Three months ago, Peter decided he wanted to coach his people on leadership skills. He hired me to help him prepare for the role he had given himself.
I designed a specific coaching programme by starting with an orientation to executive coaching for three hours. Then, I assigned him some practice by asking for someone in his organisation to volunteer to be coached. The volunteer is one of his direct reports who is already good and wants to be great.
He coached the volunteer every two weeks. Each session lasted about an hour. After that, he met with me for a coaching clinic for two hours to enhance his skills. After three months, I did an interview with the person Peter had coached. The results were very impressive.
Today, I am meeting Peter for the next phase.
"Khun Kriengsak, I'd like to coach another three executives in next three months," he tells me. "But the problem is that I need to find more time. I'd need at least three hours a week for preparation, coaching sessions and coaching clinics. Can you help me find that extra time?"
"Okay. But before we jump to a solution, I want to understand your situation better first. How do you spend your time each week?"
He looks at his calendar, makes some calculations and says: "Thirty percent of my time is spent in group meetings, 20% on visiting key customers, 40% in one-on-one meetings with each of my six direct reports. That leaves just 10% for miscellaneous activities."
"Which area do you think you could cut back on to find three hours a week?"
"I think I could reduce the time spent in one-on-one meetings."
"Out of the time you spend with your six direct reports, what is the average per person?"
"It's not equally divided by six. In fact, I would say that I spend 30% of my time with three people, another 30% with two people, and 40% with just one person, Khun Montri. I think I could reduce the amount of time spent with him by at least three hours."
"Peter, have you always had to spend this much time with him?"
"No. The first two years we worked together, I spent about the same amount of time with him as I did with the others. But after a restructuring two years ago, Khun Montri struggled to handle the additional workload. After six months under the new structure, I had to intervene a lot. In fact, I have been doing his job a lot for the past 18 months."
"Why?"
"This job is too big for his capabilities."
"Peter, what options do you have?"
"I can think of a few: continue like this — do nothing in other words; hire a coach for him, rotate him to another position, switch him with another executive, fire him, divide up his work and hire a new person to handle some of it."
"Which one is the most suitable?"
"Coach, I think hiring an additional person to take care of additional work is appropriate. If Khun Montri handles the revised workload the way he did in his previous role, I think everything will be back to normal."
"What could go wrong?"
"He might feel he has lost face and resign."
"How will you prevent that?"
"I'll need to explain it to him directly."
"How do you think he'll he react?"
"He probably won't be happy. And perhaps he might start quietly looking for a new job."
"What would you do if he resigned?"
"I would be a big relief."
"Why?"
"Because he would not be ready if we are assigned additional work in the near future."
"How likely are you to get additional work in the near future?"
"Very likely."
He's quiet for a moment. Then, he exclaims. "Coach, I think I made a big mistake in keeping Khun Montri in the job for too long."
"Peter, what do you mean?"
"In fact, I should have fired him a year ago. Six months after our restructuring, I knew he wasn't able to handle the job. But I gave him a second chance and a third chance ... too many chances. If I could go back in time, I should have taken decisive action earlier. Now, I need to make a tough call to let him go."
"Who will handle the work?"
"I've done most of his critical work for quite some time. I won't mind doing it for a little while longer until I find a replacement.
"All right Coach, I think I'm on my way to solving the problem. Let's stop here and I'll update you when we meet again."
Kriengsak Niratpattanasai provides executive coaching in leadership and diversity management under the brand TheCoach. He can be reached at coachkriengsak@yahoo.com. Daily inspirational quotations can be found on his Facebook fan page: https://www.facebook.com/TheCoachinth. Previous articles are archived at http://thecoach.in.th