Personal Coaches in Engineering — “So what do we actually do?”
By: Liina Adov
Tags: Engineering, Professional Development, Engineering Coaching, Pyschology, Coaching

With co-authorship by Jorgen Matsi and Daniel Soomer

For years now, the software industry has been notorious for inventing new (sometimes odd) job titles. You’ve got the more modest, clear and established ones like “DevOps Engineer”, “Scrum Master”, or “Data Science Lead” — all the way to positions like “Growth Hacker”, “Innovation Sherpa” and “Chief Troublemaker”.

In 2018, Pipedrive created a role and position that, after considering a few more creative names, eventually settled with the rather simple title of “Personal Coach”.

When we started in this role, we were all eager to talk about it with others — both inside and outside the company. Saying “Hey I’m a Personal Coach in Pipedrive” was often accompanied with raised eyebrows, an “ohh” and a polite smile followed by the question “but what is it that you actually do?”. Or occasionally it was something like “So can I get, like, a weight training routine from you?” (NO!) The conversation will usually later turn into: “Should I reach out to a Personal Coach” or “Should we, as a company, also get one?”.

What do we do exactly?

In essence, we help to eliminate blockers — we know that you have what it takes to do your job well, but sometimes there is a blocker or missing piece of the puzzle that is holding you back. Whether it’s something connected to work, personal/professional growth, well-being or something in between — a personal coach can help you understand it and find a way to eliminate what is keeping you back. For this, we work in a one-on-one format using conversation to support setting goals and finding ways to move towards them. Personal coaches serve your goals — we don’t have a personal agenda within coaching and the things shared within coaching are confidential unless agreed upon otherwise.

How can coaches be useful if they aren’t engineers, part of the product, or some other type of manager themselves? Having been trained in psychology, we can provide a new perspective, a new piece of knowledge, or a skill which gives can boost you to move towards a solution or a higher well-being. Within a non-judgmental and supportive environment, we promote self-reflection, increased awareness and understanding about one’s own mental processes. With someone who enjoys solving “people-related” puzzles, you get to a solution more efficiently than you may on your own — two heads (especially if one of them is trained specifically for this) are better than one. So far the math has checked out.

Yes, we work on topics of professional and personal development in general, but those are closely linked with mental health. From epidemiology research about mental health, we know that on average one-in-five people are likely to experience mental health problems — it might be connected to anxiety, depression, difficulties with sleep or something else. In a company with 700+ people this would be approximately 140 people. As more and more companies provide ways to take care of physical health (e.g. regular doctor appointments or training compensation), we can see that mental health is reaching the same position in the workplace as healthcare. Therefore, recognizing and supporting mental health is important to the individual as well as te organization (more about this in our next post). That is also one of the missions for coaches — to provide the first low-barrier contact for all employees on topics of mental health and emotional wellbeing.

Theory sounds theoretical

This brings us to our theoretical employee, Sam. Sam is a mid level back-end developer (learn more about backend development in Pipedrive)— in general he’s quite happy with his work, however recently Sam is no longer sure anymore if this is the right place professionally and personally. The work has been interesting, but it has become routine, tiring — the things that were exciting don’t bring the same spark anymore. Discussions with colleagues and possible ideas for development seem futile. Sam has had discussions with their manager, and they have bounced several ideas and possibilities for growth or changes off each other, but none have stuck with Sam. The manager is worried as they know that Sam is a highly valued team member, but sees that if they don’t find a way to support Sam, he may leave. This could be the end of it, but Sam has the opportunity, and reaches out to a coach (let’s name the coach, Charlie).

So, with Charlie, Sam goes through the more and less likely aspects which might contribute to feeling stuck. Over a number of meetings, they discuss conflicts and differences in communication style with colleagues, how over time the focus on work has pushed aside sleep, physical activity and other things that have helped to balance the stress from work. Last but not least, questions on where to focus professionally — “What do I want to work on”? After some facilitated exploring, Sam finds a new routine to balance out stress, plus some new skills to solve conflicts in an even more efficient way. Sam takes up a new project which seemed an unlikely fit at first, but in retrospect appears to be the right kind of mismatch.

Too good to be true? It may, as reading this we look past the 5 months of process filled with hesitation, anxiety and failures in the process of finding balance and solving conflicts. Through retrospection, things have the tendency to look obvious and effortless, but with the help of a coach this road itself might become just a bit more clear and smooth.

So coming back to the question “What do we actually do?”, Personal Coaches (as defined in Pipedrive) help you to understand your values and achieve your goals — whether they’re connected to your professional challenges, personal life, or mental health. As Personal Coaches focus on your goals it is common that a “coachee” makes the first contact. However, this does not mean that the goal and the objectives have to be clear before reaching out — getting more clarity can itself be the first goal. So when is the right time to turn to a coach? Whenever you see that there is something you would like to improve or change in your life.

Bonus: Try out one method from the coaches’ toolkit

Gabriele Oettingen (Professor of Psychology at New York University and the University of Hamburg) has proposed a technique that is effective for mastering one’s everyday life and long-term development. In research, Professor Oettingen saw that simply imagining our goal does not always help us to succeed in obtaining it. From there she developed a 4-step technique called WOOP.

Wish

What is it that I really wish?

Outcome

What is the best outcome of this wish? Imagine this outcome

Obstacle

What is my main inner obstacle? What is it in me that keeps me back from achieving my which? Imagine this obstacle happening

Plan

Plan, what could i do to overcome this obstacle? What kind of action or thought could help you to overcome the obstacle? Formulate “If (obstacle), then i will (action or thought)” plans for obstacles.

More about WOOP: https://woopmylife.org/en/home