Leaders, Managers, Team Leads as Performance Coaches (Part 7)…By Segun Mojeed

We concluded, last week ,on a note of the necessary value clarifications that should take place to switch on the quintessential synergistic workplace relationships that would make performance coaching thrive and fulfil expectations. I have already briefly discussed trust and an environment devoid of fear. Let us talk about a few more.

Effective Communication, a sure-fire for synergistic relationships: Even where you succeed in having trust and an environment devoid of fear, things can still go haywire if communication plan is not well executed. Communication issues are multi-faceted. For instance, the problem of one-way communication – managers to employees only and no provision for response or feedback. Some team leads just like to hear their own voice only with very poor ‘listen-ability’ skills. How about different frame of references leading to misunderstanding? A performance coaching synergistic relationship encourages a two-way open communication between the team lead and those she leads and ensures that the team is operating on the same frequency using the same language, coded and un-coded. Clear and trust-engendering communication goes beyond what the leader says. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, “What you are or do speaks so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say”.

The subject of effective communication is loaded. ‘Listen-Ability’ module alone is a whole day intensive training while business communication is two full days in class at BezaleelConsulting, so there is still a lot to share on the subject. Suffice now to say that a result-oriented communication must demonstrate some essentials – clarity, conciseness, concreteness, correctness, coherence, completeness, and courtesy. The internet calls them the seven Cs of communication. Please you are free to add to the list based on your communication experiences. How about cuteness? Communication can be beautiful and at the same time be effective.

In recent times and consistently too, among the top ten communication skills are listening, non-verbal, clarity and concision, empathy, feedback, the right medium, etc. A performance coach’s word is consistent with his or her action. Listening is key, it conveys respect and that team members are valued and important. Your body language must not run contrary to the message you are passing or else you would be sending the wrong signal. A leader must convey mutual respect in his communication if he wants to create synergy. Without much digression, do you know that your dressing is a form of communication? Someone said the way you are dressed is the way you would be addressed. You want to be a role model, please communicate appropriately with your attire.

The number four enabler of synergistic relationships is Acceptance: This means that relationships must be non-judgemental, no jumping to conclusions or stereotyping. It means being ready to listen to and give a thought to what your team members have to say. If you are in the habit of immediately dismissing their opinions, you are in danger of jeopardising the relationship, shifting towards one-way and a very weak engagement. Research identifies Acceptance as a key factor not only in relationships but also in employee engagement and the ideation process. There is a tendency on the part of the older generations not to take the younger generations, especially the Generations Ys and Zs seriously, oftentimes wondering aloud what kind of education they got or if they ever attended Uni; and in the process generalising individual shortcomings like excessive obsession with gadgets, short in attention to details, time wasting on social media, etc. These generalisations and other stereotyping stand in the way of genuine acceptance and a performance coach breaks these walls of partition to build profitable relationships.

I’ll like to identify the next most valuable enabler, call it number five, as Honesty: Growing up, we heard the saying ‘honesty is the best policy’ a lot and I guess it still is. Rewarding relationships depend on total honesty, ensuring what you say is the truth and nothing but the truth. This is not saying you cannot hide hurting information from your associates for a while and on purpose, you must however not shy away from giving brutal feedback when necessary. When your team members know you can always tell them the truth, they would be confident to approach you for your opinion about their performance, and share their fears and apprehensions with you. They would also not hesitate to celebrate their victories with you. Closely related to honesty is integrity. Integrity of purpose, intent and in reality. Saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Doing what we say we would do, and probably exceeding expectations. It is integrity when you say good morning and I don’t have to look out of the window to confirm.

The sixth enabler of workplace synergistic relationships is Interaction: These days I just wonder how some people are trying to build genuine relationships without personal interaction. There is no doubt at all in my mind that we live in an era of quick out-datedness, quick-fixes, and internet ‘rapidity’, (apology to an old schoolmate, Niyi Akinsiju, aka Rapidity, ex-President, University of Lagos Students’ Union), internet this, Google that, WhatsApp this, e-mail that, I-message this, etc. Nevertheless, I humbly and boldly submit that person-to-person, face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball contacts and communications are still the best forms of interaction for healthy, fear-free and understandable interpersonal relationships, especially in the workplace. Do not hide behind e-mails and all kinds of social media. Do not be afraid to face your team members, associates and reportees in one-on-one communication.

Make it a deliberate policy to unwind with the team in some social gatherings. Know your associates (KYA). Every gathering should not be a team-building session facilitated by your consultant friends. Team-bonding can be natural devoid of any razzmatazz and elaborate aesthetics. Do not give room to the virus called ‘anonymity’ in your team. It is a dangerous impersonality cankerworm. I wouldn’t know how many of us observed that the general election season just wrapping up actually started about four years ago. Put in another way, maybe there was never a ‘closure’ to the 2015 election season because for almost four years on the social media platforms especially on newspaper sites you see people hiding behind all sorts of fake monikers and aliases to spew and spin horrendous comments, hate speeches, fake news, slanderous innuendos, outright treason, etc. That is the danger of hiding. If there was no place to hide, they would have been more civil, human, humane and decorous, and would still be getting their messages across. However, it is instructive to note that in actual fact, there is no place to hide. Internet is forever! These posts may come back to hunt some of the originators.

Closely related to interaction, and the seventh enabler of synergistic relationships is Personal Involvement: Leaders should know their team members as human beings and not just as headcounts and vice versa. This is why leaders must be emotionally intelligent and no less is required of a performance coach. It does not mean every personal detail has to be divulged or that it is a relationship without borders. There would always be limits. However, personal involvement is a demand on the performance coach’s time and emotions to show concern and interest in his team members as individuals with personality as well as being her associates.

Emotional intelligence is a universal requisite for effective leadership. This skill set is mandatory for extra-ordinary performance coaching. Emotions are human being’s warning system that alerts us as to what is really going on around us. In my classes when I teach Emotional Intelligence, EQ as some would want to call it, in comparison to IQ, I rely heavily on the works of subject matter authorities like Daniel Goleman, Howard Gardner and John Mayer, and of course, on personal experiences. EQ in action is demonstrable self-awareness, self-control or self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. I do not have a dictionary definition. I would rather give it a befitting experiential description. Emotional intelligence refers to our ability to sense and develop interpersonal and intrapersonal skills knowing what we are thinking and feeling and how this makes us behave, and being able to sense what other people are feeling.

I promise to do a comprehensive work on this subject matter very soon on this platform.

For now, I’m running out of space… To be continued next week. Till then, enjoy.

Afterwords

To Pius (1972-2019)

Dear Pius Adesanmi, I never met you in person, that is the sad part. I only read you through Wale Adediran’s retweets. Wale retweets quality materials in an unbiased manner. I’ll be placing order later today from Amazon for copies of your book: Naija No Dey Carry Last: Thoughts On A Nation In Progress. I fell in love with you on Twitter though I’m a very passive user. Wale made me read (or follow) you. You were passionate about our country, you had hopes. I never knew you lived far away in Canada. You wrote and felt like someone living in nearby Mushin or Ajegunle or Dugbe or very close to Ariara market or Sabongarri.

Why now? A long fought election season (four years of internet warring) just concluded and suddenly you vamoosed forever. Haba! Life is so unfair. At 47?! Just cut short like that? Na wa o. Sleep on beloved. Our consolation is that you are resting in the bosom of our Lord. How I wish you could see how you are being celebrated. Life does not consist in how long or in material acquisition. It is in the quality, the substance, the lives one touches, and where you would spend eternity. May the good Lord grant your wife, children and extended family the strength to bear this heart rendering loss, Amen.

Acknowledgement/Sources of Resources for this article:

1. BezaleelConsulting/Olusegun Mojeed: A compendium of over 25 years of manuscripts of my thesis and lecture series in Talent Management and People Matters (unpublished yet), BezaleelConsulting Group Library bezaleelconsultingrw.com
2. Daniel Goleman: Working with Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books, 1998
3. Harvard Business Review: On Emotional Intelligence, HBR 10 Must Reads 2015
4. Jerry W. Gilley & Nathaniel W. Boughton: Stop Managing, Start Coaching, Irwin Professional Publishing, 1996