Coaching in weird and difficult times

During uncertain, difficult, extraordinary times, your job as an engineering manager fundamentally changes.

When the world is predictable and the team is fully engaged, you can focus on output, set and model a high bar, give frequent feedback, and push the team to be the best that it can be. But when the world is upside down and everyone is living a reality they didn’t sign up for, the best thing you can do is be totally supportive.

Business goals don’t go away; output still matters. But your job becomes less one of pushing everyone to exceed their own expectations and one of finding sustainability and making everyone feel that their challenges are heard and understood.

In these weird and tough times, there is one question that you must always ask when you are meeting with your team, and I’ll get to that, but first I want you to understand the value of a coaching approach.

Now, more than ever, coaching is critical

My favorite description of what coaching is comes from Michael Bungay Stanier, author of “The Coaching Habit.” He says that coaching is about “staying curious for just a little bit longer.”

The reality is that you never know what a person is experiencing; everyone’s experience is individual, and sometimes aspects of that experience are shared involuntarily, through facial expressions or body language, but the only way to get a fuller, clearer picture of what someone is feeling is to ask.

A person’s willingness and ability to do any task is tied to their identity, their motivations and their ambitions, their unique experience. The only way that you can understand more of what comprises that whole person is to ask open questions with a true intent to understand.

Now think about the world in the midst of a pandemic where every meaningful social norm has been upended. We don’t have random chats in kitchenettes, we don’t see each other occasionally on the train, we may not even have dedicated space in which to work. How a person adapts to this situation is, again, uniquely and individually tied to their whole self in a way you likely don’t understand.

Think about one of your team members now. What is their working situation? Do they have roommates or family members living with them? Are there pets or children in the mix? What responsibility does this person have to those people; are they caring for an older family member or are they a parent themselves? Are their roommates working, furloughed, unemployed, or trying to do remote learning?

The only way to understand someone’s capacity to engage with you and the work ahead is to ask thoughtful questions, and to ask them with genuine concern. Coaching, fundamentally, is helping someone explore their own options and capacity through intense curiosity.

Here are some suggested questions to get you started in your next one-on-one:

• Does X make you feel excited, or anxious?

• If you could instantly change any one thing about your situation right now, what would that be?

• When we talk in a week or two, what is one thing you hope will be different?

The one most important question

Whether good times or bad, never forget that as a manager you work for your people. Your job exists to help them succeed. Especially if you are in the “dual role” of contributor and manager, it can be hard to remember that although one half of your job is directly creating value for the company, the other half is clearing a path for your team to do the same.

There are hundreds upon hundreds of powerful coaching questions that you can ask throughout your work with each person, but this one simple question never loses its value. When everyone is challenged by sudden remote work, family constantly present, schedules up in the air, and the emotional difficulties of working while the world outside is in tumult, always remember to ask:

“What else can I do for you?”

I like to ask toward the end of each one-on-one. It’s OK if the answer is “nothing right now,” or “I can’t think of anything.” The purpose of the question is not to get an answer, although you might; the purpose of the question is to open the door to responsibility, to be clear that you are always available for your team to ask things of you.

This is the foundation of support for your team, which they need now more than ever.

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