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The Coaching Manager: Part 14 - Where to Meet?

8/29/2016

All good coaching preparation, good intentions, and hard work will be jeopardized if we don’t have a good place to huddle. Does the Coaching Manager and Client (Direct Report) need to be in the same room, or even same city? Not necessarily. As I was studying coaching techniques I was a bit surprised to hear that 80% of coaching is phone-based. (And indeed my practice is almost entirely phone-based.) To identify a good environment for a coaching session, we need to consider what will optimize the communication between coaching manager and client.

To support the best coaching session possible, both coaching manager, and client (direct report) need to be able to focus their attention. The client is asked to prepare an agenda, but often the agenda can change on a dime depending on frame of mind of the client and late breaking developments. A coaching session is not a sleep-walk. Both Coaching Manager and Client need to be focused on the work at hand. The coaching manager needs to stay focused to detect nuances that may indicate underlying issues, or redirection of dialogue.
More than any other issue, distraction will derail a good coaching session. Fortunately, we can do some planning to minimize distractions. If at all possible, we want to shut down our electronics during the session. Set your smart phone to “silent” or better yet – turn it off. If you are by your laptop – close the lid. If you are by your desktop – turn off the display, or move to another room. Make it known to your team that you will be unavailable during the session for all except a true emergency that cannot wait until conclusion of the session. Both coaching manager and client need to understand that multitasking is counterproductive during coaching sessions – this is especially true when the session is phone-based. Restaurants and coffee shops can give the opportunity to get away from the distractions of the office – but they offer distractions of their own – both visual, and audible. So restaurants and coffee shops should be avoided as a meeting place. The coaching manager’s office is a convenient place to meet – but if people tend to drop by unannounced with problems, or seeking guidance, the manager’s office can be a very bad place to meet. A better option is to find a small conference room. It may not work for all of us, but consider meeting outdoors. This can be conducive to a session, if the location is quiet and relatively free from distractions.
Below is a list of items to consider when selecting a meeting place:

Is the location easy to get to?
Is the location quiet?
Will the location be available the same time every week? (This assumes you are having weekly sessions.)
Is the location free of electronics? (Computers, TV’s, phones, etc.)
Will the location be free of distractions?
Will the location allow note taking?
Will the location allow good privacy? (Coaching sessions can touch on some very personal topics – not topics for public consumption.)
If you are discussing planning, or strategy, does the space have white board or another way of sharing?
If your session is phone-based, are you in a room that will be free of distractions? (Away from TV’s, or other electronics.)
If remote or phone-based does your space allow for intimate conversations?

In preparation for our coaching sessions, or one on ones, we want to plan to have the greatest success we can at our sessions. This planning needs to include the best space to meet. When considering the best space, we want to consider ease of access, privacy, isolation from electronics, and other distractions, and an environment that is reasonably quiet. The key here is communication. The communication between the coaching manager, and their client (the direct report). If you find a space where you are both comfortable, and find it conducive to listening, and supportive of the work of constructive dialogue, you have found a great space to do the work of coaching.

The Coaching Manager: Part 13 - When to Meet

8/6/2016

Is “anytime” a good time to meet? To have a one on one – a Coach and Client session? If you said “Yes”, you are incorrect. Due to the ebb and flow in the week, and the work week, as it turns out, some times of day, and days of the week are better than others. To give the Coaching Manager and Client (Direct Report) relationship the chance to be as successful as it possibly can, schedule a day, and time that maximizes the session’s impact.
In order to establish the best day and times to meet, let’s consider the cycle of the typical work week. Mondays are, well, they are Mondays. The decompression of the weekend, the fun and games, sports and family time are in the rear view mirror. Mondays are about getting back to business. A chance to do better. Time to straighten out the problems from last week, and make real headway. Monday’s are the starting gun for the week.
Tuesdays are warmed over Mondays. On Tuesdays we tell ourselves our intentions were good, and our focus was good on Monday – but Monday presented its own new fires to put out. And maybe some new distractions. We made some progress on Monday, but today, Tuesday is where we kick it into high gear, and get proper traction. Also, many take Mondays as vacation days, for those 3 day weekends, especially in the Summer – this is the other reason we call Tuesday “warmed over Monday”. If we are out of office Monday, then Tuesday becomes our Monday. With me so far?
Wednesday. Hump day. We are half way through the work week. Wednesdays can be days of assessment. We had goals, and problems in mind on Monday to address. Tuesday we made traction. How much did we get done, and how much is left mid-week? These are the kinds of questions we ask ourselves on Wednesdays. We take stock, and plot our course for the remainder of the week. If we have made traction, Wednesdays can be a day of optimism.
Now we arrive at Thursdays. We have taken stock on Wednesday, and we continue to drive on the goals we set on Monday on Thursday. If things have not gone well in the week, we take some comfort knowing we are one day closer to the weekend. If things have gone well, we can feel good about our work, and our workweek on Thursday. We have made real progress and in the home stretch. Keep working, and keep optimistic.
Friday tend to be a day of wrapping things up, and reflection. Many projects have significant deliverables due by close of business Friday. If we have documentation, or reports to produce – if we crank them out by Friday afternoon, management, and stakeholders can review the documentation over the weekend. So Fridays are a good day to complete, and publish deliverables. Department meetings, and lunches tend to fall on Fridays – another reason I tend to think of Friday’s as a day of reflection. Fridays are often taken as a vacation day, just as Mondays are, to accommodate those 3 day weekends. So for some Fridays become early Saturdays. Which makes Saturday, their second Saturday. (This is getting confusing – right? Thankfully our work week comes to an end on Friday.)
After considering the above work week cycle, which repeats every seven days, what are the suggested days for a Coaching Session, or as its more commonly known, one on one, and why?
Maybe surprisingly, Mondays – despite being, well, Mondays are a good day for a session.  This is because Mondays are about planning. All the rest of the work week lays in front of us on Mondays. So what better day to assess the success of last week and plan for the work to be done this week? There is no better day to get back to the business of setting goals, and planning deliverables than Monday. I have seen this in my practice, where almost half of my clients all wanted Monday sessions. Mondays indeed tend to be busy days for my Coaching Practice.
But if we recall the discussion above, there are actually two Mondays in the work week. Tuesdays are Mondays in re-boot. The same reasons that Mondays are appealing for one on ones, apply to Tuesdays. Tuesdays fall early in the work week – second only to Mondays, so again, Tuesdays can be appealing for session days, as Tuesdays also support a good day of the week for planning, goals, and deliverables for the week.
As a general rule I would suggest that middle of the week is not a good time for a one on one, or session with a Coaching Manager. The reason is that on Wednesdays we are in the midst of doing the work for the week – or said another way – we are well into working to complete the deliverables, or tasks for the week. Best not to interrupt mid-stream. Let Wednesday do what it does best – be the midpoint for completing the work, and assessing the work remaining for the week. Thursday is much the same story as Wednesday. We are in the middle of the work to be done for the week. Not the best day to set goals, and plan deliverables.
But what about Friday? Can this be a good day for a coaching session? Actually it can be. Especially if it falls in the afternoon. The reason being that Friday is about reflection on how work went for the week, and can be an early start to planning for next week. So Fridays can be a very early Monday of sorts. The exception being when just wrapping up a deliverable for end of the week deadline.   If this is the case, try to have our deliverable done by noon Friday, and have your coaching session in the afternoon. In some ways Fridays are superior to Mondays, as we can ruminate on goals, and deliverables over the weekend, and be in a prepared state of mind to implement the work come Monday.
So in summary, good days for coaching sessions are Mondays, Tuesdays, and Friday afternoons. As with much in life there are exceptions, but given the cyclical nature of the work week, around planning, doing the work, and assessing what is left to be done, these three days stand out as good candidates. Before we wrap up, a few word on time of day. It is a fact of life that some people are morning people, and some people are afternoon people. If your client is an afternoon person, then that is the best time of day. But all things equal, a good coaching manager will say “what things can you put into place today?” With this in mind, morning is a better time to meet than afternoon, as it allows for action steps that day. The call is to immediate action, and a morning session supports this better.
I am an advocate for planning. Regardless of the problem to be solved, the goal to be met, or the task to be done, planning helps.  Taking that a step farther, it makes sense to carve out the best day, and time to do our planning, that is have our one on one, or coaching session. To this end, best to avoid middle of the week, and all things equal, morning is better than afternoon.
Author: Brian Kail, MBA, CPC is a Career, and Business Coach. For more information see AscendProCoach.com

The Coaching Manager: Part 14 - Where to Meet?

The Coaching Manager: Part 13 - When to Meet

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