The Coaching Dilemma - Part 1

Submitted by mauzenne on Mon, 09/19/2011 - 01:56.
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This guidance describes whom to coach and develop on your team with your marginal time.

If you only have a limited amount of time, whom should you coach? This is a question we get all the time. What if I've got a weak performer? Don't I have to work to get him up to speed? What do I do when the time I spend with a weak performer cuts into my time with everyone else?

These are really good questions. They address the inherent challenges of growing the productivity of your team, AND the issue of there never being enough time to do it. So, before we go any further, let's be clear: if these are the questions you're asking yourself, you're thinking the right way and wrestling with the right kinds of questions.

The problem with these questions is that if the average manager asks her peer a couple of cubes over, and that fellow manager really doesn't know what HE is doing either.

So let's answer the Coaching Dilemma problem once and for all.

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mfprysl's picture
Submitted by mfprysl on Mon, 09/19/2011 - 11:00.

So it's not about coaching...

So it is not "the Coaching Dilemma" but rather "the Time Allocation per Direct Dilemma".

So sure, Napoleon, Drucker and Pareto are always right.

But I hope you address the issue that the name of this cast undermines one of the pillars of your Managerial Trinity and that is that you should coach everyone and that late stage coaching is a vital stage of "MT Firing Process".

Five years ago I was a manager like the current cast recommends: "Spend time with great performers, good chat, positive feedback, no hard decisions, just dump the rest".

Then I listened to your cast about firing people and I was moved how you recommend giving every loser an extra year of coaching.

And I did that.

And now you tell me my original sociopathic behaviour was right all the time? I'll go and delete the "How To Fire Someone" podcast where you say "today we discuss how to take a poor performer and turn them into a good performer."

Disclaimer: don't take everything your read online too seriously :-)

AspirationM's picture
Submitted by AspirationM on Mon, 09/19/2011 - 15:24.

I can see the approach here

I can see the approach here and how it makes sense.  And I'm pretty happy... I got it wrong, but I came at it with the logic used to get the correct answer in this cast.  Which says to me I just need more information to refine the decisions I'd make, but I'm tackling problems from the correct angle.  That's always the tougher half of the battle in my mind.

That said, how would you approach the situation as a whole if it were real?  Not just "Who do I coach?" but how would you handle that whole team?  Do you commit to replacing Delta automatically, do you delegate coaching one step below to each person while you coach Alpha, and what do you do to handle the double drain potential (D let go, A promoted suddenly, and you're left with half a team without any Alphas)?

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cim44's picture
Submitted by cim44 on Tue, 09/20/2011 - 22:09.

Good cast.  I think its

Good cast.  I think its important to qualify though that you are assuming that the O3s are happening with all staff each week, so that the marginal time being invested is in excess of the O3s (right?)