🎙️ EP 40 : Our Lockdown Comeback – Coaching through Outcomes
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How can we use our coaching mindset to set goals better?
It is quite natural for many Leaders to feel that they lose oversight about what is happening in their teams when work has shifted to a quasi-permanent remote style. Leaders who are used to spend a lot of time in physical proximity with their team can take a lot of information about their team’s wellbeing just from looking at them. You can get the vibes easily by seeing how sombre or happy people are around you.
All that subtle information is missing when everyone is working remotely.
What is one unfortunate, natural response by many Leaders?
They give in to their fear and feeling of a lack of control and go much deeper into defining what people need to do every single hour at home. They start policing activity and how people are spending their time. That is very much opposed to what most Leaders actually want: that their team members continue being productive and getting things done.
So how do we do this? How do ensure that work gets done in our team AND that we reduce our involvement as a Leader? Are we trying to square the circle?
Let’s talk about goal setting in general for a moment.
As a Leader, you don’t have complete freedom to do whatever you want anyway. Unless you are a CEO, a large degree of your goals are likely a subset or a further developed version of the goals cascaded from your own boss.
The goals that are cascaded by your own Leadership are typically outcomes, i.e. a project that must have been completed by a certain date; a process that must have been implemented; a number of customers that have been won.
The closer we get to the actual work delivery, there is another type of goal that becomes more relevant: process goals. They describe the path to the outcomes.
How does it help to know about the distinction between these two types of goals?
Well, outcome-based thinking, that is a big contributor towards the success of a Remote Coaching Leader.
How do you recognise a Leader with outcome-based thinking?
- They are very focused and skilled in defining clear, concrete outcomes, i.e. future states.
- They are firm in their understanding what is non-negotiable in relation to what their team has to achieve
- They are equally clear about where they want and should give freedom to their own team in terms of defining outcome and process goals.
So how does that look in real life?
A few examples to ‘test’ our understanding the difference between outcome and process-based goals:
“The presentation must be ready in 2 weeks”.
Is this more an outcome or process goal?
Well, it’s an outcome goal. It describes WHAT has to happen at a certain time in the future. It does not describe the path to get there; it describes a future state.
“Please use this exact template to create that powerpoint. Follow the exact same outline.”
This is a clear example of a process goal. It outlines HOW something should happen.
Make no mistake: Both outcome AND process goals can be very powerful. Process goals are a great means of ensuring and focusing on someone’s effort and continuous progress. They are useful, when a big, audacious goal feels out of reach and we have to focus on just making
progress, day by day.
However, outcome-based goals truly unfold their power when Leaders work with knowledge-based workers.
Once you deliberately leave space in HOW people achieve their goals, you fulfilled two fundamental and important requirements for motivation in the workplace:
1. Autonomy
You give people freedom on how to proceed. This is extremely important for those who you hired to perform high-stakes quality work.
2. Mastery
You give people the space to build their own mastery. This in turn is big factor towards building self-confidence and further motivation.
What steps can you take as a Leader to build that kind of outcome-based thinking?
1. Define the Outcome
Be very clear what is non-negotiable in terms of the outcome/goal that you have to pass on to your team member. Careful: Make a clear distinction between what YOU THINK are non-negotiable outcome goals versus what really are. It is all too easy to turn a belief and personal conviction into law to others as a Leader.
2. Outline the non-negotiable Process
Be clear about non-negotiable ways to get to outcomes. The same applies above. Be careful to make a clear distinction. There is a clear trade-off here: The more you restrict freedom, the more you get compliance. This comes at the cost of motivation through restrictions in autonomy and mastery.
3. Define the negotiable Process:
Be clear about what IS negotiable. This is where coaching happens. This is where you give space to your team members to find their own ways.
What are some of the success factors to get this really right?
1. Know well what is non-negotiable (outcome and path). This is essential. You will only know what you can coach your team members on once you decided what is out of reach. Be careful, not to focus on beliefs and intuitions here. What is non-negotiable should be rooted in facts, otherwise it’s just ‘the boss says’. For example, it is likely that a project will have a specific go live date; however, the exact deliverables might not be set in stone.
2. Be ready to switch and give guidance when your team members are lost. If your team members really need guidance, don’t let them dangle. This is unless you hired them exactly for coming up with wild ideas in such situations. Sometimes, coaching is not the right tool to use first.
3. Make your decision whether to coach or not, based on whether urgency and/or criticality of the situation allow it. In case of an urgent crisis, it is unlikely that you will have the time to go out and build motivation and consensus. You give orders, and that’s ok.
When a Leader takes these points into account, they will have a clear ‘demarkation line’ in their mind between those areas they can coach on and those they can’t.
The clarity empowers people and ultimately saves time, headaches and future conflicts.
Want to know more? This article is accompanied by by a podcast episode: www.intellicoach.org/ep40
Best, Maik
Maik Frank
Maik is a PCC Executive Coach and the founder of IntelliCoach.com. He has coached and trained over 400 People Leaders to improve their communication skills and offers guaranteed measurable growth to his clients. He also hosts the Coaching Leader Podcast.
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