Manager Tools Coaching Model - Updated - Part 1

Welcome to Manager Tools. This is Kate. And this is Mike. Today's cast, Manager Tools Coaching Model, Update it. Part 1 of 3. This cast answers these questions. How do I coach my directs? What do I do when feedback is not enough? How can I help save an employee who is failing? Well, if you want to answer these questions a more, keep listening. Well folks, here we are. The summer is officially underway. Don't forget, in the heat of the summer, to plan your group's training needs for the next 90 days. The fall is well within reach. Manager Tools has some dates available for your group in August and September, but it's best to reach out as soon as possible. And contact Maggie to learn more about open dates and how we might be able to customize the training to optimize your team's learning experience. So send Maggie an email at customer [email protected] to learn more information. Today we're going to talk about the manager tools Coaching Model. And you and I know, and most people listening here today should know highly effective managers are not indifferent about development. That's one of the characteristics of great managers is they're not only indifferent, they demand it, they expect it. They not only encourage it, they reward it, and they provide disincentives to those who don't make strong efforts at it. And so if you want to be a top performing manager, improve the productivity of your team by expecting a higher performance from each of its members and coach them to achieve it. Mm-hmm. Another interesting thing I think about this model is one of the really common themes that we see in satisfaction reviews and surveys and things like that that companies do is that people want room for growth. That's what they're looking for as employees, as people in the organization. They see the organization as responsible, I think, for providing them that. And this will absolutely support that, people wanting to grow of the Trinity, which as I always laugh about, there's four parts. But this third part, coaching of this whole suite of tools, Trinity parts, the coaching model is the least often used tool. It's the one that gets the least play, honestly. And there are some good reasons for that. One-on-ones are the most powerful. Once managers start one-on-ones, they never want to let them go. They find them so useful. And feedback happens next. It's hard though. A lot of people don't transition into it. The behavioral change feels a great deal higher because one-on-ones in terms of your behavioral change to most managers really just feel like another meeting. And we know how to go to meetings. So that behavioral shift is a little bit easier, I think. Or speed back is harder. We don't want to introduce conflict. We fear that people will quit if we talk to them about what they're not doing well. Which of course is not true. There's a recent survey. I think it was on the Wall Street Journal even talking about Gen Z or whoever the end because professionals are today. I lose track of that. Even they, despite what we may think about them, they crave feedback. And the problem is they just like to get it in a professional manner. Which is what the manager tools feedback models all about. So surprise, surprise. Shocking. If you've been listening recently, you'll know we just re-release and updated that content as well. And this is the coaching version of those updates. If you can't get through feedback though in the Trinity in the process, it's unlikely. You're going to end up coaching because feedback takes just a few seconds every day. Whereas coaching is longer term. It takes months for some coaching engagements to be completed. It takes a really dedicated manager to engage in coaching. And there's some other reasons people don't always get to coaching. The first is that nobody knows how to do it. A lot of people talk about coaching. They all seem to mean different things. Coaching, the word coaching, I think has a lot of professional synonyms that mean a lot of different things. Which is weird because very few of them are actually coaching. But that's okay. Yeah. And they think about coaching as somehow negative, right? Negative feedback coaching. Right. They think of pointing out mistakes and then hoping the person and helping them fix that are hoping they fix it. Something like that. And okay, the only time managers are exposed to something really resembling coaching often is performance improvement plans trying to save people from getting fired, which we call late stage coaching. The thing is it gives coaching overall a bad reputation as not a positively focused tool. And the good news is you can coach all of your drugs. You can coach even your best performers. In fact, you should. And we're going to talk about how. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Seven steps or seven parts to this content. Number one, the purpose of coaching is encouraging improved effectiveness. And we're going to talk more about the encouragement piece of it, which is absolutely key. Same for feedback, by the way. Two, coaching is necessary for days. Discontinuous business environment. Like you can't get away without coaching today. And we'll talk about why that is. Number three, coaching has a terrible reputation. It's a shame, but let's acknowledge it and talk about what we're going to do about it. And then we're going to talk about the steps of the model. Step one, collaborate to set a goal. Step two, collaborate to brainstorm resources. Step three, collaborate to create a plan. And then step four, slightly different, no collaborate there. The direct acts and reports on the plan. That's what we're going to talk about today. Okay. The purpose of coaching, encouragement, encouraging, effectiveness, improved effectiveness over time. This third pillar of the Managers' Effective Manager Trinity. We've seen lots of effective managers and executives. And what we know is that the vast majority of the best ones out there do three things well. They have great relationship with their directs. They communicate regularly about performance and they consistently ask for notably increased performance, constantly reaching. Yeah. And folks, we said this many times before, they don't all do one or ones the manager's way. They don't do manager's feedback. They don't do coaching, but they achieve the things we talk about in their manager's tools Trinity. They just do it a different way. So, I would suggest probably a lot of it's close to what we suggest. Probably pretty close, yeah. Yeah. And some people are just gifted in that way or they've been taught a different way that works. Not all managers have. Not all managers are gifted in that way. Not all managers have been given the gift of a mentor or someone who taught them ways to accomplish these extra things. So we teach one or ones because they're teachable and effective in developing strong relationships. We teach the manager's feedback model because it is a teachable and effective way to talk about daily performance. We teach this coaching model because it's a teachable and effective way to ask our directs to do more over and over again, constantly asking for more stretching. So, if you're looking for stretch goals, this is one way to help accomplish them. If you're already doing this, you're already coaching and it's effective and it works and they keep on doing it. But if you're not like the vast majority of managers out there, then here's one way to do it and we suggest that you give it a try because it works. Okay. There's other ways it works. This is the one we teach. This is the one we know we can teach and we have lots of evidence, lots of numeric evidence high seas. We have lots of evidence that suggests it works if you follow the steps. So just follow along. So, highly effective managers that we've seen, they really tend to approach coaching or the general active developing their directs in a way that's different in tone from most managers. Often there are managers who are taking a more relaxed approach than what we've seen work. The average manager kind of says, "I'm too busy to spend a lot of time coaching so I won't do it other than when one of my top people need a boost or when one of my weaker performers needs to get above the minimums." So just kind of for the two ends of the spectrum, is it being done for a lot of people because most managers feel really busy, they don't really think of it as valuable or they really simply, they don't think they're directs, have time for it either, which is something I hear a lot about when I talk to people about delegation. People say things like, "Oh, my directs are so busy, I couldn't possibly ask of them more." But unfortunately for a lot of us, most managers are wrong, right? We're focusing on the top and bottom for different reasons. And to be frank, we're not even sure that those reasons are right, either reason. And so in that way, you're right because the reasons you have for focusing on these ends of the spectrum are both wrong. -Pug. -Which is not good. -And don't feel badly. We've done it as well. I mean, a lot of what you get in manager tools and career tools and executive tools is because we've done the things that are not effective and we've learned and we don't want you to have to go through that yourself. So we share our experiences with you. So many of us coach our top performers because of that. because either A, we want them to do well and we want them to get promoted because we think they're great or because they're good, they demand that we coach them because they know it's important to do them. So we have to do something developmental for them. Otherwise, we're gonna fear losing them. Now, it's too bad we think that coaching is sending them to a class somewhere. That's not what we think. We'll share more about that. - Oh yeah, that's actually happened to me. Although I will say, as a resource for brainstorming, online classes can be a really big resource when you're brainstorming resources. So keep that in mind for your brainstorming sessions. Often, what we're thinking about this other end of the spectrum, for poor performers, we coach because we're told we have to either by your senior boss or by HR because the adage, this squeaky wheel gets the grease is true for a reason. It rings true for a reason. And we think that if, hey, we get this weak performer above the line, we'll look better relatively. - Yeah, how would you like to hear like, "Hey, that Kate's pretty good manager. She doesn't have anybody performing below par. She must be good. That wouldn't excite you, I bet." - Talk about a low standard. - Yeah, exactly. - That would be a chip armor. I would not like it. - Yeah, don't shoot for that, folks. No, it's not a good standard. - No, I was talking to this morning to a group about, don't lower your standard. I would never suggest you lower your standard. But consider lowering the bar. And we're talking specifically about positive feedback. Lowering the bar for what you consider worthy of positive feedback, right? - True. - And in this case, we have high standards and we would never recommend that you lower them. That's not something we're gonna say that you should do. Of course, it's not accurate either to think, hey, you look better relatively if everybody's above the line, right? It's utterly false. Unless every single manager, other than me, the person who has nobody below the line, has multiple failing performers. And that's not accurate in most cases. Most teams, the majority of their team is above the line. In fact, their whole team is above the line. And senior folks evaluating us can often be totally fine with somebody having a performer or a significantly underperforming direct as long as we have several really high performers. As long as you get somebody holding that water, it's generally tolerated by senior executives that somebody's not doing as great. And this is really a function of manager economics, lesson number two, spending time with top performers produces more value than weak performers, which gets into coaching as well. And who you should focus on. - Kajah said, spending time with top performers produces more value than weak performers. - That's right. We at Manager Tools recommend that after our core investment, other directs, which is through one-on-ones, our marginal choices about time with our directs be spent where we'll have the most impact on their organization. And that is always with our top performers. - Every hour we spend with them will return more value, short-term and long-term than an hour is spent with the direct who's not performing well. - And that is so different than what most managers think, or at least different how they behave, right? So it's probably surprising. But note a key differential for us. We recommend that every manager spend time with each of their directs on a routine and regular basis through one-on-ones. And too many managers don't do that. So if we're not doing one-on-ones, then it's much easier to justify focusing on our weaker performers. And what O3s do is there's a regulating effect, right? We're more likely to put out fires or manage by exception to reduce our risk rather than increase value. So just keep in mind, like we covered one-on-ones in the Trinity first because it is so foundational to everything. So if you're not doing one-on-ones, you can do coaching. You'll be much, much better with O3s. And frankly, if you're doing O3s, you're more likely to do coaching, right? So do O3s. Yeah. And the reason you're likely to engage with coaching if you're doing one-on-ones is because you can see where your directs are. You know what they want. You know who's ready to move on. And if you're a really effective manager, you're not indifferent to their development, especially people who are top performers. They want to stretch. They want to move. They always want to get better. They demand it and expect development. They encourage it themselves, but highly effective managers reward development. They provide disincentives to those who don't make a strong effort at it. Really effective managers know that if everybody is developing results will improve and the organization will grow. And both of those outcomes are better for the manager as in terms of their own considerations, as an individual, and as well for the health and wellness of the organization. It's a positive for the results of your team to increase and improve. And for those reasons, if you want to be a top performing manager, improve the productivity of your team by expecting higher performance from each of its members. And we do that by coaching them to achieve it. There you go. If you're out there and you're thinking to yourself, you know what? I'd really like to have better results and retain the people on my team. We don't blame you. And also, we can help. In just two short weeks, starting on July 15th, we will be kicking off a virtual cohort of our effective manager conference. For four days in a row, we'll be hosting on July 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th, our manager tool sessions on one-on-ones feedback, coaching, and delegation. These sessions range in length from 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours, and you'll receive a video recording afterward for 90 days. So you can catch up on anything missed and get a recap for yourself if there's something that you want to be reminded of. So you can join us online by registering at manager-tools.com/training. Find the virtual effective manager conference there, and we look forward to seeing you. Our next point is, you have no choice today, folks. If you want to be effective in today's discontinuous business environment, you have to coach. There's just too much going on to not do coaching. For the day-to-day fluctuations that happen the world around us, the ongoing cluxly we live in, feedback is the performance communication tool that gets us there, right? That's the core piece. The path around day-to-day, though, is on paper quite straight. But as we all know, our path to success is never the plan. Planning is everything, but plans are nothing, right? Nothing is straight line. Even quantum mechanics teach us that straight lines aren't even straight lines. Yeah. Since I have my co-host here as a rocket scientist, literally, not figuratively, I'm sure she understands that. For sure. Well, and the good news is for me that rockets don't go in straight lines anyway. So you're constantly-- Oh, there you go. There you go. So probably the analogy is not-- plans are in a straight line. They're probably more like rockets, right? Require constant inputs, constant feedback. They probably get feedback, kind of like a feedback model, right? You're a little off course. You need to do this, right? That kind of thing. Yeah. Although we don't recommend you spin around in circles, which is how rockets fix that problem. There you go. I feel like it sometimes. OK. Anyways. OK. For the day-to-day changes, the inevitable human errors, for the right intentions going to rise, for evolutionary change we need, when it comes to performance communication, performance improvement, feedback is what we recommend to managers. Yeah. And the day-to-day doesn't address the bigger picture of the flattening world. It doesn't address game-changing ideas, like, securities, mortgages, or iPhones, or cellphones, at all, or the internet, or email, or-- do we say it-- AI. Small changes don't help the owner of a Taco Bell in Missouri who wonders why sales are falling, relative to their McDonald's competitor, not realizing the McDonald's orders are being taken by phone in Colorado, 800 miles away, right? You don't get in small daily steps from daily postal service to FedEx overnight delivery. You don't get in a few small steps from calling an airline to booking online through Expedia. You don't get, with one person gradually getting better at D2B from co-ball to be good enough to address the impact of offshore engineering programs and trans-Oceanic fiber optics, or the outsourcing code development to say nothing of round-the-clock development teams, big ideas, big changes. They don't come from small daily iterations. And if all of these things have already happened, how really can we stick with just evolutionary growth through annual goals and daily feedback? We can't if we want to succeed. Big ideas require big leaps, bigger running jumps, and so we really want another technique, a longer term, bigger technique for learning and growth. Yeah. And we joke that. they make movies about volcanoes, right? It's really the boring shifting of tectonics plates that make for mountains and oceans of our world, but volcano, right? Small stuff. It's the stuff that happens incrementally, you know, measured in less than an inch a year kind of thing. But volcanoes are dramatic, right? Tectonic plates are boring. We've said this a million times probably. Good management is boring. It's unsexy. It's unpretty. It's routine. It's undramatic. So you don't see a lot of movies about good management out there because it's boring. Yeah. But that is all true. And there are volcanoes, right? Yeah. And so we need to manage your behavior to address the dramatic moments where suddenly a 2% improvement this year will not be enough. Maybe we need to ask for 5, 10, 15% more. And we need to do so all the time as insurance against competitors. And the way an effective manager asks for more is to coach her directs. Yeah. That's how she does it. Exactly. And unfortunately-- There's a problem, right? Because in probably some of you listening are experiencing it as well, which is coaching has a terrible reputation. And it's awful. It's a shame. But it does exist. That reputation does exist. We need to acknowledge that. Yeah. This is our final introductory point. But a lot of people, professional and not, have a really wrong and slightly damaging sense of coaching, of you that the business world has created and nurtured. For example, why was it that in grade school, secondary school, college, high school, all of these places, being coached means being taught better ways by someone knowledgeable. But in the business world, being coached as an air failure, desperation, final steps before termination, possibly termination, why is that? Yeah. You know, for most employees, if their manager comes up to them and says, hey, Mike, you have a problem with your relationships with people, I want to coach you. I want to coach you on how to get better at that. I'm not likely-- I use my name for a reason-- and I'm not likely to respond to that terribly well. Matter of fact, I share that because that did happen to me. I did not respond well for two weeks. And then eventually I said, oh, I think she's right. I think she's right. Maybe I'd do that. And the word is coaching, because coaching sounds like, I'm getting ready to get terminated. This is not a voluntary thing for me to do. I either engage in this or I won't be around. And look at we, we collectively, managers are responsible for this. All of us, when we say, I also have to coach this guy before I get rid of him, or at least that's what HR says. Somehow, coaching has gotten reputation as the last act of managers necessitated to reduce legal risk before termination. No employees excited to participate in that. Yeah. And we actually know somebody who works in Walmart who came in late one day, and it was asked to come in the next day for coaching, air quotes, which is to say she was called in. And the next day they gave her extra work as punishment. And she had designed a form about being part of a team. OK, cool. That's her experience. Pretty negative. Imagine, though, you're this young lady, you get a new boss and effective manager, and they say, hey, you're doing well. I want to coach you. That would be confusing. There's so many instances of it being negative. And the same thing with feedback, right? There's so many instances of it being negative that overall, it has a professional connotation. Not a real world connotation. In the real world, coaches are wonderful. They're revealed, revered. They're lovely, lovely people. I don't know if anybody else watched cheer on Netflix, which is about a Texas high school cheerleading team, and they're attempt to make it to the finals and win and all this stuff. And the main person on the show is the coach. And it's a wonderful show about coaching and trusting all these different things. And Monica, who's last name escapes me, is this woman, they all adore her. She's tough, full disclosure. She's tough. Don't go in there expecting marshmallows. And it's a wonderful story about teaching people, helping them grow, pushing people. And it's a positive thing. She's the hero of this story. So-- - Not surprised, right? - I know exactly. And if you watch it, you're like, oh my gosh, of course we love Monica. - Of course we love her. - All the best coaches, all the best, this is the best boss in my experience. The best bosses, and I described this story about this coaching about relationships. Like, I tell you what, at the time, I didn't particularly like it. I didn't like it before that. I didn't particularly like her after that. And I can tell you right now that she was, by far, the best manager I ever had. By far, literally turned my career around that. No, my career's going well, but got me to the point where I could make it to the next level. And as she hadn't, I wouldn't be where I am today. So tough folks who make us better, and the vast majority of us want to be better, want to succeed, they're the ones that, when you're sitting and later in your career, those are the ones you look back on, and go like, man, she was great. - Yes. And look, I understand. It's hard for people to sometimes it's hard to go through being coached because it's a growth experience and growth experience does have pain points. So I completely understand maybe going through it is like, as you're actually going through it, it's not ideal. And that's just because growth takes energy. Growth requires discomfort, right? It's less comfortable to be growing. We hate that coaching has a negative professional connotation. It's stupid, it's wrong. And we need to start telling everybody, and everybody who works for us, I'm going to coach you, I'm going to help you improve. It's not negotiable, and coaching is positive. It's part of improving productivity. It makes us better. I'm responsible for it with you. Here we go. That's all today, y'all. We'll see you back here next week with the continuation of this topic. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)