EMPOWERED. Marty Cagan

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CHAPTER 7 The Coaching Mindset

      Coaching might be even more essential than mentoring to our careers and our teams. Whereas mentors dole out words of wisdom, coaches roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. They don't just believe in our potential; they get in the arena to help us realize our potential. They hold up a mirror so we can see our blind spots and they hold us accountable for working through our sore spots. They take responsibility for making us better without taking credit for our accomplishments.

       —Bill Campbell

      In this chapter, I'd like to focus not on the people you are trying to coach, but rather, on the necessary mindset of you as coach.

      The wrong mindset may lead you to apply these tools in ways that actually undermine their intent.

For example, you may be committed to having regular one‐on‐one meetings with each of your team members, but if these meetings consist primarily of you allocating and prioritizing tasks, they are not helpful—and likely even harmful—as a coaching tool.

      A coaching mindset provides a foundation of intent. It is the framing that directs your application of coaching techniques, and your guiding principle for taking action and making decisions around developing a team.

      If you are an experienced coach or manager, you may have already developed your own set of principles. If not, or if you are new to management, or if you are responsible for developing a new manager, this chapter attempts to describe the most important guidelines for coaching and management.

Developing People Is Job #1

      It's amazing and distressing how few managers actually subscribe to this principle—that developing people is job #1. Most say the right things about the importance of the team, but their actions tell a very different story. They see their accountability for aggregate product outcomes as their most important job and treat their teams as a means to an end.

      If you are a manager, you should be spending most of your time and energy on coaching your team. This means expending real effort on things such as assessing your team, creating coaching plans, and actively helping them improve and develop.

      You should measure your own job performance on the successes of your team members, even more than the success of your products.

Empowering People Produces the Best Results

      Many new managers see their job as driving their team's task list.

This may result in a few short‐term tactical successes, but your product will never reach its full potential if the team is only asked to execute your ideas and actions. More important, you will find it very hard to retain strong people when they have so little sense of ownership over their work.

      Empowering means creating an environment where your people can own outcomes and not just tasks. This doesn't mean less management—it means better management.

      You must step back to create this space, while stepping in to remove impediments, clarify context, and provide guidance.

      Remember that we need teams of missionaries, not teams of mercenaries.

Beware Your Own Insecurities

      Insecure managers have a particularly hard time empowering people.

      The insecure manager is so worried about being recognized for their contribution, they can see their team's success as a threat to that recognition, rather than the confirmation of the contribution that it truly is. They may deal with this by closely controlling how the team works, or by controlling the team's visibility to leadership. Truly bad managers may actively undermine their own team.

      Be aware of your insecurities and understand how your behavior can interfere with empowering your team.

      I want to be clear that this is not about being arrogant. If anything, arrogance itself is frequently a manifestation of insecurity. Most good managers have a healthy level of humility and are always exploring and working to improve their own performance and growth. They can have these feelings without micromanaging or undermining their team.

      You might be wondering what you can do if you, as a leader in the organization, don't personally have the necessary experience to coach and develop others. If this is the case, at least you are aware of this major gap in your qualifications for the job, but it will be essential for you to immediately find some product leader coaching for yourself. Find someone that has been there and done that at a strong product company and engage them to coach you—and help you in coaching your people.

Cultivate Diverse Points of View

An insecure manager may suppress opinions that are different from her own. This obviously impedes the development of the team, but it also stifles her effectiveness as a leader. Good leaders know that they will get the best results when they are able to consider diverse points of view. They also know that they don't have a monopoly on good ideas and that the best ones may come from others.

      Nurturing a team that allows for diverse points of view begins with the hiring process where you consider your team as a portfolio of strengths and backgrounds.

      It continues with creating a space where alternative СКАЧАТЬ