Greg has been working for his employer for more than 15 years. He’s been in a supervisory role for much of that time and therefore has staff and paperwork issues to contend with daily. One of his challenges has been to complete reports in a timely manner. Optimally, Greg should be doing them as soon as he gets into his office in the morning, before he begins anything else. But Greg finds himself easily distracted. Before he knew it, mid-morning had arrived and then it was afternoon. What was he facing now? A backlog of reports. Scrambling to remember certain details from three days ago and possibly filling them in on his living room couch, he asked for help.
And help is what I offered. We began by asking questions about what was in his way? And what would it feel like to have these reports completed each day and on time before he faced his other duties? He envisioned what that would be like and committed to me (and more importantly, to himself) that he could do it in the coming week. Well, he knows he’s had this plan before but not always been successful with it. His business is also coming into its busiest time of the year. This challenge will become even harder. What will help him be successful in achieving his goal? We explored if it would help to send a notice to someone that he reached his goal on a daily basis. He reports to another manager and she, in turn, reports to the head of the overall operation. His own boss would eventually see the report and he didn’t want to disturb the head guy with this trivial piece. So I asked him whom else can he send it to and he asked if he could send it to me. What we created for Greg was an avenue for accountability.
Even though I would receive a daily e-mail from him about his success and support him with congratulatory comments, whom is he really reporting to? Himself. Accountability is a key part of what the coaching relationship can do for you. Coaches are objective, not emotionally or politically involved and have only one interest in mind…..their clients.