Coaching vs. Telling: Which is the more effective approach?

Remember:

• Coaching is simply asking members of your team questions so that they think things through for themselves
• By getting people to think things through themselves they come up with the solutions themselves and are more bought into them
• If you always tell people what to do they stop thinking for themselves and become dependent upon you. If you get them to think for themselves, you breed capability and independence.

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One of the delights with working with humans is that we are all different and that what motivates one does not necessarily motivate the other. And yet there are certain principles that when you keep them in mind will help you motivate the individual’s within your team and in turn the team itself.

For ease of recollection, I have called these principles: the 7 M’s of Motivation.

M1 – Motivation is an Inside Job
We can create the environment and circumstances that are more likely to be motivational to employees. We can incentivise them, which again for some will be motivational. Ultimately, motivation comes from within. If an employee finds the environment, the incentives, the targets appealing and worthwhile to them, then they will experience the emotion of motivation. Put another way, motivation is not something we do to someone else, it is something they create for themselves.

“That doesn’t help me” I hear you cry. The following “M’s” will direct your attention to things that we can do to create an environment, approaches to structuring the goals in such a way that your team members are likely to find them motivational.

M2 – Make it a Verb
Motivation is not a “thing” or an object. It is not something that you can pick up. Grammatically we treat the word ‘Motivation’ as a noun, therefore we treat it is as if it is an object. Objects are solid things they are not flowing. An emotion is a changing and flowing experience.

Make it a verb. Change your thinking from ‘Motivation’ to ‘Motivating’. i.e. what are you doing to make their role, the environment they work in motivating? What can you do to make the role or the project more motivating?

When clients say “my staff are de-motivated and underperforming, I need you to motivate them” I often respond “Did you hire them that way?” to which I get the indignant response “Of course not!” My response is the crux of this point “So what are you doing to them to de-motivate them and cause them to under perform?”

Setting clear targets, providing praise and clear feedback, providing them interesting and engaging projects to work on, ask employees for their point of view or ideas on a matter are all simple things that can make a big difference to how motivating and engaging the work environment is.

M3 – Make it Personal & M4 – Make it Significant
We recognise that different things motivate different people or in the common vernacular “Different strokes for different folks”. Here are some pointers that will help you to think through how you can make the goal significant to them personally:
– WIIFM: What are they going to get out of pursuing the corporate goals? The acronym WIIFM (What’s in it for me) shines through loud and proud at this point. Employees have their own reasons for coming to work; some are of more value to you than others. However, if employees are encouraged to consider how they will achieve personal benefit whilst creating business benefit then that will improve morale and motivation. Often employees will not have ‘connected the dots’, they will not have looked at how doing their role, how completing the project will benefit them. Those benefits do not have to be financial in order to be worthy and motivational to employees. Even those with the most limited career aspirations want to learn and grow.
– Ask yourself a better question: Sometimes employees cannot see what benefit they could derive from doing a particular assignment. Then I encourage them to “Ask a better question”. The quality of the questions you ask yourself determines the quality of answers you will get. By asking yourself a better quality question such as “What are they ways in which I can learn from this?” can give new insights and new meaning to assignments. It can offer a purpose, personal and significant to that person.

M5 – Make it Compelling
If someone is not motivated about a goal, it is because it is does not hold enough appeal to them, it is not attractive or juicy enough for them. A client of mine was struggling to complete writing the last few chapters of his book. He said “I want to finish the book, but other things keep cropping up”. The reasons why he should complete the book were not strong enough and other things competed with his attention.

Make the goal so exciting, so compelling that a person is naturally drawn towards achieving it. With this client, writing the management book, I got him to imagine that his completed book had become No 1 in the Business Section of WH Smith and that he was on his way through Heathrow airport on his away to an international speaking engagement. As he walked past WH Smith there was a queue of people waiting to buy his book. One guy looked up from reading the book, recognising my client as the author from his picture on the cover, and came over to him asking him to sign the book and saying how brilliant his book was and what a difference it had made to the success of a friend’s business! My client’s face lit up as I was painting this picture. He had had his eyes opened to a purpose that was so much more significant that he was compelled to complete the book.

Help them to make their role, the achievement of their projects, compelling.

M6 – Make it Propelling
All human behaviour can be boiled down to two fundamental drivers: Pain and Pleasure. Fundamentally, the reason behind all human behaviour is either to avoid pain or to gain pleasure. Some people will do more to avoid pain, whilst others will do more to gain pleasure. For example, when I ask the groups I work with “I will pay you an extra £2000 for taking on extra responsibility in one of two scenarios: 1) you can use it for a holiday to the Caribbean or 2) you can avoid your house being repossessed. In which scenario would you do more for?” From the show of hands more people would do more to avoid their house being repossessed than they would for the holiday. i.e. more people will do more to avoid pain than they will gain pleasure.

When you help employees realise the implications of not following a particular course of action ( the pain) and the benefits of following a particular course of action ( the pleasure) then that sets up what we call a PROPULSION MECHANISM where simultaneously we are moving away from what we don’t want and moving towards what we do want. This is particularly effective for motivating people and is a strategy we use to great effect with our clients. NB. It has to be personal to the individual to be most effective.

M7 – Make it Real
With some projects the end goal seems so far away, it is difficult for employees to imagine its achievement. This is true of big change projects. However, if we can make the vision compelling for our staff and make its attainment seem more real then it is going to be more motivational.

Studies have shown that the brain does not know the difference between what you vividly imagine and reality. When employees visualise the achievement / completion of the project and all the benefits they are going to receive personally and professionally from it that not only activates the TOWARDS motivation, it also gets them in a great emotional state. When we are in a good state our performance increases. The more we focus on and visualise the achievement of our goals the quicker we will bring them into reality.

It is likely that you will not be able to spend time with all your employees to coach them through these ideas but what you can do is work with your direct reports and share with them these principles who in turn can apply them to great effect for themselves and with their teams.

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You want more. You want to get the results quicker.  You therefore are going to need energy, stamina and drive.  Whilst we can create an emotional  “pull” that draws you forward towards your goal.  You also need physical energy and stamina to achieve your goals, particularly as you have set yourself goals that require you to raise your game.

A burning desire for your goal will give you the tenacity and stamina to doggedly pursue your objective. You also need to look after your physical energy.

During an aircraft safety briefing the cabin crew explain that you should put on your own oxygen mask before helping someone else with his or hers.  How can you look after others if you do not look after yourself first?

Here are 9 things you can do to increase your physical energy levels fast and stoke your fire:

1) Surround yourself with people that energise you

Do the people that you spend the majority of your time with energise you?
I am sure that you have had the experience of spending time with some people where you have great conversations where the energy of the conversation builds and at the end of the meeting you are buzzing.  Then there are those other people that by the end of the meeting with them you feel drained.  Where possible, strive to spend time with positive, upbeat people who inspire and energise you.

2) Drink More Water

Between 50- 70% of the adult human body is made up of water.  Water is essential for survival and the body’s growth and maintenance.  Most adults do not drink enough water per day.  Most healthy adults need between 1.5 and 3 litres (6 – 8 glasses) of fluid per day.  Look to keep the balance of those in favour of water or juice as oppose to tea or coffee (see point below).

3) Less Caffeine & Sugar

Caffeine only offers a short term boost in energy, after which there is a fall in energy. The same is true with sugar. With regular use, coffee exhausts the adrenal glands, which are critical for sustained energy. Coffee also makes the bladder, kidneys, liver and other organs work harder, draining energy.

Reduce the number of cups of tea or coffee you drink in a day and replace them with glasses of water.

4) Breathe properly

Of course you are always breathing.  If you weren’t you wouldn’t be reading this!  However, for most people their breathing is shallow and only takes the breath into the top part of their lungs.  It is from the lower parts of the lungs that the most oxygen is absorbed into the blood stream.  Taking deep breaths, breathing from the abdomen draws the breath deeper into the lungs and transfers more oxygen into the blood for distribution around the body. Put your hands across your tummy and breath in deeply.  Your tummy should expand and then when you exhale it should contract.  Breathe from your abdomen.

For more tips on breathing take a look at this Telegraph article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/wellbeing/5901075/Why-do-so-few-of-us-know-how-to-breathe-properly.html

5) Exercise

Aerobic exercise which increases your heart rate and forcing you to breath deeper not only improves your fitness, it also helps you oxygenate your body through causing you to breathe deeper.  I am sure you have had the experience that after activities such as a run, a swim, a game of football / tennis you have felt energised and more awake.  Yes, you may be physically tired from the exertion but mentally you are more awake and have more energy. Exercise forces oxygen, a primary source of energy, into all the cells.

There is some consistency in the advice on recommended exercise levels: you should be looking at exercising at a moderate intensity level for 30 minutes three to five times per week.

If you are feeling jaded in the afternoon, get up and move your body.  Take a little walk around your office / place of work and breathe deeply. This will get the blood moving distributing oxygenated blood around your body.

6) High Quality Supplements

This is another area of conflicting advice. A debate that rages: “We get enough nutrition from a balanced diet” versus “It is almost impossible to avoid nutritional deficiency in these modern times. With our busy lifestyle, the ever-tempting convenience of fast food, it is now very difficult to achieve good daily nutrition”.

I can speak of my own experience when I changed the vitamin and mineral supplements to a high quality manufacturer that was recommended to me, after a few weeks I noticed that I had more energy and was feeling healthier and more able to sustain periods of intensive work.  This particular manufacturer, Nature’s Sunshine offers an online diagnostic as to which supplements you most need.

Feel the benefit of good quality supplements for yourself

7) Catch up on sleep

Uninterrupted sleep is necessary for the body to heal, restore, and re-energize. It is recommended that we get between 6.5 – 7.5 hours sleep per night.  Several studies have shown higher mortality rates for those who consistently sleep less than 6.5 hours and surprisingly for those who sleep more than 8.5 hours.

The demands of modern life including commuting often means getting 7 hours of sleep is a luxury.  If that is the case, look to see if you can catch up on sleep at the weekend and also develop your ability to have a short cat nap /power nap.  A 20 minute cat nap can do wonders to recharge your batteries.

8) Download your worries / concerns

Whilst we “have things on our mind”, whilst the things that are concerning us are going round and round in our heads that not only uses up some of our brain’s processing capability it drains our energy.

Get your thoughts, concerns, worries out onto paper.  The act of writing (writing by hand works better than typing) helps you sort out your thoughts.  Also seeing the issues written on paper in front of you helps you to look at them from different perspective and takes out some of the emotional component when you experience the thoughts going round and round in your head.

If you are having trouble sleeping because your brain is mulling problems over through the night then write out your concerns, worries, stresses into a journal before going to sleep.  Also keep it by your bed for you to write in if you wake up in the night either worrying about something or with a great idea you can capture the thoughts, let them go and go back to sleep.  Try it, you will appreciate the result.

9) Listen to music that energises you

I am sure you have had the experience of how music can alter your mood.  Some tracks of music make you feel happy and energised, even excited, others can build tension, others can make you feel reflective, relaxed or even sad.   Music has a powerful impact upon our state.

Studies have shown that music can affect the body.  In fact our heart rate gets entrained to the beat of the music.  For example, Classical music from the baroque period causes the heart beat and pulse rate to relax to the beat of the music. As the body becomes relaxed and alert, the mind is able to concentrate more easily. Furthermore, baroque music decreases blood pressure and enhances the ability to learn. Music also affects breathing rate. It has been observed to cause the pupils to dilate, increase blood pressure, and increase the heart rate.

Make yourself a series of playlists.  One of music that gets you energised and confident, feeling that you can take on the world.  One that calms and relaxes you, one that helps you concentrate.  Select the playlists appropriate to the state you want to create.

Clearly you cannot have music playing all of the time.  However, you can find times during the day when you can listen such as whilst travelling to an important meeting or on the way to / from work or during a quick walk at lunch time.

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