Effective Leadership: Elevating The Coaching Discussion

Obviously, a big part of our job as leaders within an organization is to manage performance. But limiting our one-on-one discussions to just metrics is a big mistake. We should seek to have "bigger" discussions with our employees - not just interrogate them about their numbers for the week.

Here's a simple tip: Begin to ask your employees more reflective questions. "What's your five-year plan?" or "What do your really enjoy doing?" or "What would your dream job be?". The question is not so important, but the practice is. Drawing you employees out will help you as a leader to know them better and to target areas of development that will address not only those skills needed for their immediate job performance but for their long-term career development as well. And think about this: if I'm an employee with a boss who is genuinely concerned about my long-term development - not just about my current "numbers" - I am much more likely to be loyal to him/her and the company.

Effective Training: Learning To Shut Up!

One of the hardest things for trainers to learn to do is to SHUT UP! Let's be honest, what draws many of us to a training role is the opportunity to be in the spotlight. Most of us trainers are comfortable (maybe even happy) in front of a group. We might even like the little ego stroke we get from "pontificating" on subjects and being viewed as "experts" within the organization. But sometimes, our own egos can get in the way of learning.

A colleague of mine gave me this advice several years ago in regards to delivering training. I'm not saying I'm the best at following this advice but it's a great counsel all the same. He says if you have a choice between a lecture and an activity, ALWAYS go with the activity. But wait, if I'm using activities all the time I won't be able to share my wit and wisdom with the class! I won't be able to be in the spotlight! My friends response to that would be, after a deadpan expression, "....and your point is?"

Effective Leadership: Do I have to know it all?

Think back to elementary school. Remember your teachers? Their job was to impart their knowledge to you. We were little kids - we didn't know alot back then. So our teachers would do their best to fill our little "skulls full of mush" with the useful information we would need to be successful, productive adults. This model may have worked alright for kids but this is not the most effective approach for adults.

Some leaders think they are supposed to function in this same teacher/pupil mode. ("You just sit there quietly and I'll tell you everything you need to know...") But this approach overlooks a fundamental element in managing adults. And that fundamental element is "adults know stuff." I know - it's pretty profound isn't it? But it's surprising how often we think our job as a coach is to impart all of our wisdom to our agents - the typical "sage on the stage" scenario. That is not what a coach's role is about. Obviously there are skills and tips we can share with our agents but effectively managing performance is more about drawing things out of our agents than putting things in. Plus, we can miss opportunities to leverage skills and experience our agents already have.

In the mid nineties Michael Jordan got this hair-brained idea to retire from basketball and play baseball for awhile (a very short while!). Fortunately, he came to his senses and decided to go back to basketball. Many folks asked him why he was coming back to the NBA. He believed that even after all the things he had accomplished in his basketball career he could still improve in some areas. One of those areas was his free throw shooting. His free throw percentage wasn't bad - but it wasn't all that good. So he made it a point to work with a coach and practice everyday on his free throw shooting. To me, this paints a very interesting little picture. Imagine Michael Jordan, quite possibly the greatest basketball player in history, working with a coach to help him improve his skills in a particular area. Now, if Michael and his "coach" were to play a little one-on-one, you know Michael would smoke him! But that's the whole point - to be an effective coach, we don't have to necessarily be able to "outplay" our agents.

Obviously it helps to be grounded in the fundamentals but effective coaching is more about motivating people than transferring "our" knowledge to them. I'm not recommending you try this, but a truly great coach can improve performance even if he knows absolutely nothing about his employee's actual "job". That's because great coaches focus on people more than process. Now, being an expert on the process might help, but that is not what will have the biggest impact on developing people. The coach/agent relationship is far more important than the coach's depth of process or product knowledge.

If you feel pressure to know more or be smarter than all of your agents - relax! That is not what your agents are expecting from you. Instead, look for ways to build on what your agents already have. Look for ways to fine-tune and tweak what's already there instead of ignoring it. Look for ways to remove obstacles (both internal and external) that might be holding them back. And most importantly, focus on a positive, professional, supportive relationship between you and your team.

Effective Leadership: The Value of Failure

This past weekend I was at a family reunion in western Montana. It was your typical family reunion - too much food, too much noise and too many people I didn't recognize. It was a good time though, and it provided me with a little reminder at the expense of my two-year old's physical and mental well being!

The reunion was held at a hunting lodge owned by a cousin who runs an outfitting business. (See the picture of his lodge) There is a stocked fishing pond literally steps away from the back door. Needless to say, my wife and I had to keep a very close eye on my son, Noah, as we worried he would get too close to the pond and take an unintentional swim. Over and over we told him to stay away from the pond. Yet he would continually walk towards the pond to see how close he could get until one of us bolted from the deck to grab him. Well, eventually it happened: as he was holding the hand of an older cousin and walking around the pond he decided to make his break for the water. He wiggled away from his cousin, darted to the edge of the pond and reached down toward the water. You've probably noticed toddlers are a bit top heavy - they have big heads - so Noah fell headlong into the pond. His cousin Spencer was right there and had him out of the water in about two seconds but that's all it took for Noah to learn his lesson. His Mom and I had told him over and over what might happen if he got too close to the edge, but it wasn't until he experienced it himself that he "got it." For the rest of the day, Noah wanted nothing to do with the "yucky" pond.

One of the key requirements of adult learning theory is providing an environment in which it is safe to fail. Without even realizing it, we had placed Noah into this type of environment. Obviously an unsupervised two-year old playing beside a pond could be a recipe for disaster, but because there were several safe guards in place (ie. multiple adults and older cousins keeping an eye on all the rugrats) it was actually a good learning environment. Noah was able to experience first-hand the dangers of getting too close to the water's edge. That icy, two second plunge taught him more about ponds than anything his mother or I could have told him.

On a fairly consistent basis I'll have supervisors come into the training office voicing their concern that a brand new agent is "messing up." Uhhh....Yep, new agents will do that from time to time, but here's "where the rubber hits the road," so to speak. Here's where you can tell the difference between a good leader and an average (or poor) leader. The good leader will use those "mistakes" as a coaching opportunity, a chance to build up the agent and leave them better prepared the next time a similar situation arises. The average or poor leader may treat a mistake like an act of disobedience or an affront to the leader's authority. (Think of Cartman from Southpark yelling "Never question my authority!!")

Perhaps some leaders confuse training with performance. They may think because a newhire has been through "training" they will hit the floor doing everything exactly right. That would be great, but that's not a realistic expectation. Even if the agent has "heard" everything they need to know to perform their job, it will take actually "doing" the job and, yes, "failing" a few times before it starts to stick. The trainer's job is too teach the new agent what he or she needs to know - the knowledge. The leader's job is to help them put it into practice - the execution.

Every interaction a leader has with an agent provides two possible outcomes. The leader will either build up the agent or tear them down - it's really as simple as that. Mistakes are mistakes - they need to be corrected, but not at the expense of the leader/agent relationship. As leaders we have the power to determine how we go about correcting those mistakes. Good leaders see them for what they are - they are errors that once corrected will make the agent even better. An average or poor leader may see mistakes as another "mark against" an agent they don't want to spend time devoloping - it's easier to just get them off their team. It sounds counterintuitive but failing is one of the building blocks of success. The test comes in how we as leaders deal with failure and how we help our agents deal with failure.