You’re a coach

A business owner from Minnesota called me the other day to talk about assorted issues inherent within her company’s ongoing culture change. With predictable preamble, the engaging discussion addressed business metrics, results drivers, employee morale, customer outreach and other pertinent cultural indices. Beyond those topics, the inquisitive owner insightfully reflected on how her role must adapt accordingly to remain aligned with the multidimensional change swirling around her.

She verbalized her introspective thoughts as if I was not present. She waxed philosophically by saying, “Am I the owner, thought leader, orchestra conductor, boss?” Interrupting her thoughtful self-examination, I said, “While you are all of those roles, your primary role is a coach.”

I could hear her eyes shift as her focus purposefully darted into the telephone.

All owners have the primary role of being a coach. They just don’t know it or don’t want to accept it.

A coach guides another people toward improvement. Unlike an auditor who simply identifies performance shortcomings, the coach extends the facilitative effect of those shortcomings by charting a reparative course toward success. An IRS agent, a visit from the OSHA consultant, a trip to the dentist, bringing your car to the mechanic are examples of functionaries that audit our performance and gleefully tell us what is wrong, accompanied by a perfunctory action plan.

By contrast, a coach reviews the problem areas, links their gaps to a goal, specifies a detailed action plan that we would work on, provides ongoing precise feedback and supportive encouragement as we progress through the action plan. They also have contingencies available if the initial plan stalls and celebrates success with us once we reach the defined goal.

A coach’s goal is facilitating improvement; the auditor’s goal is casting judgment.

Coaching has more meaningful depth and personal connection than merely conducting an employee performance review, showing an employee how to use a piece of equipment, telling an employee to work faster or highlighting miscalculations in an enhancement proposal.

Do you like to be told what to do when you don’t know what to do? Do you like to be ridiculed by an angry supervisor for doing something incorrectly? Do you like to be taught by someone who teaches you the way he or she learned something, instead of the way you learn things? No one does.

A coach possesses a conceptual, linear and procedural mindset of how various functions (e.g., drafting the labor schedule, yard dispatch, a customer walk-through, employee interviews, handling an irate customer, conducting a meeting, maximizing job sequencing, employee and most of all, coaching other employees) must be completed efficiently for a goal to be achieved.

Then through a series of employee-centered sessions, the optimal process is presented to the employee in a series of small, chunked segments to ensure the fundamentals are understood. With a supportive, goal-directed tone, the coach connects those behaviors to an organizational outcome (e.g., gross margin, cost containment, client renewal, net profit) to highlight the employee’s undeniable contributions to the company’s success.

Through either direct or indirect role modeling, the coach then allows the employee time to practice the new skills supplemented by constructive feedback. Once the goal is achieved, appropriate approval is administered. If performance improvement is slow, patience and an alternative path are presented.

At a procedural level, here are the basic coaching steps: (a) Focus on the behavior, not the person; (b) Know the goal (e.g., empirical, process, cultural); (c) Assess the employee’s current performance; (d) Determine the performance gap; (e) Share the best practice; (f) Specify the performance flaw; (g) Gain the employee’s understanding of the flaw relative to the best practice; (h) Demonstrate cognitive and behavioral role modeling; (i) Gain the employee’s understanding of the desired performance sequence; (j) Facilitate ongoing practice with adjoining constructive feedback; (k) Repetition and reinforcement, and (l) Celebrate improvement, transfer and ownership.

Did you learn everything the first time it was conveyed to you? You would have if you had a better coach.

Remember: You’re a coach. Better yet: Be a better coach.