You Can't Coach What You Can't See

An organization reached out to us for coaching and development with one of their supervisors. I was the one who worked with him, and I still remember how they described him.

“He’s a really great person. He has great intentions. He gets fantastic results.”

Then came the reason for the call. People kept going to HR. Some complained about the way he communicated. Others complained that he didn’t communicate at all.

When I sat down with him, I heard the first part of that description right away. I heard how much he cared about each of his people. I also heard his frustration. Some of them seemed to need so much more from him, including conversations about things he believed had nothing to do with the job. He had a department to run, and he needed them to do their work.

So he did what results-driven leaders do and worked harder. He moved through the department quickly, talked fast and kept every conversation on task. When someone came to him with question after question, he gave a quick, sharp answer that didn’t quite answer what they asked, or he found a way around the conversation altogether.

His people saw something very different. To them, he was a supervisor who didn’t like them and cared more about the job than about them, so they pulled back. The department started missing its numbers, and even when they hit them, nobody was happy. It wasn’t everyone, but it was enough to keep HR busy.

His material handler is a good example. Each day he gave her what material the team would need, and each day she came back with questions. He heard her questioning him, so he gave her short answers and kept moving. She spent her time talking to others about him, and the team spent its time waiting on material, or waiting on checks to make sure it was right.

He was pouring everything he had into results, while his people were waiting for something he didn’t know they needed. What I saw was a leader communicating with everyone the way he is instead of the way they are. Several of his people were more reserved and more relational. When every conversation started and ended with the task, what they heard was that the task was all that mattered.

Our work together came down to two shifts.

The first was people before task. Before he asked for anything, he would stop and ask, “How’s your day going?” He would listen to the answer and look for common ground. Then he would turn to the work. For him, that was a big switch.

The second was communicating with people more the way they are than the way he is, and that’s when he saw his material handler differently. She wasn’t questioning him at all. She was a blend of people- and detail-oriented, and she needed a few answers so she could do the best job possible. Once he stopped, listened and answered, she was energized and had material in place before the team needed it. The waiting stopped, the flow stayed steady and the department’s productivity and profitability climbed.

The same thing happened in his team meetings. A few people who used to push back on almost everything now got a minute or two of his time each day. The pushback stopped, and when they did speak up, what they added had value.

“I can see a big difference,” he told me. “She needed me to stop and listen and answer her questions so she could have a good flow in her day.”

He had always cared. Now his people could see it.

People require time. Not just the time you want to give them, but the time that fills their tank, not necessarily what fills yours.

* * *

Most organizations aren’t ignoring their people problems. They’re working on the wrong one, sincerely and expensively, the way he was.

So here is my question for you. Think of a people problem your organization has “worked on” more than twice without it going away. Could you be treating a symptom instead of the problem?

HR could tell something was wrong, and so could the numbers. Neither could tell anyone what it was. Most organizations measure their people that way, if they measure them at all.