❯ Coaching = EQ + FQ + OQ

Coaching is a critical skill for people managers. Research points to its importance and effectiveness in teams and organizations. For leaders, coaching can hold back careers or it can propel them forward. Coaching is hard—and, it can be simplified.

COACHING = EQ + FQ + OQ

Coaching is hard because it’s a composite skill, a broad combination of hard skills and soft skills. To simplify, we put structure around it. The structure here breaks down coaching into three types of intelligence:

• Emotional intelligence - ability to perceive, understand, and manage emotions.

• Functional intelligence - skill and utilization of functional job knowledge (eg. marketing, analytics, statistics, project management).

• Organizational intelligence - ability to navigate your organization, get things done, and influence others.

This format lets us better pinpoint what kind of coaching would be most effective for ourselves, individuals, or teams. As a generalization, younger teams tend to need functional coaching. Senior contributors lean towards needing organizational intelligence. EQ is like gravity: it's constant, but more or less important depending on the situation.

Leaders can put tools into their toolbelt for each intelligence: emotional, functional, and organizational. A previous manager of mine helped me overcome perfectionism with EQ-based coaching, using "fixed vs growth mindset" as a tool.

Organizations and people have natural tendencies towards EQ, FQ, and OQ. I've managed people who were brilliant at functional work, but lacked organizational skills and struggled with getting cross-functional work done. The opposite has happened, too.

APPROACH TO COACHING

Just like coaching is a composite skill, I’ve built a composite approach towards coaching. It’s Netflix meets MBS meets Google. Here’s what it looks like:

• Problem - What problem are we facing?

• Goal - What do you want to happen AND what’s the real challenge?

• Reality - What’s happening now?

• Options - What could you do? And what else, and what else, and what else?

• Will - What will you do? What’s the path forward?
  

It's important for you and the person you are coaching to have alignment on the problem and goal. The right outcome will rarely happen if you're missing alignment. Later on, we explore options deeply because the first answer is rarely correct or the best option. During the entire process, I've focused on Taming the Advice Monster (see: MBS) and ending with a reflection (as a way to solidify the learning).

GET COACHING REPS

Limited opportunities to practice add to the difficulty of developing coaching skills. It can’t be crammed for like college exams or coding challenges. Here's what's worked for me to get creative in building coaching muscles:

• Coaching peers - Another director and I recently had conversations about getting resources for her team. She hadn’t been in the situation before, and I realized I could lean into coaching to help her work through it.

• Car Thoughts - My commute gives me a chance to make up scenarios and work through how I might handle them in the future or have handled them better.

• Coaching Podcasts - Listening to experts have coaching conversations brings me into real-world scenarios without the pressure. I can observe and absorb.
  

A structured understanding and approach to coaching enables faster feedback loops. Creatively exploring and jumping into coach-like scenarios can give exposure and experience without (as many) battle scars.

Snapshot:

Tiny feet patter down the hallway. My son peeks in. "Purple!" he shrieks, cackles, and runs away. I look around at blue walls and wooden floors and cream furniture. The joy of innocent mischief. I laugh, standing to chase him.

Striving for better,

Justin Pichichero