Shut-up...

Not long ago, I was observing a company work-with, between a sales rep and his immediate manager. My role was to simply observe. Any thoughts or comments would be saved for a discussion with the manager following the completion of the work-with.

First I need to tell you that work-withs in general are rare these days. I find so few companies that require employee/manager work-withs as a part of the coaching session. I am beginning to think it's a dying art, and one of the many causes, on why employee's leave companies. How can anyone know what someone does if they never witness them doing it? But that's for another day.

My role for the day was to observe the manager, conduct a Coaching Work-with, with one of his employee's. My three objectives were (1) to witness the use of the companies "coaching" tool in action, (2) Observe how the manager "coaches" the employee following a sales call, and (3) How the manager concludes the working with session, in regards to next steps, follow-up action plans, and self learnings resulting from the day.

If you have never done one of these before, I highly suggest the opportunity, because sales people (and trainers) have a tough time remaining quiet for an entire day. Which leads us to the point of this posting.

Both the sales rep and the manager are great guys. The sales rep has been in his position for almost 5 years, while the manager had been in his for just over 2 years. Needless to say sales knowledge and selling skills were not lacking on these calls, nor the level of ego. However after a period of time the dynamics of the personalities began to cloud the objectives of the day for all parties. The more I observed, the more I began to think about questions similar to the following.

• Why is the manager's way the right and only way of achieving results or making the sale?
• If the manager continues to answer all of the questions asked by the customer in place of the sales rep, do we really need two employees in the same room?
• If the manger is better at doing the job than the sales rep, which should be let go for not doing their job? The manager for not coaching? or the sales rep not selling?
• What do we coach, and what do we manage?

As the observer, it was easy for me to witness what was happening. At first I was thinking that the manager was only trying to show off his knowledge of the job and how good he was at doing it. However as the day wore on I began to realize that he was very good at being a sales rep, not as a manager. 

This led me to look at two thoughts (1) It's the prime example of how individuals get promoted due to their ability to do their last job. If you are good at one level, you will be good at another. Right?... Wrong? (2) Promoting individuals without the training, is nothing more than paying more for past results.

The role of a Manager is to Coach People and Manage Processes. Too many managers reverse these, and often they simply do both in place of the employee, because (A) they think they are better at it than the employee, or (B) it's the way all of their previous managers did it. While Coaching is task oriented, its not about doing the work for the employee, nor simply telling the employee what and how to do it.

In coaching the goal should be to catch the employee doing good things, and reinforcing good behaviors with compliments and recognitions, so that good habits are repeated. When we witness actions that "may not be the way we would do it," we have to question our selves first by wondering if the "Coaching" we are about to provide is based on a fact or just our opinion? If it's just an opinion, the best coaching advice I have for you is to SHUT-UP.

Not every result, good or bad requires an opinion. Good coaches know when to coach. Great coaches know when not to.