Episode 1 - Coaching

Transcription:

Lou Quinto: (00:25)
Hi, welcome to Q and a on breakthrough leadership. I'm Lou Quinto, and I'm Craig Anderson. Today our topic is going to be how to become a successful coach. At work, we're managing people, but do we take the time to coach people? And so what we're going to do is flesh it out using three topics. First coaching is a full time job. Second is making sure that we observe before giving feedback. And then lastly, learning how to ask questions. So our first topic, tell me about coaching being a full time job. Great. Well, so coaching

Lou Quinto: (00:56)
is, it's the job of every leader, every manager, right? This is the whole idea.

Lou Quinto: (01:00)
Assumed or implied?

Lou Quinto: (01:04)
Assumed or implied? I don't know. I don't know that most leaders assume that it is their job. I would imply it is always their job. So coaching is bringing your people along, right. And executive coaching is a big thing. I'm an executive coach. You know, you've done coaching. It's a big part of what people do. But it's not just hiring an external person to come in and help your people. It's where are you taking the opportunities to coach and, see those opportunities to help your staff, help your team figure out how to be better.

Lou Quinto: (01:34)
And one of the things that I always say coaching employees is full time job and should become part of the job description a lot of times. So when it comes to coaching, we only coach those people who are in the middle of the pack and we want them to do better or they have issues that we need to help them through. That's not the only time to coach. Coaching is also taking your a players, your stars and trying to make them good if not great. But everybody that works for you, you need to coach them. And most of us look at coaching as a nuisance because we associate coaching with someone who has problems and I don't want to deal with problems. And we don't look at coaching really getting the group to that performing stage, uh, when it comes to team dynamics, right?

Lou Quinto: (02:28)
The second topic is observing before giving feedback. A lot of times I find when I come in as a consultant from the outside I see a lot of managers who like to practice seagull management where they come in flap, their arms, yell at everybody, poop on everyone and leave. And in many instances we give feedback on the job done and we don't give feedback on the process to get the job done. And so I always recommend that in order to really coach, you need to watch somebody to see how they're doing things. See what are they doing well and what are they not doing well before giving that feedback. As opposed to just waiting until the end at the finish line and then giving them feedback based upon the actual results. Because at that particular point, they're not going to be able to go back and correct anything. And so you can't have that improvement throughout.

Lou Quinto: (03:27)
Yes. I think, I think there's a definite piece of this about observing what's going on. Because a lot of times you get kind of sideways, Hey, you know, it's not me, it's over here. You know, Sue or Bob are the ones that really need feedback. And if you go marching in there working on that feedback, you're not getting the whole story. Right. So there's this, there's a value to observe their performance, observe how they work, and then the coaching opportunities present themselves within that. I think it's the importance of having one on ones with team members. So you're actually working with them at least once a week trying to figure out where they're stuck and where you can help them get unstuck.

Lou Quinto: (03:58)
So a big part of being a coach is observing before you're giving feedback. You're not a consultant coming in and telling people what to do. You're not a mentor providing them opportunities. Those are sometimes part of the leadership role as well. When you're coaching, you're helping them find answers within themselves that will help them become more successful. So it's more of almost an internal change as opposed to an external action.

Lou Quinto: (04:19)
Yeah, I, I like that distinction between, between the three coaching, mentoring and consulting and there is a difference for all of that. But at the same time, observing goes back to our first topic, it's a full time job, right? You've got to be able to observe people and then take the time to sit down with them one on one or in a group setting to say, okay, let me show you. Let me talk to you about what I saw. And during that observation, during that feedback or the observation, don't editorialize. You've got to just report on what you saw because you don't know what people were thinking or what their intentions were when they were doing it. And when we editorialize, sometimes editorializing becomes negative.

Lou Quinto: (05:03)
Which is a great tee up to the next topic. Very nice low hanging softball for us Lou.

Lou Quinto: (05:08)
Learn to ask questions. Right? Why when it comes to asking questions, a lot of times we don't take the time to say, why did you do something one way? Or how did you do this this way? And a lot of times his manager, they expect that we know why they did something or how they did something. But as we've talked about in previous podcasts where we've got people who are from different generations doing things differently, you've got to learn to ask questions, particularly open ended questions. How and why? Because if you don't ask how and why, you're not going to get to the root cause of the issue that might be preventing somebody from doing well. And, let's face it, we all have egos. And as a manager, I don't ask why, because if I ask why, then that means I don't know the answer and I don't to look bad in front of my employee.

Lou Quinto: (06:00)
Yes. And again, it's the difference between kind of consulting and coaching, right? We're not coming in saying why are you doing it this way? You really want to say, how did you come to the way to do this? And "why" comes across very accusatory I think in a lot of circumstances. But how and why are great questions to ask. So I think another piece that's really important when you're asking questions is how well you're listening for the answers and how often you let them fill the space. I mean, I personally have a hard time with quiet space in a conversation, right? I want to leap in, I've got to train myself as a coach to not leap into those open spaces because that's really the time where the person's thinking.

Lou Quinto: (06:36)
And it may be something hard for them to process or something uncomfortable for them to really break through. But it's in those silences that they get the value with the answers. And again, if we're kind of coming in as a coach, we're not coming in and giving the answers, we're helping them figure out the right way to do what they want to do and giving that advice. So I think it's not giving the advice. It's really helping them get to the answer of what they want to be and helping them internally to become, you know, the, the person they aspire to be in the work situation.

Lou Quinto: (07:02)
And a lot of times we do jump in during those quiet spots with the answer. We'll anchor them in one particular perspective or solution to how they should do their job. And that's not what we want to do as a coach because how you do something and how I do something may be totally different, but yet we get to the same results. And I think part of coaching is respecting that and to look at individuals. And again, going back to this isn't just your middle of the road, people that you're coaching. I'll use, for example, Andrew Luck. I mean, how does a coach coach Andrew Luck? You know, it's difficult for a quarterback that just comes out of college. And so those two coaching, you know, you could be the same quarterback coach, but they've got to coach them in different ways. And that's one of the things by asking questions you're going to get, you're going to be able to detect their comfort level, their skill level, their abilities and find out what they are doing well and where they can improve. That's going to help you to offer that coaching.

Lou Quinto: (08:08)
Yeah. For years I used to work with a sales trainer for my team, a guy named Skip Miller and what he used to tell us in the leadership part of that training is if you spend all your time with C players trying to make them B players. If you spend even part of that time helping your A players become superstars, helping your B players become a A players, your returns are so much larger. So in a lot of times I think as leaders we get so focused on how do I go get this person, the C player, either get them coached up or coached out, I ignore my A-players. A players are the people you need to get the most attention to in a different context than you might on someone you're trying to help course correct or or improve. But giving them those opportunities to help help them work through whatever's blocking them.

Lou Quinto: (08:50)
Maybe it's just one sale and if you can come in and help them with a road block that's a huge impact. So I think either this whole idea that coaching is for low performers really, you know, I don't coach low performers, I coach a lot of A players who want to up their game. Those are the people that you know are trying to kind of take things to the next level. And I think coaching has become more of an acceptable business practice in their area and you know, something pretty valuable. Something key. You said there they want to up their game because a lot of times let's face it with A players, sometimes you get A players who just get lazy and when they start to compare what they're doing what everybody else is doing, they're thinking, I don't need to change.

Lou Quinto: (09:27)
At that point, that's when you need the light, the fire with some good coaching to get them up to that next level because in their mind they're thinking, well, I'm the best salesperson you got. Yeah, so I'm going to keep doing what I do, and there's probably a piece in there. They're probably getting there because they're not getting a lot of attention. You know what? I may give the A player praise in a big group meeting, but what are you doing to pull that person in and say, Hey, what's your, what's your biggest challenge right now? You know what's, what's a deal that's in place you don't want it to be and you'd like to get there? Where are those challenges? You know, where can you use help? That's where I think you get a lot of coaching, development, coaching benefit from coaching A players is you help them kind of get that deal they might not otherwise get.

Lou Quinto: (10:03)
And sometimes with the A players, it's just that they've forgotten the basics right now because they have so many different nuances. And so sometimes coaching the A players is getting back to the basics to help out. Okay. So our key takeaways from today when it comes down to becoming an effective coach. Yeah. Well I think you know what, I'll end where we started that coaching is a full time job. This is something that, you know, we're, we're going to talk in another episode about kind of communication and being visible as a manager. And these are the things which is why he's going to be out in front of your people. You see opportunities to coach you, bring them in and have developmental conversations about how to get from where they are and where they want to be and help them close that gap. That's a huge opportunity for leaders to get breakthrough performance.

Lou Quinto: (10:45)
Right. And one of the things that I got from you were the three different distinctions between a coach or mentor and the consultant. And in that particular regard, uh, if you're coaching or helping them get better, if you're mentoring, you're giving them advice but not really coaching them, you're giving them your perspective on something and a consultant. Well, you get paid to go in and tell people what to do and that's not going to get you some good collaboration with your team player. Okay. So, uh, we hope you enjoyed today's episode on becoming a more effective coach. And if you like today's video, go ahead and click the like button. Subscribe to our channel. And if you like what you heard today and you'd like to share that with somebody, perhaps a leader you think needs to become a better coach, you know,share our content. We really appreciate it. Again, this was Q and A on Breakthrough Leadership. I'm Lou Quinto and I'm Craig Anderson. Thanks for watching.