Today’s technologist may very well feel like they are replaceable, which can then significantly affect their productivity, attitude and performance.That’s all very well, so how does coaching fit in? The post-industrial software developer is more dependent on personal communication, delegation, team relationships, flexible working. Perhaps, most important, there is a view of the software team as a self organising, learning, entity.Coaching is a very powerful tool for assisting the self directed technologist to set targets, achieve goals and produce the deliverables, while at the same time you can learn from the process about how to improve in the future.Technologists quickly recognise the parallels between the Coaching Process and the Development Process. While they may initially be more cynical and try to rationalise the process intellectually, contrary to popular stereotypes they do have the intuitive faculties to ‘get it’. Once you’re involved in the experiential process of being coached, you can see how it adds a whole new dimension to personal achievement. |
|
| |
|
|
|
Overview 