Coaching in Context

Speaker A Said, my name is Peter Taylor and I'm with BIOS. I've been with BIOS or associated with BIOS since 1996. Originally I was a client and I got involved with BIOS else because I was the HR and quality director of a business at the time. And the board, the rest of my colleagues, were saying to me, well, you know, I don't think we've got that good a group of people for the future in the business. And I would say to them, well okay, what are you basing that on then? And they said to me, well, just feel that we haven't got the quality of people that we need. I said, what? You feel that we haven't got the quality of people we need? Have you got any evidence of that? Well, just the things that happen in the business. So I said to them, do you think we should get some metrics around it? Because the MD was a first in maths and a very bright guy. There was a couple of finance guys who were all into the management accounts and very logical, rational people. And we decided to get some metrics. And believe it or not, when we got the metrics, because we got BIOS to come in and work with us. So Judy hobra did that with one or two colleagues from BIOS in the 96, 97. And I always remember the presentation of the metrics at the board meeting, because when we had the presentation of the metrics at the board meeting, the MD looked at them and effectively it was the capability levels of people in the business and where some of the jobs were. And I always remember his phrase when he said, well, we've got two choices here, given what we thought before, we can either believe the data or we can rubbish it. Unfortunately, they believed it. And what was evident was that there were a number of structural things in the company that were preventing some people actually realizing some of the potential. That was my first introduction to BIOS in about 96, and then in 99 I think it was, I started to work with Judy and became a director of the business. And interestingly, when we first started working together, we did the CPA, the thing that you've heard about. So we got a handle on people's capability, but as George has indicated, it's not just about capability. People need other things in order to convert that capability into effective performance. And so one of the things that we've tried to do over the years is add to the CPA process to capture more information. So there's more diagnostics that we put alongside CPA as a basis of gaining the diagnostics and then thinking about what kind of development focused for the individual, depending upon where they are, their role, some of their skills, knowledge, experience, where is it that they need to go from a development perspective. So in terms of trying to illustrate some of that. We now operate in different areas. So it's not just CPA. We do things like organisation, job design and development, leadership development coaching, which we're focusing on today, some talent management stuff and reward systems. So I just want to focus on the leadership development and coaching. In terms of the coaching process, I mentioned the diagnostics. So we use CPA as a basis, or MCPA, the modified version, which people complete over the Internet initially, plus something called LPA, which is a psychometric battery of tests. And then either something like EDA, which is a 360 process, or our own WRA, Working Relationships Appreciation. You'll see from that information so far, we have to get everything into a three letter acronym, otherwise it causes a bit of a problem. So everything virtually is a three letter acronym. Then in terms of working with the candidate, doing something like CPA, those are the diagnostics. We feed back the information because effectively what we're doing there is gaining that context about where the candidate is from a capability perspective, where their work is and where some of their skills, knowledge, experience are. And that provides the basis for us to intervene, if you like, with a coaching assignment. And as far as the assignment is concerned, I put their workbook approach, which sounds a bit rigid, I don't mean it to, but effectively we've got some information that we can use as a basis for intervening if, let's say, somebody's in a level three role or a level four role. So we'll dip in and out depending upon the individual and where they are and some of their skills and where their role is. So for example, if somebody is just moving into a level three role, they need some understanding about really what is a level three role, what does it encompass? If they're moving into a level four role, or if they're moving to a high level three role, it might look slightly different to a low level three role. If they're moving at a level four, it's going to be different again. So it's about trying to give them some context about what the work is for them to be able to focus upon. And in terms of that, we do that through the process of giving them some frameworks, getting the grips with work and capabilities. So I've got a quick example of some of the things that we do at level three and then how we use those from a development perspective. Thanks, Mike. So one of the first things, are they in flow or not important? Because that will help shape things around what might be required for them from a development perspective and against the seven levels of work. That's the way that we normally present this. Based upon Luke Hobecker's work, where he actually grouped those levels and some of the overlaps, we found that pretty helpful in understanding some of the things that actually happen in the workplace. So the overlap between, say, three and four and the overlap between five and six.

Speaker B Okay, thanks.

Speaker A And the output that people get through CPA, I think, again, you may have seen this in some cases, would get an indication of where the individual is on those development curves, as we call them. Glad that Mike's come back because we do show people those development curves. We have to do that with them. If we're taking them through the process in BIOS and we're actually being open with them in terms of feedback, they need to know where they are from a capability perspective and we need to agree that with them. So yes, in relation to Mike's point, we do show them this information and we talk about some of the implications of those different growth curves with them.

Speaker B Okay.

Speaker A That's mine. When I was saying about the other things around capability, the way that we tend to operate is with that jigsaw. So we talk to people about the jigsaw of potential and talk to them about the fact that as well as that central piece, that capability piece being a key element the other things around that centerpiece are important. The skills that they have and do they regularly update them the knowledge and experience that they have and how they vary some of the knowledge and experience that they achieve and attain. And in lots of cases, organizations have competencies more and more organizations that we use. And so we have to utilize some of those as well. And on occasions, and I'm sure you've come across this, you find that those competencies look fairly similar at whatever level. And so sometimes we end up reviewing the competencies to make them level specific, which is another piece of work sometimes organizationally that we get involved with. And the other thing that's important, obviously, is the individual's own motivation, personal style and fit with culture. So we tap into each of those things through some of the different processes. So one of them we've talked about LPA, the psychometric battery of tools that we tend to use alongside the information of CPA or MCPA. When we first started in 99, it was virtually CPA or MCPA and that was it. Now I would say 80, 85% of those assignments that we have with clients involve the broader perspective. So MCP or CPA plus something like this.

Speaker B Thank you.

Speaker A The other thing that we use is something called Working Relationship Appreciation. And this was a tool that supports something called a Tripod. That an idea that Jillian Stamp had originally that balances how effectively people are at tasking people, how effectively they are attending them, and how effective they are at trusting them in terms of utilizing their judgment. So this tool has been built around that original concept from Julian and is effectively a 360 approach that gives feedback about how well the individual does those three elements. And it can be very specific in terms of feedback from individuals and you can elevate that. So it's quite conceptual about some of the key themes that they need to focus upon.

Speaker B Thank you.

Speaker A The other thing that we use also sometimes where organizations want a more generic 360 is EDA, which is provided Richard Sale and EDAC. And that interestingly one of the few 360s which is research based. So some of the work of Keegan is built into this particular 362.

Speaker B Okay.

Speaker A Thanks, Mike. And that's the kind of data that you can get out of the EDA two.

Speaker B Okay.

Speaker A That'S really just to say the approach that we take very quickly. Thanks Mike. And the other thing in terms of the work within BIOS, we've done this not once a number of times, but we tend to build up what we mean by work at level three. So some of the original information used from Ro and then some of our own information. So an example that we presented at what's the purpose and value contribution of work at level three? What are some of the key elements, what are the kinds of things that line managers would recognize in terms of activities that are included in those key elements? What are the indicative time frames which you'll recognize and what are some of the typical examples? That can be a bit tricky because as we know, job titles don't equate to level of work. So there's always a bit of a caveat there, but it's to try and give some sense of what it could look like. And then one of the things that we do with people is talk about some of the requirements of the role and then look at well, actually if the theme of work is connecting, what does that mean that the individual needs to do? So we talk about some of the things that they would do or need to do if they're operating in a level three role. So again, what we're trying to do is give the context of the level of work as well as the diagnostic basis of the individual before we intervene in terms of agreeing some kind of development program.

Speaker B Okay.

Speaker A And just to show you quickly similar kind of approach in terms of level four. So what do we mean by level four? What are the key elements? So some of the things there and effectively this is making tangible for people what sometimes for people can be a little intangible. It's trying to give them something to hang on to and then next one and then again, some of the indicators of capability at level four that we would look for during CPN we talk to people about that they might need to work on. For example, somebody just moving into level four might well need to develop some of those things.

Speaker B Okay, thanks.

Speaker A Yeah, this is a colleague's diagram. As you can see, it's a fried egg. The rationale for that is that in work, people have got work demands that's the yolk, the yellow piece and then there's the limits of choice that the organization might impose upon them. That's the white piece. And then sometimes is the role holder's mental model, what they'd like to do. And sometimes what they'll try and do is push the boundaries of that egg. And sometimes they might need to be constrained in doing that, depending upon the organization and the role. What we're talking about is recognizing the difference between the key elements of the work at level three and level four and where somebody can push the boundaries and do more and talk about that with them in the diagnostic fears.

Speaker B Thank you.

Speaker A Then, in terms of having done that diagnostic fears, having given the context about what work is like at level three or four, in the example that we talked about, we then get into things like, well, actually, is there a way that you can develop your role? And effectively, this is the workbook idea that we will dip in and dip out of with people that we work with and contract with from a coaching point of view, depending on some of the diagnostics that we've conducted. So that would be some examples. What two activities have you left behind with relief and why? So if people have moved from a level three role to a level four rule, or in that transition, there's probably some things that they're very pleased to get rid of when they move from a level three to a level four role. But there are probably some things that they've left behind with regret, and they've got to fight hard to not get involved in doing that because they really enjoy doing it. So again, from a coaching point of view, it's about trying to identify what those things might be. And then we would move on to looking at the work in a bit more detail by taking an approach that we use when we're actually doing organizational work. When we look at organizations and we look at roles within organizations, we do it against seven parameters. You recognize time horizon? We also look at things like collaboration. How much collaboration do they have? Is it internal? Is it internal across the whole organization? Is it external and internal, or is it all external? We look at discretion, the amount of elbow room that they have in terms of being able to make decisions. We look at the resources that they manage, the kinds of things that people have in terms of number, the diversity of resources, and the type of problems that they get involved in dealing with. In addition, the kind of context that they've got, is it mainly an internal or an external context or a combination of both? And what's their real value contribution based on levels of work?

Speaker B Okay, thanks.

Speaker A So I don't want to go through all of these because there's too many of them. But just to give you a couple of examples, if we're talking about value, contribution, we may ask them those kinds of things to get the discussion going and to get them to focus on what they can do to develop their role in themselves.

Speaker B Okay.

Speaker A So in resources, how can I improve decision making by trusting immediate reports at level two to use their own judgment. Fairly straightforward things, but the kind of thing that articulating with somebody if they've just been promoted into level three can be quite a difficult thing to do because they've moved away from level two where they've been operating effectively might have been one of the things that's made them get promoted. And so getting them to stop doing some of the things that they've been doing well because they need to focus differently and add value in a different way can be quite difficult for them to do initially.

Speaker B Okay.

Speaker A And some of the problems there just skip through.

Speaker B Okay.

Speaker A That was the WRA, the tripod I mentioned. Just carry on and then developing yourself. So having been through that process with them and focused on one of those seven areas, more or less, depending upon the requirements, what we then do is come to developing yourself. So those questions around reviewing things like the scope of their role, how much opportunity have they got to push the boundaries, things like developing themselves further, looking after themselves from a health point of.

Speaker B View.

Speaker A What kind of skills, knowledge do they need to develop?

Speaker B Okay.

Speaker A Thanks, Mike. And then in terms of their career, what else might they need to do in wanting to develop their career? So again, prompts to have a discussion with the individual to try and engage in that discussion and focus on the future and the present in terms of what they can do, but future of a career. Thanks. And then asking them some questions about how realistic are some of your ambitions, given the fact that we might have just done your CPA. So if you want to be a chief executive and maybe your CPA is not indicating that, is that realistic and what are you prepared to give up if you want to try and achieve that? So although we wouldn't tell them that they could never do it because I don't think that's our role, we would point out that they may experience some difficulties in trying to do something like that if they didn't have the capability.

Speaker B Okay, it is. Yeah.

Speaker A And in summary, those things, what do I need to clarify my role? How can I best develop the current role? And then there's the final thing that I'm sure everybody uses. The three things I'm going to start doing, stop doing, or do more of as a means of focusing some of the effort and then developing the action plan and getting them to sign off on the action plan and reviewing it with them in our coaching assignments. Following that approach that we take normally, it would be about six sessions that we might have with people. So the first session would be around the diagnostics building, rapport with people. And obviously if you're working with them for half a day doing CPA and LPA, you do build up rapport with them. Giving them some feedback in the second session and then in the third, 4th, fifth and 6th session, starting to focus on what they can do to develop themselves, giving them the opportunity to actually try things out. And in doing that, reviewing critical incidents. What went well, what didn't go so well, what have you learned from it? How will you do things differently? And again, always trying to bring it into the context of where they are now, where their role is, and giving them the information to help them in that process.