How To Coach A Failing Executive

As a manager providing coaching feedback to an employee, remember the need and significance of consequence. If the executive that is derailed does not feel that there is a sense of consequence in their behavior continuing, then they’re likely not to be as motivated.

People are either motivated by greed or by fear, and if they’re not afraid that something could truly happen, then there’s really no reason for them to change.

Some derailed executives say they can’t change and reject coaching from an outside coach or their manager. But why? First, let’s tackle that word can’t. To my thinking here’s no such thing as “can’t.” There’s either “I won’t do it” or “I don’t know how to do it.”

In my experience as an executive coach, “can’t” means the person is afraid and just doesn’t know how to change. But even if somebody knows how to change, for them to self-develop and make the change on their own is very difficult. We all need feedback, and we all need support and encouragement. Unless we know what we did and what we need to do and somebody teaches us how to do it, we can’t improve.

People don’t really self-develop. To illustrate, my son and I went to the USC football practice awhile back and were struck by something at the practice field. At every practice there are four cameras set up on stilts that are recording the action. The players are improving by constantly looking at film afterwards with the coaches. Together they look at what they did in a situation and discuss what they should have done differently. In addition there are also coaches at the practice giving the players ongoing feedback on how to improve. If the team doesn’t provide that kind of coaching, players won’t know what to change, and they won’t be inspired to do it.

USC has won the national championship several times in the last few years. So the question is: “Why are they practicing? They know how to play football.” The answer of course is that there is so much at stake they want to rehearse and go over the plays. Likewise, there is so much at stake for these derailed executives. They need to run the plays when it’s not in a game situation. Where else can they do that but with a coach who can give them feedback?

For derailed executives there is a useful theory called the Stages of Change Model about the mind/body stages we go through when we do change. The Stages of Change Model was originally developed in the late 1970s by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente at the University of Rhode Island when they were studying how smokers were able to give up their habits. According to the model there are a number of steps: precontemplation to contemplation to determination.

The idea behind the change model is that behavior change does not happen in one step. Rather, people tend to progress through different stages on their way to successful change. You first say to yourself, “Well, I don’t have a problem. And if I don’t have a problem, I don’t need a solution.” Then you get information feedback and data, such as complaints, and you begin to say, “Maybe there is a problem.” So you start to contemplate that there is a problem. If you get even more strong data and a coach comes in, then you have to go from contemplation to determination and decide, “I need to do something about this.”

On one hand it is easy to understand why some derailed executives would reject coaching. Many derailed executives don’t understand why they should change because the company has promoted them three or four times for being the way they are. Why is someone coming in now and telling them that what got them to that spot is not going to keep them there? Naturally there is a resistance to change an approach that has been so successful for so long. It is a very legitimate concern to wonder why you should take the leap of faith and change. Will this new behavior prove equally successful?

There is a common idea in the business world that you should stick with what works. There are a number of old sayings that reinforce this, from “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” to “Don’t change horses mid-stream.”

The reality for executives is that when you rise through the ranks of an organization, you’ll find that each individual level has a different set of rules because you have a different function. So what works at a director level is not going to work at a vice president level. The issue is that no one ever sits down and tells you the rules and then tells you how those rules change.

If that doesn’t motivate them, then sad to say you need to work on their exit strategy. This is the time to lay down your cards and fold.