Everybody is familiar with that basic diagram, everybody familiar?
Excellent.
As we step back and take a look at the coaching process, more to 10,000 meter look.
Step back a little bit and asked a question- What is coaching fundamentally?
I mean we can get into the model right away and a lot of people in fact asked me yesterday.
She said, "Where did this model come from?"
And to be honest with you, it was quite an accident.
About twenty five years ago, myself and my partner was asked to put together performance
management system much like yours.
We did lot of training on performance reviews, how to write objectives and quite by accident,
we used the word "coaching" as the tool or the mechanism to really keep everything together
so that when people get to the end of the year and they have their performance reviews,
no one's surprised.
We said that's the key.
But managers kept coming back to us twenty five years ago and saying "What is coaching
exactly?
Exactly how do I do it?
What are the actions and the behaviors?"
And that's where it all started- what is coaching?
Let me pick out my five words.
You have touched on some of my thing perhaps.
I have asked thousands of managers defined from me what you think coaching means and
depending on the culture, and some cultures quite honestly, the word coaching is a little
hard to define.
The root meaning of coaching, I think, is basically to transfer, to carry, to transport.
That's the root meaning of coaching.
But when I talked to managers, I can boil it all down.
I have heard a lot of good words, visions, inspire, mentor and able.
I like these five words- number one; I heard this first, development.
And that's pretty important advisor -developing people.
I think we have to be good at doing that, sharing our skills, sharing our expertise
with our representatives, if we are going to be successful out in the field.
Another keyword that I like is relationships.
I think you have to be good at building comfortable relationships with your representatives, because
I think the test of a good coach is if your coaches, if your representative will come
to you.
Because we discovered early on, when you are coaching 80% of the time, that's a big number.
80% of the times the person you are coaching, that representative if you are out on a field
visit, 80% of the time they already know where they need help.
80 percent of the time!
So again, I think if we can build a relationships that's comfortable where we drive out fear
where we can get that representative to raise their hands and say, "I need a little help
of my closing skills, "or, "I am having trouble overcoming objections, I need to learn product
knowledge a little better.
Or I need to understand these values a little bit better.
"I think that would be the ideal situation.
So we are not always seeking them out.
They are coming to us for help.
So building relationships, development is the key word.
Another key word that I like is direction.
I think as district managers, as regional managers which most of you are, we have to
let those folks know what's expected, where we are headed with the business , what's going
to be happening and how they can contribute.
I think that is critical to clarify expectations and directions.
So relationships, direction, development.
The fourth word I would like to use is a tougher word- it's accountability.
I think we have a stewardship as leaders in this organization to give people constructive,
honest, helpful feedback.
They need to know how they are doing, where they are going, and if they are contributing
to the overall mission of your district in your region.
So accountability is important.
The last word I would pick is results.
All coaches that I have talked to, they want results, they want
to succeed.