7 points for coaching colleagues: Breaking down barriers with even difficult peers

Many of us experience, or hear stories of, challenging colleagues making meetings longer, cornering us in hallways, elevators and even through instant messaging, and creating havoc at the water cooler. For instance, in the clip below from the movie “Office Space”, Milton corners Peter on the phone regarding various issues. More often, though, helping colleagues is not so dramatic, as they seek our input, feedback and encouragement. Breaking down barriers through clear communication and empathy is crucial to developing and sustaining relationships critical to being a successful team.

Relationships drive results, so understanding how to effectively adopt a coaching process to dealing with colleagues provides a supportive and collaborative process to identify, define, tackle and work through issues. Coaching colleagues facilitates a positive, inspiring and collaborative work culture and team orientation.

The dynamics of coaching colleagues are different than coaching subordinates or supervisors.  In all three cases, the goal of coaching is leveraging relationships to improve results by empowering those coached to take responsibility for solutions.  However, the coaching approach for peers integrates the coach’s role on the team as well into coaching process, as that affects how we manage conflict, communication, and provide feedback as well as encouragement.

Our role as coaches isn’t to take over issues, rather we should listen, ask and respond in ways that allow our colleagues to consider options and retain responsibility for the solutions. Questions, not statements, empower and guide them towards solutions. For instance instead of laying out options, consider asking them what they have done so far as well as what else they could do.

We can also use questions as a way of augmenting how we provide feedback, thus leveraging developmental opportunities.  Timing is everything, so effective feedback for peers builds upon a relationship involving frequent communication to recognize timely and relevant opportunities. The slides below guide how we can more effectively provide feedback.

 

 

The team element is important when coaching colleagues. Dr. Marie McIntyre identified six roles crucial to successful teams. Click here to review the roles she describes, as understanding these roles, especially as they relate to strengths and challenges, help us empathize  with and support colleagues more directly.

Below are seven points to consider when coaching colleagues:

1.       Focus on them instead of you. Listen and ask questions, but don’t direct or micromanage. It’s about relating to their needs and skills, so that they can own and tackle challenges.

2.       Be authentic. Clearly communicate your points, instead of generalizing, sugarcoating or being overly negative.

3.       Empathize. Listen first, engage, and seek to understand instead of judging.

4.       Recognize your right role on the team at the right time. Understand the strengths and challenges of your role so your team can become more collaborative and productive.

5.       Provide constructive feedback. It’s not about criticism, rather it’s about dealing with issues and

6.       Engage in day-to-day coaching instead of non-stop evaluation. Providing constant advice leads to micromanagement, and coworkers don’t typically appreciate non-stop evaluation.

7.       Coaching is not counseling. Coaching’s focus is on performance-related issues, but you should support coworkers by suggesting outside help when they disclose personal, non-work-related issues.

Managing relationships is so important to developing and sustain high-performance teams today. By taking a coaching approach towards managing issues with peers, you can leverage and strengthen relationships that impact mutual success.

What are your thoughts and experiences on coaching peers?