Coaching Up! Inspiring Peak Performance When It Matters Most

5Making It Work at Work

“Much has been said about why people leave their organizations. The cliché has emerged that people don't quit the company, they quit their boss. Our research confirms that the boss has an enormous impact on how people behave and whether they stay or leave the organization.”

—John H. Zenger, Joseph R. Folkman, and Scott K. Edinger, The Inspiring Leader: Unlocking the Secrets of How Extraordinary Leaders Motivate

“The manager traditionally holds the paycheck, the key to promotion, and also the axe. This is fine so long as you believe that the only way to motivate is through the judicious application of the carrot and the stick. However, for coaching to work at its best the relationship between the coach and the coachee must be one partnership in the endeavor, of trust, of safety, and of minimal pressure. The check, the key, and the axe have no place here, as they can only serve to inhibit such a relationship.”

—John Whitmore, Coaching for Performance: GROWing Human Potential and Purpose: The Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership

Most adults between the ages of 18 and 68 spend some 35 percent of their waking hours in the workplace. That's a huge chunk of time by any standard. So, the quality of that time—how comfortable we are at work, how motivated we are to engage in the task at hand, how effective we feel, and how satisfied we are with the results we achieve—will clearly have a major impact on who we are and how we feel about ourselves. ...