Computers are Easy, People are Hard: How to Coach for Excellence in Tech

by Just Another Tech LeadOctober 4th, 2024

Too Long; Didn't Read

People leadership is hard. People are more nuanced than machines. Let's look through how to coach for excellence.

featured image - Computers are Easy, People are Hard: How to Coach for Excellence in Tech

I’ve been thinking for a while about what my first Blog post should be about.

The possibilities are endless, really.

In my experience, the life of a Tech Lead is rather varied.

One of the core responsibilities and, in my opinion, the toughest challenges that I face on a daily basis is keeping people engaged, happy, and moving forward.

Computers are easy. People are hard.

So I decided today to write about one of the most complex tasks in a leaders life: coaching. Coaching and mentoring are different forms of people development, but in this post we will just discuss coaching.

I really enjoy working with people. I guess that’s why I moved into a people management role rather than staying purely technical, but managing people includes having many, many conversations of different types with the individual contributors we lead:

Operational Conversations
Regular 1:1s
Evaluations / Goals
Conflict Resolution
Project Updates
Career Progression

That’s just to name a few.

Not every conversation and situation requires the same type of involvement from the leader. Some conversations require mentoring, some require direction, and some require coaching. I’ll leave mentorship for a future post, and for now, just talk about coaching.

Table of Contents

What is coaching?
Base Principals of coaching: Listening

What is coaching?

Coaching: To partner with employees to help them come to their own conclusions

This is a fairly basic definition and probably one that would be up for debate. If you asked 100 people, you’d probably get 100 different answers.

But this is the definition that I’ve been taught and how I like to think of it.

This, in my mind, differentiates coaching from mentoring as it’s about helping the person reach their own conclusions rather than taking a directive approach and telling them what to do.

Base Principals of coaching: Listening

Now, this seems easy. We’ve all heard the saying, “You have two ears and one mouth; use them in that ratio,” but it really doesn’t seem to come naturally to a lot of people. I’d broadly break down people into the following categories when it comes to listening skills:

Not even pretending to listen
Pretending to listen but thinking about what they will look like when they’re 70 years old
Listening but only really waiting to talk
Actively listening

As you go further down that list, the closer you are to becoming an effective coach.

I’d like to break down that last item a little. Active listening as defined by the never-fallible source that is Wikipedia:

Active listening is being fully engaged while another person is talking to you. It is listening with the intent to understand the other person fully, rather than listening to respond. Active listening includes asking wide-eyed questions such as, “How did you feel?” or “What did you think?”

I really want to highlight this point:

It is listening with the intent to understand the other person fully, rather than listening to respond

Too many people hear the opening part of a conversation, and their mind immediately links that information with something they have done in the past, something they’ve heard, or something they know. Now, I’m not criticizing here. We all do it.

The key I think is recognising that you are doing it and making a conscious effort to refocus on listening to understand, not listening to respond.

It’s a very similar concept to mindfulness and breathing. You concentrates on the breaths, your mind wanders, you realise you’ve wandered and come back to the breaths. No harm, no foul.

Now, if you’re naturally skeptical as I am and think that you are a great listener, I’d suggest that you try an exercise with a trusting and willing participant.

Ask them to speak about a topic of their choice for 2 minutes.

Try and really listen. Really listen. Actively listen.

Every time your mind wanders or thinks about something you want to say or ask, raise your hand (but let them keep speaking continuously for the whole two minutes).

If you’re anything like me, when I first tried this, from a distance, it probably looked like I was continuously waving at a friend to their face for two minutes.

Go ahead. Do the exercise. I’ll wait.

Great, you’re back. How’d it go? Does your arm hurt from keeping it raised too long?

It’s human nature to want to fit in with people and make connections, so it makes perfect sense why we would want to let the other person know we’ve had similar thoughts and experiences – “You have a nose! I have a nose too!”, but in the context of people development (and in general life to be honest), listening so that the person feels heard is the goal.

Asking Powerful questions

When coaching, there are two types of questions we ask, and they largely fall into the following categories:

Data Gathering: When, Where, Who

Exploratory: What, How, Why

Question Categories:

I’m sure that those of you out there who have watched enough television shows with badly acted therapy sessions will go heavy on the “Why” questions, but beware!

“Why” can be the most infuriating type of question to be asked.

Just ask anyone who has parented a toddler and got so far through the “but why” chain of questions that they have gone from “Why are we going home now?” to “But why is the universe ultimately going to end with heat death” in the space of 2 minutes.

“Why’s” can be good questions, but treat them with respect.

As a coach, you want to aim for an 80/20 split with listening to speaking ratio.

Remember, the idea here is that you are supposed to be getting the coachee to reach their own conclusions.

With this in mind, it makes sense that you would ask more exploratory questions than the data-gathering questions.

If you do find yourself wanting to talk or talking too much, try to “WAIT” and think of the following:

Why

Am

I

Talking

A great follow-up question from your initial “exploratory” questions is:

…. and what else?

It keeps the coachee engaged and thinking.

The Power of the Pause

When I think of “awkward pauses,” I think of a Louis Theroux interview. Any of them, really. I’m sure Louis didn’t invent the awkward pause, but I’ve never seen someone implement it so effectively.

For someone of British persuasion, pauses are long drawn out and should be avoided at all costs. Fill the space and say anything. That’s how we are raised. For coaching, though, we need to embrace the silence. Learn to bathe in the glory that is the deficiency of noise.

Pauses allow the coachee to really continue their thought pattern. To not be distracted. The silence allows them to progress with their thoughts in a natural manner.

Pausing also helps to stop “Question bombing.” We should ask one question at a time and let it be fully answered before moving on. If you find yourself mixing multiple questions at once, stop, take a breath, and focus on which specific question you want to ask first. The other questions can wait until later.

The GROW model

This is a pretty common model in coaching, and there’s loads of good information out there if you want to read in more detail, but here’s the TLDR;

Goal – Where do we want to be.

Reality – Where are we now.

Options – What are the paths to get to where we want to be

Wrap up – Actionable steps to move forwards

All through this “circle of GROW,” keep letting the coachee speak more and direct them where necessary by using exploratory questions.

Final Thoughts

If your job were a pure coach, then what I’ve written above should be taken quite literally.

For most people, though, myself included, I am not a pure coach.

I have deliverables, managers, customers, other team members, and a myriad of other reasons why I can’t let someone always come to a conclusion on their own in their own time.

I was told that you should start off in a conversation coaching and move more toward directional advice if and when needed:

At some point in the future, I’ll write a post on “Situational Leadership,” which has some other interesting ideas on how to have conversations mentioned above, but more in a mentoring role.

I think a balance between coaching and situational leadership dependent on the person, environment and situation is probably correct.

If there’s enough interest, I will write up some “real life” scenarios where I put the above into action.

As always, please contact me with feedback, ideas or anything you’d like me to write about.

I’m Just Another Tech Lead!

Welcome to my Blog. I write about all things related to Software Engineering with a skew towards leadership. I will write about topics close to my heart, day-to-day life as a leader, and ways to grow and learn. I love feedback! Please contact me with anything you disagree with, anything you agree with, anything I’ve missed or anything you’d like me to post about.