Executives ask me all of the time how they can tell if someone on their staff is coachable. Normally they have an employee who is doing a good job overall but they are struggling in one or two areas and this is affecting their overall game. Dr. Carol Dweck, Stanford Psychologist, recently shed some light on this with her research published in her new book about mindsets. Now, back to the questions I ask...
Some of the questions I ask the executive are:
1.Is the person aware this area is of concern to you? to others?
2.If they are aware, do they agree that it is an area for improvement?
3.Does your company culture embrace continuous improvement or are people expected to be perfect?
Next, when I meet the person (coaching candidate), I first ask them this one question:
1.Do you think a person is born with a limited set of talents or do you think they can grow and improve in areas?
Their answer to this question really tells me if they are coachable. If they tell me that a person always has room for improvement I can then get into the conversation about their particular areas and we are off to the races.
On the other hand, if they become defensive or their answer states that a person is born with a limited set of talents we are not ready to leave the starting block. Normally they then begin to defend their position and explain how others are misinterpreting them. For example, one manager told me once that it was his 260 employees who had a problem and that he was just fine. With this fixed mindset, they are not a good candidate for coaching. We first need to attack this mindset before we try to coach them in any areas as if we try to coach first we will face resistance and see little or no results.
This black and white thinking on the matter may sound harsh, but it is true. I have found it to be true in my career in coaching and training adults. Unfortunately, I learned it the hard way over time by working with people who would admit they had a shortcoming, admit it was affecting their career and life negatively, and then resist the coaching. I would find myself saying things like, "they know their house is on fire and yet they refuse to run out to safety." While I was wondering what was wrong with them, I had not realized there was something wrong with my approach.
My lession in this area taught via the school of hard knocks was just recently laid out by a top psychologist at Stanford, Carol Dweck. In her new book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Dweck most eloquently explains the idea of people having either a growth or fixed mindset. She found this out by accident when working with elementary school children. I wanted to jump up and down with relief and excitement as I feverishly turned the pages yelling, "This explains everything I have been experiencing!" It was as if she had been present in many of my coaching sessions.
So we answer the question, "How can you determine if a person is coachable" with a question: Do they have a "fixed mindset" or a "growth mindset?"
Some behavioral characteristics of a "growth mindset" taken from Dr. Dweck's book:
Belief that one can always improve their intelligence.
Belief that one can always change the kind of person they are.
Belief that effort is what makes a person smart or talented.
Belief that if one works really hard they can do something they could not do before.
Belief that even geniuses have to work hard for their achievements.
People can develop their management abilities and change their skills for managing people.
Some behavioral characteristics of a "fixed mindset" taken from Dr. Dweck's book:
If a person fails it means they are not smart or talented.
It should just happen if you are smart--things should just happen for you effortlessly.
Intelligence is there or not. You cannot work for intelligence.
There is not much a person can do to change who they are.
Must repeatedly affirm that they are superior.
Want to be the only big fish so when they compare themselves to others they can feel a cut above the rest.
Do not believe in personal or professional growth. Believe people should just have it when they join the company.
Belief that people have a fixed amount of management ability and cannot be developed.
References:
Dweck, Carol. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Dr. Carol Dweck 
Interview. (4 minutes)
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