Coach first, manager second, learner always - how I learn to coach

Most software development managers don’t know how to coach, because coaching is not something you can learn from school or even at work. I didn’t know much about coaching. But one good decision I made was to start teaching ski at a local ski hill. I got my PSIA (Professional Ski Instructors of America) level 1 Alpine Ski instructor certificate in February 2022. I heard my hourly salary rate will be increased from $15 to $20, that is like a 33% raise for my ski instructor career! But no, as you have guessed I didn’t do it for the money. I taught ski because that was the best way to learn how to ski. Besides learning how to ski properly, the teaching itself was even more rewarding. I learned many coaching mechanisms from teaching ski, and I found most of them are applicable to work environment. Teaching ski gave me a mental model on coaching. First, to teach anything technical we need a clearly defined leveling guideline. In ski school, the guideline is the day 1, day 2 and day 3 teaching materials about the fundamental skills, and the drills to bring students from knowing, to understanding, to applying and finally to mastering a new skill. In Amazon, the equivalent would be our role and leveling guideline. For example, for the SDE role, the guideline defines what SDEI, II and III do on each level, and what it takes to move to the next level. Second, to learn is to get out of one’s comfort zone incrementally. A ski instructor needs to assess students’ current skill level, and choose the right slope. We have a saying in ski: “new skill on old hill; old skill on new hill”. What it means is when teaching a new skill we need to guide students on “easy” slope. When they have acquired the basic understanding of the skill, and they want to master the new skill, they might practice the skill on a slope with some challenges. Sounds famaliar? This should be exactly the way to assign projects to team members: match their skill and comfort level with the project’s scope (width) and complexity (depth). Third, to learn is to experience. Don’t lecture students, let them do it instead; then show them the right way; then let them practice more while you give on the spot coaching. Don’t you hope this was how college professors taught us? Well, now you are a coach/manager, show that you can help team members learn better by offering the immersion learning experience. Most importantly, offer a “safe” and “fun” environment so that team members can learn and grow on their own pace. Tailor the coaching plans to match their individualities. After all, everyone is unique in their own way. “Therefore, to learn makes us realize our deficiency, and to teach makes us know the difficulties. Having realized our deficiency, we may then come to reflect; having known the difficulties, we may be able to strengthen ourselves to overcome them. So, we say, to teach is to learn.” - 礼记 #coaching