Opinion - The deal breaker
I would like to take you back to my first coaching learnings. I was working and living on one of the biggest rigs in Alberta. Working in extremes of winter cold and summer heat, under a big blue Alberta sky with about 70 other people. My job is specifically to improve whatever you can as a coach with zero authority. My first “official” coaching job, my first time working on a rig, my first big lesson: Coaches don’t have opinions. Leaders would really benefit by shelving opinions in favour of curiosity.
The voice of my mentor Dagfinn repeats in my head every time an opinion comes into my mind. My challenge is I am an opinion machine. Not only do I have lots of them, but my previous career was as an efficiency consultant walking around looking for ways to improve things, so I in essence I was a professional opinion maker.
Knowing this, here is what I did: Every time I had an opinion I would first mentally put it aside, in order to focus on the conversation I was in. If the opinion lingered, I would write it down in a notebook I kept in my pocket. Simply writing down that opinion seemed to appease dump it out of my mind and move on, not always, some opinions took a little while to dissipate. I did proceed more clearly.
The first time I reviewed my little book was after a couple weeks. I was flippant about it. My words; I wonder if this book is of any importance, or if this is just a silly exercise? The first review surprised me beyond what I could have ever expected There were probably 5 pages of notes. The first thing I noticed was every opinion I had was more or less wrong. The second bigger realization was that had I voiced 4 of those opinions. I would have probably been removed from the job. Not because they were bad ideas or wrong, but because they contradicted leadership that was balancing many more concepts than I could possibly understand. That was a humbling moment for me. An opinion could become a deal breaker. The note book exercise is a big part of why I am doing what I am doing now.
I am a firm believer that when you do things right, more right things happen, right options present themselves. Rather than have an opinion, I prefer to be curious, to ask questions about what arises? Often when I learn more about a particular way something works, the person explaining it to me has a chance to reflect and review what they are doing. This has saved uncountable errors and operational delays.
Important for every great coach, leader or anyone who works to get the most out of people, is to be skilled at when to speak and what to ask. All of us have to speak up, except as a coach it is essential to reframe an opinion as a question that serves the person being coached. Such as; “I am curious… what are the benefits of what you are doing now versus what you did last time? What do we need to update in the procedure to be consistent if anything?
The shift for me was based on the awareness that my opinions were me attempting to communicate to myself. I was projecting my perspectives and beliefs on others. Essential not to do that as a coach. However, something to consider as a leader is; what might you be missing out on if you simply tell people what to do? What is the logic to what they are doing? What objective is that person wanting to achieve in the moment? Have we set them up for failure. There are many learnings that can be captured when we go in curious rather than opinionated. Caveat, that obviously in a critical step or emergency, this does not work. The leader needs to be directive for the safety of everyone.
I continue to refine the process . If you would like to be more effective managing your opinions I would ask; When do you generate opinions? What is the trigger? What are they trying to do for you? Then ask; what could I do instead here?
Be fluid, be powerful
Steve McGrath
