Coaching at work
Preface
Trust me when I say, this was not the topic for this issue. But, due to time constraints and things taking shape during my break. I think it had to be this topic.
It was Friday already when I was thinking about all the content I consumed in the week. A theme that was sticking out was coaching.
In the spirit of sticking to deadline and publishing every Sunday. I decided to bite the pill and unpack this coaching thing spewing in my head.
Professional Coaching
It helps. I haven’t done it as a role. But, I practiced it. In my departure from my previous employer. The remarks of my departure were not around being missed but, about others missing my presence. These are folks who I worked 1 on 1 to better their work.
It was not my role or responsibility but, I did it unknowingly. It all dawned on me while listening to this podcast that Cedric Cin did with Eric Nehrlich, an executive coach.
Eric and Cedric started talking about difference in mentorship and coaching. Some examples of how it works with Eric’s clients. How unstructured it is for leaders to change their frame of mind. Going from mine to us mindset. You could listen to the entire episode in this link
It resonated with me and help me identify the work I tend to enjoy doing while working with peers and teams.
What is the problem?
My week started with reading this post from a practising coach based out of India, Ajay Kelkar. He writes in” Coachability and Organ Transplant” about the traits of being coachable.
Anyone who is coachable has long-term goals, period. Without that, there is nothing to coach. Being able to think about who they want to be in the long term & be accountable for making those changes because these changes inspire you is an essential pre-requisite of a coachable individual.
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So for Coaching to succeed, it needs two people to clap. The coachee must want to do the work. The coach must do something other than the growing for you. A coach can be your partner, who can help you fine-tune your goals & work with you to help with the leadership behavior transplant in various ways.
Ajay uses the analogy of organ transplant to talk about the challenges of being coached. In essence, coach helps you hone your reps. It always comes down to doing it 100 times.
Why I like coaching ?
During the contemplation period, before taking the decision to change my job. I was exploring mini-retirement.
Just go back to the simpler days. Waking up Saturday mornings in college to teach football to 4&5th grade students.
I am still young and lack the financial means to make this life possible. So, it just stays a thought for now.
I took the football coaching job seriously to be honest. I did it for 3 consecutive times without taking a bigger responsibility in the volunteering organisation. People thought I enjoyed volunteering. For me though, it was all about coaching these kids the basics of football. I enjoyed those times.
If you thought this essay would not feature a TV series in the origin story. You must not have read the introduction to this newsletter. It does.
Coach Taylor of Friday Night Lights entered my world in the first year of college. Spoiler alert. He takes the job of being the American football coach of the most highly decorated university team in Texas. He goes on to win the league with a benched quarter back because his leading star gets injured. This is just season 1. The series is about the relationships between coach and his team. I binged watched the entire thing before Netflix introduced binge watching to the world.
Coach Taylor was a flawed man and I believe all coaches are flawed in many ways. They also need not be the best players, operators or experts but they can hold their ground with the best. In the tussle between coach and team, coaches make the best even better. That’s the kind of challenge that gets me going as well.
When you can unlock the true capability of an individual by providing different contexts, it unlocks true potential. The title, role and remuneration are often internalised as valuation of worth. If you can separate these two in individuals. Great things will happen for each and everyone.
What next?
I have never been a good mentor to people. Mentorship is telling people what to do from your own experience. Coaching is understanding the context and helping them achieve their desired change.
Through the habit of reading every new writers entire archive. I came across this post of Steven Schlafman talking about wave of coaching taking shape.
The Professional Transition Coach helps the individual mine their history for clues and insights, assess their current situation, clarify their values, sharpen their vision, and create a comprehensive action plan. The coach also works with the individual to overcome any obstacles or challenges that may arise during the transition process, including issues related to self-doubt, fear of change, or any other emotional or mental blocks.
Something I am going to explore on the side as I pursue my main track of work.
It finally makes sense to me now. I never liked the “lead by example” leadership. It is definitely not my style.
Round up
I am part of the Clear Writing Group community which was started by Amit Varma. From the group, a fellow member asked for some inputs on a piece he was writing for first time employees.
He was an earnest person looking to write a relatable piece. I happened to share a piece of advice. It featured over at Humaise, Plum’s blog.
Vivek V.S has been in the startup ecosystem for around 8 years now. He’s founded companies, and currently operates in an agri-tech startup. He works with a lot of young graduates. In his view, “younger people are generally smart these days. But in the process of only projecting confidence, they don’t ask questions or resolve doubts. This is where they start feeling overwhelmed”.
His approach to dealing with younger graduates is to be extremely clear about expectations.
“When we hire. I tell them that you are here to learn. I expect you to ask me questions and do work which you will not know the majority of the time. If you don’t ask me questions, you are failing yourself, not me.”
Wanted to share it over as it as it went with the theme. Coaching is most required to both the rookie and pro on either ends.
Links that resonated
Paul Graham wrote this piece on How to do great work. It will stand the test of times because it has some concepts that are worth revisiting time to time. Like, when describe how great work looks.
Great work usually entails spending what would seem to most people an unreasonable amount of time on a problem. You can't think of this time as a cost, or it will seem too high. You have to find the work sufficiently engaging as it's happening.
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Great work happens by focusing consistently on something you're genuinely interested in. When you pause to take stock, you're surprised how far you've come.The reason we're surprised is that we underestimate the cumulative effect of work. Writing a page a day doesn't sound like much, but if you do it every day you'll write a book a year. That's the key: consistency. People who do great things don't get a lot done every day. They get something done, rather than nothing.
Coaching self
In the last couple of weeks. I am off work. The experience was very jarring. It was like you pulled the phone from a kid’s hand. Like the kid, my mind went berserk.
The culmination of this idle and rampant mind of yours truly is this very post. I hope you liked reading it as much as it helped me unpacking it.
Signing off till the next time,
Vivek, regulating work and enjoying free time.