COACHING
TRANSFORMING
PERFORMANCE
WITH THE FIVE-MINUTE COACH
Integrating coaching into day-to-day
communications at work.
By Lynne Cooper
M
anagers have it tough. Well most thinking to outcome thinking. All in all, quite a specific clean questions – questions which
of those I work with do. What I cultural change. contain the minimum of assumptions by the
hear from the managers I meet in questioner - and the precise words of the
organisations, again and again, is that they The FIVE-MINUTE Coach person being questioned.
work really hard and yet rarely feel that they’re So how could these changes be made in the Our experience had shown that, used
making their best contribution. A frequent organisations we were working with, speedily conversationally, clean questions are very
theme is long hours, high stress, and far too and effectively? Any new approach needed successful at getting people to do their best
little time out of work to get body and mind in to be learned quickly – these were time- thinking – just what we wanted in this case.
balance, never mind achieve personal goals. strapped managers – and must be able to be So we built The FIVE-MINUTE Coach as a
These managers are generally implemented and integrated pragmatically model from which organisational managers
knowledgeable, skilled individuals. After all, and effectively. My colleague, Mariette can take as little as five minutes to work with a
that’s how they got their jobs in the first place! Castellino, and I put our heads together, and team member to create an outcome, or indeed
They know they need to work smarter not The FIVE-MINUTE Coach emerged. This an action plan. Alternatively, there is a more
harder. They want to stand back and take was a coaching model that we developed for comprehensive range of questions with which a
a strategic viewpoint of the work they and use – in as little as five minutes – ‘on-the-job’ more in-depth, structured piece of one-to-one
their teams are doing, and make fundamental by managers to empower team members, coaching can be undertaken.
improvements. Yet, managers such as these to support them to generate outcomes from
are often facing the pressure to achieve more problems, and ultimately to have them take Developing an outcome
with fewer resources and to hit short term responsibility for making things happen. The first part of the model which can be used
targets and as a result spend much of their time We had an extensive and wonderful array of particularly quickly and effectively, allows
problem solving. NLP coaching tools to choose from in creating the coach to elicit and develop an outcome.
When my colleagues and I noticed this The FIVE-MINUTE Coach. However, we A typical use would be where a problem is
pattern a few years ago, we were curious as to needed something that could be used easily presented to the manager by a team member.
where all these problems were coming from. and conversationally by people with no NLP The manager listens, acknowledges the issue
We soon discovered that, no matter the size knowledge or skill. We decided the principles of and then asks: “And what would you like to
of the organisation or the sector in which it Clean Language fitted the bill. Our work was have happen?” If the response to this question
operated, the vast majority of problems were is a further outpouring about
being pushed up the organisation to be fixed.
Often, the higher up the management ladder
Is it any wonder that these
the problem, then the question
is repeated until the other
people sat, the more problem-solving they were
senior people were over-
person’s thinking shifts to an
doing. This didn’t fit well with the role they outcome focus.
were being paid to perform – leading, directing
worked, stressed and
Once an outcome is
and improving performance. Is it any wonder expressed, insights and
that these senior people were over-worked, generally frustrated? understanding can be deepened
stressed and generally frustrated? by asking more about the
already informed by the work of James Lawley outcome. For the coach, this can be as simple
Taking responsibility and Penny Tompkins whose modelling of the as asking two clean questions of specific words
Two fundamental shifts seemed to be required. work of the late great therapist David Grove or phrases the team member has used. These
The first involved pushing responsibility back - Clean Language, Symbolic Modelling and questions are “What kind of ……?” and “Is
down the organisation, a combination of Emergent Knowledge - is widely renowned. there anything else about….?”
getting people to take responsibility – to devise Grove’s innovative approach used what are
solutions, to innovate and to make decisions - known as ‘clean questions’ to generate amazing Creating an action plan
and the managers relinquishing responsibility. transformations in those he worked with. In Getting someone to work out what needs
The second shift was to move from problem simple terms, Clean Language involves using to be done – and to get on with it! – are
26 | Autumn 2009 - rapport
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