GitLab Learning & Development, 3 Dec 2020

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Intro to Coaching - Live Learning Session - 2020-12-03

Description

Find more details about coaching on our coaching handbook page: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/coaching/

A

Welcome to our introduction to coaching course, I'm jc and I'm on the learning and development team, and I will be leading you through the session today. um So what you can expect out of this session is to define what coaching is and examine coaching best practices that can be implemented in your day-to-day role, also identify when to use coaching methods to enable team members, growth and development and then practice how to apply a coaching framework during future discussions.

A

So um what is coaching coaching is really about helping others help themselves. It's not really about giving advice, instruction or telling someone what to do. It's kind of leading someone to that. So really, what you can do is focus on the future and identify where the coaching wants to be and what they want to achieve and then help them clarify a pathway from where they are currently to where they want to be in the future and enable the coaching to make informed choices based on deeper insights and also helping them along the way.

A

So, with that we're going to jump into a breakout activity, y'all will have um 10 minutes together. You'll be in groups of probably about four, um so first introduce yourselves get to know each other a little bit. uh We will go back to breakout groups later in the session and you'll be in the same one.

A

So make sure you get to know who you're in your groups with now and then in your groups, discuss when you hear the word coaching, what does it mean to you and then, if you have one share an example of when someone coached you to help, you cheat achieve a career aspiration. What did they say to you?

A

How did it help you focus on the future um and also if you could nominate someone in your group to report back when we're discussing as a larger group, that'd be great on the agenda, there's a spot where you can put their name and then, when we go through the groups, I can call them on them specifically to share. So with that, I will get you into breakout rooms here.

A

All right. You should be prompted to join your room, all right. I think everyone should be back now. So, um oh everyone should definitely be back now um so um group one. Do you have anything you want to share with the larger group? um I don't see anyone nominated, but it's magdalena, rebecca shem and sophie.

B

I could speak unless so if he wants to um or someone else, but we we kind of talked a little bit about the difference between, especially at the end about mentoring versus coaching and how mentoring might be more of a subject matter kind of thing, whereas coaching is really helping. You discover truths for yourself about. What's going on, the coaching is much more effective when you, when the person realizes something, instead of just being kind of taught something.

A

Yeah great point- and it's definitely more fulfilling on the coachee side to you, know, be led to a decision or like come to the conclusion on your own versus have it directed by someone else. Great point um group two andrew andrew christian, haley kelly. Anyone want to share.

C

I can share unless somebody else wanted to.

D

C

um So one of the things I think we all agreed on was that, when um one of the most effective tools that we found for coaching is asking questions of the person that we're coaching, uh you know leading them to the things that that we're trying to show them through their own discovery through answering the questions rather than just lecturing them. um So that way, the collaborative approach and also is of their you know, you know that whole inception idea right.

C

An idea you come up with yourself is far more serious than the one that somebody else teaches you. So we all agreed that that was, and we found helpful.

A

Awesome thanks for sharing um michael walker. Do you want to share what groups we discussed.

E

Yeah um one of the things that I thought was probably the most interesting thing that was talked about was that sometimes coaching is not just helping a person reach their potential but pointing out potential that a person doesn't notice before and especially when you're working in a team. That can be really helpful to like point out how how somebody's strengths might complement the other members of the team and how their weaknesses might be made up by other people in the team and also it doesn't have to be related to career goals or anything.

E

You can receive and give coaching in pretty much any aspect in life. So.

A

Awesome great point: yeah: it doesn't have to just be about work. It can be about anything um uh group. Four victor. Do you want to share.

F

Sure so primarily, I would say that we don't know much. What coaching specifically is uh one question there was like that: what's the difference between mentorship and coaching uh is coaching about the specific coaching session and that's how it's done or what's the process around that, and then we still try to come up with our own idea what it might be.

F

uh One thing there was that there are different types of coaching like someone when somebody is a manager of yours or or not, and in these aspects, and um personally it was my case that I heard that coaching is more about asking questions that lead the coaching to the answer that others mentioned here as well. But we are not sure about this, whether that was true or not, because my personal experience with coaches, mostly from sports and even outside of that that I consider to be coaches, is that it was not through questions.

F

Another thing that we see here is that um the coach has to reach a goal, and it's mostly about the process that how how to reach that goal, and again we found some ideas in sports that it might sometimes mean that they push us harder than we would push ourselves.

F

Sometimes it might mean that they would just say that this is time to rest, because that's how you can get that to the competition or whatever, um and uh it seems that the coach is not that immersed in the activity as the coach is so that's how why they can have, and that was it.

A

Awesome. Thank you for sharing that um group. Five uh angelo sam stephen terry. Anyone want to share.

G

I can go on list even once so I know he did the typing, so um I think we echoed a lot of the other things. Some of the other groups have said around questions being really important for coaching more so than just providing like explicit direction or pushing people one way or the other, and that it was actually hard. I know steven mentioned it's a hard mindset to get into when you're asked a question to not just give an answer, so I thought that was like an interesting comment that was made.

G

um We also, um I thought it was interesting that none of us felt like we had had like coaches, that were like formal coaches, but that we had felt maybe that some of us had been coached informally over our careers, and so I thought that was kind of interesting.

A

Awesome thanks for sharing that. Okay, um I had a group six, but there was no group six here. So, okay, awesome thanks everyone for sharing. That was uh really helpful. To hear your perspectives. Let me share my screen, so you can see the slides again.

A

So how do coaches really do what they do and they do this by, like a lot of you, said, asking powerful questions to deepen learning or insight, challenging the cochise thought process and limiting beliefs. So I think someone brought up.

A

um You know not only the potential that you see but like potential that you may have that you didn't know um helping and your cochi recognize their own strengths and untap their potential again and then encouraging your coachi to move to action on the choices that they've made and holding your coachi accountable for the actions they have committed to is another big piece of uh coaching.

A

So um we have this uh like diagram thing and there's telling and asking on the vertical access and directing and empowering on the horizontal one. So the different hats that you can wear kind of vary so the first one. That's in the bottom left is the boss hat and that's you know, being directive assigning tests to team members. So the first thing you need to do is this: then this, the teacher hat is really about passing your knowledge and expertise to grow.

A

Someone else's skills so best to check the handbook teaching people how to do things on gitlab things like that, and the mentor hat is sharing advice and giving guidance from your own experience.

A

So here's what I found is useful in this situation and then you have the code chat, which is the most asking questions and the most empowering which is um kind of helping people get to their own solutions, and you can do that by saying things like tell me more about what you think you need to do, and what can I do to help you achieve that.

A

And yeah, just because you go into a conversation wearing one hat doesn't mean you can switch, so maybe you go in as a teacher wearing a teacher hat, you can always switch to a coach hat, or vice versa, and then deciding what hat to wear some questions that you can ask yourself are: is this the right kind of topic for coaching? Is it the right time? um Is there a skill or knowledge gap that the coachee has also super important?

A

Is this person open to being coached, because maybe um they aren't at a point where they're open to that and then um what does a person need from me in the moment? Do they need me to direct them? Do they need more mentoring, or do they need more coaching, so a nice model to use when coaching is the grow coaching model?

A

It is an acronym. So the g stands for goal, so identify the goals to drive success, um and you can do that by asking questions of the coaching like what is their, um what are their goals and then reality discuss the current state and also what barriers exist for them, reaching the goals options explore options for moving forward again.

A

I think this includes a lot of questioning the coachee on what they think the options are and then way forward so agree on specific actions and a plan to achieve those and also checking back in with them and making sure that they are moving forward with those as well.

A

F

It's okay, if you ask questions in between yeah sure, what's your question yeah the question would be. That is, is coaching always, let's say a former setup, so that I know that I am being course or I am coaching someone or is just uh the way of approaching another person.

A

Yeah, that's a great question. I um don't always think it has to be formal, but I think it kind of goes back to um this slide and like deciding what hat to wear. So um like you like understanding, if the person is open to being coached, I think is really important, um but I don't think it needs to be super formal josh. Do you have anything to add sorry putting me.

H

On no, no, I think I think you hit it right on the head there. I think it's about being able to recognize when to switch to different styles, different hats, in this case between the teacher, the mentor, the boss and the coaching hat, but I think like as leaders and team members, you know, I think, there's always opportunities to switch to that coaching kind of mindset by asking team members. You know questions about where to go in the future.

A

Awesome thanks great question.

A

So um we're gonna go over just an example of the grow model in practice, so the scenario excuse me is that crystal has recently transitioned to a new role at gitlab. She's missed several important deadlines and is now feeling pressure from management to perform better. She sets up time with her former manager for a coaching discussion, um so has asked for a coaching discussion and then um we'll apply the grow model to help navigate um the future so for goal. This is identifying the goal.

A

Some questions that can be asked are: what are you looking to achieve? What do you want to get out of this meeting? How does this fit into the bigger picture of your career reality? What is the current situation? So? What resources do you have to help you? Are there internal or external obstacles that are stopping you from achieving the goal? I would say um you know right now with uh covid and everything.

A

There's probably a lot of external obstacles happening so like um maybe someone is trying to do their full-time job and also teach their kids remote learning at home. So I think that's a really important piece and then options.

A

So what are the options to move forward? How would you tackle this if time wasn't a factor? What are some things we can do to improve and what option do you like best out of what you've come up with and way forward? So what will you do now? When will you do it? Who can help you? Can I help you in some way, so this is just how you can apply the grow model, um and with that we will go into a breakout group, so you'll be in the groups.

A

You were again and you'll have 12 minutes.

A

There will be three scenarios on the next slide that we'll run through and then, as a group discuss how you can apply the grow coaching model to the scenario and how you can coach the team member in the scenario, what you would say to help focus, help them focus on a plan and then, when we come back, be prepared to discuss what you talked about in your group, you can nominate the same person who shared last time or a new person, but that will be on the agenda. You can take notes there.

A

So the scenarios scenario one is a peer- sends you a direct slack message saying that they need to talk. You jump on a zoom call and they tell you they didn't get promoted and are thinking of leaving git lab. How can you coach the team member through this scenario, two one of your peer mentions that their manager is very harsh through written communications and comes off as cold and zoom calls.

A

This surprises you, as you're close with the manager that they're talking about you, decide to coach your peer to find steps they can take to resolve. What can you say in the coaching conversation and then scenario? Three, you leave a zoom meeting where one of your peers just gave a presentation on an important topic. It didn't go well and they asked for feedback and what could be done met be done better. How can you coach them so with that?

A

I will go ahead and open the rooms again and you'll have 12 minutes, we'll see you in a little bit. Everyone should be back now so um yeah. I have a debrief slide, but I'm not gonna share it again, so that we can see each other. While we're talking here uh so group five would y'all wanna share the scenario you talked about and um conclusion you came to.

I

I can go this time, um so we picked scenario two with the scenario where someone has a manager that they perceive as harsh when you actually have a close relationship with that manager and have a very different opinion of them, and one of the things we talked about up front is it's important to try to you know, even though it's easy to get a little bit defensive of that manager.

I

You know it's important to kind of take a seat back from that a little bit and take their perspective so that you can help them improve that relationship.

I

So some of the questions we came up with just following the grow formula where things like you know, what does your? What does that relationship? What are your expectations for that relationship? What's that ideal relationship look like and then in the reality we felt like it was really important to get to specifics because liking somebody or not can be really subjective. So just asking the questions to help understand exactly what's going on and help them think through.

I

Like the details of you know, what's driving that perception that that they're viewing um and then options, we talked about just helping them think through what they can do and helping them think through what resources are available. It's really tempting to be like.

I

Oh, the handbook has all this stuff available to you, um but trying to lead them to that answer in more of a coach style rather than just directly telling them um and then finally, with the way forward, we we mostly ran out of time for that one, but um just talked about helping them, make some concrete plans to work towards that. You know time frames and specific next steps.

A

Awesome that was really great great questions that you asked them and um yeah. um You made a really great point about, even though you may be friends with that. um The manager they're talking with kind of like removing that from the situation and being subjective is really important, so awesome um group for andy. Do you want to share.

J

Sure um yeah, we picked the first situation where peer didn't got, promoted and was thinking about leaving gitlab and um yeah. We would start with the goal by um asking for more details like: why did they expect a promotion and um where did they wanted to get promoted and um what promotion means to them to them or why they wanted to be promoted like this is because of money, changing roles or acknowledgement um and um yeah, and then for real reality would ask: um why did they think to why?

J

Why did they thought they deserve a promotion and um what's the relationship with the manager, because maybe they didn't recognize it um was there anything? um Was there anyone else who got promoted instead of them?

J

Did they receive any feedback um and um or yeah, basically, in general, why why weren't you promoted, if you expected and um yeah and then exploring the options? um So what what to do next, um like, uh I think, also part of the scenario- was that they think that they wanted to leave gitlab like. Maybe this is a valid option if they don't feel happy um um so like do you think you would reach your goal somewhere else.

J

um It doesn't really make sense um and um like if you thought you deserve a promotion. How could you present your performance better? Because if you deserve it, why wasn't it recognized, um and how could you position yourself better for promotion and um did you have any?

J

um Did you have these thoughts for a long time or is it just like a quick origin, because maybe, if they think about quitting, maybe this like an emotional reaction, it would be better to cool down a little bit and think about it again and um yeah for the way forward uh would ask them.

J

um How can I help you find a better person position within gitlab, or do you have a timeline for for your promotion um to push them a little bit more for action like when that you want to get promoted and then maybe figure out the plan with them like step by step, how to how to get promoted.

A

Awesome. Thank you for sharing that those are really really great points um group three devin. Do you want to share.

K

Yeah, so we had some good conversations here. uh One of the first things that came up is how a definition of a peer can be really different.

K

It might be somebody you work very closely with or somebody who you just kind of casually know through work uh and that this can be a really awkward situation to be put in uh when there's no reporting relationship but uh just being willing to listen and understand um their their point of view um is the only way for you to understand like what their goal is and kind of try to understand like well. Why did you want to be promoted?

K

You know- and you know, maybe they're having financial difficulties and they need to raise or they're looking at career growth and they feel like they're. You know falling behind in their career path, uh but then looking at reality, so something I've faced here at gitlab and I think most people can relate- is there's so much information and things move so fast that there are often times announcements made, or things happening that impact my job, that I'm not aware of immediately.

K

um You know especially being in security like a very small product decision or engineering decision can be impactful and what I say to a customer and our culture is very different than anywhere I've been. um You know where you know. It's not like a central repository of everything and that's why we're able to be so competitive because we move so fast.

K

Maybe just sharing resources can help inform their reality. Maybe there was an announcement made about why a department or a team or even us as a company, are doing something a certain way and that impacted why they weren't promoted, and that could you know really derail things right there.

K

Just sharing, sharing that, uh but then, like looking at options that other employers before I've been places where I've been in the situation and the person was just having a hard personal time and didn't know there was an employee assistance program or what options the employer offered, and so sometimes it can be helpful to share those resources and be like. Oh, you know what I totally feel that, but, like you know, we've got this going on or we've got that going on.

K

um Maybe they're upset because they had a really big project they worked on and they felt like they deserved a promotion. uh You know, maybe um they don't know that we have a discretionary bonus program and that would have satisfied them. um There's there's a lot of things there and then the way forward with a peer. It's like a really personal decision that they're going to have to make for themselves, but we can provide support by you know, recommending those resources or pointing them to things and sometimes brought up earlier.

K

Maybe it's a really emotional thing: they're, just having a reaction, sometimes just listening, helps and not being judgmental or making them feel. Like you know, it's their fault.

A

Awesome points great job. um I probably should have said this earlier. um I put peer in the scenarios because I didn't want anyone think they had to be a manager of someone to like coach them. So yeah, that's a great call out on pier um but yeah. That's why I put peer instead of like your team member or something um group, two haley do you wanna share.

D

Yes, yeah um and I like what you said about the pure things. That was the first thing we all said, and then I think you start to think about. Oh yeah, you don't have to necessarily be a manager to coach someone um when people come to you for things. You can apply this, um so I think we started just like not rambling, but going off with all of the questions that we would ask and starting to put those into where they fit in the the grow model.

D

um So for g it was you know, some of the things was. If we want to identify the goal, we need to identify their intention coming into it. Oh sorry, we picked the first one, the promotion, one which I think is very very common um and I think topical right now for a lot of teams with views coming up. um So those questions, were you know? Where do you want to be?

D

What does success mean for you and what was your intention behind applying, because that can sort of help us identify a goal? That is what they can do. Maybe instead, if they didn't get that promotion right, like I think in this coaching model, we talked a lot about what what else, what else they can do and helping them understand what what they really want out of their job, um where they are now and then for for the reality.

D

uh Some of those questions were you know what was the feedback that you got from your manager, because I think a git lab would do a good job of providing that um and then kind of going through that with them to review. You know: were there things that you agreed with or things you didn't or things that didn't or did make sense kind of trying to identify their strengths within that and where to work on, um and I think another thing we talked a lot about in the reality.

D

Piece was also the the emotional side of it right. The empathic side of it of thinking about, like you're, probably disappointed or upset, and these are normal feelings, and you know, let's have a very honest conversation. You know level setting and- and that's really important in being able to discuss the reality, which then starts to open up, um open up options and and then kind of seeing seeing a way forward. um Did I miss anything really key? I didn't really go into a lot of the options of wait for because we were just.

D

We were just kind of having a conversation about all the things we could be asking. um I think that was really the most valuable for take away for our team unless anyone else wants to. I think you hit.

B

A

Awesome, thank you haley um sophie. Do you want to sorry I'm kind of buzzing through because we're over time sophie? Do you want to share good.

L

Yeah I'll go quick, so we had scenario one as well, um and we kind of focused on um how that person probably feels after not getting the promotion. So the goals were just asking how they're feeling kind of how did they come to the conclusion that they want to leave git lab?

L

So then the reality just asking what the current situation is, how they got there, how they feel like they did during, like the interview process, the options, seeing if there's any areas for improvement or even is there something different in terms of like a different role at the company different projects that they can focus on instead um and then ways forward.

L

We also discussed that the way forward may not be at get lab and that's okay and as a coach you're not trying to get them to stay at a specific company, you're, really just trying to coach them to get to their goals. So, um as a coach, what can you do to help support them? Is there anybody that you can like have them meet with to discuss further their options and not just hold them to staying at gitlab.

A

Awesome great points, thank you um awesome. Well, thank you. Everyone! You all had really great um responses and I hope you're you enjoyed the conversations you had with your groups. um The only additional thing I have is we do have a feedback form it's under the question section on the agenda. If y'all could go in and fill that out um about how you thought the session was. I'd also appreciate feedback on how you thought the length of time was in the breakout rooms. So if you could give feedback on that specifically that'd be awesome.

A

uh Yes, thank you for sharing it in the chat here josh. um But does anyone have any questions? I know where four minutes over, but anyone have any questions that um you would like answered before we wrap.

A

Up all right awesome. Well, if you think of anything, always feel free to reach out to the learning and development team. We do have a learning and development slack channel, but thank you all so much for taking time out of your day to be here and we will have some more live learning sessions in 2021. So we hope to see you there.