Coaching Promotes Loyalty and Trust

The project manager who takes the time to nurture others through coaching will continually have more and better quality people working on their teams. The coached project team member will foster loyalty and a desire to work on your teams. Over time, many of these team members can turn out to be your fellow project managers who will help you by backing you up if you are ill or go on vacation, can trade team members with you in times of need, or perform critical reviews of your projects to provide valuable “second opinions” that can help your project.

Quick Tips for the Aspiring PM/Coach

1) Listen beyond hearing. Good coaches are able to consistently put distractions aside and be “fully present” in conversations. Their ability to draw the “unsaid meaning” out of statements helps them understand their colleagues more completely, thus providing them with opportunities to foster growth, and appropriately challenge their colleagues to foster new capabilities.

2) Respond versus react. Good coaches understand the people they work with, including their aspirations and much of their emotional “makeup.” As a result, they can respond to the positive emotions of their team members (excitement, wonder, curiosity) with the assignments and communication they provide, versus react to any negative or unforeseen responses that could be received by less "emotionally intelligent” leaders.

Another powerful result from coaching is that it instills a level of trust that is rarely achieved otherwise. Project managers that coach have a tendency to receive “bad news” early in the game, without filtering or hesitation from team members. As a result, the project manager/coach has the opportunity to analyze and review problem situations more completely, because they have more time to respond thoughtfully. Thus, they are in a greater degree of control over their project environments; they respond versus react!

3) Ask versus tell. Experience teaches more completely and more permanently than telling. A conversation can’t provide direct experience, however there is a way to engage the brain and force it to visualize and consider alternatives. Telling typically creates a single scenario reaction. Questions, on the other hand – especially powerful questions – take the mind through a variety of situations and considerations. This is the closest we can come to creating experience through conversation. Good questions, combined with periods of silence that allow for the mind to consider alternatives are powerful motivators.

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