La Propia Motivación

How do you know that?

This is a valuable question because it both provides challenge and can be used to draw attention to resources.

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Clare was a difficult and demanding coachee who had a high investment in showing that her situation could never change. Week after week her coach tried to help her find a new job that matched with her considerable abilities. Week after week, Clare would dismiss the opportunities as not worthy of her. Asking the question ‘why?’ nothing was good enough for her, led into a discussion of the underlying feelings of defensiveness she had as a result of being ousted from a high-profile job. It also touched on even deeper-seated issues about her identity. Being a highly protected person, she quickly dismissed the issue of her own feelings of failure as no longer relevant, because the causative event had happened some while ago.

Fuelled by desperation as Clare critiqued yet another opportunity that had come to her from a head-hunter, her coach simply asked ‘How do you know that the job is not good enough for you?’. Clare started on a list of possible reasons and then halted saying, ‘You are right, I don’t know, I just assume’. That recognition allowed her to draw up her list of assumptions and to check them out with the head-hunter. In the process her assumptions proved faulty and her motivation to apply for the job increased. When she was appointed to the job, she had forgotten the reservations she once had, and she moved into the role with enormous energy. Without that ‘how?’ question it would never have happened.

‘How?’ is also valuable because it encourages people to touch on their resources by asking a question that invites a recognition of their capability.

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James was struggling with his supervisor who was very different from him in personality. James was a high-energy, outspoken individual, his supervisor, Calum, was much quieter. New to supervision, he lacked confidence in dealing with staff who were older than himself. When James moaned yet again about how his ideas never got a hearing with Calum, his coach asked him to explain ‘How he knew that his ideas would not get past Calum’. James told the coach in a voice of resignation, that whenever he went into Calum’s office and Calum had his head down, focused on something, he knew that he would fail. He knew, too, because whenever he brought up something new in a meeting Calum would not respond. The coach fed back to James that he already knew things that would help him make more impact on Calum. He had identified that Calum could only focus on one thing at a time, and he had identified that throwing new things at him did not lead to a response. Asking James how he could use what he knew to get better results, enabled him to adopt a new approach.

He asked for time with Calum, rather than arriving unexpectedly. He only offered one idea at a time, and he did not ask for an immediate response.

The surprise for James was that using what he knew to look for a solution, rather than using what he knew as a reason for blame, so quickly led to results.

When?

A staff member comes in complaining that they are bored with their job and want a change. Rather than asking ‘why?’ the Manager Coach asks ‘when?’

(See Figure 6.3).

In asking the ‘when?’ question, the Manager Coach wrong-foots the other person. They are diverted from thinking about what they don’t like by being

Question Purpose

When do you feel more engaged in your work?

Provide information on what they like doing, in order to look for opportunities to build more in

When did you last feel challenged? Help understanding of what challenge looks like to them and how frequently it occurs Figure 6.3 ‘When’ questions

challenged to recognize that their dissatisfaction is coming from not having enough of what they do like. A new tangible comes into their frame of reference.

Through asking the ‘when?’ question the Manager Coach is able to help draw up a picture of what job satisfaction looks like, so that either more of it can be built into their role, or they can start looking with more purpose for their next role. This can then be followed up by further ‘when?’ questions (Figure 6.4).

The power of the ‘when?’ question as a quantum question is that it encourages the coachee to do two things:

1. to identify evidence of the desired change

2. to build a sense of commitment towards doing something differently.

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Andrew was a brand manager with a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) organization who came for coaching because he was dissatisfied with his role. He was highly ambitious and spent much of the first session telling the coach how able he was and what he expected from the company. The fact that he had come to an external coach demonstrated that at some level he recognized that his employer did not share his self-assessment, since the opportunities he claimed he should have were not being offered to him. In order to cut across this problem talk masquerading as self-justification, the coach asked, ‘When did you feel that your abilities were being fully utilized?’. Andrew then spoke with passion about an exercise where he and an external consultant had worked together to define a new strategy for a failing food product. The follow up question of, ‘How long did it take to develop the idea for the strategy?’, prompted the answer ‘Half a day’. In minutes Andrew recognized the

Question Purpose When will you know that your job is

becoming more satisfying again?

To increase sensitivity to the signs of change

When are you going to start working on redefining your priorities in line with our discussion?

To test out their commitment

When is your deadline for knowing whether your job can be made more workable?

To provide an outcome focus so that the issue does not drift

Figure 6.4 More ‘when’ questions

cause of his dissatisfaction. He was excited by the strategic exercise and judged himself by his ability to think creatively. In his current role he was judged by his ability to deliver the outcome of others’ creativity over time, which held far less appeal for him. Recognizing this, he was then able to free up from anger with the company to look at where there was a market for the skills by which he wanted to be judged.

‘When?’ is recognized as a good question at the action-planning stage of a discussion as a means of encouraging commitment to act, but it is equally helpful in discovering the cause of procrastination.

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Jacqueline knew exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to go back to college to get an MBA. She even knew what she wanted to do with the qualification: a significant job in marketing with an international company working in fashion retail. She had a background that prepared her well and she had taken months investigating which MBA would suit her best.

When she discussed it with her coach, there was always just one more piece of information she needed before making her decision. She presented herself as a highly analytical, professional woman with strong ambitions. After listening to her explain yet again how she needed more information before she could commit, her coach asked, ‘When will you know that it is time to commit?’. At first Jacqueline prevaricated, before answering, ‘When my mother tells me she supports me, and isn’t disappointed that I am not married’.

All the time that Jacqueline had been presenting herself as a rational investigator, she had been avoiding the thing that was really stopping her committing to an MBA, her fear of her mother’s disapproval. Once the issue became tangible, the coach was able to separate out two threads that had become entangled in Jacqueline’s mind. Completing a MBA did not bring with it a guarantee of spinsterhood, any more than not doing an MBA guaranteed finding the perfect partner.

Once the threads were disentangled, her coach was able to talk with her about how she could discuss the issue of further study with her mother.

She was then able to answer questions such as ‘What do you want to say to your mother?’, ‘How do you need to prepare for that discussion?’, and

‘When will you do it?’.

Where?

Your staff member claims that it is impossible to prioritize because they are so overwhelmed with demands. Rather than asking ‘why?’ they can’t prioritize, you ask ‘where?’ (See Figure 6.5).

‘Where?’ is a great quantum question because it throws focus on where making an effort will have a return. It looks to break down a generic label into parts that can be addressed. It also allows for drawing attention to underlying beliefs that are acting to limit freedom of choice.

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Emma was a highly responsible analyst in a policy organization. Her role brought her into contact with some very senior public figures. She had a reputation for acting inappropriately because she would challenge

Question Purpose Where does the workload feel most

manageable?

To identify what is not a problem

Where would it be easiest for you to begin prioritizing?

What can be started on most easily

Where can you find some time to stand back and start making some decisions?

To find some space from which they can begin to identify what can be different

Where will you let go of work most easily? To find what is not going to be difficult

Where is it written that you have to do everything?

To find what they are doing that they have no need or responsibility to be doing Where is the greatest return on your

effort?

To establish what is most worthwhile their giving time to

Where do you want to direct your efforts if you can make progress on prioritizing?

To find a motivator for doing things differently

Where will it be visibly different if you manage your priorities better?

To understand how they and others will know that things have changed

Figure 6.5 ‘Where’ questions

individuals regardless of their seniority, if she believed their views were in opposition to those of her own organization. Given her relative junior status, this behaviour did not win her the recognition she thought her inputs deserved. She was seen as difficult, and a CEO had asked that she not be included in any future meetings. When Emma discussed the issue it was clear that, from her perspective, her inputs were driven by a strong commitment to her employer. In her presentation of the story she was the lone hero fighting for justice. The question ‘Who else attends the meetings with you?’, revealed that she was always one of a team. The question her coach then posed, ‘Where is it written that you are solely responsible for the outcome of any meeting you attend?’, allowed her to look at what she was and was not responsible for when she was involved in external meetings. It allowed her to set realistic objectives for her influence within a meeting, and to let go of the burden that if an outcome was not achieved she bore the responsibility.

In establishing a 360-degree view on tangibles from which solutions emerge, as distinct from the tangibles that the coachee already recognizes, quantum questions are one of the most powerful tools at a Manager Coach’s disposal.

Quantum questions are open questions, but they are more than this. They are questions asked by a questioner who is always keeping their purpose in mind. They use them to raise the speaker into a helicopter from where they can look at their story with a perspective that was previously not available to them.

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XERCISE

As a Manager Coach you will want to build a databank of quantum questions. Questions that you know are helpful in getting a fuller picture of reality.

As a new coach you will find it helpful to keep a sheet with the headings:

g What?

g When?

g Where?

g How?

You may want to also add the injunction ‘Don’t ask why?’, as a reminder to you to apply this discipline when establishing the tangibles with your coachee.

As you start asking quantum questions make a list of those that hit the button and help move the conversation forward in a way that a ‘why?’

question could not.

You can test this out further by asking your coachee, as part of the review of the session, to tell you any questions that were helpful to their thinking.

Coachees will not remember most of the questions you posed, but they will recall the ones that really shifted their view of the situation and themselves.

In document Liderazgo y comunicación asertiva en el Hewlett Packard HP (página 62-72)