Once a month, fifteen entrepreneurs and managers from ten Dublin SMEs gather in a city centre hotel to figure out how sports coaches get the best from their athletes - and, no, performance-enhancing drugs are not on the menu.
Though managers, like others, may wish for the pill that would solve all their problems, real life teaches that there are no easy answers. On the course, "Coaching Skills for Entrepreneurs and Managers", that old adage is taken seriously, since the emphasis is not on answers, but on questions.
Course leader Mr Garry Goldsmith uses the example of a golf "lesson" based entirely on questions to demonstrate how asking can be more effective than telling. "Take someone who is a golf novice. Give him or her a club and a bucket of balls and start asking: `What do you want to do with the ball? How far? How high? Can you describe to me the swing you think would achieve that?'
"Studies have shown that within ten minutes, you can get someone hitting quite well. The results are invariably better than if you'd used a straight teaching method in the style of `do this, do that'," says Mr Goldsmith, of Goldsmith Fitzgerald Partnership, a human resources consulting company.
The facilitative nature of a questioning approach is at the kernel of the coaching skills for managers course, being piloted in Dublin since May by the National Coach Training Centre (NCTC), in partnership with Guinness Ireland and the Dublin City Enterprise Board. The scheme is funded by the EU's ADAPT programme, and a second pilot course will be run in Limerick in early October. "In sports coaching, the emphasis is on helping the performer reach his or her goals through self-awareness and a sense of personal responsibility in their own development. Asking, rather than telling, is the route towards self-knowledge, motivation and ultimately, peak performance," says Mr Goldsmith.
The requirements of business are similar, he believes. "Gone are the days in any business when one person could do everything. Many companies now get their competitive edge through their people, which means encouraging creativity and self-reliance in the workplace. Managers need to learn techniques that help employees fulfil their potential," he added.
What managers are looking for, and what a leadership style based on participation and facilitation is placed to achieve, says Mr Goldsmith, is to:
Successfully manage high performing teams and skilled individuals
Promote creativity and innovation
Develop people of mixed ability to their full potential
Motivate moderate and struggling performers.
The coaching model approaches the task in two steps. The first stage concentrates on raising individuals' awareness of what needs to be achieved. This is done by asking him or her to imagine "what could be", the situation in the workplace and in the business, contrasting this with the actual situation, and considering how matters could be developed.
The second stage is designed to generate a responsibility and a commitment to action on the part of the individual. This involves asking questions about what motivates people and gives them a sense of value and of self-worth. "This can be the fastest route to self-awareness and self-reliance on the job," says Mr Goldsmith.
The desired result is a transformation from a situation where a manager has sole responsibility for change in the workplace, to one in which job ownership and responsibility for development is shared by manager and team members.
Coaching effectively, says Mr Goldsmith, means:
Using a questioning technique that follows the interest of the performer
Avoiding interrupting people and listen actively, in order to understand their perspective
Providing feedback on performance.
Introducing such a spirit of inquiry into the workplace can prove surprisingly difficult, particularly perhaps in busy SMEs. Managers used to almost total control of all or many aspects of a small business can find it difficult to disengage, to empower others and delegate tasks to their workforce.
Learning to let go and to delegate responsibility has proved "transformational" but it was, at first, "extremely difficult", says a course participant, Mr David Twomey, owner-manager of Snap Printing on Ormond Quay in Dublin, a franchise business employing nine people.
"I went from working every day right in the middle of the business. I'd serve customers, take calls, do anything. Actually, it was hellish. I began to feel that I was working very hard but not reaching my goals for the firm. So I retreated, which was scary, and I'm still learning. In the beginning, I found myself slightly redundant. I used to lock myself away in my office, where I would just worry," said Mr Twomey. "But then I gave myself new job specifications and set new targets, and now I'm doing what I should be doing, which is developing the business. That is crucial today, where you have to stay abreast of new trends. In the printing business, change is happening so quickly, it's a challenge to keep up, to keep your eye on the ball. It's certainly a challenge if you want to be on the cutting edge in your industry, which I hope we will be," said Mr Twomey.
Mr Twomey reckons that, while most of benefits of the coaching course will be in the long-term, the changes he has made have already resulted in a better workplace atmosphere, with employees "taking more ownership of their jobs, and delegating better. The course has changed my whole attitude to work, and that's filtering through the workplace," he said.
The changing requirements of management are perhaps nowhere more obvious than in family businesses. When the grandfather of Mr Ken Peat, general manager of Peats, The World of Electronics on Parnell Street in Dublin, set up the firm in the 1930s, "he'd come in the morning, open the door, and wait for customers to arrive. You certainly can't do that anymore," said Mr Peat, another participant on the coaching for managers course.
"The shortage of staff today means that when we get someone we want to hold them. We promote from within, and it is very important to us to coach our people and get the best from them. It's a two-way thing. Staff expectations now are high, and if people don't think they are getting what they want in your company, they'll just go elsewhere," said Mr Peat.
"It's harder for smaller companies who don't have the HR resources of an IBM to throw at management issues. In the past, we've been so focused on the business we didn't have the skills or the wherewithal to think about management styles," he added.
Learning a new approach is a gradual process. "Before, we'd be more likely to tell someone what to do, end of story. Now it's about learning how to work more as a team. I find myself thinking of how I will talk to people, what I will ask them, and how I can help them fulfil their abilities. As a result, I think staff are getting more from their jobs," he said.
Mr Peat has learned some of the pitfalls of an older style of management. "In the past, we promoted people without preparing them for their new role - naturally it often didn't work out. Now our managers go on a course and the results are very good," he said.
One of the major benefits of the coaching course, says Mr Twomey, is meeting people in similar positions and sharing information. "Now, if one of us has a problem, say with a difficult staff issue, we can call each other up and take soundings and advice, which can be a great help," he said.
Coaching skills, says Mr Declan O'Leary of the NCTC, are useful for encouraging people to become more adaptable, flexible and self-actualising. "This approach helps individuals to cope with the new workplace, where there is increasingly less security. There are no jobs for life any more," he said.
Mr Goldsmith cites an early example of the questioning technique from Sir Matt Busby, the Manchester United manager from the 1960s, who is often cited as one of the great coaches and performance developers from the world of sport.
"How well do you think you've been playing son?" Sir Matt reputedly said to Denis Law - just before they both agreed that one of the world's greatest soccer players was in need of a break from first team football.
Which just goes to show - self-knowledge may not always be easy, either in the workplace or on the playing pitch. But the best coaches, says Mr O'Leary, help players to figure out their strengths - and play to those.
"Commitment and high performance levels come when people feel they are working for something worthwhile and when they are valued for what they do. The challenge for manager coaches is to motivate people by creating those conditions," adds Mr Goldsmith.
