“Be a Smart Manager – The Coach!”

The industry and trends are changing from being only a manager to a leader and now to be a coach. The need is equally challenging as there is a lot of right awareness required in this field. The reason for saying it “right” has a strong meaning to it which comes from Dr. William Horton’s books. He mentions, “It’s not practice makes men perfect, its Right practice makes men perfect”. It’s not awareness required, its right awareness required. “

I believe sharing experiential knowledge is more helpful, and here is one of the real experiences again with Coaching!

In one of the companies, when an employee asked Why are we not doing X, Why the team is not listening, Why are they so demotivated?

The Smart manager – Listened calmly and reflected politely with a question “So, what is stopping you to bring in that change to team?”

The whole class looked at both of them.

So, this smart manager had two options – Either to give advice/recommend or to be a Smart Manager – The Coach with a powerful question who asked subtly.

And yeah that’s a part of coaching and being a Smart Manager – The Coach!

In this modern era, where you need your team to perform, achieve and be extraordinary, you need to be extraordinary, you need to raise the bar from just being a manager to being  a Smart Manager – The Coach.

What a Smart Manager – The Coach does differently than a manager?

“A coach would unleash the potential of a person for the challenge he/she is facing, using powerful questioning and other tools.”

What will happen if you be a Smart Manager – The Coach rather than only a manager?

• Own accountability and ownership
• Build rapport and connect
• Build trust
• Enhance performance and improves efficiency
• Utmost happiness

Yeah, you are right that a Manager also ask questions? However, the questions asked by manager would generally be like below:

“Why you didn’t do it, can you please finish it now?”

“Can we expect you to close this by tomorrow?”

“You know what, you have a great idea, but we cannot do anything here. Can you focus on thing I said yesterday?”

What happens when you ask questions like above? Think what happens to you when you hear these questions from someone else.

You know it well! You do give them answers and take some responsibility too, may be yes or may be not, or partially yes and no.

However, think about these questions’ formats – chosen by Smart Manager- The Coach

“What do you think you can do now?”

“What impact it will have if we don’t change the strategy?”

“What best can happen if we change?”

“What do you think can be done?”

“Is it Must to happen?”

“According to you, by when can it be done then?”

“Is it SMART enough?”

“Would you like to have a look at it again?”

These are only few of them. However, asking questions itself is an art, HOW DO YOU ASK; matters a lot.

The old saying in Communication books holds true, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say?”

There is more to above like reflective listening, no judgements, no prejudice, subtle questions, matching – Leading and pacing, rapport and trust which plays a vital role while you ask these questions as a Coach.

Would write on those experiences too in future!

Till then start working on “Be a Smart Manager – The Coach!”