For someone who's been teaching coaching as long as me, as well as coaching youth sports, I've always loved the concept of coaching nudges.
Change is like a three-legged animal going up a hill. It's steep, it's raining, it's muddy, and when people slide toward the bottom, what do they do? They go through the decision-making process: Do I want to go back up that hill? That was hard.
Most people give up.
How can you motivate yourself to keep going up that hill?
Coaching nudges are those boots.
They can be in the form of questions, thoughts, thank you's, cards, audios, videos, something small that works. They're nudges. They're not full-blown coaching conversations, they're just nudges.
Recently I ran into a parent of one of my former players (one of my passions is to coach the little kids before volleyball gets really serious and complicated). This father said to me "My kid had such a great experience with you. What was your secret? Because he couldn't wait to go to practice, even though he didn't play as much as the other kids."
I was humbled and grateful the parent shared that with me. I truly hoped the kid had a good experience, who was now in college.
The dad replied, "He had a great experience. What you did helped transform his love for volleyball into the college experience."
That was great-- loved hearing that. Then I shared "my secret" which wasn't really a secret at all.
I always viewed the start of practice to set expectations. To smile, show a positive demeanor, and then we'd go through the grind of the practice. But at the end I always wanted to do two things: have fun and have a quick one-on-one with each kid, just a few seconds to say, "By the way, Jack, you did a great job." These little nudges was intended to give them a dose of inspiration. "You're getting it, Sarah."
When we focus on people's effort and their specific progress, they leave feeling good and they can't wait to come back tomorrow. I nudge the kids with positivity every single day in the right direction.
Let me share with you something very exciting.
At Progress Coaching, we have built a Coaching Nudges platform based on this concept.
Think about a team of 100 employees with 10 leaders. Each leader has 10 employees. Of those 100 employees across the 10 leaders, what percentage do you think are fueling their mind throughout the day with inspirational and motivational content, so they can maintain their passion and energy for their job? For their life? It's less than 3%.
What if there was an automated platform that sent messages or inspirational videos, asked questions, provided quotes that prompted people to:
-Have a positive attitude?
-Go above and beyond by demonstrating great teamwork?
-Show leadership latitude and understanding?
As tough as leaders have it now a days, something small to reignite motivation and passion every day can really help make that difference, over time.
We have built out a whole platform of 30-day programs and 6-month programs for both leaders and individuals to receive these nudges. The coaching nudges have different themes like coaching to motivate, being a great teammate, demonstrating a positive attitude, pursuing your personal career goals and aspirations.
What we've done is verticalized it. We have people coming to us from banks, credit unions and sales teams asking us to build them a coaching nudge solution specific to some of their organizational needs, too.
Gallup reports one of the most important statistics that doesn't get nearly enough attention. When we lead with people's strengths, the good things that they do, people engage eight times more. Coaching nudges acknowledges that, they inspire, and they motivate.
Let me give you another example. I had a branch manager of a credit union in New York who had no assistant branch manager. She was spread thin across all the employees but still wanted to coach and encourage as much as possible.
I told her to find out where everybody wants to go with their career and then go on a 60- to 90-second daily coaching campaign. In this campaign, she needed to leave two handwritten notes at their workstations acknowledging specific things that they're doing well. Then she had to send one card home every week to an employee she didn't have time to coach, but she acknowledged what she observed. Their numbers went up over 17 points in the first 90 days. She did no formal coaching; it was all coaching nudges.
Coaching nudges are far more powerful when supporting traditional coaching. If it intrigues you, try out the first set of coaching nudges complimentary. Then reach out to us and see what else could work for your needs.
Interested in getting more coaching and leadership development nudges in your inbox? Check out Workplace Coaching Times. A community of leaders, managers and coaches transforming workplace challenges into coaching victories - one conversation at a time. Weekly nudges in your inbox with insightful articles from industry experts and executives coaches, motivational pick-me-ups, and quick action steps for busy leaders and working professionals. Join today.
