Category Archives: Coaching Skills

The Dark Side

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“Do you think that a change in your thinking can change the outcome of the circumstances with your team? Do you believe that a thought has the power to do that?” I asked.

Dalton was slow to reply. “My brain tells me that is so, but this tightness in my chest has me off-balance. My head says yes, my body says no.”

“So, who is in charge?” I tilted my face. “You know the body is just a connected series of neurons charged up with hormones and other chemical cocktails it produces. If your body could talk, what would that tightness in your chest be telling your brain?”

Dalton started to laugh, proving, in spite of the circumstance, that he had a sense of humor. “My body would be saying – Brain, you are up against a really difficult problem. As your body, we know there is a possibility of failure, so we have served up some chemicals to prepare you for defeat. Brain, we know that you have aspirations to solve your problems, but the body knows better. Do you feel that tightness in your chest? That tightness is just our resistance to your aspirations. We have been driving that resistance all of your life, and that is why it feels so familiar. We know you have aspirations right now, but if you would just put those off until tomorrow, or even next week, we will release the tightness in your chest. In fact, if you could find a smaller aspiration, a smaller problem, we wouldn’t put up such a fuss.”

I nodded my own chuckle. “Where did you get that?”

Dalton nodded. “Star Wars.”

Inside Critic

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“There is a next step?” Dalton repeated.

“Yes,” I replied. “Did you think that just having confidence was going to solve the problems your team is trying to work through? Positive thinking will only get you so far. We have to do a little reality checking. But, you can’t move to the next step until you cut yourself some slack. I know a physician in Kansas City who has a sign up in his office. WELCOME to my practice. Please understand that I don’t carry malpractice insurance, and I make mistakes all the time.”

Dalton erupted a light chuckle, but he saw the irony.

“If he is your doctor,” I continued, “and you are looking to lay blame for your illness, you’ve got the wrong doctor. But, if you are looking for someone to help you discover the best path to take, you may be in the right place.”

“So, what is the next step?” Dalton asked.

“I just told you. Discover the best path. But, you can’t go there until you give yourself permission to fail. You will not be able to clearly see possible alternatives. The judge inside you will cloud your thinking, create anxiety and generally stir up resistance to resolving your team’s underperformance. Your inside critic wants you to feel defeated before you even start.”

Moving from Calm

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“Sometimes you have to slow down to go fast,” I repeated. “How do you find calm?”

“That’s a very strange question,” Dalton replied. “Every part of my body wants to move fast. My manager wants this fixed, now.”

“Let’s temporarily set your manager aside,” I said. “What, inside of you, makes you want to fix this now?”

Dalton struggled with the question. He finally breathed. “If I don’t fix this, now, I will have failed. I was just promoted to manager two months ago, I was proud. Now I am failing. Maybe I was promoted by mistake. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to be a manager.”

“Which part of you is thinking that?” I asked. “What part of you is telling you that?”

Dalton’s eyes darted the room, looking for an answer. His vision finally settled in his lap. “It’s just a feeling, a tightness in my chest,” he finally said. “I feel it now. It feels bad, and as long as I feel this way, I don’t know what move to make.”

“Who else do you think you might disappoint?”

“I think about my father. He passed away seven years ago, but he is still on my mind.”

“And, what would your father say to you right now?”

“He wouldn’t judge me. He would probably tell me that he had confidence in me.”

“Can you give yourself permission to say the same thing?” I asked.

Dalton thought, and nodded. “Yes.”

“Then, we can move to the next step,” I said.

“There is a next step?”

You Decide

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“You decide,” I said. “You decide what you want to improve on.”

The class had just completed a survey, looking at strengths and weaknesses.

“You decide, if you would like to focus on and improve an area of weakness. Or you may decide to focus on and improve an area of strength.

“Correcting a weakness only creates a mediocre performance. Building on a strength creates mastery. You decide what you want to improve upon.”

Negative Feedback

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“I don’t think it’s me,” Marion repeated.

“You are angry at the person who gave you the negative feedback and you would like to ignore the feedback,” I confirmed.

“Besides, even it were true about me, I can’t change, that’s just not me. I couldn’t do it. Out of the question. I don’t see how anyone could do that.”

I looked at Marion. Without a word. Silence.

“But if you could change, what would you do first?” I asked.

Five Questions

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Stephanie got quiet. “I coach. That’s what I do. But, how do I do what I do?”

“That’s a recursive question,” I said.

“I mean, I think I coach. But, it’s intuitive. I don’t know if I know how to coach. Maybe it’s something I do, but is there a method?”

“Just ask these five questions.”

  • What did we expect?
  • What did we do well?
  • What went wrong?
  • What can we do to prevent that next time?
  • When will we meet again?

Moving Levels of Performance

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“I think we covered this before,” Stephanie chuckled. “I always seem to drop back to training, more training. If I see something I don’t like, the answer is more training. But training doesn’t seem to move the needle anymore.”

“Think about it this way,” I suggested, “if training is something that happens before the behavior we want, and gets the team to a minimum level of performance, then why doesn’t more training move the needle?”

Stephanie paused. “To move the needle is only going to come with practice. Training only tells the team what to do, in what sequence. Training doesn’t observe their behavior, watch their repetition, suggest small changes in method, drill them with more repetition.”

“Stop!” I said. “Listen to your description. Observe behavior, watch repetition, suggest small changes. Does that sound like training?”

Stephanie’s chuckle turned to laughter. “No. Training gets the team to a minimum level of performance. Observing behavior, watching repetition, suggesting small changes is coaching. Higher levels of performance don’t come with training. Higher levels of performance come with coaching.”

Mama Told Me

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“My mother taught me that if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself,” proclaimed Judith, repeating the sage advice she learned in her youth.

“Interesting,” I replied. “Why do you think your mother said that?”

“Well, people just never do things the way we expect them to be done.”

“And, why is that?” I wanted to know. “Why do you think they might miss the quality standard?”

“I don’t know,” Judith replied. “I tell ’em what to do, they just fall short.”

“Did you explain what the project should look like when it’s done?” I pressed.

Judith paused. “I just told them to get it done.”

“So you told them what to do, but not how well or by when?”

“Shoudn’t they be able to figure that out?” Judith sighed.

“I assume they did figure it out, it’s just what they figured is different than what you figured. Didn’t your mother also tell you if you don’t like what’s for dinner, you should say something sooner?”

Change or Shift?

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“Look,” I said, “if you want to fire this guy, or just cut him off at the knees, you don’t need this. Do this, only if you want to see him correct the misbehavior. Otherwise, just fire him and get it over with. You don’t need me for that.”

“I just don’t see any other way,” Alice stated flatly. “I gave Barry a list of about 15 things he needs to change if he wants to stay on the team.”

“What about the other five that didn’t make the list?” I grinned.

“You’re right, I guess I was piling on.”

“Look, if the solution seems difficult,” my grin disappeared, “what is the likelihood that Barry is going to jump in and make everything right?”

“Not much,” Alice replied.

“If you want to raise the probability that Barry will actually change his behavior, he has to truly believe that the solution will be easy for him. You have to break it down to its simplest terms so he can understand that we are not asking him to scale Mount Everest.”

“So, I need to just pick one thing he needs to change?” Alice said, narrowing her list.

“Instead of asking Barry to change, why don’t we start by asking him to shift. Shift is a lot easier than change.”

Time to Step Up

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“I am ready to throw up my hands. I have come up with eight ways to Sunday for our route technicians to do a better job on their service calls. I am ready to do a Flutie drop kick and just let them deal with it.” Russell commiserated, hoping I would be sympathetic.

“Well, I think it’s a good idea,” I said.

“What do you mean?” replied Russell, still looking for sympathy.

“I mean, I think you should call your technicians together and let them deal with it. Look, the problem isn’t that your ideas are bad; the problem is they are your ideas. If you want your technicians to do a better job on service calls, the ideas have to come from them.

“One of the biggest mistakes young managers make is thinking that you have to solve all the problems of the world. You don’t. Spread the burden. You will be surprised at how your technicians will step up to the plate.”