Coaching Skills Training: Coaching & Communication 3

This article builds on the previous two in this series where I examined six communication styles and the relative advantages and disadvantages of each:

Tells, Sells, Tests, Consults, Joins and Delegates

So how does all this relate to coaching and where would we place coaching on the spectrum. Many contend that since coaching is about generating ownership and responsibility, it must be somewhere close to delegation. However, we can also see that perhaps coaching doesn't belong to this range of alternatives at all as it almost represents a philosophy of communication rather than a style. It's as if coaching becomes the way we can have the advantages of each whilst steering clear of the disadvantages.

Effective coaches do not have to worry about losing control as they know that any ideas and action steps will have been agreed as part of the coaching conversation. This means the coach gets an opportunity to explain why a certain course of action may be unwise or even against the rules. Also, we've seen that coaching is an effective way for managers to build trust in their teams and so they can resort to Tell when the situation demands it without worrying about the team being uncooperative or becoming disillusioned.

So far we have considered the merits of various communication styles in a general context. What about when we need to communicate with another to help them develop?

It seems that Tell is dominant here and perhaps this is because most of us were conditioned to learn in this way at school. We would sit in rows of desks while the teacher would tell us what we needed to do and how to do it and lessons would consist of being told what we needed to know. But this doesn't always work. Try explaining to someone how to do up a tie or lace a training shoe without showing them - it's almost impossible. To do so requires us firstly to understand exactly the process that needs to be done and then to find the language to convey that process to another person in a way they can understand. The modern world of work is changing so fast that we can no longer be certain that the ways and methods we used to become successful will be valid for the next generation. Solving today's problems with yesterday's solutions is a big risk. There's also the fact that recall is very poor when people have only ever been told what to do. How many managers have you heard yelling, "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times!", or "Just exactly how many times am I going to have to tell you?"

Coaching presents a way of dealing with these problems as it is concerned with drawing our rather than putting in and thus enables people to learn in their own way and at their own speed. This means that we can get learning which sticks and that remains available to us whenever we need it. It's like when we learn to cycle or swim using all five senses.

Let me quote a well known Chinese proverb:

"Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand"

Coaching is the best way to involve people in their own learning.