Summary
Dana is hardworking, but she is always running behind her timelines for work submission. This impacts the overall project delivery. Her manager, James, called Dana to discuss the situation. James decided to use the OSKAR model to coach Dana.
He asked Dana to rate herself on a scale of 1-10 with respect to her “adherence to timelines” and think about “how to get to 10”. As he continued digging with his “What else” question, it was soon apparent that Dana overcommits and takes upon her more than what she can realistically manage.
Armed with this knowledge, Dana was able to pin down specific small actions like setting realistic timelines, prioritizing and raising a red flag ahead of time that she would take to improve her time management skills.
They wrapped up the session by agreeing to meet two weeks from now to review her progress against each of the small actions.
So, did you see, using OSKAR Model, how James ushered Dana to co-construct a solution that meets both Dana’s and the team’s needs?
OSKAR is a solution-focused model developed by Paul Z Jackson and Mark McKergow in their book ‘The Solutions Focus: Making Coaching and Change Simple (2002)’. It’s a brilliant coaching model that takes away the coachee’s focus from the problems in favor of solutions.
Most often, people spend time finding the causes of their problems. It becomes more of a ‘complaining’ exercise that leads to frustration and negative emotions. By taking away the attention from what’s not working, the OSKAR model gets the coachee to think about something else they can use and doing more of it.
The OSKAR Model has five steps:
- Outcome
- Scaling
- Know-How
- Affirm
- Review
How to use the OSKAR Model[i]?
Let’s see how you can steer the coaching conversation through each of these five stages:
Step #1 Outcome
This step is different from “goal” in the other coaching models. While “goal” is about what the coachee wants to achieve, “outcome” is more to do with “how the future will be different from now.” It is the vision of the future desired by the coachee.
The coach goes beyond assessing the past performance, setting goals, and highlighting the wrongs to be corrected. You ask the coachee to visualize how the perfect scenario looks like. This establishes an emotional high ground from which the coaching conversation takes place.
Some sample questions to use:
- How will the future look like if you’ve achieved your goal?
- How will you know that you have achieved your goal?
- If you are allowed to make three changes, what will they be?
- How will it feel when you are making progress?
- How do you visualize your success?
Step #2 Scaling
After the coachee has a clear vision of the desired outcome, the coach asks the coachee to measure where they are placed currently to their desired outcome. Use a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 represents the complete outcome.
The coachee would have made some progress towards the desired outcome. Therefore, they would rate themselves some number other than 0.
Some sample questions to use:
- On a scale of 1-10, where are you currently with the outcome?
- Why are you committed to reaching 10?
- Why did you rate yourself this?
Step #3 Know-how
This step involves precisely what the name suggests, “knowing how to reach point 10 on the scale”. The coachee digs into their knowledge, skills, experiences and traits that they currently possess and those they can acquire, to move forward.
The coach will guide the coachee to reflect upon past successes and draw upon those experiences to take future actions. An important aspect of the OSKAR model is to identify the know-how, spread the net wider. This means to involve support from other stakeholders like peers, mentors, juniors, other teams, and departments.
Some sample questions to use:
- When did you do something that contributed to achieving this outcome?
- How did you move this far?
- What skills/knowledge/attitude you have that helped you get this far?
- What are your strengths and resources?
- What more do you need to move forward?
- Who can help you?
Step #4 Affirm and Action
There are two parts to this step:
Affirm
The coach will reinforce the positives expressed by the coachee in the Know-how step. For example, in Dana’s case, James affirmed, “It’s quite clear that being upfront about your workload and making efforts to set realistic timelines with your peers is working well for you.”
You need to take a specific behaviour or skill (“know-how”) demonstrated by the coachee and pair it with a praise statement. This gives the coachee confidence and encourages them to continue to take desirable and appropriate actions.
Sometimes all it takes is kind words of affirmation from others to help one feel motivated. This will motivate the coachee to do better and keep striving to achieve their desired outcome.
Some sample phrases to use:
- “It’s quite impressive the way you detach the person from the problem.”
- “Your ability to reach out to your friends and family is excellent because it helped you appreciate different viewpoints as well as build better relationships.”
- “The commitment that you’ve demonstrated is much stronger than what I’ve seen from others in this situation.”
Action
The coach will help the coachee determine the specific actions to keep moving towards the outcome.
Some sample questions to use:
- What are the specific actions you will now do?
- By when will you do these?
- How will you continue taking these actions to move closer to your outcome?
Step #5 Review
The best way to wrap up the session is to review the coaching conversation, particularly the agreed action plan and how the progress will be measured. In the follow-up coaching sessions, ‘Review’ will be done at the beginning of the session to find out and build upon what’s working.
Remember the basic premise of the OSKAR Model: paying more attention to whatever is moving in the right direction, rather than spending time and energy on the misses.
Some sample questions to use:
- What has changed or improved now?
- What did you do that made change successful?
- What is the impact of the change?
- How do you feel about this change?
- What do you think needs to change next?
Where best to use it?
The OSKAR Model is an extremely useful coaching framework for managing individual and team performance in workplaces.
- Sales managers can use the OSKAR Model to coach their sales reps to achieve or exceed their sales targets.
- Project managers can coach their remote team members to overcome obstacles and how they care.
- Managers can inculcate among their teams a sense of self-management without over monitoring or micromanaging.
- Positive reinforcement helps to foster a healthy relationship based on trust between coach and coachee.
- It is great for building a collaborative work culture where leaders can leverage the collective know-how of the team members to achieve powerful results.[ii]
A quick conclusion on how to try it
Take a step back and reflect on your personal or career situation. While asking positive questions to yourself, go through each step of the OSKAR model to determine what has worked well for you and what more you can do.
For example, do you want to be happier and content with yourself? Writing a gratitude journal entry and engaging in 30 minutes of fun activities daily has helped you turn off negative thoughts. Can you build on these actions to move further? Maybe volunteering at a local charity, learning a new hobby (e.g., candle-making, playing guitar) or avoid being judgmental.
The OSKAR model is a very practical coaching framework that nudges a person in the right direction.
References
Francesco Attanasio (March 2016), Understanding Coaching, Lulu Press Inc.
Bill O’Connell, Stephen Palmer, Helen Williams (June 2013), Solution Focused Coaching in Practice, Routledge
Karen Whittleworth, Andrew Gilbert (November 2009), The OSCAR Coaching Model – Simplifying Workplace Coaching, Worth Consulting Ltd.
[i] https://www.trainingjournal.com/articles/features/coaching-model-library-oskar
[ii] https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/oskar-coaching-method-oskar-wins-hearts-and-minds/