14. Developing behavioural agility Flashcards
4 key roles that a CoSec can play, and needs behavioural agility to fulfil
One-to-one coach
Mentor
Systemic team coach
Board facilitator
What is meant by being a ‘team coach’?
Being a behavioural and relational process expert with a person focus, supporting the board as a team, both as a group of individuals and collectively
Who is the natural holder of the team coach position
Chair
2 reasons why chair may need support (ie. from CoSec) in team coach capacity
- Difficult to both coach and participate in discussions
- Responsibility for performance management can sometimes conflict with effective coaching
Case for coaching as leadership style
Over time (though not initially) empowering leadership styles outperform directive leadership styles in terms of team performance - boardroom context has an extended timeline
Define coaching
Unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.
4 recognised core skills / mindsets underpinning the ability to coach
- Building a trusting coaching relationship
- Asking effective questions and listening to/noticing responses
- Supporting effective goal-setting
- Providing effective feedback
How is a successful coaching relationship built?
By spending time treating the coachee as a human being rather than a ‘human doing’ that is simply a cog in completion of a task
- use of empathy and spending time talking to people about what matters to them
& then maintaining a consistently significant quantity of interactions
What should be a coaches default coaching approach?
Asking questions
What should be our baseline percentage of ask-to-tell when coaching?
10% telling, 90% asking
Why should coaches generally ask and not tell? (4)
- Shows belief in coachee’s potential
- Constant telling (directing) sets up uneven parent-child dynamic
- Stimulates deep learning and retention
- Constant telling promotes dependence on coach to solve future problems
Other than paying attention to what a coachee says, what else should a coach notice? (3)
- Tone
- Body language
- What is not mentioned or left unsaid
5 types of questions that should be in a coaches arsenal
Open questions
Closed questions
‘Why’ questions
‘What’ questions
‘How’ questions
Benefit of coach asking open questions
Helps coachee raise awareness of their issue and problem solve themselves
What is the default question type in coaching?
Open questions
Benefit of coach asking closed questions
Useful at certain points, such as when checking on coachee’s thought process, etc.
Overuse of what question type is indicative if directive style?
Closed questions
Benefit of coach asking ‘why’ questions
Useful for opening people up to recognise the reasons for events being as they are
Why should too many ‘why’ questions be avoided?
Can make coachee file a though they are being interrogated
Benefit of coach asking ‘what’ questions
Help coachee explore their current reality in detail
Benefit of coach asking ‘how’ questions
Very useful to move us forward to where we want to go, having already set the scene with ‘what’ questions
What is GROW model?
Useful coaching model to give coaching direction
What does GROW stand for? - with example for each
Goal - what do you want?
Reality - what is currently happening?
Options - what could you do?
Will - what will you do?
Define mentoring
Help by one more experienced person to another person in making significant transitions in knowledge, work or thinking
5 key differences between mentors and coaches
- Mentor is more likely to make introductions and develop a mentee’s networks
- Mentor is more likely to explain organisational politics
- Mentor is more likely to be someone who has ‘trodden the path’ so has inside knowledge useful to mentee
- Coach is more likely to provide feedback
- Coach is more likely to be engaged in a contract and paid
4 types of mentor - and whether they should be used when needing low or high task expertise, and low or high facilitative expertise
Buddy mentor - low task expertise, low facilitative expertise
Expert mentor - low, high
Attached - high, high
Detached - high, low
When might a CoSec be a buddy mentor?
Aiding the settling in of a director during director induction (first few months)
When might a CoSec be an expert mentor?
Teaching a new director of their governance responsibilities or sharing the appropriate governance response to an existing director
When might a CoSec be an attached mentor?
Combining using skill in asking questions to enable thinking, while also providing organisational knowledge if require to aid a mentee’s thinking
When might a CoSec be a detached mentor?
When a more classic coaching approach is required - if supporting directors with broad issues beyond the technical
Why is it key that a CoSec understands various coaching and mentoring roles?
Because then they will be able to identify what role they are playing and whether that is the most suitable at that time and with that individual
2 key trends in mentoring
1 - Move from mentoring as a way to enable accelerated progress at an organisation, to more about personal and career development
2 - Concept of reverse mentoring - more junior staff mentoring more senior leaders in a particular competency, such as tech / digital skills
Professor Peter Hawkins et al. - definition of systemic team coaching
A process of coaching the whole team both together and apart, over a designated period of time to enable it to:
- align on common purpose
- collaborate and learn across diversity
- develop collective leadership
- effectively engage with key stakeholders, and
- jointly transform the wider business
5 reasons why a CoSec is perfectly placed to be systemic team coach
- CoSec is ideally positioned to provide coaching over a period of time
- The client of systemic teach coaching are is the stakeholder system, which the CoSec should have a great understanding of
- Requires knowledge of what is going both inside the board and outside the board
- One-to-one coaching of directors (a part of systemic coaching) can be an extension of induction which is often CoSec led
- Most useful at specific moments in a team’s evolution, which CoSec would be able to recognise
Peter Hawkins’ five disciplines model of systemic team coaching - 5 disciplines
Discipline 1 - Commissioning (task focus / outside the team)
Discipline 2 - Clarifying (task focus / inside the team)
Discipline 3 - Co-creating (people process focus / inside the team)
Discipline 4 - Connecting (people process focus / outside the team)
Discipline 5 - Core learning
Peter Hawkins’ five disciplines model of systemic team coaching - Discipline 1 - Commissioning (task focus / outside the team) (2)
Focusses on what stakeholders expect of the team
CoSec can facilitate stakeholder interviews, stakeholder mapping, focus groups, etc.
Peter Hawkins’ five disciplines model of systemic team coaching - Discipline 2 - Clarifying (task focus / inside the team) (2)
Team then need to jointly clarify, agree and commit to how it will execute expectation together
Models and exercises which help include vision/mission/values models, SWOT analyses, etc.
Peter Hawkins’ five disciplines model of systemic team coaching - Co-creating (people process focus / inside the team)
Team coach supports team in working together to deliver their joint endeavour
Peter Hawkins’ five disciplines model of systemic team coaching - Connecting (people process focus / outside the team) (2)
Team needs to engage with key stakeholders end be tuned into broader organisational culture
Team coach supports team in preparing to communicate with outside stakeholders
Peter Hawkins’ five disciplines model of systemic team coaching - Discipline 5 - Core learning (2)
Team is encouraged to stand back and reflect on its own performance to consolidate on successes and learn from mistakes
CoSec can assist by delivering board evaluation
Who would actually play the role of systemic team coach in an ideal world?
An external coach (but this would still likely be with the support of a highly competent CoSec)
Why is the competency of facilitation a key requirement of a strong 21st century CoSec / governance professional? (3)
Relationship management facilitation
Facilitation of dialogue and negotiation
Facilitation which teases out deep-rooted issues, honest opinion, etc.
What is the role of a facilitator within a group?
A process in which a person, substantively neutral, intervenes to help a group improve the way it identifies and solves problems and makes decisions in order to increase the group’s effectiveness
6 approaches and tools available that can guide and improve competency in facilitation - and very brief description of each
Prescribing - giving direction, advice and recommendation
Informing - giving information or knowledge during a conversation or meeting
Confronting - raising awareness and challenging assumptions
Cathartic - helping release emotions that block progress (overly negative or positive)
Catalytic - intervening to promote expansive and self-directed conversations
Supporting - validating and building self-confidence to boost morale or reward success
What is the most key skill to be a good facilitator?
An awareness of which intervention style is most appropriate at each time, and moving elegantly from one intervention to another
What is meant by ‘contracting and ground rules’
Meeting arrangements
Framework for effective contracting - 3 Ps of contracting
Practicalities
Professional aspects
Psychological contract
3 Ps of contracting - practicalities
Vocalising and agreeing basics such as start and end times, breaks, access to refreshments and facilities, wifi access, etc.
3 Ps of contracting - professional aspects
Creating permission around what is and is not to be included, and what may or may not be shared outside of the meeting
3 Ps of contracting - psychological contract
Concerns how the group needs to work well together to be a high performing team - how interested, experienced, engaged (etc.) are participants
Roger Schwarz - 9 behavioural ground rules (re. 3 Ps of contracting - psychological contract)
- State views and ask genuine questions
- Share all relevant information
- Use specific examples and agree on what important words mean
- Explain reasoning and intent
- Test assumptions and inferences
- Jointly design next steps
- Focus on interests, not positions
- Discuss undiscussable issues
- Use a decision-making rule that generates the level of commitment needed
*CoSec can use these as starting point for discussion re. board working together
4 implementations a CoSec might make to assist facilitation (think flow and ease of meetings)
Process breaks - to review how well group is working together to achieve stated task
Mindful meetings - infusing mindfulness practices and emotional intelligence into effective meeting structure
The check-in - begin a meeting with a ‘check-in’
Positivity - focus on what is working rather than what is not working fuels more creativity, confidence and better performance
3 roles other than significant one-to-one coaching, mentoring, systemic team coaching and facilitation roles that a CoSec mar find themselves needing to flex into (and brief description)
Supervisor - supporting and supervising the governance competency building of directors and other CoSecs
Mediator - required when board tension and challenge boils over into personality and relationship conflict
Counsellor - due to trusted position within org, individual directors may go to CoSec to seek out support and advise on issues that go beyond the technical
4 ways by which a CoSec can develop ‘team coach’ competence
- Self-reflection
- Being coached or mentored
- Self-tutoring
- Formal learning activities
