The recent post about having to like people if you were going to be a successful coach brought me a fair number of comments and questions (on twitter). That’s what I call a good thing.
Liking people doesn’t mean extroversion.
A number of people spoke of being introverts, and most of them read my idea as suggesting their introversion meant they couldn’t be coaches. (Since a couple of these were persons I know to be very successful coaches, it was a mite awkward.)
Anyway, that’s a simple misunderstanding we can deal with right away. Introversion in its rich sense, a la Jung and Kiersey-Bates, does not have to do with whether you like crowds or not. Rather, introversion is really about whether being around others, especially groups, gives you energy or takes energy from you.
I am myself a serious introvert. For some of my clients, this may be a surprise. You may have seen me always hanging out in a crowd of folks, laughing and joking, or up at the front of the classroom lecturing (which in my case is mostly also laughing and joking). How can someone so obviously comfortable in groups be an introvert? The true answer: at great expense in energy, that’s how. Many notice that I rarely go out with teams at lunch, and almost no one sees me before or after work. I need every moment of people-less time that I can get.
Do I like people? Sure. More than most, I sometimes think. But I’m still an introvert and I still need to recharge people-lessly.
Don’t you have to like technical stuff, too?
Well, I didn’t say liking people was the only requirement for being a coach. Liking people is necessary, but it’s not sufficient.
That having been said, the answer is still basically ‘not so much’. You see, there’s a difference between being a geek and being someone who knows how geeks do it. I know a number of geek coaches who have little or no love of geekery itself. What matters most is that you know how geeks think and feel. A number of professional coaches, including me, have long maintained that coaching is often just basic team therapy. Therapists don’t have to be psychotic to help psychotics. (Tho, of course, it helps.)
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On the third or fourth hand, I lost count, skill at geeking is a positive asset. I know all of my readers who are external consultants have encountered “geek-penis-length-checks” in their careers. One of the many sad side effects of having an industry dominated by young men, the length-check is the less politically correct name for what I elsewhere call the DoubleDawgDare. Some folks refuse to listen seriously to anyone who isn’t herself a serious geek.
Can I be a coach if I’m also a manager?
I’ve answered this one elsewhere. Here I just want to remind everyone that there really are no ‘exclusion’ rules for who’s a good coach. Managing is not a great place to start from, but it is possible to coach from there.
So what are you saying, coaching is just “love one another”? Ick.
Heheheheh. First things first: coaching isn’t “just” anything. (Note to self: write article on usage of the word “just”.)
Second: I’m gonna guess from this person’s tone that he’s troubled by the sense that I’m really just espousing a bunch of feel-good crap with no actually useful advice. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a legitimate question, tone notwithstanding. Describing genuine affection versus making up a bunch of apple-pie schmaltz is a thin one. On this, I guess I stand on my record.
Nevertheless, in all seriousness, when I say the number one asset of a coach is her actual affection for humans, I’m not selling apple pie and I’m not advocating that you try to suppress the many nuanced modes that go along with affection: exasperation, amusement, and even flat out anger. Coaching will use your entire stock of emotional responses, don’t you worry.
Okay, that’s the roundup of questions and comments for now. We’re back to the original idea:
To build on top of your last sentence: “…you’re gonna have to like people.” I like to add “…and you are gonna have be liked as well.”
Coaching seems so much easier when people like you.
And usually when they like you, they trust you. It becomes easier to introduce change and coach. People are willing to try new things.
As you said, knowing how geeks feel and think matters a lot. And if you top that with being approachable, responsive, good listener, you can really make a change.
I don’t want to say charisma matters, but I think it does.
But it’s *not* “just” charisma that matters.
(I had to use “just” one more time to give you another excuse to write that “just” article 😉
Wow, you said a mouthful, there. It does seem like charisma is king. The problem with ‘charisma’ is that it is held to be ineffable. I think — only think, mind you — that a great deal of what we mean by that word can be defined, or at least grokked without words. On my way to doing this I also want to explore and revitalize the geek joy that brought so many of us here in the first place. Of course, I prolly won’t be able to bring this off, in which case, I’m eff’ed.
Great post. As an extremely gregarious introvert, your position makes total sense to me.
Regarding charisma: It’s always much easier to like someone who likes you, so I think being liked and being likable are definitely related. In addition to loving people, loving what you do helps a lot. Passion is always compelling.
Two good points. Yes, maybe the biggest reasons another person likes you is because you clearly like her. Advice to remember. And yes, again, passion is tremendously compelling. I am fascinated by the phenomenon of geek joy, and I wonder if it isn’t passion in another guise.
Sebastian,
You’re right that it helps if people like you, too. You can’t make people like you, though. You can, however, act in ways that people like. And I think that if you like people, and you know how to act in such ways, you will do so because you like them. So, it works out.
An example: I just wrote a post on listening to people (http://blog.gdinwiddie.com/2009/09/25/dont-worry-about-that/). Learning how to listen to people, and how to remember to listen to people, is an important skill for a coach. Listening to people because you want to manipulate them, though, isn’t very good for coaching. I think you’ll find it backfires.
Listening to people because you like them and want to understand their concerns is something that helps coaching a great deal. At the same time, people like for someone else to listen to them and pay attention to their concerns. It leads to the trust and other benefits that you describe.
Is that “just charisma?”
So we’re already effing out the charisma-word. Cool. That was easier than I thought it would be. 🙂 Thanks for the input, George!
Doh! I missed the Like People post the first time around so just caught now and have to say I agree with that concept.
And, while I’ve never personally had to undergo a geek-penis-length-check (phew!) I can see where people who think they know all the right answers might think that makes them a good coach, when of course, someone who thinks the TEAM has the right answers will make the much better coach…. 🙂
Abby…
I cringed when I typed “geek-penis-length-check”. But every alternative phraseology seemed too weak. You know more than I, the geek world is full of this kind of crap.
Anyway, I agree, believing the team has the answers is the real deal. Actually empowering actual teams to decide for themselves is fundamental to success, but terrifying to coaches who ‘know better’. Pretend empowerment is even worse than the usual ass-hattery.
GeePaw
This resonates with me also. Nobody believes that I’m terribly shy and introverted, but it is true. For example, it’s very hard to make myself call people on the phone. But, I’ve worked on my extrovert skills so that I can teach and do presentations and mentor people. And meet great new people from whom I learn so much. Mostly I like to lead by doing, draw the good ideas out of people and spread them around.
I’m fairly geeky for a tester but I wouldn’t try to, say, coach a development team in doing TDD at the unit test level. I know it’s a good practice, but if I can’t do it myself, I don’t have the credibility.
We clearly need a club for shy people that nobody believes are shy; I get that all the time. The best part is that we don’t actually have to have meetings.