How do you connect your actions with your purpose? To me, this is the essence of leading with intention.
7 Tips to Coach and Lead With Intention
In this post and the webinar link below, you’ll learn seven practices to help you coach – and lead – more effectively, and with intention. One of the most impactful coaching habits that we can develop to better coach with intention is to ask more effective questions.
For a free copy of the Impactful Coaching Questions handout that I use in my workshops click here!
Webinar Link: Effectively Coaching For Problem Solving
A few weeks ago, I recorded a webinar for NWHPEC, a lean consortium based in the Portland area. I’m excited to expand on these concepts during three highly interactive learning sessions over the next week with NWHPEC and a private client in Portland and the San Francisco Bay Area!
Check out the video link below to see the half-hour webinar. I’ve also included some slides and highlights below for you.
Let me know what questions or comments you have! I love to hear from you.
Intention – connecting heart and direction
I’ve written many posts about the importance of intention to me. How it is the connection between the heart — what is important inside of us or our purpose — and our actions. How do we point ourselves in the direction of our purpose.
For a deeper dive into the concept of intentions and goals, visit the post that I wrote earlier this year:
Toyota Leadership Lessons: Part 10 – Practice Personal Hoshin Kanri or Goal Setting
Coaching tips presented in the webinar
Below I’ve included some of the key slides and highlighted concepts we covered in the webinar, and that I’ll be exploring in depth with groups in person this week and next.
Coaching Practice 1: Take an intention pause
Remind yourself of what your purpose is in the moment. Are you the problem owner? Are you the coach of a problem owner? Are you the “2nd coach” who is helping someone with their coaching skills? Or are you the leader who needs to set the direction in that moment? Know your purpose and then align your actions. Should you be more telling or more asking?
To hear more stories about how I’ve used this practice, view the Lean Talk that I did at the 2017 Lean Summit.
Coaching Practice 2: Pay attention to the quality of your questions
Not all questions are created equal! Are you actually advocating for an idea and disguising it as a question – just like the wolf in the image below that is dressed up like a sheep?
For more information on quest, visit the post “How to Ask Effective Questions.”
Also, you can download a copy of the Impactful Coaching Questions handout that I created recently to give out during workshops. Click Here to get your own copy!
Coaching Practice 3: Listen openly
Listening is done not only with open ears, but more broadly we “listen” by openly by using many senses: with open eyes, and open mind, and an open heart. Coaching first and foremost must come from a place of caring.
This is a key concept that Karyn Ross and I share in the K2C2 “Katie and Karyn’s Coaching Communities”. Note – we will be offering several cohorts in 2020! The next one starts in early January! Registration and more info is here.
Coaching Practice 4: Listen openly
Don’t make assumptions on what thinking your learner has already done. You might end up “telling” when in fact they have much of the answer themselves. Ask a question first to learn more what thinking they have already done or what they have already tried. A good question to ask could be “what is one thought you have about that….?”
Coaching Practice 5: Challenge Assumptions
As a coach, we can help people challenge their assumptions and think more deeply. Some great questions that I’ve learned from people who have worked at Toyota – including David Verble, John Shook, and Tracy Richardson – are the following ones in the slide below.
Coaching Practice 6: Be frequent
Don’t batch your coaching! More frequent, shorter check-ins with people model the way of rapid Plan-Do-Study-Adjust (PDSA or PDCA) cycles and support the creation of better habits.
Coaching Practice 7: Seek feedback
One of the best ways to do this is to ask a process question at the end of a coaching session. This could be something like, “What was a helpful question?”, “How was I most helpful to you today?”, “What helped you think the most?”. You’d be surprised not only in the feedback you get as a coach, but also how this can help the learner continue to reflect and think more deeply. Plus it models the fact that we are all learning and developing ourselves – even the coaches!
For more examples of process questions and other coaching questions, get the Impactful Coaching Questions handout that I use in my workshops by clicking here!
