Everyone should have a coaching plan

Coaching your direct reports is an essential part of your job as a manager. 

Often people think coaching plans are bad, that they are the same as Personal Improvement Plans (PIPS) (Other terms are often used).

PIPS are improvement plans put in place before you exit someone from the business, so you can see why people are fearful of coaching plans. But coaching plans and PIPS are not the same thing. 

Coaching plans are simply about personal development and growth aligned to four main aspects.

1. The competencies needed for the role.
   1. As these change and grow, there is a need for people to change and grow too.
   2. Sometimes people don't have the competency for the role - so improvements must be made
2. The soft-skills for the role.
   1. Underneath all of the technical competencies for the role are behaviours that add to, or detract from, the culture and effectiveness of the team. Think communication, relationships, work ethic and more.
   2. These are often loosely codified in a job description but they are often ignored by managers. In my view, they should be one of the main areas to focus on.
   3. I have 10 behaviours that I look out for and nudge - they may be a good starting point for you too.
   4. Left unchecked toxic workplaces form. The culture morphs and twists, sometimes into something nobody ever wanted. If you want a high performing culture that achieves results AND is a brilliant place to work, you have to focus here.
3. The career goals and ambitions of the individual.
   1. What do your people want from their careers and lives? And can you help them achieve that whilst delivering business results?
   2. Aligning coaching with people's career ambitions helps to drive engagement, growth and a connection with the business. It is also the right thing to do.
   3. Of course, helping people achieve goals that aren't in any way related to your business may seem like a morally outstanding thing to do, but avoid this - they are working for the company after all so alignment is needed.
4. The competencies people have outside of work.
   1. This may seem strange to focus on things out of work - especially given 3.c above but Cultivated Management is all about human potential. Let me explain.
   2. Many people have hobbies, interests and skills that are not brought to the workplace. Some people may wish to keep it that way - respect that. Others may wish to bring in their diversity of experience and skills into the workplaces.
   3. I knew an agile coach who was awesome at graphic design - he wanted to bring it in, so we helped him. He ended up doing all of the visual graphics for our strategy work. Value add - new competency in the business unlocked.
   4. I knew a software tester who used to be a teacher. He wanted to keep that skill alive so we put him in charge of the learning curriculum. He did a great job - value add - new competency in the business.

A plan for all

Everyone in your team should have a coaching plan. They should all have some sort of plan that helps them move from where they currently are to where they want to get to.

This is a coaching plan. It is often very basic. Some people will no doubt create their own if they are very self motivated, so you may find some people already have one. 

Cultivated Managers often have their own, self directed, coaching plan.

Many managers don't do coaching plans because they feel they are too complicated or they don't know where to start. So here are some thoughts if you're not currently doing coaching plans for your direct reports.

1. A coaching plan is nothing more than a list of resources and opportunities that help someone learn, grow or develop.
2. Start by working out what their current strengths and skills are. Strengths Finder 2.0, DISC and "VIA Survey of Character Strengths" are my go to trilogy of analysis tools, although simply discussing career progression and performance needs with your direct is good too.
   1. Check out this post on the Trinity of career development.
3. Discuss where they would like to get to. What do they want to achieve? What position do they want? What skills would they like to develop? What projects or teams would they like to be involved with at work?
4. Start listing resources, or even better, ask your direct to go and research their own list to bring back.
5. These resources could be books, online videos, events, conferences, other people to speak to, meetings to attend, mini projects to pick up or anything else that can help them grow and improve.
6. Add a deadline to each resource, giving ample time to complete the plan. Consider though, that not everyone learns at the same rate and not everyone will enjoy reading etc. So this should always be a very collaborative exercise. 
7. Then document it all and make it visible to you and your direct.
8. Discuss the behaviour changes expected from the coaching plan. As in, what behaviours are they looking to change? All training is about shifting behaviours.
9. Discuss it in maybe 1 out of 4 "one2ones"
10. Measure the change in behaviours as they work through the coaching plan. Training and coaching that does not contribute to business results is waste (from the business perspective).
11. Open up opportunities within the business for them to grow, try, develop and learn. Learning is both information acquisition and task acquisition - they need to be able to put into practice what is being learned.

As they work through the coaching plan it's important to keep checking it is still relevant. Don't be afraid to change it as you go. 

I also tend to keep notes on what we discussed, how the plan is going and how it is changing. This is helpful should you do an annual review process. 

So there you have it. Super simple coaching plans that make a difference. 

It doesn't need to be tricky but everyone should have a plan. Even managers.