Preface:Anytime Coaching Revisited
Since the 2009 publication of Anytime Coaching: Unleashing Employee Performance, we have had conversations with numerous leaders who read and applied its principles. Many found the book instrumental in helping them in everyday conversations—as team members, non-supervisors, volunteers working in their communities, even parents. Our readers have enthusiastically shared their stories of how Anytime Coaching helped them in the following ways:
Becoming more aware of the “self” they bring to their workplace
Slowing down to observe themselves and those around them more consciously
Hearing their employees’ ideas and concerns more empathetically
Developing richer work relationships
Asking more insightful questions
Having more productive difficult conversations
Being more deliberate when responding to others
Continuing along the path to greater expertise in being an Anytime Coach.
We learned from these conversations that whether dealing with the realities and the aftereffects of an economic recession, navigating intergenerational relationships in the workplace, or keeping up with the pace of change in the workplace, the principles of Anytime Coaching are truly helping people achieve greater fulfillment and success at work.
Something else of huge importance has been happening since the original publication. The intersecting disciplines of neuroscience and mindfulness have been uncovering more data about the individual’s ability to build resilience through specific practices that train the brain. Yes, “train the brain.” This development has led us to refocus the four Anytime Coaching practices to encompass the newest wisdom of both neuroscience and mindfulness.
Neuroscience comprises the scientific disciplines that explore the structure and workings of the brain and nervous system. In this revised edition, we focus on the truly amazing “bossy” brain, which not only controls your body and how you move but also what you think, feel, remember, and learn—whether you are aware of its control or not. Using technologies that allow more precision while observing the brain, neuroscientists can now describe the brain’s workings in greater detail and verify how the brain can be “rewired” for greater effectiveness, creativity, empathy, and happiness. In this updated edition, we share how recent discoveries in neuroscience support the practices of Anytime Coaching.
In the context of Anytime Coaching, we use the term “mindfulness” to mean regularly and deliberately stilling the mind as a way to develop the day-to-day capability of being fully attentive and aware in the moment. In the last decade, we have witnessed greater interest and new research on the intersection of neuroscience and mindfulness—how mental activity can strengthen control over the brain’s workings. The research offers positive news: Mindfulness increases attention, enhances cognitive performance, and has other healthy side effects. We interviewed mindfulness experts and have included new exercises that make mindfulness accessible to our readers.
Each chapter in this second edition retains the central principles presented in the original publication. Additions include applicable information describing how data from the field of neuroscience and the discipline of mindfulness support, enhance, expand, or underscore those principles. We are excited to share insights from these two disciplines with our readers.
Why Anytime Coaching?
As professional coaches, we have had the privilege of helping hundreds of clients become more effective leaders, managers, and contributors in a variety of organizations. These clients work in the federal government, private industry, entrepreneurial businesses, and nonprofit organizations. Many of our clients became interested in coaching and asked us to share the models and techniques for how we approach our work. We noticed that as our clients incorporated coaching practices into their daily work, they started to get better and better performance from their employees.
As part of our research, we interviewed managers and leaders who shared with us their experiences coaching their employees. These interviews confirmed what we suspected: Managers are hungry for more practical tools and information not only for themselves but also for their employees. We also know from firsthand experience that coaching becomes a way of life—a way of being. As coaches, we constantly look for opportunities to bring out the best in people, to help them raise the bar on their work and life. We ask questions and listen intently to discover new, positive possibilities. We observe and reframe to help people shift their perspectives and create new solutions. We respond with clarity to what we hear. For us, coaching is part of our way of interacting with others at work—anytime. So Anytime Coaching was born.
In putting together a practical guide to Anytime Coaching, we sought to make the skills and principles accessible to anyone interested in improving the quality and results of interactions with employees. We wanted the tips and techniques to be simple enough that managers could learn them quickly and use them every day in their interactions with employees.
In this new edition, we have added stories from readers and clients that illustrate how an Anytime Coaching practice played out in the real world. For these stories, we are grateful to the generosity of our readers and clients who described their successes using Anytime Coaching principles in their work lives.
Who Can Use Anytime Coaching?
Anyone who has conversations with other people, both within and outside the workplace, can benefit from the core principles of Anytime Coaching. At the office, whether you lead a temporary, cross-functional team on a short-term project or formally manage large groups of people on a daily basis, you can use Anytime Coaching to achieve better results. In today’s fast-moving and rapidly changing workplace, more and more employees find themselves relying on others to get work done without the title and authority to demand cooperation. They too can use Anytime Coaching as:
The pathway to individual and organizational performance
A way of working with people that focuses on positive possibilities
A set of flexible and adaptable practices that builds on everyday behaviors
A set of skills that helps them develop others while getting work done.
When you are engaged in Anytime Coaching, you are:
Partnering with others to jointly create desired outcomes
Creating alliances with your employees, coworkers, and boss to seek solutions that support the organization’s mission
Helping people solve issues with their own best thinking
Seeing every interaction with an employee as a chance to help him or her shine
Being a manager who helps your employees grow
Improving employee performance.
The Anytime Coaching Model
We present the key practices of Anytime Coaching in a simple model that anyone can understand and apply immediately. Our intent is to supplement the body of work on coaching with a practical guide that is designed to be especially helpful to the front-line managers in today’s rapidly changing workplace. We hope that managers ranging from the first-time supervisor to the most senior executive will find practical coaching tools they can use immediately to transform the way they work with employees and colleagues. In addition, we have interwoven findings from the worlds of neuroscience and mindfulness, describing how those findings help illuminate the more practical aspects of Anytime Coaching.
How This Book Is Organized
This book begins and ends with chapters focused on the anytime coach’s own self. The intervening chapters focus on the four practices of Anytime Coaching and the performance improvements they help create.
Chapter 1, It All Begins with You, emphasizes the importance of both self-awareness and organizational awareness. Before you begin learning Anytime Coaching practices, it is important to assess your own thinking about work, your role as a manager, and the organization in which you work and achieve results. The chapter includes exercises designed to help you increase your awareness of the self you bring to Anytime Coaching.
Chapter 2, The Practice of Observing, helps you see with new eyes. You will learn how to view your employees and the work you do in fresh and positive ways. This chapter focuses on nonverbal cues and emotions. In this updated edition, you will also discover how the practice of mindfulness can enhance your ability to observe yourself and others. Some practical tools and exercises to help you be more present, aware, and focused in day-to-day interactions are included.
Chapter 3, The Practice of Inquiring, expands your ability to ask insightful and powerful questions when coaching your employees. You will learn to distinguish among types of questions and their uses.
Chapter 4, The Practice of Listening, will guide you toward becoming an extreme listener. This chapter builds on the practices of observing and inquiring to leverage your ability to listen deeply and truly understand what others are saying.
Chapter 5, The Practice of Responding, focuses on how to respond once you have observed, inquired, and listened. You will learn about responding with clear intention, using tools that will help you consciously and purposefully create powerful coaching conversations.
Chapter 6, Improving Day-to-Day Performance, shows how applying the practices of Anytime Coaching triggers small shifts in day-to-day performance and explores how those shifts yield improved individual and organizational performance over time. You will learn how to sustain the focus on performance, how to refocus when coaching conversations get off track, and how to share feedback.
Chapter 7, Your Path to Becoming an Anytime Coach, focuses on your continuous learning and development as an anytime coach. It provides guidelines for planning your development as an anytime coach as well as tips and techniques for honing your skills.
To assist you on the path to becoming an effective anytime coach, the book includes the following elements:
Anytime Coaching model. The model comprises four interrelated practices (observing, inquiring, listening, and responding), supported by self-awareness, self-development, mindfulness, and neuroscience. At the center of the model is what happens when anytime coaches apply the practices in combination: improved day-to-day performance.
Principles. Short, highlighted statements throughout the text convey key messages about Anytime Coaching.
Exercises. These opportunities to explore, reflect on, and practice key concepts and techniques include self-assessments and self-reflective questions.
Practice tools. These tools and techniques will help you practice and apply the Anytime Coaching approach.
Stories. Real-world examples of coaching situations illustrate specific practices and techniques.
Website. The Anytime Coaching website includes exclusive coaching resources and tools designed to help you put Anytime Coaching practices to work. To access the website, please visit www.ManagementConcepts.com/AnytimeCoaching and enter the user name FutureCoach and the password MCP2015.
We have walked in your shoes. We understand the energy and performance that can be unleashed when employees know they are honored and respected. Coaching, at its most fundamental level, honors and respects everyone in working relationships. You will discover how this is accomplished as you work toward becoming an anytime coach.
We have witnessed the many positive results of coaching. Our hope is that you will find immediate use for the practices in this book, and that this book will be one you consult often as you would a knowledgeable friend.
Teresa Wedding Kloster
Wendy Sherwin Swire
Washington, D.C.