The Focal Point in Performance Coaching

I did a?coaching?session recently as part of my ICF PCC certification, and the client’s desired?outcome?was phrased as “I want to rekindle and restart my daily exercise.”?

It sounded pretty straightforward. So I followed up with “How would you like to approach restarting your daily exercise?” and “How would you measure success with that?”

That was a big mistake!

When I emphasized the exercise part, the coaching becomes narrowly focused on simple tactics such as moving the alarm further away, so extra effort needs to be exerted to wake up and move. The client said, “it went into my head, but I don’t feel the urgency or motivation to do so.”

Instead, what could have been done was to focus on the verbs “rekindle” and “restart”.?How often did the client exercise before??How did he feel then??How did he motivate himself??What’s missing now?

By focusing on the verb instead of the noun, I will then address the “who” instead of the “what” with the client.?We would then be able to discuss the underlying issues rather than be stuck at superficial “solutions” that the client may not feel motivated enough to implement.?

Coaching the Who, the Why and the How

When we focus on “performance improvements”, we tend to focus on the “how,” i.e., some strategies and tactics that one can use to boost performance.?Sometimes, we also approach it from the problem-solving angle, defining the obstacles and impediments to better performance and then removing them.

In the case illustrated above, the client’s feedback was, despite co-creating many strategies and tactics, did not feel compelled enough to take action.?Later, the client revealed that he had enjoyed waking up at 05:00 hrs every day to exercise when a group of sporting buddies joined in the daily routine.?He enjoyed the social aspect of exercising, which motivated him in very compelling ways.?Over time, the group members were overwhelmed with work and could not meet regularly for their morning exercises.?That was the main reason that the client had stopped early morning exercises and part of the reason why he was not keen to re-schedule his exercises to different time slots.?He had wanted to rekindle and reconnect with his early morning exercise group, even when the group had long disbanded.

When he realized this, he found that perhaps the camaraderie was missing, rather than the exercising itself.?While we didn’t continue coaching on this topic after this realization, I sensed that he had laid the matter to rest.?If there were to be further coaching on the topic, it would likely be in the direction of building support groups, be it in sports or otherwise, rather than setting up an exercise regime per se.

I applied this idea of focusing on the verb rather than the noun when coaching another client.?She was pondering if she should sign up for a doctorate programme, and would like to clarify which one would be the most suitable for her.

Instead of going into the details of comparing different doctorate programmes, I started by asking her why she wanted to do a doctorate and what that degree meant to her.?The conversation went on to how she was trying to live up to her mother’s expectations when she was young, and about what a doctorate meant to her at this stage of her life.?She found clarity and purpose as to what she wanted to get out of her doctorate studies and chose the programme that she felt was the most suitable.

Coaching as an Effective Way to Influence

Many of my customers have a significant emphasis on performance, and at times, they would like to use coaching to boost their staff’s performances.?While coaching can and has improved performances for many employees, managers will have to be careful how best to use coaching for optimal results.

Here’s typical scenario managers face when managing a millennial team member:

“You have a team member who has been working with you for close to 6 months now.?While he is a self-learner and takes the initiative to solve problems, he does not seem to want to work overtime or through the weekends and is resistant to your instructions.?He also does not seem to care much about pay raise or job promotion.”

Managers could identify ways to structure motivational mechanisms to make the team members work harder in a typical managerial situation.?Some managers may even try to persuade the team member to willingly accept working overtime as a fact of life and then convince him to put in more working hours.?In some ways, those feedback sessions ended up looking like a parent telling a child, “this is for your own good”, ended up getting a lot of push-back from the “child”.?Many managers find it extremely challenging to motivate and lead such team members.

Coaching, though, tackles the issue with a different approach.?Instead of approaching the team member with pre-conceived ideas about what he should do, the manager-as-coach can ask what the team member wants to become.?Instead of telling the team member what to do, the coach can ask questions such as:

• “What makes you want to work here?”
• “It is great that you have been taking initiative and solve problems.?What prompted you to take those initiatives?”
• “What would you like to achieve during your time here?”
• “You seem to be pushing back some of my instructions last week.?What are some of your concerns?”
• “You seem to be reluctant to work over-time or on weekends.?How would you handle additional urgent work that arises?”?
• “What else can be done to support you to achieve better results?”?etc.

When these team members identify the “who” and “why”, they could then remember “what they want to do”, and “how they would want to do it.”?As long as these are not tasks that need to follow a set procedure or protocol strictly, coaching boosts performance by helping these team members discover their compelling reasons to give 120% on their jobs.

One thing to note is that coaching is not the panacea for replacing conventional management tools, giving instructions and feedback.?It works well as an additional tool for managers to get better effectiveness from their team members.

Next Steps for Managers

Perhaps the first step that many managers can do is to adopt a coaching mindset, which entails:

• Being the solution enabler, and not the provider;
• Focusing on the strengths rather than the weaknesses of their teams; and
• Having the confidence that their team members are creative, resourceful, and responsible enough to get things done.

Managers also need to focus on the verbs that the team member says, more so than the nouns they used.?It took me a long while to figure that out, and I hope more managers can adapt faster than me.

c.j. is a sales performance coach and co-author of Sales Map – the only scenario-based assessment tool to evaluate the sales person’s strengths and weaknesses at every step of the B2B sales cycle.?c.j. can be reached at?https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/cydj001/?

c.j.是一位销售绩效教练，也是“销售地图”（sales Map）的合著者。“销售地图”是唯一一个基于场景的评估工具，用于评估销售人员在B2B销售周期中每一步的优势和不足。可以通过https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/cydj001/联系到C.j.。