'Couching' or Positioning of your Work

Couching is pitching in a way that enables messages/processes to land, or be well received. How you 'couch' something is sometimes more important than the actual thing you're couching..

Hear me out. You're rushing out the door and you're pretty sure you've got your keys but not 100%, so you search under every item on the table, you check every pocket, you poke your head around the door of all the rooms in the house. Then you realise they're in your bag.

When you are confident you've done something, or you've got a watertight process in place, there's no sense of doubt or worry. There's no checking a million times, blaming someone else, or chasing for an update. You can sleep easy knowing everything is running smoothly. The couching of this process has been carefully considered - in preparation for the actual activity.

This concept runs through almost everything in business. Think about training, how many people say they've never had training for their role? But if you 'couched' their first few months in an 'onboarding programme', they might be more positive about the support they had been given. (even if the programme might simply include a tour of the building, introducing key people, or showing them the basics of their new laptop!)

Another example might be when you're trying to launch an initiative you know will be life changing for a group of managers but they are just not bothering to adopt it. Take a new ATS (applicant tracking system) for example, this new system might save managers hours each week, give them amazing insights and have them send contracts to new recruits at the touch of a button. But for some reason no one has the energy to give it a go.

In this scenario, I'd consider the couch. How was it sold to them? Was it out of the blue? Are they disengaged or dealing with a more urgent matter?

Couching the initiative within a cohesive strategy can make a massive difference. If those involved understand that the initiative is designed to enhance the employee experience, that it's been 'thumbsed up' by the CEO, that their own manager swears by it, if they've got crystal clear training resources and maybe the whole thing has been shared in a fun off-site meeting and maybe even linked to a bonus scheme, then there's a much higher chance of the new system embedding. Not only might your new system or process take off, but your employees might feel quietly pleased that due consideration and respect has been given to them and their working life.

When setting processes and systems, or completing any project, just doing great work isn't enough, more important is how others in the organisation feel, it's about how you demonstrate to others what your work entails, and why it is so important to the overall success of the business. Sharing your work isn't showing off, or wasting time, it's feeding into the overall sense of comfort others get from being a part of a focused and strategic organisation.

Leaders - get couching!

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