Stop Fixing People & How To Keep Your Team Motivated

One of the things I see in founders, team leaders and managers is a need to fix people.

They see a problem, and I suppose maybe it's hard-wired in our DNA to see threats, that when we see a threat, we want to deal with it, and I think that as coaches, we often see the gaps in people. The brain thinks that it's dangerous, so we have to deal with it, we have to fix it, and there's something maybe instantly rewarding about that feeling, that you have fixed the problem and the problem has been resolved.?

We see that in sports a lot; I've done it myself. I've been on the bench, trying to tell players that they need to do this and that, and they just stare at me. You say to a player the same thing five or six times in the game, and they don't know if they're coming or going. One of the things I learned is actually to help players think through how they played. You have an opportunity in that moment to ask a question, to challenge or to share some feedback, which is positive for the most part, so that they go back on the ice or the court better. It's the same for your team, whether they are going on a sales call, and you want them to go back on that sales call and be even better, or whether they will go back into that pitch or meet a client or into a new project.

We want to be able to be the bench coach and be able to switch that on, so your ability as a player-coach to be on the field yourself, and then stop and compartmentalize your role, is a challenge, but a necessary challenge and certainly something to challenge yourself to do.

Personally, I believe that the bench coach should always be positive; of course, there have been times when I've lost my temper, I'm human, but it's usually due to behaviour, not because somebody made a bad pass or a bad play. I don't want people to play with fear, I want them to be in a challenged state, and your team should feel the same way. We always want to look for opportunities to give positive feedback and reinforcement, and there's a skill to this.

We need to be mindful of a few things when we are the bench coach in a business environment, and the first one is to always talk about the positives. I know that might sound a bit fluffy, and you think you've got to solve this problem straight away. Be patient with that. For the most part, people tend to solve it themselves with your questions. We are pretty self-directed as human beings, if you give them the space, some people pick it up quick, and some take a little bit longer. They're on their journey. We should always be looking for the positives, and I would always ask somebody, whether it's someone on my sales team or when I was coaching sports, what their highlights were, what they think they did well in that game, or what were the highlights on that phone call.

The reason I say that is because if I ask somebody who's feeling a little bruised, or perhaps a little frustrated, and then I ask them how they're feeling, they probably, for the most part, are going to say it's terrible, and then we're going to have a conversation about how awful things are, and then I'm going to try and fix that, and this isn't something I want to do. I want to recognize that they are doing some really good things by asking them what's going well, how did they prepare for that, or how they made that work for themselves, and then you'll start to see the body language change in these people.?

So, ask your team what some of the things they believe they could have done differently, and use it as an opportunity to give feedback and ways in which they can develop, rather than just saying, 'you're good at this, but you're really bad at this'.

I don't want my team to remember the bad stuff and none of the good, so we need to build on the good stuff. Asking questions such as 'what could you have done differently, and how will you do this.' This will allow your team to focus and go back to the rink or their sales call and improve. I'd always ask my team to focus on one thing at a time because if you give them 10 different things to improve on, they will do nothing with that. If you give them that one thing, they can learn to do this one thing well, and then next time, they can improve and work on something else, and I believe this is how people will stay motivated.?

Now, that is a way of using the ask don't tell method, to help people think about what's working well and what they could potentially be better at, but there is a time and a place where we need to be direct and we need to tell people. I would always encourage you to find opportunities to tell people good things they're doing, but there needs to be evidence. Again, in sports, it's usually on camera, so there's nowhere to hide, but in business it's a little bit more challenging, you've got to look out for those opportunities to tell people that you saw them doing something, that had a great impact on the business or the team, and I'd really encourage you to keep doing this, or think about how they can improve on it.

But like I said, there's sometimes a place to tell people, hey, I noticed that you did this, which may be negative, and that affected us in this way, and I'd like us to have a conversation about how we stop that from happening. Keep it simple, have a conversation about how they can develop on it, but also don't feel that you've got to tread on eggshells or skirt around the issue or avoid it; remember that one conversation is probably the conversation that someone will remember in 10 years, and that could have been the catalyst for a completely new trajectory in their career or their performance. They'll look back on it, and thank you.?

So embrace the bench coach role, be positive, and remember you are in the game every day, and so are your team. You're not a professional sports team where you play once a week and maybe play some golf in the afternoon. You are in the game every day. Your people are in it and need to be encouraged and motivated through these conversations to help them go back out there better and ensure there's evidence. You need to make sure you're not just giving out sweeping statements; it's got to be evidence-based, and you'll see people get better when you do that.?

We know if you avoid these conversations, and I'm not suggesting you do this, but it's a bit like toddlers. Toddlers would instead act naughty to get attention and have no attention because they'll still see it as nurturing. Well, your team are the same. They'd rather have some kind of feedback than nothing, so don't let your people feel isolated out there because they'll decide for themselves and probably assume that they're not doing well.

The biggest problem I see in this situation when it comes to being the bench coach in a business is that the player-coach sees a problem and wants to fix it. They end up spending 10/15 minutes just talking at the person trying to fix this person, and it keeps going and going because they're not getting anything back, so they keep talking and trying to come up with more solutions and the person they're speaking to doesn't know if they're coming or going, versus asking questions, getting people to think about what they have done well, to avoid that desire to fix people and to come up with solutions.

We must remember that we can't change people, we can only help them reflect on change, and this has to be self-directed. You've got to give people the space and ask them questions to make them think. So go out there, have your conversations and gamify them to make sure that you are looking for opportunities to give people feedback on a day-to-day basis and remember they're in the game and need encouragement.?

So, have these conversations where you can get your team to think and reflect on their performance, but always start with the highlights and the strengths of what's working well and then help them build on the areas they need to develop.

I'm Andrew Sillitoe. Thank you for reading this blog.

Go out there and have those conversations!