Coaching managers. (Leadership and Management).

Imagine you're the manager of a busy hospital-based medical practice. You get a call from a payer who wants to discuss why so many of your claims are late or contain incorrect information.

You overhear an irate patient berating a staff member because of a mix-up in an appointment. Then,

In today's dynamic marketplace, employees need to grow and learn more rapidly than ever. For this reason, coaching employees should be a managerial responsibility. Managers carefully plan the tasks assigned to their employees in terms of the kinds of challenges presented and just as carefully debrief them on how the tasks were accomplished. But managers themselves also benefit from coaching.

Plan for Employees

The goal of coaching is to help employees learn new behaviors and insights in anticipation of a variety of potential situations they might encounter later in their career. When this goal is accomplished, the employees will become more responsive in myriad situations and, therefore, can be assigned more varied tasks. Assessing employees' ability to perform a variety of tasks will provide them with feedback that will help them grow professionally and personally.

A coaching plan for an employee should he based on several factors:

* The kinds of professional experiences and opportunities the employee already has encountered

* The employee's personality

* The kind of exposure and challenge the employee will need to develop professionally and to meet the organization's needs

* The available tasks that could be assigned

* What behaviors to focus on during the debriefing

What Managers Need

A coaching plan for managers should take into account similar considerations. To illustrate, the manager of a medical practice made decisions quickly, often too quickly. Many of his decisions, such as hiring, had to be undone because they were made without adequate planning. He believed that a strong leader arrived at conclusions rapidly without consulting others, but he did not consider the impact of his decisions.

With coaching, he learned how to gain information needed to make decisions. For example, when hiring an accountant, he spent more time first in determining the practice's needs for an accounting firm in terms of specific reports, services rendered, and relationships. He asked several accounting firms to present proposals that included an explanation of how they would fulfill these needs. He also evaluated the firms in terms of how they could meet the practice's needs and then reviewed his evaluation with each firm.

When dealing with a new type of task with which they have no previous experience, employees need a method for gathering the necessary information. The medical practice manager did not have one. Coaching focused on helping him develop an information-gathering method that can be used in a variety of settings and for a host of issues. He developed a respect for the need to gather information and opinions from others before making decisions.

As another example, the director of a hospital-based medical practice faced myriad problems, including staff dissatisfaction with assignments, lost records, appointments being made and recorded haphazardly, and late and incorrect billing. Staff morale was poor, and finger-pointing was common whenever problems arose. The director habitually avoided confrontation of any sort, no matter the consequences. With coaching, she learned to develop goals (e.g., the number of medical appointments kept, the percentage of on-time billing) for the practice and to negotiate these goals with the staff. She, in turn, coached her staff, beginning by delegating to them the responsibility for implementing action steps for each goal.

The director's concern about confrontation had prevented her from developing a picture of what the practice should look like and from delegating responsibility. She thought delegating meant telling people what to do. She had to learn that envisioning how things could or should be negotiated among staff clearly indicates who should have what responsibility, and that delegating based on goals and strategy need not be confrontational.

The same principles that apply to coaching employees also apply to coaching managers. What is involved is, first, considering what the ideal picture would look like were the individual performing well. In choosing this ideal, keep in mind the range of events, issues, and problems the individual would most likely encounter moving up the corporate hierarchy. Next, outline the steps that the individual would have to take were he or she to reach that ideal state. Translate these steps into assignments that take into consideration his or her style (e.g., avoiding confrontation, needing to make decisions quickly). When critiquing the individual's performance after an assignment, a coach should focus on the individual's specific actions, rather than only on the result.

By considering the professional and personal development of their managers as well as their employees, hospital executive leadership can promote the success of the organization as a whole. As coaches of managers of their organizations, senior executives should consider both the end result and staff development. Melding these abilities is the hallmark of a successful professional coach on any level.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

For additional reading on the subject, see A Handbook for Mentors, an HFMA Career Development Service (www.hfma.org/careers/career_tips/mentors.pdf).

HFMA 2003 Annual National Institute, Baltimore Convention Center, June 22-25.

"Moving Up to the CEO," J. Larry Tyler, FHFMA, CPM, FACHE

"Keep Your Healthcare Professionals for Life," Brian Lee, CSP

For ANI program information and to register, visit www.hfma.org/education/ani/index.htm.

Bernard Liebpowitz, PhD, CMC, is president, Liebowitz & Associates, Chicago. His telephone number is (312) 214-3583, and his email address is e-mail address is bernie@liebowitzassoc.com.