The Coach is In…
Much of how well we do in life, and as a leader, comes from our self-awareness. Do we ‘know ourselves?’ Do we have a strong sense of who we are and our purpose? How close is how we see ourselves to how others see us? How well does our self-perception inform our self-expression (how we act in the world)?
As we work with executives, their teams, or their emerging leaders, we often get to the point in the conversation that the gap we are trying to close is the gap between how the individual sees them self and how others see them. This can be anything from an annoying ‘quirk’ to a substantive issue. Sometimes the ‘nuance’ in the different views is difficult to articulate, but it’s real. “She’s ‘robotic,’ so well ‘rehearsed’ that I never get a feeling I’m getting the real her.” “He’s really good with the patients, but he really doesn’t do very well communicating with staff or his boss.” “She doesn’t relate well with her peers.” “He relates well with the supervisors at our clients, but at any level above that he doesn’t really represent us that well.” “How she communicates, dresses, and interacts with others is not the most professional.” “His vocabulary is such that it doesn’t represent us all that well.”
What do these things mean? What seems to happen is that the harder it is for us to articulate what we are seeing the less likely we are to have a meaningful conversation about it with the person. For me, these people/situations were always the ‘tweeners.’ They are people who have just enough ‘nuance’ in their personality/behavior that places them between where they currently are and another level of success. I don’t have any scientific way of knowing how many of these ‘tweeners’ there are in organizations, but my sense is that the number is small, but important. These are often ‘good people’ that you want to ‘get it,’ to overcome those traits, tendencies, or behaviors that are limiting their further success.
So what do we to instead? We keep them where they are, make excuses for why they aren’t getting additional opportunities, or financial reward, and hope they’ll figure it out and move on. Sometimes, we even spend time and create resource to improve their ‘professionalism’ or how they ‘communicate.’ I’m not always sure if we do this so that we feel better, or we convince ourselves that it will work. One thing I do know is that we send a message to the individual, the work team, and to the organization about how we treat these individuals. We are not authentic with these people, and others know it. It is one of our ‘tolerations’ found in every work culture (what we say our intended behavior is versus what we do).
I believe the best coaching I ever did in a situation like this was to recognize early that I was dealing with a situation where the individual wouldn’t ever ‘get’ what I was trying to tell them no matter how hard I tried, or how many ways I tried to make it clear. Instead, I had a difficult conversation. That conversation went something like this.
“Mary, I need to have a difficult conversation with you. What makes it difficult is that I think you are really a good person and you are trying to do your very best to improve your professionalism with our clients so that you can earn the responsibility for interacting with people further up in our clients’ organization. The problem is that we will likely always have a gap between how we see it and how you see it. We can spend hours and hours of you working as hard as you know how and me trying to find a better way to help you see where the gap exists. In the end, we will both be frustrated, much like we are now.”
“What I want to suggest is that we explore where your natural strengths will work better. This will mean that we will stop talking about your being a Director, and give you a choice of how we/you approach the next phase of your career. I am perfectly willing to explore what that might look like here, or what it might look like in another organization.”
“While you are taking some time to think about what conversation you want to have I want you to consider what it will be like for you to work here emotionally knowing that you won’t be a Director, and knowing that your earning potential and job responsibilities have some limitation. I’m not trying to force you to draw any conclusions, but I do want you to be honest with yourself, knowing that these feelings are a possibility. We want this change to feel like a relief and you feeling like it is a better fit and you’ll be happier with a job better matched to your strengths. If you don’t or can’t feel that then it likely won’t be a good move for you.”
Let’s stop the conversation here. This conversation isn’t easy no matter when it occurs. I just happen to think it honors the individual better by not ‘holding out hope’ that the person will magically ‘get it’ when you know in your heart they won’t. This is not a time to turn into the eternal optimist. It is a time to be respectful and work toward a solution that works best for the individual, and possibly for the company.
Keep in mind that I am not saying don’t work with your people. I am saying for that small percentage of people where it is really difficult to articulate in a meaningful way what their gap is, let’s consider a different approach.
Any Mary’s wondering around your workplace that need a different conversation?
To a better you…
Jim