How to Coach the Poor Communicator
Today I want to touch on one of those challenges that can seem like a mountain - a coachee who is a poor communicator. Coaching is all about communicating but what if you have a client or coachee who is just really bad at getting their thoughts out and points across? Or maybe the challenge is in HOW they deliver their message. For certain, it is difficult to coach someone who is a poor communicator. Additionally, poor communication skills impact one’s ability to do their job and can make relationships with managers, peers and employees difficult. These issues, in turn, impact a person’s ability to achieve their goals and perform at their peak. Other consequences of being a bad communicator include;
- Misunderstandings
- Inefficiency
- Unengaged staff
- Conflict
If you think about it, most interactions, whether in our work or personal lives, are dependent on how well we communicate with one another. So how do we tackle the challenge of coaching a poor communicator?
First, we need to identify the barriers getting in the way of good communication. Once we understand the reasons for poor communication, we need to break down the barriers and start building a path that will lead to clear, open, honest and productive communication.
This is one area where your questioning skills really come into play. Use your questioning skills to ask powerful coaching questions that will help you and your coachee identify the barriers that prevent them from communicating in a way that is heard and well received by their audience.
As you work through the process, look for clues to these 5 common barriers.
- Filtering: A sender’s manipulation of the information to make it more favorable to the receiver. Sugar-coating a message or omitting important details.
- Selective Perception: Inability to receive the intended message when they interpret what they hear based on an over-reliance on their interests, background, experience and attitudes.
- Information Overload: Inability to send clear messages or take in new information due to overload and distractions.
- Defensiveness: When a message is interpreted as threatening, defenses go up and communication is thwarted.
- Language: With increasing diversity in our workplace, language can become a barrier when words mean different things to different people.
Your success in this process will be based on your ability to not only ask excellent questions, but to ask them in a manner that is open, unattached and judgment-free. Asking not only the appropriate question, but in the appropriate way, is very important to the learning, living and communications process. Questions can offer new perspectives and stimulate answers and possibilities. They can also push buttons, express judgments and make assumptions!
I hope by now you know that I am passionate about the power of coaching and about helping you be successful. We have several resources specifically related to communication available to support you. If you haven’t already done so, you’ll want to take advantage of the following;
365 Coaching Questions Booklet
Webinar on questioning and listening skills
5/5/5 Coaching Skills Training Program™
One last comment on this topic. I had the privilege to present to Harvard Medical School, Institute of Coaching the results that an organization achieved after adopting our 5/5/5 Coaching Skills Training Program™. One of the key findings was Improved Communication. Given that communication is one of the key challenges in most organizations, this result was especially important. See the full list of results achieved here.
