Achieving Change and Results Through Coaching

Katie was becoming increasingly frustrated with Dan’s performance.  She hired Dan as the Director of Marketing and Communications with the goal of getting out of the day-to-day decision-making and team oversight.  Unfortunately, almost a year later, this transition still hadn’t happened, and more concerning was the fact that Dan was not developing into the people leader and innovative thinker she imagined.  He often came to her with questions about marketing events and digital channels she felt could be better raised with the team to facilitate their participation and buy-in. The team was also coming to her with questions she believed should have been discussed and answered by Dan.  Katie felt her level of involvement with the team was preventing her from working on strategic decisions and revenue growth plans.  She thought, " What was the point of hiring Dan if I am going to continue doing his job and not have time to do my own?  He is not making my job easier; he is adding work to my plate.”  Does this sound familiar?

When Katie became a coaching client, one of her goals was to prioritize her time better – to spend her energy and efforts on the things that were value-add and moved the needle for the organization and less time in the weeds.  One of the first things she discovered during our time together was a desire for her efforts to be more strategic, which was a capacity issue – and this could not be achieved without an additional resource.  She decided to build a case for a Director-level position in her department, which was unanimously approved by the executive team.  What she discovered as our coaching conversations continued was that, while she had an additional resource to delegate responsibilities to, her actions and behaviors had not changed.  Here is a bit of Katie’s discovery:

Katie hired Dan to lead the weekly marketing meetings with the team, yet she was still attending them and developing the topics for the agenda.  She would talk with Dan about the topics in advance; however, the conversation tended to be more directive and one-way, rather than a two-way conversation to include ideas from Dan.  Dan often walked away feeling it was Katie’s meeting and he was there to participate, not develop the agenda and lead the discussion with the team.  Katie’s presence in the meetings also made him feel uncomfortable assuming the authority to run the meetings.  After all, she was his boss, and he felt it was important to demonstrate a high level of respect to her.  A second discovery was Katie had not provided Dan with clarity about how she envisioned his role, where he had full decision-making autonomy and the areas where consultation was needed before executing a strategy.  And third, but most important, was Katie’s own inability to redirect the team to Dan when they came to her with questions.  She did not see how her involvement with the team undermined Dan’s credibility as their manager.  With this discovery, Katie was able to see how her actions were contributing to the problem and identify how she could change her actions and behaviors to achieve the results she wanted. 

The first decision Katie made was that she would have a one-on-one meeting with Dan after each of her leadership meetings to let him know the priorities and expected results.  She would no longer attend the weekly meetings and would task Dan with developing a weekly agenda to address the priorities discussed and actions needed by the team to achieve the results.  Katie determined her next step would be to develop a roles and responsibilities chart to reflect what she thought were responsibilities that fell to her as the CMO, Dan as the Director of Marketing, and the roles and responsibilities of the team.  Katie would share and discuss this with Dan during their one-on-one meeting, and once they agreed on the final roles and responsibilities, would introduce it to the team at their next staff meeting.  And finally, Katie took time to think about how she would redirect the team when they came to her with questions.  Katie communicated to Dan her desire for him to lead the team and come to him with questions.  She wanted to make sure Dan felt supported and that she trusted him.  This meant empowering Dan to make decisions about marketing campaigns, communication channels, external marketing and public relations agencies, and spending approval up to $100,000. 

Six months later, Katie was feeling much better about Dan’s ability to lead the team and how she was spending her time.  Katie felt she was able to focus her time and energy on the things that really mattered. The team had started viewing Dan as a leader and going to him for guidance and direction, and Katie noticed Dan was taking more initiative.  The clarity with roles and responsibilities gave Dan the confidence to act on decisions that were in his purview, ability to be more innovative and forward-thinking, and limit time spent with Katie.  

Many clients experience coaching as a valuable tool to help them get out of their own way. Coaching can help clients connect what they say they want to actions that align with their desired outcomes.  And once clients have this level of awareness, they can develop a plan for how they will get there.  In the example with Katie, coaching created space for reflection, self-awareness, a desire to change behavior, and a commitment to do the work to achieve different results or a path forward.