Coaching in analogies #2: The uncomfortable sofa

We can only coach the person in front of us. And yet, I tend to take note when a client has a recurring character during several sessions. Not long ago, one of my clients kept coming back to the idea that a member of his team was the wrong fit for their job.

Managing up, down and sideways is one of the biggest challenges of being a leader. It can be messy. The impact is enormous and long-lasting. So, my client continued to ruminate on the impacts -- present and future -- of this person not meeting performance expectations. It was as though he was seeking reassurance that his assertion was on track. Or, seeking comfort that any decision he would make about the employee’s future would be the right one.

Of course, I can’t do these things as a coach. I’d never met the person in question, and we don’t substitute our own judgments for those of our clients. What I could do instead is reframe. I brought in the sunk-cost fallacy by way of a sofa.

Let’s say you bought a new sofa, I said. You did the research, read the reviews, swatched the color. Waited for it to arrive, maybe even put it together yourself. And then, after however many weeks of decision making and anticipation, the moment arrived. You sat down on your new couch.

And it was uncomfortable.

Maybe it’ll take some time to break in, you thought to yourself. To soften up those new, stiff cushions. So you wait a few weeks and it feels the same. You think about all of the time, energy and money you put into this purchase. Maybe you even start thinking about what it would take to remove this heavy piece of furniture from your house and find it a new home, and get yourself into a new, more comfortable sofa. It’s going to be expensive and it reeks of effort.

So you put the thought out of your mind. You buy some new throw pillows and a fuzzy blanket. And so, after a few more weeks, you have a well-accessorized and still uncomfortable sofa.

The sunk-cost fallacy, the thinking about what it took to get you to this point, is what keeps you from acknowledging that you made a mistake. You simply picked the wrong piece of furniture.

I wondered aloud to my client whether he’d done the same thing with his employee. All of the time spent waiting for a requisition from finance, a job description from HR… all the sifting of resumes, interviews, the onboarding. Vacancies are incredibly costly, and organizations do and should try to avoid them. But careful supervision, resetting expectations and performance improvement plans can only go so far. Sometimes you’ve simply got the wrong person in the job.

Reassigning or removing an employee is tough. I’ve never met a leader who enjoys this or takes it lightly. I also know from experience, having been on either end of that conversation more than once. I’d given my client a lot to think about.

How does the story end? Well, I’m not entirely sure. My client was heading in the direction of making a change -- newly armed with an analogy about a sofa -- when our engagement ended. 

Coaches don’t have a stake in the outcome of the coaching, and we don’t always find out what happens. Instead, my win is that I got him to think about a vexing situation in a slightly different way, perhaps taking along some tools to use for next time.

(By the way, the photo for this post is of our actual sofa in our family room. And it’s quite comfortable.)