GOOD TO GREAT -A story of a coach.

GOOD TO GREAT

        -A story of a coach.

Rahul reached Mumbai domestic airport early morning. Being in sales job from last 16 years he was tuned to travel at odd hours. However today he had a different reason to travel.

Though it was early morning there was a big queue at the main entrance gate. Rahul patiently stood in queue and after 10 minutes entered airport.

Spice jet counter had a similar long queue.

He realized he did not have any check in luggage so he took a kiosk mode for boarding pass.

What a big relief!

Once he got a boarding pass he went through rituals of security check in.

Once inside he swiftly grabbed his black coffee and took a seat at the corner. There was an hour to go before boarding start.

He could not sleep entire night.

As soon as he started sipping coffee his mind went back to day when he first met Vikram.

Vikram was Rahul’s manager.

Before meeting Vikram like everybody else Rahul had a same image of manager in mind.

Task master, ruthless driver of review calls, number cruncher, strictly professional and so on.

Now a days somehow human side of manager is getting died in a sea of pressure of performance, numbers and progress.

However, Rahul was pleasantly surprised when he started working in Vikram’ s team.

It’s not that Rahul was new to sales trade. He spent 15 years in sales job and earned accolades, incentives regularly. During his MBA days he probably read every possible book which was available in his library related to sales.

Vikram was a veteran in industry. He spent almost 3 decades in industry.

His belief was,” Capture the mind share and the market share will follow”.

Vikram had a very unusual way of touching human side of next person.

Rahul was fortunate to join Vikram on some sales call. He learned a unique way to build a rapport with customer from Vikram.

Vikram set up a beautiful routine for sales team to make sure daily work becomes enjoyable and then after team never struggled for 2 customer meetings a day.

Vikram always used to make it a point to listen to his team members deeply.

That gave immense comfort level to his team members. Team members used to feel he really cares about people. He had a sincere interest in people.

Though Vikram had 3 decades of work experience he always made sure that he never pushed team by telling them what to do. Rather he was very good in asking team challenging and open ended questions which led team to find solution on their own to reach goal.

Vikram knew very well that essence of success is not to provide answer to every question of his team members but to create and sustain developmental alliance. He led by example by joining team members for key customer calls but made sure that they do rest of calls on their own.

Rather than policing every call and activity of team he guided them to find out their own way to prepare for customer call.

He knew well that he does not play in the game, but need to guide and help players identify areas to improve their game

Vikram’ s way of handling review call with every individual was also unique.

There were number of moments when team members used to put forward points such as, “I would like to do developmental activities but because of number pressure I am not able to do so”.

Others would say,” My bandwidth is choking because of back office activities. As a result, I am not getting enough time to acquire new customer”.

Whenever he came across these question he used to acknowledge their frustrations, but then encouraged them to think about how to move past hurdles.

He used to ask gently about listing all activities which they would like to conduct for development, backend and sales closure. After detailed discussion he used to ask them to priorities them. That was followed by asking them to allocate time for activity as per the priority.

At times, we all became overwhelmed. Vikram, however, was able to help people see the end goal, to take one step at a time, rather than being overwhelmed by the issues.

All these made each team member to drive business like an entrepreneur. This built an accountability in each of them for every action they took and goal they set up.

Spice jet staff made a boarding announcement for Delhi.

Rahul got up from his chair and started walking towards to gate for boarding.

Very rarely it happens that employee travel all the way to meet manager to submit his resignation. Rahul was travelling to Delhi to resign. It was very emotional moment for him. Vikram was more than manager for Rahul.

He was a coach, mentor for Rahul. He became a father figure for Rahul.

He made Rahul to see what he can be rather than what he is.

With a new job Rahul was ready to fly to new height but at same time he needs a guidance from his coach, guide and mentor.

He was flying to Delhi not to submit his resignation but to pay tribute to his coach who helped him to jump from Good to Great.

Indeed, when manager becomes coach he builds a stronger bond with team members, support them in taking ownership over their own learning, and helped them to develop the skills they needed to perform and their peak.

Flight was about to take off.

There was a broad smile on his face when the thought came to his mind, "I learned management in college. I learned sales in the field. I learned winning from coach."

He knew well,” "His coach gave him the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in Rahul."

"You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within."