The New Importance of Coaching Circles

This is the sixth post in the Training in Turbulence series, insights on developing talent amidst the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Accelerating coaching through communities of practice

In a time of crisis, a combination of microlearning and nudges will prove to be the most efficient way to teach coaching skills. But it's not enough to teach these skills. As talent developers, we must also look at how to catalyze continuous skill improvement, which can only be achieved through consistent practice.

To consistently practice coaching, we would do well to join a community of coaches, known in the talent development industry as “coaching circles." In a coaching circle, a peer group gathers on a semi-regular basis for a facilitated meetup.

A coaching circle is a “meta-coaching” exercise - a fast-paced discussion to coach about coaching. While ICF suggests an hour for such conversations, I’ve facilitated coaching circles that move the proverbial skill development needle in as little as 15 minutes. The purpose of this brief meetup is to collaboratively determine the best way to leverage coaching in highly specific circumstances.

Running a coaching circle

Each coaching circle consists of a "coaches," a "coachee," and a "facilitator."

Whether in-person, on the phone, or in an online setting, a coaching circle typically begins with one individual, the “coachee” for the day, sharing a coaching challenge. The coaching challenge could be scenario-based, such as trying to keep their team productive during a time of layoffs or trying to keep their team collaborating effectively after the departure of a key contributor. The challenge could be individual-based, such as an anonymous individual who needs to bring their productivity up to match expectations or an individual who needs to improve their presence. The “coachee” who supplies the coaching challenge describes their scenario in detail, providing contextually-relevant data and insight into their past coaching efforts. Whoever supplies the coaching challenge initiates the next step of the meetup either by explaining their ideal end-state, or what they would like to achieve from their coaching efforts.

Next begins the facilitated group discussion. Here, one member of the coaching circle takes the role of discussion facilitator. Their responsibilities are simple - keep the questions circulating, maintain privacy, and keep a record of action items. All others take the role of coaches, who are obligated not to provide advice or statements on “what I would do if I were you,” but to ask powerful coaching questions. This format has three primary benefits - first, it provides a setting in which we all can practice our coaching skills, integrating what’s working for others in our group. Second, it gives us practice at limiting the advice we offer and increasing the questions we ask. Third, it ensures that the “coachee” is empowered to determine their way forward, building their confidence, and increasing the likelihood that they will act on the next steps. The conversation adjourns whenever the coaches and “coachee” have agreed on and documented the next steps.

As an L&D employee at both Google and Zendesk, I have seen many different coaching circle formats, applications, and success stories. I’ve seen especially strong engagement in coaching circles amongst new people leaders, who are often more proactive in developing their managerial skills. To keep the conversation grounded in plausible scenarios, the coaching circles should focus on bringing together peers at approximately the same level within the org chart.

Global businesses should aspire towards cross-regional representation in a coaching circle, as this promotes global alignment and mitigates groupthink. From what I have observed, the most engaged coaching circles at the executive level tend to be gatherings of peers from several different organizations, which ensures a level of candor that may not be possible for an internal coaching circle. Just as talent developers have long-supported pairing senior leaders with external coaches, the talent developer in a time of turbulence should work to convene senior-level coaching circles that bring several organizations together.

However, we should not think of coaching circles merely as manager meetings.

Organizations that create a coaching culture will have many peer-to-peer coaching circles. A peer-to-peer coaching circle provides individual contributors with the space to develop their coaching practice, though the format may differ from that of their management counterparts. While “meta-coaching” or coaching about coaching, is a useful format for leader-level meetups, few individual contributors will have “coaching challenges” that they feel called to discuss in a group context. Talent developers should pivot these coaching circles away from “meta-coaching” and towards group coaching interactions. In an individual contributor coaching circle, members bring a workplace challenge on a rotating basis - something that is inhibiting peak performance. The talent developer facilitates a question-driven dialogue, tamping down “advice” when needed. All other participants serve as “coaches,” asking thoughtful questions to help the “coachee” discover their next steps. As a caution to L&D professionals, my experience suggests that peer-to-peer coaching circles can, at times, devolve into senseless complaining, or what my high-school physical education teacher referred to as “pity parties.” These meetups don’t need to have “supervision,” but they do need to have a trained coaching expert who can recognize and course-correct when the conversation becomes counterproductive.

Coaching circles, but faster

In a crisis-laden workplace, not everyone has a spare 15 minutes to gather for a CoP. Here are some efficient ideas for such organizations:

Training in turbulence begins with coaching. It’s the foundation upon which we build the critical capacities of critical thinking and change resilience. With certain changes on the horizon, it’s time to pull coaching from the exclusive grip of coaching practitioners (no offense to coaching practitioners). It’s time to stop imagining coaching as the exclusive domain of managers and executives. We need a revolution in talent development that ensures that 100% of our organization can achieve meaningful progress through coaching. Once established, we can turn to our second pillar of training in turbulence, our second core capacity in the recession-ready workplace: critical thinking.

What Every Church Leader Should Know about Google Ads

As a church leader, you want your ministry to show up on Google, because you know that's the first place many look when looking for a church.

But you don't have the time, energy, or expertise for a massive website overhaul, nor do you have the resources to publish the "relevant and original" content Google seems to prefer in its organic search results. Moreover, you know that searches for "church" are on the decline, with more ministries vying for fewer clicks. The "Search Engine Optimization (SEO)" game seems to be a losing proposition.

Searches for "Lutheran church" have declined nearly 50% since 2004.

Accordingly, the fastest way to the top of Google's search listings is paid advertising via Google Ads (formerly AdWords). With Google Ads, you can rocket from the basement of Google's "organic" search listings (the unpaid search results) to appear front and center when it matters most. You'll select the specific searches where you want your ministry's ads to show up. You'll target a specific geography, write some basic ad copy, and the visitors will start showing up.

While some church leaders are reluctant to consider paid online advertising, fearing costs and maintenance requirements, my experience has shown local Google advertising to be cost-effective and easy to implement. With clicks on the search term "church near me" averaging about $1.45 USD (source: Google Keyword Planner), most ministries can generate hundreds of site visits per month on a lower budget than what they use for mileage reimbursements!

Search results for "church near me" - the word "Ad" indicates paid listings

Set up for success

When I worked at Google, I helped nonprofits and small businesses set up and optimize their online advertising. Most of these organizations operated on a shoestring budget and had no tolerance for wasted ad spend. These organizations, undoubtedly like your ministry, required highly-precise ad campaigns targeted to just the right searches. While Google Ads has countless targeting settings to adjust, most churches will find value from the following:

First, be specific with keywords. Rather than focusing on the generic term "church" or "church near me," choose denomination and geographic-specific terms. For a Lutheran church in Madison, WI, I would only use the following keywords, set to "phrase match" to exclude irrelevant searches:

• "Lutheran church"

• "Madison Lutheran church"

• "Madison WI Lutheran church"

• "Lutheran church near me"

Second, be ultra-concentrated with geography. By default, most search advertising targets too broad an audience. As a church, your primary audience is hyper-local. Use a specific radius around your church building to only show the ads to those within a short drive of your ministry. I recommend that most churches start with a 20-mile radius.

Third, opt-out of Google's extras. I've seen too many new advertisers burn through their budget because they didn't opt out of Google's "Display Network," which extends your ads to sites like blogs and YouTube. While it's important to advertise on mobile phones (which account for half of all search volume), the "branding" potential of the Display Network leads to big trouble for immediate-response advertisers like churches!

For more on setting up a Google Ads account, check out this resource (from Google) and this resource (specifically for churches!).

Mistakes to avoid

In my experience helping nonprofits and small businesses with Google Ads, I've noticed a few "trendy" mistakes that detract from online advertising success. I wanted to share them here so you can avoid making these very mistakes!

Mistake #1: Expecting an immediate response. While Google Ads drive immediate traffic to your site, they're unlikely to drive immediate engagement with your ministry, particularly in the form of attendance at worship services. Like any "path to purchase," the decision to engage with a church requires multiple "touchpoints" or interactions with your "brand." One ad click does not lead to one worship attendee. Chance are, you'll need those who clicked your ads to visit your site or social media accounts seven total times before they show up to one of your events. If your pews (virtual or otherwise) aren't filling up after you activate your campaign, be patient. Give any campaign at least 1-2 months before passing judgment.

Mistake #2: Too many starts and stops. Many well-intentioned church leaders tend to "tinker" with their ad settings a little too much. Often, they'll start and stop their campaigns haphazardly as their ads are just getting off the ground (Ads campaigns can be activated or paused at any time). Google's algorithms are geared towards delivering you high-quality web traffic. Let the algorithms do their work, give them enough time to do their thing!

Mistake #3: Not reading the fine print. Google goes to great lengths to document, explain, and teach advertisers how to succeed on their search engine. Pay attention to their resources, especially those that you will see within the Google Ads interface when you set up your first ad campaign. With so much to learn, it's important to move methodically through campaign setup. Take your time, don't rush. And remember that the budget you set is for each individual day and is not in fact your monthly or annual budget!

Find a Partner

Some ministries have the desire but not the time and energy to begin advertising on Google. If you consider yourself to be in this situation, I recommend reaching out to a Google Partner, a trusted and certified advertising agency that can set up and run your campaigns, often for a small fee. These agencies have proven their knowledge of campaign management best practices and have demonstrated a consistent ability to generate success. Unless your church plans to spend big bucks, look for the agencies that specialize in small business advertising. Find a partner today through Google's Partner Finder app.

Google Ads during COVID-19

With many church buildings closed, some may be reluctant to advertise on Google, or on any new marketing channel. But there's never been a more important moment for the church to actively reach out and form new (virtual) connections in their community. This pandemic is the great psychological, emotional, and spiritual crisis of our times. People need grace, they need prayer, they need to know that God is near. Searches for "prayer," "meditation," and even "church near me" are up year over year. Church leaders are called to tell the Gospel story in a way that spreads. Google Ads is a first step in fulfilling this call. The world needs a word of grace. Get your ministry online so you can proclaim that word to an anxious world.

Book Review: Radical Candor by Kim Scott

Former Google executive (and by extension, my former Google co-worker) Kim Scott suggests a compelling and intuitive remedy to many performance issues in our organizations. When someone's not cutting it, tell them. But demonstrate you care about that someone long before it comes time to deliver the direct feedback. Scott's book, "Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity" is well-summarized by her catchphrase "care personally, challenge directly." An important read in organizations that struggle with difficult conversations, Radical Candor is especially valuable for these days of asynchronous digital communication and work from home.

The concept of radical candor comes from Scott's 2x2 grid of caring and challenging. When we care personally about our peers and challenge them directly, we exhibit "radical candor." Conversely, to challenge directly without caring personally is to exhibit "obnoxious aggression," something far too common in techy, start-up environments.

Scott suggests that caring personally without challenging directly is an example of "ruinous empathy," a practice that perpetuates poor performance while entrenching a culture of passive aggression and back-stabbing. Finally, to not care and to not challenge directly is to exhibit "manipulative insincerity."

The Radical Candor framework is effective for its simplicity. Anyone who has ever worked in an organization can attest to the times when poor performance went unchallenged. Many can relate to the instances in which the only critical and constructive feedback came from the most aggressive, dislikable personality in the room. But few will be likely to describe a time when a deeply trusted, respected colleague provided timely, meaningful, and actionable feedback. It is likely that we all would benefit from more constructive coaching, not from some anonymous or untrustworthy voice, but from the voicest closest to us. And that is the foundation of Kim Scott's work - to turn us away from passive aggression, while steering us clear of aggression, to inspire us to have the necessary conversations with those whom we admire, respect, and love working with.

Having spent my career in the technology industry, I have plenty of experiences with "ruinous empathy." The tech industry creates desirable workplace cultures because teammates genuinely care for one another. As a co-worker of mine described during a weekend social outing (at an archery range!) during my Google years, we weren't so much co-workers, as we were "a group of close friends who happened to work together."

While this altruistic attitude creates an environment that anyone would want to be a part of, it causes friction in feedback conversations. It's far easier to give necessary criticism to a casual acquaintance or stranger. It's far more challenging to share that same criticism with a colleague that plays on our volleyball team and meets us for a happy hour every Thursday.

"Radical Candor" is effective not just in its diagnosis, but in its prescriptions. The second half of the book includes tools, templates, and conversation starters for implementing radical candor in one's organization. With so many tools for so many scenarios, the ideas of "Radical Candor" can be as meaningful to readers working in the tech as it can be to readers within the non-profit sector. The wisdom of this book can be just as applicable those working for a large enterprise as to those working for a small LLC.

Still, the book is not without opportunities for improvement (would I sincerely be reviewing a book on feedback if I left out areas for development?). At times, the author is prone to name-dropping. One wonders if she, a leader of Google's AdSense organization, really engaged Google execs Larry Page and Eric Schmidt as frequently as the book implies. And while the tools and frameworks in the book's second-half are intriguing, the section makes for slow reading at times. Much of this content would have been better suited for an appendix or as a digital supplement.

The book also skews too far towards addressing "obnoxious aggression." While this quadrant of Kim Scott's framework undoubtedly exists, it's my experience that passive aggression is far more common than aggression, that the real challenge in an asynchronous, virtually-driven workforce is that of ruinous empathy. Further revisions might choose to focus on moving from ruinous empathy to radical/compassionate candor in a distributed workplace.

Finally, using the word "boss" in the title suggests that this is a book about management. It's better understood as a book about conversations. Holding a management position in an org chart is not a prerequisite to reading and applying this book, regardless of what the title might infer. The insights are too important to be confined to those with managerial responsibilities.

Those who invest the time to read this book will be challenged to work more effectively, to become more coach-like, to hold themselves and their colleagues accountable to the highest standards. Amidst this pandemic, many leaders are reexamining the workplace, re-imagining the future of work. During this time of discernment and consideration, it's time to expect the best from one another as we commit to deeply caring for each other. It's never been a better time to put Radical Candor into practice.