I recently ran a coaching course in which I introduced the process of scaling.
In this, you look at a skill or behaviour and ask the coachee to rate themselves on a scale of 1 -10. If they score themselves four, you then explore what five might look like and what behaviours would be present.
People found this very useful and practised it during the session however, one person was worried that it would just take too long.
OK, so one answer is that development activity always takes up some time but it is time well spent and not doing it condemns everybody to stay in the same place but this still isn't enough for time hungry managers.
It occurred to me that what was needed was a way of keeping the best of a leisurely approach to coaching but doing it in a fraction of the time.
I then looked to my time management guru, Brian Tracy for inspiration. Although I am a big fan, he's maybe sometimes so ruthless with time that a manager following his suggestions completely could come across as cold or aggressive.
OK, I thought, what we need is a hybrid; something that combines the tough functionality of time management with the soft skills of emotional intelligence.
This led me to think about leaders and managers that I've worked with. Although they are often considered pariahs, I found a lot of good examples among politicians. The more effective ones seem to combine a packed timetable with the ability to appear not to be hurried and to have time for people. Another group of exemplars are some of the CEOs that I've met. Limited in facetime, the best ones have a magic light touch that can inspire and motivate in the space of seconds.
I'm working on putting this stuff together for some Speed Coaching courses. For now, you'll have to make do with this fast moving advert.
