I am combining the discussion of chapters 14 and 15 of  Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond. The two, written by Jennifer Fields, explore role-based and context-based coaching dynamics. Two chapters are intertwined; I view roles as a specialized type of context. Jennifer presents several scenarios in both chapters on how she would approach coaching events for different roles and contexts. As noted last week, the book we are re-reading seems to be useful immediately in the real world.  For example, this week I had several conversations with other coaches about coaching managers that were struggling with managing in an agile organization. The scenario in these chapters provided a starting point for developing an approach to these managers. 

Let’s start with one simple fact that is central to these two chapters:  

Understanding the role and context of the person you are coaching is MANDATORY for a coach to develop a coaching approach.  

Plan, act, retrospect is the bass line to the musical accompaniment of the chapter … or it is to me. Start each coaching event by considering the person, the role, and the context.  Based on the context a coach needs to build a game plan for the coaching event.  Just having a plan is not enough. I have seen coaches press forward with a plan that is in tatters just because it was the plan. Sessions like that rarely end well. I often play out different threads of a meeting or coaching event before the event so that I can act and react fluidly in the session. It drives my wife crazy when I use the same technique before family events.

Planning is an important aspect of coaching, however, for coaching to have an impact, the person being coached needs to want to change their behavior. I would also suggest for the behavior change to be long-lived the organization needs to support that behavior. The coach is there to help those they are coaching on their own journey. The journey is theirs, not yours – I have often had to remind myself that I can’t make a coaching session about myself (that is why I have people that coach me).

There is a line in the 1957 musical The Music Man, “you gotta know the territory”. In Chapter 15, Fields suggests a list of context attributes that could be used as a pre-event checklist akin to the checklist pilots use before leaving the gate. With or without a checklist, before you begin any coaching event, you need to step back and ensure you are grounded in their role and the context they currently inhabit. I have worked with a number of C Level executives over the years. In many cases, the roles were not terribly different but the context they found themselves in was radically different as was the outcome they were looking for. As a coach, you need to do your homework so that you “know the territory” before you engage. Your homework begins with building rapport and empathy for the person you are coaching. Without empathy, your coaching efforts will be ineffective. 

The scenarios in these two chapters are worth more than one read. They give you an approach so that you can game plan the arc of a coaching session and ideas to tackle more than one real-world problem you will face. As noted last week when we discussed pair coaching, even if you have coached hundreds of people in hundreds of scenarios, it is good to reflect on how someone else would approach a problem. The day you know everything there is to know is the day you have achieved god-hood, or the day you need to decide to work a little harder on self-reflection.

Have you bought a copy? Badass Agile Coaching: The Journey from Beginner to Mastery and Beyond