Talking Really Does Help

Every two to three weeks there are four of us who get together to talk coaching. We are using Michael Bungay Stanier’s wonderful book, The Coaching Habit, as a guide. Stanier’s book walks leaders through different steps in the coaching process. It acknowledges that, while managers can be coaches, they also need to recognize that their managerial duties may cause roadblocks and conflicts inhibitive to a purely coaching role.

Most recently I decided to use the “coaching triangle” format in our group. We spend an hour together — 20 minutes talking about the most recent chapter that we have read from The Coaching Habit, then 20 minutes when one leader coaches another leader (the third leader and I are observers), and the final 20 minutes on feedback and discussion on how that coaching lab went.