The dilemma of competence.
By Dr Renate Volpe

Coaching is a platform where people may make and receive meaningful contributions. Whether people are old, young, male or female they fall into two categories under the coaching banner, either having something to teach, or wishing to learn.

An organization has a vision and a mission to achieve a specific goal, which in one or another way hopes to contribute to the economy and employment of our people, in regard to this, the more competence that is brought to the table, the better.

There are four levels of competence:
1. Not knowing that I don’t know.
2. Knowing that I don’t know.
3. Knowing that I know.
4. Not knowing that I know.
Protégées would fall into the first two categories, whereas coaches would fall into the latter two.

In the first category, youth and lack of experience may manifest in a display of arrogance and a “know-it-all” attitude. In the “knowing I don’t know” phase, a person is keen and eager to learn from those who know. Your older experienced person may fall into the last two categories, where they know that they know, and may consciously make a choice to develop others. Alternatively they are not conscious of just how much life experience they have integrated and therefore never make a conscious choice to invest in the development of others.

Coaching - the solution to the development of competence?

Coaching offers a constructive solution to two dilemmas:
1. Continued retrenchment of middle aged, experienced people, thereby loosing critical competence.
2. An inability to deliver from equity based organizations, due to a lack of experience and knowledge.

The Steps in narrowing the divide, between those who don’t know and those who do, are as follows:

FIRST - addressing our world views:

Our belief systems influence the way we see the world. What we believe dictates how we will behave. It is therefore important to confront what we believe and understand the implications of this in a particular context. In an organization where people who ‘know’ are leaving and people who ‘don’t necessarily know’ are in positions of delivery, the following examples are relevant:

A belief in competition would manifest in thoughts such as “I know what you don’t know, so let me watch you fail, you bugger!” A belief in collaboration would result in the following: “Let me find out what you know, allow me to determine whether I can assist by offering you the opportunity of sharing my knowledge and experience with you, so that you will be able to perform your function more effectively.”

The organization would have to provide an education platform where employees were asked to review their beliefs around scarcity, abundance, collaboration and competition, relative to their continued contribution to the company’s future.

SECOND - redefinition of roles and functions:

• Those who are older, with more experience but vulnerable to retrenchment should undergo a role re-definition into that of “a coach” whose function it is to impart competence and skills.
• A need assessment of competence of younger or equity-based employees should be done to determine gaps in competence.
• A matching of coach and protégé should then occur.

THIRD - guidelines for coaches and protégées:

A partial spectrum of roles that coaches play appears as follows:

• As a facilitator, the coach smoothes the way for things to happen.
• As a counselor, he or she facilitates reflective thinking, whilst clarifying issues.
• When playing the devil’s advocate, the coach may act as a sounding board or advisor whilst the protégée practices presenting arguments or proposals.
• Whilst managing healthy communication the coach encourages a two–way exchange of information.
• As an advisor, the coach communicates the informal and formal realities of progression within the organization.
• Whilst broking, the coach expands the protégées network of contacts.
• When advocating, the coach may intervene on the protégés behalf and represent their concerns on specific issues to higher level management.
• When mentoring, the coach clarifies performance goals and developmental needs.

Prospective coaches should assess themselves
with respect to the following on a scale of 1 – 10.

• How self-aware am I?
• Am I capable of being an inspiration to others?
• Am I generous and truly able to give of my knowledge and experience?
• Am I capable of building and maintaining good relationships?
• Can I keep confidences?
• Will I be able to be flexible and respond to the different learning needs, styles and expectations of my protégées?
• Do I listen and communicate well?
• Am I skilled in the art of providing feedback?
• Have I kept up with the times, am I forward looking?
• Do I have the discipline to deliver consistently?
• Am I able to set and respect boundaries?
• Do I diagnose astutely and am I able to contribute substantially to finding solutions?
• Do I have the capacity to be business-minded?
• What can I offer?
• What are my resources?
• What kind of person or level of person will I best be able to coach?
• What are my needs?
• What do I stand for and value?

Protégées should ask:

• What are my developmental needs?
• Where do I want to be, relative to my life and career?
• What skills and knowledge do I need?
• Am I prepared to risk in order to grow?
• What kind of relationship do I require?

Once linked the coach and protégée should work on establishing:

• A relationship,
• Assessing expectations,
• Focusing in on skill gaps and
• Contract for learning objectives.

A word of caution:
On the one hand coaching in South Africa has become “a flavor of the decade solution” for a host of ills such as unemployment, retrenchment, and burnout, amongst others. Providers have sprung up with varying levels of legitimacy. Costs run the gamut from substantial to ridiculous at executive levels.

On the other hand, coaching resembles counseling. Only those prepared to receive feedback and face the pain of growth will firstly, access the service and secondly, decide to commit to the process and use it to its fullest potential.

The benefits of coaching are many and may result in significant personal growth and empowerment, as well as facilitating the development of employees, who will make a significant contribution to the organization’s triple bottom line. (People, profit and productivity.)

{Dr Renate Volpe specializes in the coaching of managers who are serious about their careers. For a copy of her latest book “Lessons from the school of hard knocks,” (foreword by Noeleen Maholwana Sangqu), click on the "products" button on this site.}