Leaders are often looking for ways to further build their team performance. It is tempting to zone in on underperformance and whilst that's necessary, this week I'm putting forward an argument for focussing coaching on your top performers.
Why would someone who is performing warrant coaching?
Top performers often get less feedback because everything is generally 'good'. They get less leadership time & attention which can make them feel underinvested in and can miss the opportunity for fine tuning skills.
It's hard to see your own thinking. Increasing self awareness makes it easier to notice short term thinking, identify biases and limitations. High performance is a 'stretch' state - it's hard to keep stretching on your own.
Intelligence can be situation or context specific. Being great at one aspect of their role doesn't mean they're great at all aspects (leaders - look out for your own brains tendency to generalise).
Successful people are often challenged less. With good persuasion skills they get used to 'yes', which can make them less likely to seek out the diversity of opinion that leads to well rounded decisions.
Looking a little deeper at one of these ideas - why is not being able to see our own thinking a problem?
For high performers, having a coach that will hold up the mirror and expose their thinking can be transformational because we’re all (yes even them) naturally self-limiting. I like this phrase: what got you here, won’t get you there. For example, if you give one of your most effective people a revenue target of £2m (v.s. £250k the prior year) or the task of simplifying a product suite from 10 to 3, they are going to need to think very differently.
The type of thinking that creates £250k and 10 products is not the same as the type of thinking that will create the new desired outcome.
Messing around with patterns of thinking, to create different outcomes, is what quality coaching is about.
So when you’re reviewing performance, give some thought to how you can work with your top performers to maximise business impact.
P.S. In short, coaching can keep your high performers engaged, motivated and driven.
P.P.S. Did you know that most organisations will fund Executive coaching for senior leaders? If you'd like to explore working together this way I'm happy to be introduced to your HR team.