Your Coaching Challenges: “Fixer-Uppers” or “Tear-Downs”?
Note From Rand
Somehow, somewhere, someone developed the following perspective that permeated and finally pervaded business: With enough work, a person can change anything about himself. That assertion is simply untrue. My first article cites one example: character. I believe you’ll like it; I know you’ll find it illuminating.
My second article this month examines the importance of questions. I believe that most people, including business leaders, could benefit from asking themselves better questions about their milieu. I contend that if you want really great answers — answers that provoke, answers that incite, answers that instigate and irritate — you have to ask really great questions.
I’ll see you in November. In the meantime, you can always catch me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/rand.golletz. Until then, get real, get tough and get going.
When is a “Fixer-Upper” Really a “Tear-Down”?
You’ve seen the real estate ad. It goes something like this: “50 year-old home. Needs the tender, loving care of an owner with patience, talent and time.” My translation: “It’s a money pit. You’ll spend years trying to get it where you want it. You might succeed; you might fail. In either event, an adequate payback for your time, talent and money is highly unlikely.”
Real estate professionals call this kind of house a “fixer-upper.” I call it a “tear-down.”
Occasionally — actually, more often than I’d like — I get called by nervous CEOs or their HR heads to work with executives who are “tear-downs” masquerading as “fixer-uppers.”
What is an executive “tear-down”?
I once got a call from the CFO of a Fortune 500 company requesting that I contract to work with his controller. The CFO said that the controller would benefit greatly from working with an executive coach, and he had heard that I had a high level of success working with “tough guys” (his actual description). I laughed to myself because, while I actually had a record of success working with “harder-edged” executives, his description conjured up an image of DeNiro in Goodfellas.
I agreed to meet with the CFO to discuss the matter further. Here’s my (abbreviated) recollection of our conversation:
Him (forlorn): “Well Rand, it’s like this: Frank [not his real name] has a bit of a problem controlling his temper. A couple of weeks ago during one of his staff meetings, he yanked his phone out and threw it through the wall.”
Me (astonished but composed): “Is there more?”
Him (nervous and fidgety): “Well, yes, actually. During a discussion a couple of weeks before that, he took off his right shoe and smashed his heel through his computer screen.”
He went on to describe behavior that alternated between violent and destructive to property and verbally abusive to people, and it was escalating.
Me (increasingly wary and incredulous): “What’s the reason that you called me?”
Him (pleading but hopeful): “I’m hoping that you’ll work with this guy and fix him.”
Me: “I don’t fix people, but I’ll give you my quick take and a couple of insufficiently grounded recommendations. None of this will require you to pay me a penny. This guy appears to have a severe anger problem, an impulse control problem or both. [I know that by now you're marveling at my insight.] My guess is that before you realize any benefits from his getting help, he’s going to do some REAL damage. Here’s what I would do if I were you: I’d either fire him, require him to get psychiatric help (as a condition of ongoing employment), fire him as well as pay for his psychiatric help or give him a leave of absence — paid or otherwise — in order to get psychiatric help.
You are on the hook for this guy’s behavior. This is not an executive coaching challenge, although I’m sure that you’d be able to find a coach to tackle this, especially at the fee level you mentioned on the phone. I am not your guy, however.”
Why is this not a coaching challenge?
I won’t bore you with the rest of this story. Here are my key points:
Executive coaches can be really effective at identifying and dealing with many professional (and some personal) development challenges, including:
Knowledge and skill development Creating and supporting the execution of specific, quantifiable development plans and Procuring and providing feedback on executives’ actions.
Executive coaches should never be hired to work on significant “character issues” with people. You must go to great lengths to be sure that you are not engaged in folly, i.e., misdiagnosing a character flaw as a performance or development issue in order to delegate it (or abdicate) to an outside expert.
What is “character?”
I recently read the following definition of character: “The aggregate of personal attributes that enable a person to resist temptation and ethical compromise.”
That’ll do.
Here are some of those personal attributes:
Courage. Overcoming crippling fear (not the absence of fear). Discipline. Doing what needs to be done, the way it needs to be done, when it needs to be done, EVERY TIME. Persistence, resilience, perseverance and endurance. In total: Not quitting, being flexible, sticking to it and being tireless.
There are a lot more, but you get the idea. These attributes enable noble performance. They are cultivated by example, primarily early in life by caregivers, family and friends. They form the foundation on which knowledge and skills are built and without which knowledge and skills are useless.
The bottom line: Coaches cannot develop character. By the time someone becomes an executive, she either has it or she doesn’t.
If You Want Great Answers, Ask Great Questions
In my profession, I hear all kinds of excuses. Here’s one: “The economy is awful. How can our company possibly prosper during times like this?” And another: “We’re a small business. How can we compete against the big guys?”
You get the idea.
Some people, including executives, constantly make excuses in all arenas of their lives. A couple of years ago in this publication, I said the following: “It’s not your ‘stuff’ that determines your success. It’s what you do about your ‘stuff’ that determines your success. We all have ‘stuff.’ Victims (and excuse makers) are on a recruiting mission to geometrically increase the membership of their two clubs: The Loyal Order of Irritating, Recreational Whining Victims of America and its sister organization The Submissive, Indulgent Enablers of the Loyal Order of Irritating, Recreational Whiners of America. The former group retains the services of personal injury lawyers ready to extract large sums of money from those they believe are to blame for their malaise — everyone but them. Members of the latter group (the farm team for the first group) listen and bob their heads in agreement as those victims whine. Both clubs meet at water coolers and in the restrooms of leading organizations.”
Implicit in that comment is my assertion that if you want to create success, you have to own your life — PERIOD! Furthermore, success depends upon asking questions that will yield powerful answers. The question “Why is everyone in the world conspiring to ruin my life?” yields very different answers than “What must I do to attract people into my life who support my success and happiness?” The question “What niche is Starbucks not filling that we can fill?” yields more productive answers than “Starbucks is a behemoth. How can we be expected to compete against them?”
Several years ago, I was hired to help the CEO of a Fortune 500 company instill a “questioning culture” in his company. It was November, and the company was experiencing a disappointing year. He wanted to use their annual, worldwide management meeting to provoke a high level of introspection and critical honesty. We separated the 200 attendees into groups of 10 and asked them to answer the following questions:
How can you leverage the [company name] brand and value proposition in a more focused and disciplined way next year than ever in the past? What obstacles stood in the way of doing so and achieving this year’s planned results? Did you adequately anticipate them? As this year progressed, did you create any “excuses” (for yourself, to make you feel less culpable) for not achieving planned results? What were they? Success often breeds hubris. Did past successes lead to any overconfidence this year? In what way(s)? What will change next year? Looking at next year, what stands between you and the achievement of your planned results? In what ways are you “smarter” now that’ll better enable you to achieve next year’s planned results? Were your expectations realistic this year? Did your plans adequately identify and deal with opportunities and threats? Are your results scorecard and review processes sufficient to identify slippage? What systems and processes must change for you to deal with slippage more effectively? Are your internal systems sufficient to respond quickly and adequately to adverse conditions? How do you respond to midterm negative change and surprises? Is this adequate? When negative results surprise you:
Are you solution-oriented or blame-oriented?
Do you hold your entire team accountable rather than one person or function?What are the consequences for not participating fully with the team?
Their answers resulted in many new insights that instigated a review and fundamental change in the company’s planning, performance review, leadership development and control processes. Again, if you want compelling answers, you have to ask compelling questions.
