Watching from a distance reframes coaching

I’m on the last day of a 2 week vacation. The first of this length in 6 years 🤦🏾‍♂️.

The last time I did this was two teams ago. A team I built from the ground up. Because of this I fully trusted what they were going to do because I had been there setting the stage from day one.

The team after that I never once took a long vacation. Not because I didn’t trust them, but because of Covid, imposter syndrome, and some miscommunication… but that isn’t the point of this note.

Sitting here in the airport getting caught up on Slack since I’ve been out something has hit me like a ton of bricks.

Coaching is…

1. Putting folks in position to perform…
2. Explaining the why, give context, set clear goals (systems), and offer a bit of the what (they are supposed to do)…
3. Observe them performing…
4. Ask questions and only when necessary offer suggestions
5. Repeat

That is it.

My last team, I never truly did step 3 for any real length of time. Because of this, I think I deprived them of essential moments of learning. Moments where there isn’t anyone there to ask or to look to for advise. The only thing left is to take the agency and act.

Which brings me to today.

I hate catching up all at once, also, this vacation was not one of the relaxing kinds… it was more of an experience-heavy vacation… so at night after hours of walking and planning what rides to ride and which kids wanted to do what, I relaxed by getting caught up with what the team was doing. I only opened my laptop once in two weeks, but I just watched from a distance (set myself to away on Slack).

It was eye opening.

They navigated situations that had not occurred in my time there. They made adjustments to plans that we set. They made the best decision possible given the information they had. Many decisions were better than what we would have made if I had been there.

I’ve been taking notes on things I want to coach on. Most very, very minor tweaks/questions.

I’m beyond proud, beyond grateful, beyond impressed.

This experience may have reframed how I approach my leadership style. Instead of jumping in with an answer… instead of going to that critical meeting… instead of trying to guide… what if I instead focus on making the vision, strategy, goals, and context more and more clear… and waiting to speak in the day to day until I’m asked.

This reminds me of the physics phenomena called the observer effect. Where the simple act of observing, changes the result of the experience being observed. What I’ve been doing is observing and trying to make sure the team doesn’t know I’m observing.

I’m not sure how much this will change my style, but I know it will.

Helluva learning experience. One that I hope you experience. Take that vacay… if you have a strong foundation, your team will have your back!