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Appreciation, freedom and recognition. A talk with Hans Geene about coaching
01/04/21
Hans works full-time as a Partner in Tax & Legal - People & Organisation, located in Lausanne. Discover how important it's for him to give and show appreciation and recognition for his team.
Why is coaching important to you?
Coaching is important to me because, in my opinion, it’s the only way to help navigate our staff through their career. It helps the coachees to reach their next career level, makes sure that they get the most out of their current role and prepares them for all awaiting challenges.
What is your hack for new or other career coaches or team leaders?
I do not think that there is only one hack. But one of them would definitely be being approachable. It might not always seem as easy, since we all have tight schedules, but it is of great importance. The second hack would be listening to your coachee for giving them individual support. Hear them out and help them in the best way possible. As a third coaching hack it is very important to foster a trusted relationship with your coachee, since trust is a much-needed basis for all further professional and personal development. If you master these three, you are already on a good path to coach someone well.
How do you ensure having time for coaching sessions during your everyday work?
It might be quite a challenge sometimes. But let’s be honest: if you are not willing to make some time for proper coaching, then you should not become a coach in the first place.
How important do you consider giving and showing appreciation and recognition for your team?
My view about coaching is that giving a positive message is key. The importance is to balance between positive and negative elements in your feedback. You should always be honest, which includes the appreciation of a successful tackle of an everyday challenge as much as points of critique. Positive feedback always lifts the person up and can bring them to a higher professional level. Keeping this balance is where the real coaching takes place and we shouldn’t forget to reward even small achievements. If you are able to manage that, you are on the right track to coach someone. I sometimes have to remind myself of this.
I, as someone who is involved with coachees on a daily basis, like to increase the employees’ confidence by giving them the freedom and trust to master something by themselves without me being involved directly. I deal with many senior executives and it is quite easy being the one always talking and taking the upper hand. But I like to take juniors with me to such meetings and let them run the discussion with the senior executive. This gives them an enormous amount of confidence, and if they do well, I see no problem in sending them alone to the discussion the next time. There have been many cases where they achieved a great result, so I try to delegate such work to the younger employees to show them that they can do it by themselves. That’s the best way of developing their self-confidence and showing them recognition.
What empowers you?
The people that I’m working with in my team empower me. One of the biggest strengths of our firm is teamwork. Most times, I couldn’t have achieved a better result alone than the one I reached with my colleagues.
What's your favorite PwC value and why?
For me, it is all about our purpose to “build trust in society and solve important problems”. I don’t have a favourite value. In my opinion, you need to find the right mix. It’s not effective, if you are in correlation with one value but lack strength in others. Finding the right balance between all our values is where the true success lies.
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