Coaching the New Generation

July 16, 2010

Today I had to stop myself. I was making a fatal error in judgement. I was asking my children where they wanted to go on holiday and what they wanted to do. I asked my daughter what colour she wanted her bedroom painted, and what they wanted to eat that night.

I was getting sucked in.

Involvement, it seems like a law that our new Coalition Government has just passed. We must involve our children in all decisions and it’s what the new generation are growing to expect. At school now the same pattern is emerging with the teachers, more involvement, inclusivity, its great.

In fact this culture change occurred a few years ago with the Gen Ys. Born since around 1980, they’ve been raised differently to the previous generations like me. They’ve had a say in things as they’ve grown up and this translates to the way they approach their work.

You see, for them, coaching is not an option. Telling them what to do just won’t cut it. They’ll leave you as soon as they can. They want to be involved, asked for advice, suggestions, encouraged.

Pretty much what we know as classic coaching.

So, if your coaching skills are a little rusty and you have team members around the age of 26 and under, then you need to WD40 your coaching skills.

And by far the best book ever written on workplace coaching is the “Tao of Coaching” by Max Landsberg. Highly readable and will take you about 2 hours to do so.

Now when my daughter said she’d like her bedroom painted matt black, I got a little worried. This involvement thing with 9 year olds is going a little bit too far.