Comment by nrawe
12 hours ago
The Coaching Habit is a fantastic book and is the right way to do. Managers don't exist to solve other peoples problems; it's vice versa.
Managers are accountable for a problem, and responsible for building a team that can solve it in the most cost effective way. Their team members are responsible for solving the problem. Managers are also responsible for a lot of other things (tracking, reporting, cost management, roadmaps, change management, hiring/firing, process improvement). IME the managers who don't like the coaching side largely don't really want to be managers or don't understand that distinction in responsibilities. (Not helped, TBF, by lots of pretty awful promotion schemes that don't support people on that path).
What The Coaching Habit does leave out is the need for mentoring. Mentoring is not a synonym for coaching, it's active: "my report does not know how to do this thing, I need to tell/show them how to do it." While coaching: "my report knows how to do this, they need a soundboard for getting to the right answer."
It can distinctly suck some time, for both parties. However, in the long run, when managers stop coddling, their team members start growing. One person who hated me bitterly when I started on the coaching road with them now thanks me for it because it helped them to build their confidence and ultimately their skills to become a CTO. I have similar stories from others. YMMV.
Isn't the definitions the other way around regarding coaching and mentoring?
Coaching is about skills.
Mentoring is about advice/soundboard.
My understanding is that coaching is about helping the individual solve the problem himself/herself.
Mentoring is about adding information or skills such that the individual becomes more capable and thus are able to solve a problem.
Depends where you go, these two terms get used interchangeably (incorrectly IMO) and so there is some semantic drift.
If you were to read Julie Starr's "The Coaching Manual", or "The Coaching Habit", the definition is more or less what I outlined.
If you are familiar with the Leadership Continuum/Situational Leadership, the distinction from there becomes: tell/sell (mentoring), join/consult (coaching).
If tracking, reporting, cost management, roadmaps, change management, hiring/firing, process improvement, all aren't solving problems, why the heck are they doing it? Each of these tasks should be undertaken because they provide a solve a problem/provide a benefit.
Isn't "process improvement" just solving other people's problems?
Seems like it got hand waived by but it's the crux of the situation, no?
As the manager is accountable for the problem being solved, they are responsible for making sure processes are optimal.
There definitely should be an onus on individuals and teams to reflect and generate their own improvement actions to that end. Scrum Retros are a good example of this. In this case, the manager is responsible for process improvement by chairing the retro, ensuring that the team has the info needed, and has the space to implement actions. Scrum Masters chairing retros can be seen as a form of coaching.
There are also times when process improvement means directly stepping in and directing the team to do something differently. This can happen for lots of reasons; one example may be a manager taking over an existing team under fire and identifying immediate changes needed to dig them out. I've seen several teams with entrenched mindsets in this situation where process improvement is directed rather than discovered.
Ideally, the team drives it, while the manager is responsible for ensuring it happens successfully.
E.g. there is a big difference between "Why did we loose a day here, what can we learn?" vs "From now on each dev needs to review every pull request twice per-day". Might be the same ultimate action, but in the latter the manager is solving the issue directly.
Understanding the distinction between mentorship and coaching from this perspective was very helpful. Thank you!