CASE STUDY:
P&G Improves Coaching — By Listening
LEAD Group Experience
The first evening there was typically resistance in that participants tended to problem solve and listen less. By the fourth session, on the second evening, all of the groups were more into listening and trying to understand rather than providing answers (problem solving). The need to take time to learn and listen and then understand the often-pressing issues that managers bring to with them to corporate universities is very important, in part, due to increased pressures in a global economy reflected back at work.
In terms of the process in the LEAD Groups, generally participants liked it, found it useful and got a lot out of the experience. Groups met with their facilitator for dinner the first evening and that connected them. The groups had lunch without the facilitator the second day leading to more independence.
Facilitators met at the end of each day to review the LEAD Group process. This helped in four ways:
- Assess the overall mood of participants
- Give input to the College deans
- Provide guidance to increase effectiveness for the rest of the week
- Enhance learning between facilitators as well as prevent isolation of individual facilitators.
Facilitators reported that men tended to have a more difficult time than women who seemed to communicate more easily. Often Principal Scientists got bogged down in the technical details, not paying enough attention to the feelings involved in the case under discussion and even their own case. Participants usually helped each other first in the LEAD Group and later in the bar or over lunch the next day. So even though facilitators encouraged “no problem solving” in the LEAD Groups, because participants are problem solvers by nature, they met during informal times and experienced their collaboration as a great success.
The following notes from facilitators’ reports at a recent College should provide a more personal view of the various reactions to the experience. There were roughly four main reported issues: emotional aspects and feelings during work, communication difficulties, change and the LEAD Group.
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Emotions
- These people are great problem solvers who understate the emotions involved in talking about an issue.
- Employees have been let go. Folks are mourning. Is there a way to process these losses with the “survivors”? (Note: Organizational interventions were in place for this, but the LEAD Groups provided addition space for dealing with the changes.)
- They told us that it is hard when you have to be building competence in a team when you have to hit the ground running. This leads to middle managers telling people the answer instead of coaching them to find an answer. Further, this time pressure leads to frequently ignoring underlying emotions.
- Participants are generally conscientious and diligent about doing the task once they understand what is expected of them.
- The individual’s personal stake in the written case was not fully recognized or addressed by the helper/coach. This seemed to involve concerns about how will I be regarded by my boss and in what ways will my handling this issue affect my career?
- Spending what little time I have as a manager managing difficult employees may foster dependency and shortchange other direct reports/employees.
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Communication
- It’s hard to get things done with divisions merging and when leadership is ill- defined such that it seems that people are working at cross-purposes.
- Need clear communication about a proactive strategy anticipating the influence of data on product utilization.
- There is obviously a lack of trust with some managers, which leads to not knowing who to turn to for advice.
- Remote assignments are often difficult because there is no team, boss or others to offer ideas and support.
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Change
- Although dates for product launch are established, demands change, then there is no time to pilot initiative, and the manager is forced to compromise or delay the launch.
- With outsourcing, there is a sense that the P&G staff loses control of the project.
- It’s critical, but difficult, to develop partnerships on a peer-to-peer basis when you have to influence without formal authority.
- There is a general concern that technical people will be defined narrowly and lose their autonomy, which negatively impacts their career and/or job satisfaction.
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LEAD Group
- The Seeker-Helper-Observer methodology is something you can actually apply.
- I really like the openness within the group. It is rare to be this close.
- Even though our issues look different, you realize that problems are similar and that you are not on your own.
- It was hardest to just listen with restraint from leading the Seeker or attempting to diagnose their issue.
- Practicing multiple times allows us to improve our skills and learn through observation what did and did not work.
Over time managers learned that they could work on problem solving at the bar, over breaks or at dinner, rather than do their normal problem solving during the LEAD Group. Engagement in the LEAD Group increased from the first to the second day. This seemed to happen for a variety of reasons. Participants got used to the structure and format of the LEAD Group. Trust based on confidentiality developed in the group. There was latent learning such that learned skills carried over from day one to day two. Participants checked with members of other groups to see if they were on course. They seemed to be reassured and then could proceed with the task, which was listening, understanding and appreciating the emotions involved in a complex situation.
Harrison (2007) studied the level of engagement of participants (70 percent men) in LEAD Groups in Band 3 Colleges. She found that male participants reported a greater increase in engagement than did women. A possible explanation is that since the number of men greatly outnumbered women, men might have felt more comfortable at the College. Another possibility is because women tend to be more relational, this College experience was not unusual for them, but it was for men. Because men were pushed to more openness and exposure, the men might have felt they were more engaged in the LEAD Group.