02. Myth 3: Debunking Common Coaching Myths – II

Read MoreContinuing our exploration of the common myths about coaching, let us look at myth…

3. Coaching is for Fixing Problematic People

Before getting into the details, let us look at two scenarios:

A. Apeksha is a senior manager handling a 15-member strong team. Being extremely busy with her day-to-day responsibilities, she hardly has the time to review her team members’ work individually. Ajay, one of Apeksha’s team members, has been struggling to keep up with the mounting workload resulting in a steep fall in his performance.

“Ajay is slacking. How can I get him to improve his performance?”, thought Apeksha.

B. Neeraj, another one of Apeksha’s team members tends to have a negative viewpoint on almost every project that the team undertakes. His first response to a new initiative is always a ‘No’, and he generally takes to discouraging other team members as well from taking on projects that involve new or additional work.

“Neeraj is such a pessimist. How can I fix him?”, thought Apeksha.

Who do you think needs coaching? Ajay or Neeraj?

If your answer is A, you’re partially correct! As you must have noticed, Ajay has a performance issue, whereas Neeraj’s issue is behavioural in nature.

No doubt, both Ajay and Neeraj could immensely benefit from coaching. However, coaching as a practice should not be seen as a tool to ‘fix’ someone.

Thinking you can fix someone’s behaviour is a rather shallow approach to coaching. People who relate to this myth tend to isolate a few unfavourable or unsavoury acts of certain team members and focus on ‘correcting’ them.

Now, the problem with this approach is that ‘fixing issues’ could mean using the carrot or stick approach to bring about a change in behaviour, where you motivate the person to do something or to not do something by using a reward or punishment.

However, as these quick fixes do not address the core issues, they rarely ever bring about a permanent change in behaviour.

And if you want to bring about a permanent or lasting change – especially in cases similar to that of Neeraj – you will need work with the team members to identify the core issues by answering these questions:

i. What is the root cause of this action or behaviour? Or why is an individual displaying a certain behaviour?
ii. How can we encourage a positive and permanent change in behaviour?

Answering these questions can help you explain to the team member why the attitude or behaviour needs to change and how it can be done.

This method of coaching works to maximise an individual’s potential instead of just ‘fixing’ things temporarily.

In Conclusion:

‘Not Having Enough Time for Coaching’, the belief that ‘Coaching is Only for Fixing Performance Issues’ and that ‘Coaching is for Fixing Problematic People’ are three of the four myths about coaching.

We will look at two more myths in the next lesson. For now, please take the accompanying quiz.

Happy Quizzing!

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