No Management Support for Your Training? Don't Ask For It!
First of all, there is no buy-in to getting management support for training! They have already decided they are too busy so don't fight that battle on that battlefield so to speak. All too often I hear that phrase where training leaders and their staff feel the need to get buy-in. There is no buy-in. Quite frankly it's the manager's job to develop their staff and they simply transfer that responsibility too much to training departments. Now with that being said that does not mean we should avoid this responsibility as true training professionals.
We have an incredible opportunity using coaching as a tool to not get buy-in rather specific management participation in direct correlation to their needs. When the sales leader hears coaching they hear one more thing they have to do; whereas, a sales leader wants to increase sales or revenue or margins or the ability to handle price objections. A customer service leader hears coaching and they hear one more thing they have to do; when in fact, they need to raise their customer service metrics, their ability to handle angry customers, their ability to wow customers etc. These are just two examples of what we need to do as training professionals to raise our game to the next level to get management support. How do we do that? We use coaching to get coaching support sometimes without even using the word coaching. Let me give you a brief example: When a customer service leader shares that their metrics are low as well as their ability to handle angry customers our advice is to not bring up a coaching program rather become skilled as a coach to craft a conversation to gain their participation. You do that by asking questions such as:
What are you currently doing.
What specifically needs to change skill wise?
What do you think is inhibiting your people from performing better?
What would you like from us outside of tradtional training where you could be an active co-sponsor to address ... fill in their business needs here
There are many other questions but when you get responses that position you to provide a solution here's a suggested phrase we use to gain success:
what if we ...
This is where as a skilled trainer coach you can offer services of direct coaching, coaching design for the manager to implement, or a combination. The response could literally be:
what if we offered a few sessions to your staff and I provided you some instructions to facilitate sessions to support my sessions after we have completed them so you can raise your customer service metrics.
The key is to craft the conversation around their business imperatives and not why they need to buy in to coaching.
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Tim Hagen: Founder & Creator of The Progress Coaching Training System
"We help companies build Coaching Cultures. One of the things we are see as a huge opportunity for training leaders and their staffs is to embrace coaching as a support tool for their training. This allows them to deliver coaching, design coaching for managers, partner in coaching, and train on coaching. Last, coaching is the new training and will expand careers!