Improving the Coaching Process

• August 2, 2017
• Denny Schleper

At the recent CLA Director and Manager Conference we had an engaging discussion surrounding THE Career-Building Firm. An essential part of THE Career-Building Firm is the coaching process. This podcast is a conversation with a few CLA team members who were at the conference. I asked them to share their coaching experiences, both positive and negative.

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Transcript

00:00:06:17 –:–:–:–

Announcer: Welcome to “Own the Promise,” a CLA podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every relationship we cultivate. This podcast is another way to remind us of our strategic focus, prepare us for new and exciting endeavors, and help us sustain our rhythm of business.

00:00:28:12 –:–:–:–

Denny: Hello, CLA Family. Today I actually have the privilege of being at the director/manager conference in Minneapolis. And a lot of the discussion today was around the career-building firm, and part of the career-building firm is obviously the coaching process that takes place for all of our people in CLA. And I thought it was a great opportunity to sit down with some of the attendees and really have the discussion around what kind of coaching actually is happening throughout the firm, true-life experiences. So, with that, I’d like them to do a quick introduction so you know who I have the privilege of being with this evening.

00:01:04:27 –:–:–:–

Rachel: This is Rachel Webster, health-care group, in the Charlotte office.

00:01:08:22 –:–:–:–

Connie: This is Connie Lira from the Cedar Rapids office, and I am nonprofit tax all day every day.

00:01:14:22 –:–:–:–

Stephanie: This is Stephanie McDonald, and I’m in the Charlotte office with the Biz Ops Group. Whoo-hoo!

00:01:20:02 –:–:–:–

Matt: This is Matt Billman from Denver, Colorado. I’m in our private sector tax group.

00:01:24:22 –:–:–:–

Tim: This is Tim Rawal. I’m also from the Denver offices, and I’m in the public sector group.

00:01:30:07 –:–:–:–

Denny: Well, thank you all very much for spending some time with us this evening. When you think about the coaching process, we’ve all been through some good experiences, and we probably have been through some negative experiences, but I think it would be helpful and interesting to the CLA family–What has been your actual experiences? So maybe what we’ll do is we’re gonna start on the negative side, and we’re gonna finish on the positive side. So anybody would like to share either a coaching experience that was delivered to you or just one that you observed that is really probably not the way that we would want to be coaching within CLA.

00:02:10:27 –:–:–:–

Connie: This is Connie, and, you know, I’ve been with the firm about ten years, and very early in my career, I got with a coach, and I was very excited, and I talked a lot to my coach. We talked, and we talked, and I felt like I was talking about all the things I wanted to do in my career, and I found out a little late that we weren’t actually communicating. And so the difference between talking and communicating is something that I have carried with me for the rest of my career, making sure that we are solidifying what I think is being said and what I think is happening to what is actually happening. Some specific things were, “I like to travel. I like to get out and try new things.” And I was saying these things, and then I didn’t follow up when they weren’t happening. So that’s the second takeaway. You know, you have to own your own career development, and if you aren’t getting out of coaching what you want to get out of coaching, make a change. Do something different. Those were two things that I learned a lot from.

00:03:09:22 –:–:–:–

Denny: Thank you, Connie. I’m curious, when you think about the coach itself, ’cause a lot of this is improving the coaching part of our process, what do you think the individual was lacking and why they weren’t hearing you, why the communication wasn’t happening?

00:03:27:02 –:–:–:–

Connie: You know, I would say that it was a difference in motivation. You know, the things that I was saying weren’t jiving with where they wanted their career to go and how I was helping them in their career. So they prioritized their career over my career. Being focused on the person across from the table is sometimes difficult. We talked about that a lot today. But that would’ve made a huge difference early in my career had they been invested in me like I kind of maybe thought they were.

00:03:57:02 –:–:–:–

Rachel: This is Rachel. So I’m very fortunate to have a coach that I really like, that I get along with, but just from seeing some of my coworkers’ coaching experiences, I know sometimes it can be a struggle to make sure that the career-coaching sessions are really about career coaching and don’t just turn into performance evaluations. Obviously performance evaluations are necessary and have their place, but, you know, the career coaching really should be kind of that time set aside to talk about what your goals are, how you think it’s going.

00:04:28:12 –:–:–:–

Denny: So it didn’t happen to you. It happened to a friend. Is that the story you’re going with?

00:04:32:07 –:–:–:–

Rachel: Yes.

00:04:33:02 –:–:–:–

Denny: Okay, wonderful. Anything else that we’d like to share maybe on the not-so-positive side?

00:04:38:17 –:–:–:–

Stephanie: This is Stephanie. I will share an experience early on in my career similar to Connie. I had a coaching meeting, and they did make it into a evaluation, but I would ask for specifics ’cause I always love direct feedback, and they couldn’t tell me what I needed to do to change, and they couldn’t tell me what instance wasn’t right, but all they could say is, “I want you to have more executive presence.” And so I said, “Well, what does that mean? And what do I need to do?” And so it kind of just left defeated because I had no place to go. I could tell it was a very uncomfortable conversation for them. So I had no direction. I was always on my Ps and Qs, but I never knew where I stood, and it just created this awkward situation.

00:05:33:02 –:–:–:–

Matt: Hi, this is Matt. I think I’ve had experiences both on when I was the coachee and the coach. And maybe things–wasn’t a great session was if either the coach or the coachee isn’t prepared for the meeting. I know I’m not a good coach when I don’t prepare for, you know, what the individual’s been up to, look back to what maybe our goals were or maybe their actions they were going to take to reach their growth objectives for the year. And so really preparing and talking not only to the individual on an ongoing basis and maybe even others to check and see how they’re doing is something that I’m working on as both a coachee and a coach to make it a positive experience.

00:06:15:12 –:–:–:–

Denny: You know, it’s interesting. The common theme really that I’m hearing so far is that coaches’ ability to really put themselves in your shoes. I heard one story where a coach came in and basically spoke the entire time about themselves, and that was the coaching session, which clearly wasn’t accomplishing what you’ve been experiencing or had experienced.

00:06:38:22 –:–:–:–

Tim: This is Tim from Denver. I had a similar experience with my first coach where I wasn’t really getting much out of it. I was getting a lot of, “You’re doing great. Keep it up.” But nothing specific to work on. And I actually left the firm for about six months, and when I came back, it affected the type of coaching experience I wanted to get and the type of experience that I am getting currently.

00:07:03:07 –:–:–:–

Denny: So that’s a great segue. That’s maybe into a positive experience, Tim, and it’d be a great comparison, so follow up on what you’re getting today. Where is it positive comparing it a little bit to where you were?

00:07:17:12 –:–:–:–

Tim: So the coaching experience I’m getting today, and it started from the day I came back, has been built on trust and honesty, to where I come to the meetings. I can say honestly how I’m feeling. And maybe going into that meeting, it’s been a rough week, and I come out of the meeting, and I’m energized and ready to go. And a lot of that is because I can say what’s on my mind without fear of repercussion or judgment, and it turns into constructive and, “Hey, going forward, we can do this better. Here’s things you’re doing great. Here’s things that you’re not doing so great that you need to work on.” So it’s about two and a half years now. Everything’s been fantastic since.

00:07:59:02 –:–:–:–

Denny: That’s great to hear. Has anyone else changed a coach, take a proactive approach in changing your coach?

00:08:06:22 –:–:–:–

Connie: This is Connie, and my coach now I really can’t say enough positive things about, you know. Just really has me at the forefront of his mind, and when I made that transition, you know, my existing coaching and my current coach were in the same office, and I was maybe one of the first people in our office to make that kind of a change. So it was a little awkward, and I hid a little bit behind industry specialization. And I was like, “Well, this is really what he does all the time, you know, so I just think this is a better fit.” And however we ended up getting there, the kinds of conversations that we have are very solution-oriented. You  know, we address, “Okay, how are you feeling? Why are you feeling that way? And, ultimately, where do you want to go?” And as soon as we have those three things kind of pinned down, then we can start talking about the action steps, which is the fun part of, how do you get there? What part of this is realistic for today? What part of this is realistic in five years? And if it’s realistic in five years, what needs to be different in five years to make that realistic? And so that’s so much more of an engaging process.

00:09:13:12 –:–:–:–

Stephanie: This is Stephanie. I’ve actually changed my coach several times over the course of years. And they were really good coaches, but it was for the change in where I want to go in my career. So, recently, I changed my coach to someone who specializes in doing not only Biz Ops, but has the CFO, international complexity experience outside of the company, and she came in as a consultant, and then she also had the public counting experience. So we both knew it was the right fit. It was the right time, that she knew me well enough that where we were growing, it was a mentor/mentee friendship, but where I wanted to go because of the type of coach that she was, ’cause she was the one who actually helped me with the transition initially from Assurance to Biz Ops. And now she helped me to transition into a coach that’s a better fit to take me where my five-year goal is. That is a phenomenal coach.

00:10:19:07 –:–:–:–

Denny: A lot of this conversation has been the feedback you’ve all received, but you are all coaches, and so you’ve been in situations where you’re giving some kind of feedback. A few podcasts ago, I talked about giving and receiving. And the reason that you get feedback is really two reasons. One, to change the behavior or to reinforce the behavior. Have you had any experiences that would be helpful for people, advice on the receiving side? So you were in the coaching position, but for some reason, the person that should have been taking advantage of getting great feedback given by you, for some reason, just it wasn’t happening. I’m getting blank looks, but I’ll tell you one dilemma that I sometimes have. And, Stephanie, you mentioned it in giving specific examples. Sometimes what I have found is that you have to be very careful with that, because people look for specific examples so that they can then argue those specific examples, where the example really wasn’t the point of the feedback. The point of the feedback was something more broad that you felt could really help that individual progress or even if, again, you were trying to reinforce the behavior. So I think as coaches, while we do have to have and be prepared with actual information and examples, we have to be careful in certain situations not to kind of fall into that trap and make sure that the individual is overall hearing the message, ’cause, again, you’re there to help them, is what you’re really trying to do. Yeah, Stephanie.

00:12:02:02 –:–:–:–

Stephanie: I’ll give an example. It was an instance where the person was new to the firm, and it’s a little different than what they’ve experience before. And so you have this set of work, and there was just so much change going on. And then you have the trust aspect, and I think that was more so important than the feedback because the person was only here for a couple of months, wasn’t really sold on our culture, and because they weren’t 100% sold on the culture, I shortly realized it wasn’t their inability–or their desire not to receive it. They weren’t sure if, is this intended to truly help me grow, or is this a form of, you know, this is how they write people up and I just don’t know about it? And it was over the time of really building the relationship and the trust that, you know, the person started talking more and started really implementing, then also seeing, because that’s another part, is the feedback that we–she had to see it for herself and see how it worked and see that this is the way for the client service and the consulting, and it’s just a little bit of a different mind-set, but that’s why we’re here, is to help her to gravitate to that role and make that transition and not the expectation that she would come with those skills.

00:13:36:27 –:–:–:–

Tim: I have a situation–I had actually two or three of them with coachees where I did provide specific examples that were given to me from other people they had worked with, and then it became kind of combative in terms of this is the examples that I’m getting, and they would give me their–and it would be counter to what I was being told, and that’s where I would kind of throw it out and say, “Well, the broad point is this. When you start giving those specifics, when it’s third party, when it’s not from your own experience, it becomes difficult because then you become the middle person saying, ‘I trust this person, but I also trust you. The truth is somewhere in the middle.'” So I think it’s a difficult line to straddle between the specific and the broad to find out what’s gonna help these people specifically improve on those things. So I did have two or three situations like that where we did put together improvement plans. They started working out, but eventually those folks ended up leaving the firm. But it was a difficult situation, I think, for not only the person who was providing me the feedback to then give to them, but them and myself as well, to where it was, who’s in the right here? And really there is no one in the right. It’s just a matter of what’s gonna be best for everybody and the firm as well.

00:14:58:02 –:–:–:–

Denny: Thank you, Tim. And that probably is where some of these roundtable experiences can help that he said-she said scenarios in that process. I’m just gonna go by maybe nod of head around the table. Do you think the firm is improving overall on the coaching process for our people, helping them make better career choices? I’m getting a lot of nods up and down, which are good. Clearly that’s something that we all know always needs to improve. It clearly isn’t a destiny but someplace that you’re always gonna have to improve as we continue to build this career-building firm. I want to thank all of you tonight. Just so you know, I took them away from their social hour at the manager/director conference. So I’ll let them get back to that. And thank you, CLA family. Appreciate all that you do, and I hope the coaching process in the firm continues to improve.

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