The Coaching 360 Revolution
Let me introduce you to Progress Coaching 360™. How do we bring coaching full circle inside an organization?
#1 - We have to establish goals, metrics, imperatives. You never want to start a coaching program unless it's tied to something, whether it be corporate values, a sales initiative, customer service, a call to action or a mantra, whatever it might be. You have to start out with an established set of imperatives.
#2 - You have to train leaders to coach to those business imperatives, not just to learn how to coach.
#3 - How do we get employees to receive coaching and feedback specific to what the leaders expect, as well as those business imperatives?
#4 - Measure, measure, measure.
I'm not a fan of measurement right at the beginning because essentially we're asking leaders to learn a new language. That takes time. When we measure too quickly or too early, people start to come up with doubting or self-critical statements like, "I don't know if it's going to work," and they give up. Coaching works. It can save you the time. Yet it takes time to get there. It takes time to learn this language.
How do you accelerate that? Leaders being trained is one thing. Leaders have to practice conversations. I'm going to say it: Often, leaders just show up and throw up. They're not well prepared. Can you imagine someone with a negative attitude looking at them and saying, "John, your attitude...I'm just getting really frustrated." Guess what just happened? That employee went into a defensive mode and won't listen. Versus a more coaching-based version, with, "John, what are you going to do to successfully engage with your teammates and what can I do to assist you?" The second one's going to garner a much different reaction.
Progress Coaching 360™ is about how you bring it full circle.
When you measure, you have to look for those strengths, celebrate them, and wallpaper the company with them. Then find the gaps. Address those gaps with coaching.
Coaching has to start with what you're trying to accomplish. Think about your metrics, think about your imperatives, think about your corporate values, think about the things that you need to do and how can coaching drive those. How can employees be approachable and coachable in alignment with that coaching, as well as drive the process?
Then, when we measure, how do we use measurements not to say yay or nay? Instead, use measurements to truly understand what's working and what needs to be tweaked.
Want more information on Progress Coaching 360™ and how it can effectively coach you and your teams?
