8 Steps to Transformative Coaching
When we think about coaching, we often think of sports and the coaches responsible to teach proper techniques to their players. Whether throwing the ball, tackling, swinging a bat or a golf club, technique is the difference between hitting a home run or striking out. The coach brings the experience and understanding of what the goal is in the area they are focused on, and will usually break down to smaller, specific components that, when executed well, will lead the coachee to success.
The key to coaching success happens before the coaching or practice session begins. Building the game plan or process tailored to the coachee, and their level of proficiency, will lead them to success. Everyone performs at different levels based on their experience, aptitude, capacity, and the training, coaching, and mentoring they have had previously.
Assessment
The first responsibility of the coach is the assess the level of proficiency at which their coachee is performing. Coaching someone new to their role would not receive the same type of coaching as the experienced, already successful, person. The newer, less experienced and proficient person will need time and coaching on more foundational aspects of the role – the building blocks needed to begin their path to success. The proficient, successful person in their role will be able to continue utilizing the developed skills to maintain their success while receiving coaching on higher-level, more specific areas that can elevate their level of success.
Creation
Let’s use a Sales role for example. You have a new employee who came in with limited experience in sales, but you liked their ability to relate to you and others, their good-natured demeanor, while also noticing their competitive and outgoing style that you felt would work well in selling to customers. Knowing it takes much more than the right attributes to be successful in sales, you create a coaching plan that will develop the raw, innate characteristics they possess, and guide them to success in sales.
Validation
Through your assessment, you see what concepts they are able to grasp quickly, which you validate by talking through scenarios they will soon encounter with different types of customers. This will familiarize the coachee with what to expect while giving you the sense of how they would naturally respond even without extensive knowledge of the product or service or deep industry knowledge. This can actually be a positive place to begin knowing that they also are unlikely to have formed any bad habits that need to be undone, and more likely to accept and welcome your coaching.
Process
Your assessment helps you craft a coaching plan that allows you to bring in the specific products the salesperson will be selling which allows you to both, teach good selling techniques, and build the product knowledge needed to speak fluently and expertly to customers which can make the difference between simply educating a customer and making the sale. Your coaching plan will be foundational, consisting of a mix of successful sales techniques using the actual products and services you offer. While you feel good about your plan, you need to ensure your coachee sees the value.
Transparency & Commitment
Share your assessment and plan with your coachee. Be sure to highlight the attributes that led to their hire, and what you have assessed in your preliminary coaching that leads you to the coaching plan you are sharing. It is critical to gain the buy-in of the coachee, who will fare far better and be more apt to listen and execute on what you are teaching if they agree with your assessment of their skill level and what to expect through your coaching. Detail the full coaching plan with goals and expectations that will help you both understand their progress at any time, and when it is time to call an area a success and allow you to move on together. Ask the coachee for their commitment to your plan. Your agreement on what success looks like, and what your ultimate goal will be is what will allow you both to appreciate the small victories of having completed a step or segment of the overall coaching plan and motivate the coachee to continue with the plan.
Timeline
While you have certain business objectives and initiatives that will always look to impact, if not rush, your timeline, as the coach you are responsible to set proper expectations for the success of your coachee. It will be important once again to commit to the timeline as well, understanding that there will be outside pressures from the business, but you both will stay committed to the coaching plan so that progress continues overall even as one or both of you are pulled into other assignments or tasks. Regularly checking in with even quick recaps, teachings, and dialogue that touch on what the coachee has encountered, how they handled it, and what you can offer to recognize their effort is critical. This will drive continued improvement, encouraging the employee to keep moving forward with the plan and motivate them further. Seeing they are well on their way to success.
Flexibility
It is common for a coach to not have expertise in the product or service around which they are coaching. It is their coaching expertise that is the value. Whether selling stocks, or cars, or insurance, a strong salesperson will be successful in most environments as they learn the product or service. Similarly, a strong coach focuses on their coaching technique, making it applicable to nearly any business or industry. That expertise is what allows a coach to step in, learn the material they will be covering and adapt it to their proven coaching method or process. A coach has to be flexible to be successful across multiple industries, knowing they will be coaching many different people with different skillsets, aptitude, and styles of learning. In as much as the coach teaches others to become successful at their craft, the coaching craft also is one that has a learning and proficiency curve that expands as the coach gains experience and further develops their skill. For both the coach and coachee, being nimble, willing to flex a coaching plan in recognition of what is working and what is not, will adapt and shift course when necessary. It is what often separates a good from a great coach, and a successful coaching plan from one that falls short of the goal.
Practice
Any good coaching plan is fluid and should be ongoing. Time for coaching is critical to the success of the individual and to the company. Whether part of the workweek, day, or month, investing the time needed for coaching will ensure your team stays on track, and focused on company and personal goals. Consistent coaching not only drives business success, but lifts those who are asked to deliver. No matter the level of proficiency or success a person has achieved, or has yet to, both the coach and coachee have plenty of work to do together. The high-performer may focus more on career-building, next-level techniques or fine-tuning of skills, but should receive as much focus and commitment as the new, less experienced employee to achieve their goals. A great coach will recognize what level their subject is at, and tailor the coaching plan that will move them forward. No matter the coaching plan, or the skill level, the value to coaching is that it builds skill with the goal of success, which once achieved, keeps going to ensure continued success, and keeps building upon itself, adding new skills and techniques that continually motivate the coachee to embrace the process and strive for continual improvement.
Coaching is a ‘Must Have’ for any and every business. It cannot be a one-time effort, but part of a coaching culture that leads everyone to believe in and work toward continuous improvement. A business that looks forward and adopts a coaching mindset will build the motivation and humility that are the hallmarks of success for top companies and organizations. Those who feel they are successful today and thus choose to deprioritize coaching may well be accurate as to their current standing in the market. But having that mindset for too long will see the industry and competitors eventually pass them by. Having the openness and drive for continuous learning with the humility to know there is always more to learn and need to adapt, is what separates the successful short-lived business from the companies and brands we have all known, used, and loved for as long as we can remember.
Check Out our article on ‘Creating a Culture of Coaching’
https://careereon.com/creating-a-culture-of-coaching/
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