Coaching Peer to Peer
This is Part 1 of a 3-part series on Coaching in the Workplace. In this email I will share strategies for using coaching skills to work peer to peer. Over the next two weeks I will be talking about Coaching as a Tool for Managing Up and Team Coaching.
As always, I’d welcome your reflections and feedback on how you use these skills day-to-day.
Coaching Peer:Peer, Managing Up, and Team Coaching
Coaching is a skill that gives you the ability to build sustainable and trusting relationships beyond what you thought may have been possible in the workplace. While the most common coaching relationship is supervisor-to-employee, coaching can also be used in these relationships:
Peer-to-Peer
Employee-to-Supervisor (Managing Up)
Team Leader to Team
In each of these relationships, coaching is always with permission. And careful attention must be paid to timing. If your workplace has created an established culture of coaching, your ability to use your coaching skills and tools will be more accepted and welcomed.
Peer-to-Peer Coaching
Sara was just starting out practicing the skills she learned in the “Coaching in the Workplace” workshop. She had gathered with a group of colleagues for dinner. One person was sharing a situation that was troubling him. Sara asked, “Is this something you’d like to work through together? I’d be happy to coach you on it”.
Sara told me that she was nervous but she simply followed the “Navigating Challenging Dialogue® Coaching Framework”. By using open-ended, curious questions, her colleague found his way to a possible course of action that would get him closer to solving the problem.
A few days later when Sara saw her colleague again he told her that he had actually begun taking the action steps and was feeling some relief.
Sara said that it felt great to have a tool that she could use to help a colleague.
You can find many opportunities for peer-to-peer coaching, even if your workplace hasn’t established coaching as a norm. When you hear a peer struggling to solve a problem or make a decision, you can simply ask, “Hey, I hear you are struggling with this. Would you like a little coaching to help uncover a path forward?” And then accept the answer.
In a coach:coachee relationship, both participants are equal. You don’t have to be the guru or know all the answers. In coaching, the person receiving the coaching is the expert on themselves. They know what risks they are willing to take, what consequences they are open to (positive and negative), and what actions they are willing to take.
Your job as coach is simply to use coaching questions and reflect back to them what you hear, so that you shine light onto what they may not be readily seeing as possible.
If you feel yourself becoming frustrated, talking about what you would do if it were you, or giving advice, you have slipped out of coach mode.
When peers are comfortable giving and receiving coaching, new ideas are created, time is saved, trusting relationships are built, and everyone benefits.
But remember, coaching is never about being an expert.
Coaching is a valuable and much desired skill. And like all skills, coaching must be learned and practiced to be effective. To learn how to bring coaching skills to your team or work group, book a time to talk with me.