Coaching Diversity Remotely (Part 1)

 

You hear people say things like, "If you take away everything but my ability to (sell, speak to the public, etc.), I will survive." For project managers, increasingly, coaching is becoming one of those skills. It is a skill so valuable that it can make up for weaknesses in other skills.  Certainly it's saved me from difficult situations over the years.

Coaching in today's projects is as necessary as it is complex. 

It is necessary because you need those who report to you (solid line or dotted line) to be at top performance. This includes contingent workers who may be new to your organization or entering your project mid-stream. It is necessary because there are times where you have to intervene quickly before one problem starts a stream of other problems. It is necessary when you must stop interpersonal conflicts before they make things worse in your project.

But, perhaps more importantly, this is becoming more common:  project workers are not trained enough early on, leaving you or your designees to train during your project. Much of this training will have to be completed as coaching.

But - make no mistake - coaching can be complex, made more difficult when you are not geographically co-located. You may not see the individual's facial expressions or body posture, always very important, and you may have some cultural differences that keep you from that initial full understanding that is imperative to coming to a resolution.

What to coach about related to performance does not change even if someone is far away and in different culture. Just a few examples:

• Coaching a team lead related to how a team is interacting
• Coaching an individual regarding how he/she is being perceived
• Closing an experienced worker's performance gap
• Connecting with each individual involved in a conflict about the best way to proceed
• Helping a new contingent worker navigate the current work culture

These are potentially difficult topics, and if you are working with a diverse workforce, you have to prepare in a special way to be sure you get it right, despite your desire to move quickly before things get any worse.

In a couple of days, I'll post tips for coaching "diversity remotely." Until then, consider the answer to this question about remote coaching:  What letter does the best coaching question begin with?