Chip and Dan Heath in their Book Switch beautifully narrate the elephant and the Mahout. I am trying to build on this concept to explain a few important coaching concepts. This article intends to highlight the types of coaching skills concerning Individual and Group Coaching.
Individual Coaching
Every human being has two facets,
The emotions
The logical decision making
Chip and Dan Heath compare the emotions to an Elephant and the Logical making & the willpower to the Mahout. India is home to elephants, I decided to delve little deeper to understand the relationship between an elephant and the Mahout. The relationship, between an elephant and the mahout, starts very early in life and they remain bonded to each other throughout their lives. The most common tools used by mahouts are chains and the Goad Ankusha.
Now let us look at human beings. Human beings are born with emotions and logical thinking. They both grow together within us. The logical thinking matures between 18 and 25 years and develops into a character which wants to control the emotions. On the other hand, the emotion does not mature, but continues to grow and as time passes it starts becoming rigid. A mahout controlling the emotion is similar to the Prefrontal cortex controlling the emotion. Mahout compared to the elephant is small in size and our logic delivered from prefrontal cortex is very small in front of the emotions. I hope you understand the magnitude of the problem.
Prefrontal cortex and the mahout play a very similar role of controlling the emotions and the elephant respectively. They both can exercise their command using the tools like Ankush and logical reasoning. We need to understand that they will be successful in controlling to a greater extent. However, we need to understand that if the elephant decided not to listen to the Mahout, in a matter of few seconds the mahout will lose total control of the elephant. Similarly, when the emotion takes control, it will become extremely difficult for the logic emitting from prefrontal cortex to extend any control of the human being. If you can close your eyes and visualize how a mahout tries to control the elephant with his Ankush and when the elephant does not listen to the command, mahout increases the intensity of the punishment with the Ankush. As the intensity increases the elephant becomes more stubborn and beyond a point can just throw the mahout and run wild. That is exactly what happens when the prefrontal cortex exerts pressure on the emotions. The emotions can throw all the logic to wind and will start doing what it feels right. This will probably give you the answer as to why we do so many things which are not logical.
Let us now look at some examples in our own daily lives. Logic says smoking is good, emotion throws the logic to air. Exercising and exposing our body to early morning sun is all very important and the logic is saying it but we curl and stay in bed because the emotion dominates.
Let us now look at the typical coaching assignment. Coaching is largely limited to getting the individual to logically understand issues more clearly, bring out the possible solutions, draw up a timeline and follow it through to ensure that the one being coached adheres to the timeline and completes the task. The next step would be to ensure that this is internalized by the individual so that it stays with him/her. Logical thinking is like a rubber band. To start with let us assume it to be in a triangle shape. Coaching can covert the logical thinking and the rubber band into a square or a trapezium. When this happens you are building additional tension in the rubber band in other words on the emotion. The rubber band and the emotions are waiting for the first opportunity to get back to the triangle shape. When that happens there will be vibrations in the rubber band in other words, emotional disturbances in the human being and they both eventually settle back to their comfort zone or the original state they were in.
Thus in most cases, coaching does not succeed in the first instance or fails over some time despite seeing initial success. This brings to an important point what the coach should do to ensure that the coaching succeeds. The following steps can ensure that coaching assignments can be successful.
Coach has to clearly understand the logical reasons
Coach has to clearly understand the emotional rationale behind those logical reasons
As a coach, if you able to clearly understand the above two aspects the next set of steps could be easy.
Step 1: Motivate the emotion: What looks like a mental block is the exhaustion of the emotion. No matter what the mahout tries, the elephant does exactly what it wants to do and similarly, emotions in a human being will do what it wants to do when there is exhaustion. This exhaustion starts when an individual is assigned for coaching. As his emotions are working against the whole idea of coaching as it feels it is insulted. Even in those cases where an individual seeks coaching, the emotion could be strained to start with and can potentially reach a stage of exhaustion.
As a coach, you should look at motivating the emotion and prepare it for accepting the changes.
Step 2: Clearly explain the situation and lay down a clear path: It becomes extremely important for the coach to make the emotion and the prefrontal cortex to be aware of the environment. The coach should take time to understand each of the emotional and the logical issues and clear them. This way you are clearing the bushes and the thorns in the path. This will ensure that the elephant sees the path and is sure of not being hurt while traveling in the new path and the mahout will be able to steer the elephant in that direction. When the coach brings in clarity to the emotion, clears all the doubts, the next step of working teeth logic to travel in a new direction becomes easy.
If this approach fails then the coach should adopt one of the following aspects
Highlight the pitfalls ahead and how it is going to impact the individual being coached. The coach is making aware of the crisis the individual can get into if he fails to take action now.
Generate such a strong craving that emotion moves from its stated position to accept the directions of the prefrontal cortex.
Step 3: Coach the rider: Now that you as a coach have established a good rapport with the elephant and the mahout, you should give complete clarity on the topic/issue to the prefrontal cortex. Once the prefrontal cortex and the emotions have got the clarity the coach will start directing both emotion and the logic to move in the desired direction.
Group Coaching
ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION THROUGH PEOPLE, PROCESS, PRODUCT AND ENVIRONMENT
Now let us look at the organizational context where you may need to coach more than one individual. I foresee two scenarios in an organizational coaching assignment
Follow the leader:
In this situation, the coaches responsibility will be to identify as to who is that one person who is regarded as the role model, the team would like to follow in the organization. If you are successful in identifying this one individual, you have won half the battle. The other half is to establish a good working relationship and making sure that the individual looks forward to being coached. You will need to adopt some of the aspects explained in the individuals coaching skills and all other skills which have been taught to you in the last few days. You will need to work with this one individual and demonstrate the achievements to the rest of the individuals who need to be coached. However, we need to understand this approach is best suited where the head of the organization leads by example. The world is fast changing from this kind of leadership to organizations which are headed by individuals who are facilitative leaders.
Mahatma Gandhi is probably the greatest example and we can find many such heroes both in our personal lives and in the organizations
A mix of fixed and growth mindset individuals:
In the second type of organization, the leader will create a facilitative environment for the team members to perform. The leader would want to make sure that the organization continually refines its strategies, continually enhances customer satisfaction/value creation and builds a team who will challenge themselves and grow continually. In my view, in the years ahead of the facilitative leadership model, metamorphose into subordinate leadership. Let us now look at such organizations wherein you need to undertake a coaching assignment. Important characteristics of such companies
Subordinate or facilitative leadership
The organization will prefer an individual with a growth mindset and not a fixed mindset
The organization recognizes the individual who adds maximum value to the client and not the individual who is a leader/manager
Organizations prefer teams win over individual exemplary performance
The team of growth mindset individuals is like a bunch of tamed elephants who will create their path to achieve the goal collectively. This will be very contrasting to the winning horse.
Dominant number of individuals with a growth mindset
This is an ideal situation. Each organization is very unique and they differ from each other. It is in these situations the Coach’s skills will be tested and this also demonstrates the capabilities of the coach.
Organizations in transition will always have two categories of individuals. The growth and the fixed mindset ratio and their relative position in the hierarchy determine the complexity in the coaching assignment. Now let us go back to understand these individuals by comparing them to the tamed and wild elephants. The growth mindset can be categorized as tamed elephants and the fixed mindsets are typically the ones who could be compared to the wild elephants. These are the individuals you need to be worried about because they can trample you, they can pull the entire exercise in a different direction than the one you were planning. These individuals are characterized by
These individuals are running their kingdoms/fiefdoms within the organization.
When the organizations want to make structural changes, they will run wild/astray.
They enjoy their freedom and want to do what they think what is the best.
They potentially can derail the entire organization or the change process.
Now let us look at an assignment wherein you as a coach is assigned with the responsibility of organizational transformation through process and people. What would be the process you will adapt to make sure that the assignment is successful.
Keeping the above aspects in mind, the coach’s primary responsibility will be to identify the tamed elephants and wild elephants. Since several thousand years, humans have evolved multiple processes of luring the wild elephant and one of them is (Khedda). The elephant gets tamed when the Emotion/will is broken. The taming process involves two tamed elephants flanking on either side of the wild element and squeezing till the emotion/will is broken.
Identify the early adopters (tamed elephants). You will need to seek this information from the organization leadership. These individuals are the ones with the Growth Mindset
Identify those individuals who are difficult to transition (wild elephants), These individuals typically have a fixed mindset. The book Mindset has elaborate strategies outlined to change the mindsets.
Undertake an initial briefing session to all the concerned outlining the goals and the process.
Work with the leadership team to identify what success looks like.
Identify the right work, form teams and measure what matters.
Continually work with the rest of them to move them one step at a time while the
POC teams are making quantum strides
Celebrations of success in front of the leadership team are an important aspect of breaking the will of the fixed mindset individuals. Care has to be taken to ensure that you are constantly talking and understanding with the tough ones.
Once you build confidence that these individuals with growth mindset have internalized the changes, you can now look at getting the individuals with a fixed mindset to become part of the transition.
You will get one fixed mindset individual to work with few growth mindset individuals so that he/she does not stray or lead the entire pack in the wrong direction.
Your entire focus during this period will be on the fixed mindset individual. You will have to adopt all the techniques outlined in the individual coaching skills to make sure that this individual turns around.
Being a fixed mindset individual by nature, he/she would to prove and demonstrate their success. This will be the most powerful demonstration of the success you can ever think.
Being a fixed mindset they would want to prove it again and again. This will make your transition assignment much easier to accomplish.
Celebrating small successes with fixed mindset individuals are a great way of motivating.
Author: JP Shivakumaraswamy is a multifaceted personality wearing multiple hats in the field of industry, commerce, finance, and environmental conversation. An accomplished business leader and a voracious reader, his passion lies in generating continuous improvement and high performance in individuals and teams. Lately, he has taken a foray into the world of coaching and has been selflessly contributing to its cause
Scrum suggests 3 roles (The team, ScrumMaster, and product owner), four ceremonies (the sprint planning meeting, Daily Scrum, sprint review meeting, and sprint retrospective meeting), and three artifacts (the product increment, product backlog, and sprint backlog).
A ceremony has three primary elements in it. Firstly, it is a recurring activity that is periodic in its existence. Secondly, it demands a certain form in conduct and protocol, and third, it needs to be time boxed to be effective in its implementation. Finally, the unspoken – practices change behaviour or Do they?
A daily Scrum fulfills all three of the above and hence merits being labelled as a ceremony. A ceremony with certain ritualistic norms that are religiously adhered to. Since rituals are sequenced activities and help in improved conduct, the daily Scrum meeting becomes an important component in the value generation of the overall Agile implementation process. Having said this, are such meets merely regimented and sequenced actions that need to be followed and enacted? Does it only serve the intended purpose for which it was designed or does it have an inherent value addition to team dynamics and human interaction as well? If we dig a little deep and we can uncover the following.
It is not a reason to assemble, but also a reason to celebrate
It is just not a ritual, but also an opportunity to be expressive
It is not a mere ceremony, but an avenue to strengthen relationships
It is not a place to be seen, but also be heard and appreciated
It is not a place to submit, but an opportunity to create possibilities
It is not about quick decisions but also arriving at a considered choice for action
It is not a space to compete but a reason to collaborate
Ceremonies are the bedrock for systemic actions to exist within a structure for effectiveness and are human-centric actions. Daily Scrum ceremonies, therefore, involve human interactions and behaviors. They are not just platforms to improve communication amongst team members, removal of impediments to development, highlight and promote quick decision-making, and improving the team’s participation levels but also serve to uncover human potential and aspirations. They are reasons to celebrate progress, assist and empathize with challenges, build rapport, enhance familiarity and deliver a choice for action. By uncovering the human element in a daily Drum Meetup, one can unleash possibilities of creativity, freedom and self-expression between the team members. This manifests not only in expanded efficiency in the workspace but also instils intrinsic involvement and clear sense of purpose and intent.
At LeadershipTribe we are aware of the hidden potential that exists in a daily Scrum meet. While we accept the need for a ceremony and adhering to the ritual, we also pay attention to uncovering hidden aspirations and wants and releasing human potential to its fullest. In unlocking hidden potential in each member, does the true manifestation of the Scrum process get realized? At LeadershipTribe, we approach the conduct of a Daily Scrum to meet not as a set of self-serving activities but a very potent medium for leadership to generate self-sustaining members. Come and join us or connect with us to know more about why and how we go about achieving this essential value of a Scrum ceremony.
The world is evolving rapidly today and presenting greater challenges than ever to business leaders, underlining the necessity to provide strong but flexible leadership to help the business to navigate challenges. Leaders not only need to be outstanding individuals but also need to develop specific competencies that enable the business to succeed. This is where coaching for leadership development comes into play to facilitate individual growth and strengthen leadership skills, transform the performance of top management and drive organisational achievement.
Coaching is a Process
Coaching is not about giving instructions or attending a lesson in a classroom, instead, it is a customised process to help the coachee to achieve a specific purpose in a defined period. Coaching for executives often takes the form of a conversation and is conducted on a one-to-one basis.
Leadership development through coaching is a journey that helps the business leaders to improve self-awareness and personal impact, build one’s capability to transform leadership and team culture to achieve an organisation’s goals. Rather than proposing a solution or a way to tackle challenges, the coach works in partnership with the leaders to motivate, challenge and inspire them to explore and utilise their full potential and generate solutions from within.
A well-established coaching program should start with a scenario analysis with an appreciation of the targeted objectives. The coach needs to discuss the assessment results with the leader to confirm goals for the coaching program and work with the executive to define the action plan and the success factors. The coach should meet the executive at regular intervals to track progress against goals and course correct where necessary, and the engagement will carry on throughout and beyond the program to ensure learnings are fully translated into practice and sustained for future success.
Benefits and Applications of Coaching
As a development tool, coaching helps to shape and strengthen leadership competencies. It enables executives to improve their self-awareness, empathy, listening and interpersonal skills, which facilitates better communication and improves the team’s overall performance. It also helps to widen executives’ leadership styles, build resilient and productive relationships and instil a collaborative team culture at work. Furthermore, leadership coaching offers an insightful analysis of the company’s challenges and inspires problem-solving with new viewpoints and strategies. Also, reports show that organisations who invest in coaching for their leaders often experience a significant return on investment.
Coaching for leadership development is a critical development strategy, it empowers executives to adopt organisational transformation swiftly and competently and enables organisations to embrace and thrive in changes. Leadership coaching is best applied to engage and retain valued leaders, warrant alignment with the organisation’s overall strategy, prepare prospective candidates for the succession of leadership roles, and onboard an executive to a new role or adjust to a new culture. Coaching provides a ‘safe’ environment and a personal experience where the coach provides external help for the leaders to achieve their objectives.
The Right Coach
Coaching for leadership development is a relationship focussed process, for maximum impact and optimised results, there must be strong alignment between the coach and the coachee. It is important that the coachee is motivated and committed to the coaching program, and the right coach is selected.
A good leadership coach should demonstrate relevant experience and an evidence-based approach in developing performance and measuring successful outcomes, show a genuine interest in the coachee and take time to understand the coachee’s organisational dynamics and business challenges. The coach should be able to raise probing questions to validate and challenge the coachee’s performance. He/she should be collaborative, motivational, energetic and inspiring, and a good fit with the executive’s style.
When the ‘chemistry’ is right between the coach and coachee and both parties work together, coaching can deliver extraordinary outcomes, uplifting behavioural competencies that drive business results and improving job satisfaction, engagement and work relationships.
Conclusion
Leadership coaching is an important strategy to foster the capabilities and effectiveness of executives and secure the future of their organisation. It is not an instructional course but a collaborative process to equip leaders with the relevant skills, approach and influence needed for successful execution. The fit between the coach and coachee is pertinent to the success of the coaching engagement, the right coach helps to establish trust and collaboration and warrant the overall achievement of the coaching program.
In a constantly evolving business environment, coaching offers a unique opportunity for organisations to develop robust leadership and resiliency to adapt quickly. Our extensive range of coaching solutions offers leaders the opportunity to explore their leadership styles and gain new insight into successful leadership to ensure their interventions are high-impact. Get in touch today to discuss how we help senior leaders to achieve greater levels of efficiency and effectiveness.
AGILE HAS BEEN THE NEW BUZZ WORD FOR MANY ORGANISATIONS AND AT TIMES HEAR THAT ‘AGILE DOES NOT WORK FOR US OR WE HAVE FAILED AGILE ADOPTION’.
The core intent of organisation transformation is to deliver value and achieve the desired outcome. They start by running pilot projects using frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban, and various other DevOps methods. These projects turn out to be quite successful for a short duration.However, companies are failing to adopt these on a larger scale. In other words, run all their projects under the Agile umbrella, in the long run, starting from the team members to the managers and executives. They inevitably switch to the traditional model when the application of Agile fall apart.
Why have organisations failed agile adoption, you may ask? Where are they going wrong? Well, the reasons are two-fold.
Why do we need to change in the first place?
Instead of following a trend blindly and implementing changes, companies need to gauge whether or not their current processes need the conversion in delivery models.
Here are the market dynamics based on which companies can decide whether they need to take a second look at their strategies, and choose to take up the Agile journey:
Customer outcomes: Are the delivering value to the customers frequently and do they expect personalization in terms of products and services?
Rapid innovation cycle: Has the innovation cycle been accelerated due to the entry of new products? Have other companies been taking competitive advantage of this acceleration?
Disruption in technology: Are new and advanced products and services emerging due to technology disruption? Is it leading to quicker business decisions and cost reduction?
For instance, if the ongoing projects have come across automation via robotics, digital business models, more efficient services using Xaas and AI via cloud solutions, then it is an indication of adopting Agile.
Apart from the technology perspective, the business benefits that come with adopting Agile are cost reduction through productivity gains, increased employee engagement, better customer advocacy, higher speed to market, faster reaction time, and a work culture led by innovation.
Here are some points that could help in analyzing the need for the change in business processes:
Estimate the gain and benefits alignment with business or leadership areas on the expected outcome, using the success or failure data from the pilot projects.
Make sure that the aforementioned alignment, and buy-in, is crucial in sustaining the Agile transformation
What’s the Purpose and outcome we want to deliver?
After deciding whether a change is necessary for the business, the next logical question is where the change should begin. Organisations generally try to scale across every technology and business function without identifying the areas with specific needs.
Also, implementing Agile and scaling all areas in a uniform pace may not be the right way to go about it. A different approach such as a right-speed or multi-speed approach would be required.
To gain more clarity, let us look at an example. The front, middle, and back offices will require the changes to be done at different speeds. All sections in an organisation need not operate at the highest speed. In case the customer makes no profit from the delivery speed, the time and money spent on scaling Agile would go to waste.
Besides, the companies themselves need to re-evaluate their environment and overall architecture and gauge the requirement for Agile. The right pace in which Agile must be implemented should be determined by the business vision, customer aspirations, and operational constraints.
Different Speeds for Different Scenarios
Agile can be applied to various types of projects.
In a project with gaps in customer requirements, Agile can be utilised to deliver value increments that are smaller at the beginning and to adjust the subsequent iterations based on the feedback received from the customer.
In a project where the customer has already put forth the requirements, Agile can still be introduced to minimise the risks by providing a solution in increments.
The culture of the organisation. How do we address it?
Companies tend to focus on how and when they must adapt to the new manner of working across all functions involved in the company. Unfortunately, these factors are not enough to make the change.
Here is where the first issue arises—they start from making changes on the technology side alone. Scaling Agile methods successfully at the portfolio or organisational levels requires a structural shift across technology, processes, people, and culture. It is not enough if done from the technology and process level only. It has to be introduced to the people side as well.
The necessity of Agility?
This brings us to the second issue—insufficient knowledge on why the new method has to be adopted and starting from where. Companies lack information on the exact benefits of implementing Agile and in what areas the change is required.
How do we measure success?
Working with leaders we have heard this phrase ‘It is not as easy as we think it is, to measure success’. What if we measure what matters for the organisation. Here are some of the common one which might apply for you
ON-TIME DELIVERY
This is the most popular way of measuring initial success. On Time delivery is the goal for every team irrespective of which field. Meeting time to time commitments leads to a higher competitive advantage and higher confidence. Burn down charts play a major role here to illustrate how much work is left versus the time in hand to accomplish it.
PRODUCT QUALITY
Product quality can be a challenge to measure but many organisations opt to measure success through this mode. Some say that quality can be measured through an increase in revenue and customer feedback, but this might not always be the case. Relying on hard metrics like continuously testing and inspecting throughout the entire development cycle is a proven way to successfully measuring product quality.
PROJECT VISIBILITY
Agile teams must be able to track and see exactly how the work is progressing, making relevant data visible. One of the best ways to bring visibility is by building trust and ensuring complete transparency with teams.
PRODUCTIVITY
Productivity in an Agile Environment is a measure of outcomes and not output. Looking at burnup charts that show visibility of stories and features over time is a great way to understand how much the teams are delivering.
CUSTOMER/ USER SATISFACTION
There are numerous ways to measure customer satisfaction. To have the clearest visibility, combining the Net Promoter scores with relevant usage statistics which display how customers are using the product, and how that usage has changed since the initiative was completed help.
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
The fundamental component of an Agile organisation is empowered, autonomous and competent teams. Having motivated employees is not the only factor. Research indicates that motivated employees go hand in hand with happy customers, greater productivity, profitability and great products.
If Agile is Mindset then how come Agile Transformation Fails?
To summarise, the pace at which Agile is implemented can never be uniform for every project. Hence, companies must utilize Agile based on a ‘why and where’ approach as opposed to the ‘how and when’, to be able to successfully adopt it across organisations.
Agile is about Mindset. It’s not about the way we start using some of those engineering practices to make things happen. Yes, the engineering practices are valuable and without the right purpose, we are just wasting time. To drive change, we need to understand the purpose of ‘why’ and ‘what does success mean to us’. At Leadership Tribe, we have been helping organisations, starting from individuals, teams, Leadership, business units as well as at the strategic level. What does it take to create better, faster, cheaper and happier customer & Employees? Reach out to us! We have worked with various sectors like financial organisations, Internal Auditing, Legal, Airlines, Engineering and Software industries. How can we be part of your journey to bring change in your organisation where you are successful?
Take a moment and look around you. Everything that you interact within a given day was designed by a person. While it may be obvious that the device you’re reading this email on was designed by someone, the less obvious moments of design could be how you experienced getting lunch or coffee recently. Did you order first then pay? Did someone wait on you? Once you start to think about every way in which someone interacts with an object or an experience, you’re beginning to think like a designer.
Thinking like a designer can transform the way organizations develop products, services, processes, and strategy. Design thinking, brings together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable. It also allows people who aren’t trained as designers to use creative tools to address a vast range of challenges.
The students at the Stanford d. school were challenged to find a solution for saving the lives of babies born prematurely in Nepal and rural parts of India. They were initially challenged to re-design an incubator and make it cost-effective to keep the baby’s warm and thus save their lives. The cost of such incubators was as high as $20,000. People living in rural parts of the country did not have access to such incubators; thus millions of these tiny lives were lost annually. Download the case study to read More
To learn about Design thinking, upcoming open workshops and how Design Thinking can help transform your organisation, reach out to us at [email protected]m
