CoachCultureSAMPLE

12
Coach Culture
a move to a new city. Does anyone want to uproot their
family, take their children out of school, maybe place their
parents in an eldercare system, just to go off somewhere
and possibly fail in this new challenge? If I know the company
is not going to have my back, why would I take that
risk? No—better to fight to stay in the “experts” quadrant.
Unfortunately, this experts-only mentality can breed
contempt. It makes for employees who are not only unexcited
about coming to work, but they’re bringing down
the community around them. It’s a fear-based environment
where people are afraid to ask questions or even for
clarification. They want to keep their head down. Once,
one of the VP’s of a company I worked with casually
asked an engineer for information. Very casually, as in,
“Gosh, I wonder how much that costs? How many of our
customers have that?” It was a think-out-loud, pondering
type of question, not a heavy, top-priority question.
But the poor engineer who heard him didn’t know
that and didn’t feel comfortable asking to clarify. This was
a Friday at 3:00 PM or so, and the engineer had no choice
but to take this request as gospel. He couldn’t question,
he couldn’t push back, so he went all in. He spent forty-two
hours that weekend running reports and researching.
Then, when he delivered all the info to the VP, the
response was, “Oh, cool.” It was almost inconsequential.
That engineer never asked what the priority was. He
never asked if spending an extra weekend and a couple
thousand dollars to come up with that information was
essential; he just did it. And how do you think he felt
afterward?
Certainly not motivated or connected.