Friday, May 8, 2009

Coaching A Toxic Boss Is Important, But Assessment Is Urgent

In coaching a toxic boss, before you can prescribe exercises to change behaviors, you need to make a diagnosis identifying the nature or cause of the real malady. Here the term truly means “knowledge through and through.” The more information you get the better.

But don’t think that taking time to do the important work of assessing does not mean you are not doing the urgent work of coaching. Even when you are making the assessment, you are beginning the coaching process. This is much like when you go to the doctor you feel better even before a prescribe treatment. Why? Because you know you are doing something to solve the problem.

One part of the assessment is to determine if the person is actually coachable. That requires some coaching to begin with. So give them something to work on and see if you get some traction on positive change. This will provide another data point. Typically a lack of traction means the person may not want to change.

So how is your bedside manner? Like a physician, one aspect of being a coach is to provide the results of the lab work (assessments) in a way that is motivating to the derailed executive. Giving feedback is both an art and science. The art is that the style, tone, and personality of the words need to fit the personality of the person. If not, the information can be experienced as harsh and hurtful. Instead, you want to present the information in a way that will engage the person you are coaching.

Another aspect is that when the facts are stated in a way that is not acceptable, the derailed executive is apt to become defensive and has a greater chance of rationalizing the information away. When you give feedback, remember the derailed executive needs to feel supported and not attacked. This will also be important so the information will help the person see their behavior from a different perspective.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Firing the Prodigal Executive

There are two schools of thought when it comes to letting somebody go. One is to create transition time so the executive can find a new job. The other approach is that once the decision is made, do it as quickly as possible. My recommendation is to terminate the relationship in a speedy fashion. Once a decision has been made, and the details (severance, etc) have been worked out, make it happen now.

You hire slow, but you fire fast. The reason is when a person is kept in an organization when they know they're going to be leaving, there is the lame duck syndrome. These executives a rarely productive. Plus, if they've been derailing anyway and are negative or hostile, there's really no reason they have any more value to the company. Keeping them around can create more problems than it's worth.

The message the senior leader making the decision should communicate is that the decision has been made. Once the person is gone everybody can breathe a big sigh of relief. Thankfully, it's time to move on.

Applying This to the Manager Coach

If you are the manager who is coaching the derailed executive, how do you know if this executive can get back on track? There are a several criteria.

The first criteria is whether they even want the coaching. If the executive doesn’t want it, you shouldn't waste your time or your money. The second criteria is that within a short period of time, usually within 4-6 weeks, if you don’t see any change then there's a probability this executive is not going to mentally engage in the coaching. The third criteria is if you ask the individual to go through the steps of the assessment or 360 degree feedback survey, and you get constant pushback, then the person is not coachable at this time.

In today's world we live in a new corporate environment. The issue of loyalty always comes up and I applaud the companies I work with because they cover all their bases to try and keep the individual within the organization.

There's been an evolution. In the 1940 to 1960s it was an implied cradle to grave contract. If you started working for IBM, then you ended your career with IBM.
Not any more. Because of this new reality the loyalty issue becomes very confusing, even on the executive level. Many executives help companies get to a certain point and when they get to that point it's time to move on. There's more fluidity and mobility, and there just isn't the same loyalty aspect there used to be.

With layoffs and downsizing of organizations, the implicit contract has changed to become more of a free agency model. Individuals in this generation, having seen their parents being laid off, don't feel that same sense of loyalty. Companies know that when times are good they bring in lots of bodies, and when times aren’t good there are layoffs or outsourcing to countries where the work is cheaper.

Just remember this: It's a business decision, not a personal decision.

Friday, May 1, 2009

You Have To Break A Few Eggs to Make An Omelet, or Executive Derailment is Inevitable

A popular myth is that executive turnover is inevitable. To make a great company you need to weed out the executive troublemakers, regardless of the value they bring to the company.

There is an old proverb that says you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. This means that in order to achieve something it is inevitable and necessary that something should be destroyed. Some credit New York Times Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter Walter Duranty with popularizing the phrase in describing Joseph Stalin’s rule in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. For the record, in Russian, the proverb is “when the wood is cut, the chips fly.”

So let the chips fly where they may. You can nickname this management style as churn, baby, churn. If the executive derails, then just get rid of them before it turns into a full blown train wreck.

This just doesn’t make economic sense, because companies today must compete to find, develop and retain top talent. Given the estimates that the costs of replacement of highly skilled workers and those in leadership roles can run up to 200 percent of the employees salary, the incentive for retaining talent is enourmous (Nowack, Envisa Learning White Paper, “Coaching Competent Jerks: Can Zebras Change Their Stripes?” 2006).