GM585 Unit 6 Coaching Spectrum Seminar Reflection Example

Questions With Right Answers: A Unit 6 Seminar Reflection on Coaching That Grates

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

GM585: Mentoring and Coaching

Unit 6 Seminar Reflection

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The classmates' accounts and the writer's accounting firm are composite; the sources cited are real.

Three Accounts

Three classmates' stories carried the session.

Keisha, a nurse manager, described an external coach her hospital provided after she took over a medical-surgical unit. In her third session she explained that two nurses had resigned and she needed a staffing plan by Monday. The coach asked what a good outcome would look like, what she had tried and what her values told her. She left with no plan and, in her words, "the feeling I had been interviewed."

Ryan, who works in software sales, described weekly coaching calls run by his sales director from a script. Every question had an obvious right answer: "What do you think the next step with this account should be?" when the director plainly wanted to hear "book a demo." Ryan said the calls felt like a quiz.

Sofia, a high school teacher, described an instructional coach who sat at the back of her class for forty minutes, said almost nothing, and then asked one question afterward: "What were the four students by the window doing while you worked with the front table?" Sofia said it changed how she arranged her room for the rest of the year.

The View I Brought In

I came to the session believing that coaching annoys people when the coach is too directive. My firm trains managers to ask rather than tell, and I had seen associates bristle when a senior told them what to do in a coaching meeting. I expected the session to confirm that the annoying coaches had been the ones giving instructions.

Where the View Gave Way

The instructor asked us to place each coach on Myles Downey's spectrum, which runs from directive, or push, behaviors such as telling, instructing and giving advice, through offering guidance and making suggestions, to non-directive, or pull, behaviors such as asking questions that raise awareness, reflecting, summarizing and listening to understand (Downey, 2014).

Keisha's coach sat at the far pull end, and that was the problem. Keisha needed a staffing answer, or at least guidance, and the coach would not move along the spectrum to give it. Ryan's director looked like he sat at the pull end, since he asked questions, but his questions carried his answers. He was telling while pretending to ask. Sofia's coach sat at the pull end too, but she had watched for forty minutes, and her one question raised Sofia's awareness of something Sofia had not seen.

The coaching that grated was not too directive; it was either stuck at one point on the spectrum or pretending to be at a point it was not.

So my starting view was wrong in both directions. Keisha's coach was not directive at all and still frustrated her. Ryan's director was directive in disguise, and the disguise was what made it grate. Downey argues that skilled coaches move along the spectrum as the situation requires, and that the choice should follow what the person needs at that moment (Downey, 2014). John Whitmore makes a similar point when he says that telling has its place, especially in a crisis, but that a manager should know when they are telling and why (Whitmore, 2017).

Where My First View Survives

The pull end should still be a coach's default, in my judgment. Sofia's account showed how much a single precise question can do when it comes from close attention. But the default is not a rule, and honesty about where I am on the spectrum matters more than where I am.

Turning It on My Own Coaching

In busy season I coach associates in short conversations at their desks. Looking back, I suspect I often do what Ryan's director did: I ask "What do you think you should do about this variance?" when I already know the answer and want them to say it. Associates probably hear it as a test. James Hunt and Joseph Weintraub describe the coaching manager as someone who coaches in brief, frequent conversations during ordinary work, and they stress that this only works when employees trust that the manager is trying to help them develop rather than checking up on them (Hunt & Weintraub, 2017). A quiz disguised as a question undermines exactly that trust. If I know the answer and time is short, it would be more honest to say, "Here's what I'd do, and here's why," and save real questions for moments when I do not know the answer or when finding it themselves is worth the time. When I do ask, I want it to be a question like Sofia's coach asked, one that comes from watching closely and shows the associate something they had not seen.

References

Downey, M. (2014). Effective modern coaching: The principles and art of successful business coaching. LID Publishing.

Hunt, J. M., & Weintraub, J. R. (2017). The coaching manager: Developing top talent in business (3rd ed.). Sage.

Whitmore, J. (2017). Coaching for performance: The principles and practice of coaching and leadership (5th ed.). Nicholas Brealey.