Solution Saturday: Harassing Naughty Employees
Dear Dan,
I know you are a coach and proponent for encouraging people to receive help from mentors and coaches.
What would you suggest to employees who have been misled by leadership-type coaches…grossly…for the sake of bolstering personal reputations and gain of those coaches?
What if “coaching” becomes a platform for harassing “naughty” employees for the company that hired them? It’s hard to believe that some leaders who say they want to help employees become successful would actually try to trip them up, steal ideas, use required-reading blogs to whip them, etc.
Do you have any warnings for employees or suggestions on how to stay on guard from those types of predators?
Thank you for your ideas,
Burned
Dear Burned,
It’s heartbreaking to read your experience. Ethical behavior is the foundation of successful coaching.
I’m responding to your question with the assumption that you have little control over being coached and no power to choose your coach.
First approach:
The first thing that comes to mind is take your concerns to your boss and/or Human Resources. Unethical coaches harm organizations, squander talent, and give coaching a bad name.
- Document your experiences.
- Explain the impact.
- Commit to your personal development.
- Ask for a different coach.
Number three on the above list is essential. Your development is your responsibility. Present yourself as fully dedicated to your own development and the best interest of your organization. Don’t come off as attacking others.
Never let a bad coach – or anyone else – be the reason you sabotage your own growth and development.
Second approach:
The second thing that comes to mind is make the best of this situation. Suppose you don’t want to go to the boss or HR.
Could you give feedback to your coach? I’m pretty sure if you went to your boss, he/she would ask, “What have you told your coach?”
Tell your coach that the required reading feels like being whipped, for example. I realize trust is low. Perhaps a very simple test run to see how the feedback works would be helpful.
5 suggestions:
- Assume the best. What shifts in your thinking if you believe your coach is trying to be helpful?
- Get the most from required reading. There must be something useful.
- Practice transparency. Shout any ideas shared with coaches from the rooftops. Secrets strengthen manipulators.
- Document your experience. Be sure to record what you did to improve the situation, along with any offenses of your coach.
- Minimize defensive thinking. Pursue what you want for yourself and your organization. Being on your heels doesn’t take you where you want to go.
A final thought.
Coaching as a tool for dealing with “naughty” employees is a destructive attitude, especially if that’s all there is to coaching.
I often work with leaders who aspire to get to the next level. They’re motivated and successful. But in some organizations, you don’t dare say you have a coach because coaching is a means of last resort. You’re out the door if you don’t improve.
The “naughty” employee approach short-circuits coaching. It’s better to view coaching as a means of maximizing the potential of motivated people.
Which approach makes more sense to you?
What suggestions might you have for Burned?
I once worked for an organization that employed two coaches to deal with “naughty” managers. They were reputable coaches however, because the employees concerned had no say in choosing their coaches, the arrangement was less than successful. The coaches only had the biased opinion of executive management who, as it turned out, did not have the requisite skills to address the real problem. The problem was never with the employees, it was with executive management. This was an acquisition and the problem was there was no change management plan and due to the executives concerned, they had no experience in acquisitions and merging cultures. It was ready, fire, aim, grow at any cost without having the right expertise in place at their level. One of the employees concerned refused to work with his coach after 2 sessions and another left the organization. On reflection, it was the executive management who needed coaches not the employees. Coaching was a poor excuse to cover up their own inadequacies as executives.The coaches quickly recognized this and they took a different approach to coaching the remaining 3 employees. The other issue is the coaches were employed to deliver 8 sessions – for any kind of coaching to work, it needs to be sustained over a period of time. Another reason for this not working, is the coaches had to report back to executive management therefore their was an immediate lack of trust as the employees could be completely transparent. Thanks Dan and Burned for bringing this to the forefront, it proves in any coaching transaction, its important for coaches to do their due diligence first and understand the real needs of an organization. Employees should have the ability to choose their own coach knowing that there must be trust and complete confidentiality between the coach and the employee.
Thanks Carolyn. Wow, 8 sessions? That seems like a very short engagement. I suppose it depends on the situation.
Regarding confidentiality. We can be transparent with goals, not with the coaching conversation. I tell people, the coaching conversation is private. I won’t talk about it in any way that might reveal the person’s identity.
I think you’re spot on with the idea that leaders need coaching when employees aren’t performing. This approach strengthens relationships between leaders and employees.
I’m currently working with an organization that is figuring out how to make choice an important part of the process. People feel powerful when they’re making choices.
Dan to add to Carolyn’s great reply:
1. The worse Coaching experiences I’ve been involved with were when Human Resources picked the Coach who then reported to them!
2. I believe individual Coaching is much better and results in more openness and trust then team Coaching
3. I would give the person I wanted Coached a choice of two Coaches, they picked and I asked for very limited involvement
Brad
Thanks Brad. Even a choice between two is so much better.
I started an engagement about a year ago. I told them I don’t report on coaching conversations. Period. Then I told the person I’m coaching, I’m working for you. Let’s make sure that your development is what’s good for you and the organization.
To be honest, this sounds less like coaching for development and growth and more like court-ordered rehab
Thanks Mitch. Sad but true.
Interesting insight, surely the coaching experiences described are not in the best interest of all parties.
Surely the choices are better with options.
Agreed. Thanks Tim.
In my own experience and observations:
Most hostile work environments will not change until some people have changed employment away from that place: and some new-to-this-employer people have effected a corporate culture change.
My suggestions for “Burned” to perhaps consider as you continue to remember to appear positive, and while performing your job duties in an exemplary manner:
Be seeking new employment while preparing to profitably leave your current employment or accept a transfer, if necessary.
The following suggestions are premised on your being an employment victim – where change of your current “Coach” and work situation is not going to occur while you remain in place or an outside power intervenes.
And premised with an idea that you are in fact excellent in your job performance; you’re reasonably easy for others to both like and to appreciate.
1. With some comment about “how valuable your comments are” or “I want to review your suggestions later on”, show and turn-on a tape recorder {of a fairly good size, very visible} as the session begins.
As you are close to each other, before greetings or other comments, perhaps something like: “Hi -Name-, I am now taping our meetings so I can be sure to not miss anything, and review your comments at least once or twice.”
2. Document-document-document. Write a Memo for Record including every instance you experience anything of a harassing, hostile nature directed toward you, from the “Coach” and from anyone else in your workplace. Plan to do this for 30 to 45, even 60 days if you can continue to somehow tolerate your situation.
3. Save about $700 to pay a well reputed, really excellently reputed labor law attorney for an hour to an hour and one-half of legal advice.
Following legal advice, present your case for having been placed into a hostile work environment to the appropriate person[s]. This might be HR, a Company Board Member, CEO, a boss of your boss … whomever … I saw no clarity as to where you fit into your organizational structure, nor how large it might be.
If there is no appropriate recourse within your organization, perhaps your State Labor Relations Board should be the first to officially learn of your problem. However, this action could adversely affect your longer term employment opportunities. Hopefully your legal counselor can well advise you .
If you do contact a Labor Board it would probably best be after you have left, or during the term of notice, you have given to this current employer.
Whatever timing is most powerful toward your perhaps gaining some additional, beyond your paycheck and hopefully punitive to your former “Coach” cash recompense for what you have endured and are enduring.
On the other hand, if either doing other things or just using a tape recorder changes your situation into an appropriate-to-you employment: GREAT!
Thanks Craig. I particularly enjoy your encouragement to continue to remember to appear positive, and while performing your job duties in an exemplary manner:
Be seeking new employment.
I think you’re right. Culture doesn’t change until leaders change either literally, or their attitudes change.
In situations like this, email is your friend. You can document events, timestamp it, prove whom it was sent to and exactly when. A paper trail of events, a chain of evidence, is so helpful.
Forever the optimist, what I took from this post is, “Never let a bad coach – or anyone else – be the reason you sabotage your own growth and development. “. People and situations come into our lives to teach us something. It might be what we need to get out of our comfort zone and move on. YOU are responsible for your own growth. Never give that power to someone else!
Thanks Deborah. Exactly! The sooner we own our own development and stop waiting for others to make it happen, the better off we’ll be.