Meet Tim. Tim is a technical genius, but he upsets everyone he works with, he can’t work as part of a team or lead others. As an employer, what do you do with Tim?
Many companies would let him go, lose that expertise. Others would keep him, resigned to the challenges he presents, but in the process lose all the people in his team, again losing valuable skills and increasing turnover costs in the company.
As leaders we often come across those individuals, colleagues, employees, sometimes our bosses, that are just not motivated to make changes. They don’t see themselves as the problem, blaming others and directing responsibility outwards. They are the individuals that cause frustration, conflict, give us far more grey hairs that we ever wanted.
Sometimes we are that individual. We recognize it in ourselves but don’t know how to change it and so stick to the methods that have brought us success to date, even though we realize they are no longer as effective.
So how to keep this asset in the organization and make full use of their skills and all they have to offer?
It can be difficult, challenging and time consuming. Even more so in Tim’s case as he doesn’t recognize the issues surrounding him or his pivotal role in creating discord. But in taking the seemingly easier routes the previously mentioned skill sets are lost. The organization loses much in terms of turnover, hiring costs and retraining. Tim loses because he is never encouraged or supported to develop his full potential.
As an Executive Coach with many years of experience in Clinical Psychology, I know that joining with Tim to support him in becoming a more integrated individual is key to his success. It will enable him to develop leadership skills that allow him to move himself and the organization forward to greater success.
Working with Tim to allow him to bring his skills, his expertise, his relationships to the table and explore these fully, enables him to emerge as a well-rounded individual who can fully participate in moving careers and organizations forward. It helps him to make use of his uniqueness in a way that feels natural to him and comfortable to those around him.
In doing this conflict is reduced, teamwork is improved, expert knowledge becomes more accessible and workplaces become healthier and more motivated. The benefits of working with one individual like Tim to develop his leadership skills resonate throughout the organization in these ways and more. Employee turnover is reduced and skills retained, all of which allow companies to move to the next level increasing efficiency, productivity and success.
The question I often hear from this is “I understand what the benefits of coaching are for my employee, but as a leader what can I do right now that can begin to change the situation, while the coaching process is at work?”
Here are my top three suggestions that you, a leader, can do to support the change process:
- Approach the situation with curiosity.
Curiosity can take you a long way to finding out how someone else views a situation, and with knowledge comes the ability to create change. Hold back your assumptions and use open ended questions. You may find you come away with a different understanding of the person which will enable you to feel less frustrated and react differently towards them.
- Work with their view of the world.
A common assumption is that these individuals are not motivated to change and so won’t. It is important to realize that everyone is motivated for something. It may just not be what you want them to be motivated for right now. Start with where they are. Find out what motivates them and engage with them there. Getting engagement on any level builds relationships and opens people’s minds to other development opportunities.
- Help them understand how others view the situation.
These individuals often haven’t considered how other people are feeling. They are caught in defensive positions reacting to others. By having open conversations about how you think others might be reacting to certain situations you can join together to work out ways to manage the situation. This places them in the position of making change to support another without any blame falling on them.
These are strategies that you as a leader can begin to implement. It may be helpful to get support from a coach yourself as you develop these empathic skills and think about the assumptions you already own in relation to this person. It is very likely that they will need a coaching process too but these techniques can help you motivate an otherwise resistant executive into a space where they are willing to engage with change.
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