Commitment Conversations: How Coaching Transcends the Pitfalls of Promise-making
Maria, the senior vice president of sales at a large organization, arrived at her coaching session feeling hopeless, with a prepared letter of resignation in her briefcase. Six months into her new position, she had not achieved the results she confidently estimated during her hiring process.
Maria said that her peers and her direct report, the assistant vice president of sales, were the source of her unhappiness and inability to achieve promised results. The assistant vice president had also applied for the senior position and, according to Maria, he seemed to resent Maria’s appointment. Her peers, she said, would just ignore her.
When asked for more specifics, Maria explained in detail what both her peers and the assistant VP didn’t do. When she delegated, her expectations weren’t met. When she asked for cooperation from other departments, they would either not respond, or reply too late. Consequently, she ended up working on her own, tirelessly, to get things done. Could this situation be improved if Maria managed her commitment conversations more effectively?
Communication Breakdown
Maria’s situation is common. She perceived that other stakeholders were not fulfilling their commitments and therefore causing her failure. Simple glitches in commitments between people and among organizations cost money, erode trust and compromise integrity. The ability or inability to manage commitments affects an organization’s success.
A Winning Formula
A commitment is a pledge between two or more people. Every family, community and organization is a network of commitments. The more effective the commitments, the more effective the organization—in mutual trust, customer satisfaction and profitability.
The formula for a clear commitment outlines who will do what by when and entails three steps: the request or offer, negotiation, and acceptance.
The Request or Offer
Some clients may be defensive when asked how well they manage commitment conversations. Careful inquiry is key. In Maria’s case, her coach started by asking specifically about how she would go about making a request:
Maria: I told my assistant VP to get the report to me ASAP. When I finally got it a week later, it was too late to include in my report to the CEO. The assistant VP dislikes me and wants me to fail.
Coach: How did you ask him?
Maria: I said, “You need to get that to me ASAP.”
Coach: How do you feel when people say things to you that begin with, “You need to do this…”?
Maria: We all need to get things done.
Coach: But how is it for you when you’re told, “You need to do this …?”
Maria (uncomfortably): It seems … authoritarian.
Coach: What is an alternative?
Maria: I need the customer satisfaction report ASAP.
Coach: Can you be more specific about when?
Maria: I need the customer satisfaction report tomorrow at 5 p.m.
Coach: How does that differ from, “You need to get that to me ASAP”?
The Takeaway:
The more specifically your client can qualify expectations, the better. “I need the report error-free and ready by 5 p.m. tomorrow,” is preferable to “I need the report ASAP.”
Negotiation
Negotiation is called for when one party can’t accept a request. Here is how you can help Maria think about it:
Coach: What if your assistant VP can’t get that report to you by tomorrow at 5?
Marian (laughing): He’s fired. Kidding. Um, I don’t know. I guess I would ask why.
Coach: What would that do?
Maria: Help me understand him.
Coach: And then what?
Maria: If there were some compelling reason, we could look at alternatives. I probably wouldn’t get as upset with him.
Coach: Are you going tell him the alternatives or ask him?
Maria: I’ve always just told people what to do.
Coach: How’s that working?
Maria (thinking): Huh. If he identifies alternatives, it might improve his buy-in.
The Takeaway:
Support your clients as they develop questions that will offer a better result during their negotiations.
Acceptance
Either the request is accepted or it isn’t. How a client closes the commitment conversation contributes enormously to how he or she is perceived.
Coach: Maria, what do you want to be able to say about yourself after this conversation?
Maria: I want to be assertive, yet kind.
Coach: What can you do to support that?
The Takeaway:
Clients are often surprised when they realize their behavior is at odds with their intentions. Helping to align intent with performance can transform difficult situations into successful interactions.
Maria’s Insights
Through coaching, Maria decided that she really didn’t want to resign and reaffirmed her commitment to being successful. She realized that she was neither skillful nor effective in coordinating with others, which directly contributed to her failures. Learning how to manage commitments helped her to gain insights about how and why she was failing. Besides learning new behaviors, she became more aware of herself and others.
As the coaching engagement progressed, Maria realized that a fear of failure drove her ineffectiveness. The individuals who recruited Maria had made big promises about her intelligence and experience, and she put a great deal of pressure on her team in order to deliver the desired results. Instead of fueling productivity, however, this approach fueled resentment.
Through coaching, Maria realized that the gift of fear is expecting to lose something valuable and therefore working to prevent or prepare for that loss. Maria learned that her fear, if managed wisely, could propel her to a better result. She saw that she needed others, and that awareness of interdependence inspired her to change how she managed her commitments. Ultimately, by better managing her commitment conversations and opening up to her colleagues, Maria engaged her team on a more personal level and gained their attention as she shared her vision. This enabled the team to work for the sake of the whole.
Micki McMillan, MCC
Micki McMillan, M.Ed., MCC is the CEO and a founding partner of Blue Mesa Group, an executive coaching firm, and the Blue Mesa Group Institute of Coach Training, based in Fort Collins, Colorado. Micki is the author and Program Co-Director for the Transformational Coaching Program, an ICF approved ACTP program designed for leadership and organizational coaches. Micki brings years of experience as a corporate leader, executive coach, and teacher to her work. She has vast experience in world regions, including Asia, Australia, North America and Europe. She honed her leadership skills as the highest-ranking woman in gas and electric operations for a Minnesota-based public utility. She realized the extraordinary value of coaching after having had her own coach who helped her navigate the complex systems in a large organization. She studied coaching with Drs. Rafael Echiverria, Julio Olalla, and Fred Kofman, graduated from the Newfield Group in 1995, and earned her first ICF credential in 2000. Micki serves as the President of ACTO (Association of Coach Training Organizations). Through Blue Mesa Group, Micki coaches and mentors coaches, leaders and executive teams with clients from global beverage companies, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas energy organizations, healthcare institutions, and utilities. Micki gives back to her profession by mentoring other coaches and serving as affiliated faculty at Colorado State University and Naropa University. Micki is an accomplished speaker at international conferences, such as the Association for Quality Participation, Business Roundtable, Women in Technology, Women’s Vision Foundation and Women in Healthcare.
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Thank you, Micki, for capturing so succinctly how a shift in 3 critical communications can shift how we view others – from blaming them for our failures to engaging them in the success that matters to all of us.
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