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DEVELOP THE PEOPLE

“Coaching is unlocking people’s potential and helping them learn rather than teaching them”

—JOHN WHITMORE

Principle 8: Coaching Unlocks Potential and Elevates Performance

For his eighth birthday, a boy named Bradley received his first basketball hoop. This gift solidified and nurtured his love of the game. As a freshman in high school, Bradley woke up early each day to practice. His hard work paid off, landing him a spot on the varsity team. Bradley shattered many school records and was eventually named an all-conference player in the state of Indiana. Despite his success in high school, no big-time college programs took notice. Bradley took his talents to a small university named DePauw. Quickly, Bradley earned the role of team captain in his senior year as he proved his worth not only as a player but a leader.

After graduating college, Bradley left the game he loved behind. Securing an entry-level corporate job, it began to sink in how much he missed being on the court. Bradley knew in his heart that he had to chase his dream of coaching basketball. Despite the opportunity for upward career mobility, Bradley said goodbye to the business world, taking a volunteer coaching position at Butler University.

Shortly after joining the program, Butler’s then-assistant coach Todd Lickliter threw young Bradley into the fire by having him pull together game tapes and analyze them for the other coaches and players. It didn’t take long for Lickliter to realize the potential in Bradley because of his work ethic, determination, and ability to complete his work at a high level. So Lickliter continued to add additional responsibilities after he hired him to a full-time position. Bradley eventually worked his way up the ranks and earned the title of head coach at Butler. His first season saw such success that Bradley was signed to a seven-year coaching contract.

In 2013, after six years as head coach and multiple trips to the Final Four, Bradley departed Butler University for an opportunity in the NBA. The Boston Celtics signed him as head coach. Bradley had made it. Bradley, best known as Brad Stevens, is the second youngest NBA head coach in basketball history. Stevens has successfully led the Celtics to the playoffs every year since his second season with the franchise.

Albeit it is clear that Stevens himself is a talented leader, it is those he was surrounded by while chasing his dreams that make his story so poignant. During a speech to captains of local high school teams, he expounded upon this, saying, “The people I like being around the most, are the ones who are invested in me and strived to help me get where I wanted to go. It’s selfish but it makes me feel better and you know whether you fail or succeed, it has a purpose. That’s exactly what I try to do for my assistant coaches and players because it was so important for my life and career.”

• • •

Leaders who truly elevate others have never been more important than they are today. While a team can function autonomously, a strong, dedicated leader plays an integral role in pushing people to new heights of development. They do this by focusing on coaching their people for role development and going beyond the role.

Coaching for Role Development

Swimmer Michael Phelps learned early that you cannot reach your full potential without the help of others. The most decorated Olympian of all time won 28 medals, 23 of which are gold. During his preparation for the 2008 Olympics. Phelps put in 365 days straight of practice and then proceeded to win an Olympic record eight gold medals during the games.

While most people are aware of his achievements, most don’t know his coach Bob Bowman was by his side for every single one of those 365 training sessions. Phelps noted later, “Without Bob Bowman, I would have had no shot at achieving the records I’ve achieved or winning the medals that I’ve won.”

I know it’s unlikely you coach Olympic athletes for a living, but the takeaway still applies. Focusing your coaching efforts on the progression of each team member’s development in their current role helps them to reach their full potential. Depending on your current leadership role, you could have an entire team in the same exact role or you could have team members in various roles. Regardless of which situation applies to you, part of your job in the development of your people is to help them progress in whatever role they are currently in.

While there have been numerous models and research done around the development of a particular skill, I’ve found it much more valuable for leaders to evaluate each person’s development in their current role. To help you do this, I will outline four clear stages a person moves through in a position or role (Figure 10.1 and Table 10.1). Well-tuned leaders are able to identify where team members are currently in their development and align their coaching appropriately. This allows for a platform through which each team member can flourish and grow. The goal is steadfast: Help your people reach a stage of development that exceeds where they are today.

FIGURE 10.1   Four Stages of Role Development

TABLE 10.1   Feelings Associated with the Four Stages of Role Development

Stage 1: Awareness

Individuals are made aware, either by another person or through self-discovery, of the important fundamental skills they need to develop in their current role. They then do a mental assessment of their current proficiency level in each of the fundamental skill areas. Once this is established they evaluate the ways and/or resources available to help them make progress. The time spent in this stage can be anywhere from one day to six months.

Individuals in the Awareness stage often experience feelings associated with fear of the unknown. While taking on a new role can certainly be exciting, if a clear road map of skill development for the role isn’t determined in short order, it can quickly become overwhelming.

Stage 2: Building Critical Mass

Individuals begin building critical mass in their role as they acquire knowledge and get the opportunity to advance their skills within the position. They advance quickest in this stage when they get both the opportunity to watch others apply the skills effectively and the opportunity to practice the skills while being watched by someone else. Eventually, confidence is built and individuals will start to apply the concepts learned by themselves. Their proficiency in all the skills involved in the role will often double time after time in this stage. Time spent in this stage ranges from three months to two years.

It’s common for individuals at this stage to struggle to acquire the skills as learning takes place. This causes them to doubt themselves and their ability to perform in the role. Often the harder a role is, the more likely a person will want to give up. Those who get past this hurdle begin gaining the knowledge and confidence required to progress.

Stage 3: Accelerated Performance

The role becomes easier for individuals to execute and they are able to fully execute the job responsibilities on their own at a high level. Because of this, their confidence continues to increase and the ability to add on or modify skills contributes to the streamlining of related daily tasks. Errors are much less frequent during this time. Often individuals are able to teach less-experienced teammates how to do the job by transferring the knowledge and experience they have gained. As great as this is, many people stop developing their skills at this stage. There’s a tendency for people at this stage to believe they’ve learned all they can and settle into false a sense of security. Time spent in this stage can last anywhere from 12 months to 10 years.

It’s common for individuals at this stage to have strong feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction in their development.

Stage 4: Sustained Excellence

The role is mastered. There is no lack of knowledge, as individuals at this stage have a well-rounded understanding and ability to execute at the highest level. This doesn’t mean they always perform all of the tasks required to do the job without error, but they sustain excellence by having the ability to self-correct when they make mistakes. Their sustained excellence can earn the individual the title of “industry expert.” It often can take 5 or 10 years to enter this stage, and sometimes it’s never achieved regardless of time.

It’s common for individuals at this stage to experience boredom, loss of focus, or even disinterest because the climb to sustained excellence seems over. Many individuals make the mistake of not continuing to expand their role beyond their daily job requirements.

The Fundamental Skills

At the foundation of each of the four stages, there is a need for a relentless focus on the fundamental skills required to progress in the role. Alan Stein Jr., author of Raise Your Game, knows this firsthand. He shared a story with me during an interview about a time he was a counselor at NBA legend Kobe Bryant’s basketball camp in the prime of his career. Stein was hungry for knowledge, so he approached Kobe at the end of practice to ask if he could watch his workout the next day. Kobe agreed and told him to be there at 4. Somewhat confused, Alan responded and said, “Kobe, we have practice with the kids tomorrow at 4.” Without hesitation, Kobe said, “4 a.m.”

Not wanting to be late, Stein arrived at the gym the next morning by 3:30 a.m. As he walked in the gym the lights were already on, the ball was bouncing, and Kobe was in a full sweat 30 minutes prior to his scheduled workout with his trainer. Throughout the workout, Kobe was meticulous about his movements and repeated them over and over again from slow motion to full speed. At the end of the practice, Stein thanked Bryant for the opportunity. He could not help but inquire about something, though. “Kobe,” he said, “if you don’t mind me asking, I’m a little confused. You’re the best player in the world and the entire session you and your coach worked on what most players would consider fundamentals in a very deliberate manner.” Bryant looked at Stein and without hesitation responded, “How do you think I got to be the best player in the world?” What many would consider “insignificant” Bryant saw as incomparable.

Now I know you are most likely not one of the best basketball players in the world. Let’s say you lead a sales team. You should know the fundamental skills salespeople must deliberately practice in order to perform at their peak level: things like taking control of an initial conversation, asking great questions, discovering customer pain, building a vision, or establishing rapport. Your sales team should then be using deliberate practice outside of selling time to work on and sharpen their skills in these areas in order to move through the Four Stages of Role Development. You should then be aligning your coaching to where each individual is in the four stages to help them develop.

Deliberate Practice

I previously mentioned deliberate practice multiple times on purpose. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, quotes psychology professor Anders Ericsson as saying that scientific studies show 10,000 hours are required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert—in anything. Unfortunately, Ericsson says Gladwell misinterpreted his research and that 10,000 hours of merely repeating the same activity over and over again is not sufficient to catapult someone to the top of their field.

Ericsson’s finding from over three decades of research, which he highlights in his book Peak, says that deliberate practice is the key to achieving high levels of performance. This is extremely important because contrary to common belief, your own biggest strides toward sustained excellence in the skills required to be an effective leader will not be correlated with simply the amount of time leading. Instead, you must know the fundamental skills required to be an effective leader and then practice them in a deliberate way in order to get better faster. No one can do this for you because the development of skills is a lot like physical fitness: it simply can’t be outsourced. Each person is ultimately responsible for the development of his or her own skills.

The same is true with any job, and the skills associated with performing at a high level.

Aligning Your Coaching to the Four Stages of Role Development

Michael Phelps’ coach, Bob Bowman, said in a now-famous quote, “When I first started coaching, I only had a hammer so everything looked like a nail. That is incredibly effective, but it will wear you out. You cannot be other people’s motivation. Now I understand, I still have a hammer, but I also have logic, I have a pat on the back, and I have empathy. So you want to add to your toolbox because it takes different tools to reach different people.”

Just like Bowman, you need a different set of tools and methods to coach individuals depending on where they are in the Four Stages of Role Development—Awareness, Building Critical Mass, Accelerated Performance, and Sustained Excellence.

Here are some ideas for how to align to where people are and coach them at each of the Four Stages of Role Development (Figure 10.2, Table 10.2):

FIGURE 10.2   Coaching to the Four Stages of Role Development

TABLE 10.2   Coaching to the Four Stages of Role Development

Coaching for Awareness

Team members who are in the Awareness stage require your help in discovering the skills they need to develop to even get started. It is best if you have clearly identified the specific skills required to perform the job so there are clear expectations. If left up to chance, there is a high likelihood a person without much experience will focus on the wrong things. As an example, a good golf coach working with a beginner is going to explain in the first lesson the importance of focusing on the most foundational elements of a golf swing like grip, posture, and alignment.

In our Building the Best workshops, participants create a Role Development Plan to ensure new team members are able to increase their awareness immediately. You can download an example at buildingthebestbook.com/tools.

Coaching While Building Critical Mass

Team members who find themselves building critical mass require hands-on development and interaction. It is your duty to teach and model the skills required; then be patient and provide encouragement. Create a safe environment for team members to get the opportunity to execute on their own even if that means they fail. This is a necessary part of the process because people who do not engage in failure struggle to learn and grow. This means you will have to challenge the voices inside their heads that are providing doubt and fear. Coach them up through encouraging words and moments of affirmation.

If you do not have the knowledge to teach or model a specific skill required to do the job, it is not game over. It’s vital that you are educated enough to know which direction you should guide this individual in to further the person’s development in this particular skill.

My own experience with this was one that presented a great learning opportunity. A member of my team was pursuing the skill of coding to be able to manage our website. I had no experience in coding and wasn’t a resource of knowledge to teach or model it. Instead, I ensured open time on his calendar and encouraged him to take online courses to develop his proficiency at the skill during working hours.

We live in a world that’s constantly evolving, and as people grow or roles morph and expand, people need to acquire new skills. If you foster a development mindset in your team members, they will be open to adding new skills to their toolbelt.

Coaching During Accelerated Performance

Delivering the answer to a question outright is quick and effective. However, it does nothing to encourage an individual’s development at the Accelerated Performance stage. You must reject your natural instinct to solve every problem and instead leverage questions to pull the answers out of your team members. During an interview Michael Bungay Stanier, the author of The Coaching Habit, explained this very well. He told me, “Managers should stay curious a little bit longer and rush to advice giving a little bit slower.” By taking this approach you are forcing team members out of their comfort zone and encouraging them to be more self-reflective.

Having productive coaching conversations with an individual can easily lead to the implementation of this practice. Using open-ended questions while focusing on useful outcomes free of judgment are the most effective.

Here are some examples:

   What can I do to help you?

   Can you tell me about that error?

   What do you think we should do to create the best result for everyone?

   Walk me through your thought process.

   What other approaches might you take next time?

Coaching in Sustained Excellence

In her book, Build an A-Team, author and speaker Whitney Johnson noted, “At the end of the day, boredom and laziness get disrupted by people who are more motivated and eager to surpass the competition.”

While achieving sustained excellence in a job and the skills associated with it is exciting, this is the hardest stage for a leader to coach. Individuals at this level are likely to begin taking their hard-earned skills for granted. Keep an eye out for new challenges, job promotions, or opportunities for them to teach others. Adding friction such as new tasks or having them solve a difficult problem will keep them interested. Most importantly, if they begin to lose excitement, remind them of the purpose behind their work and the reason the execution of their job matters so much to the team and beyond.

Challenging those who have sustained excellence can come in many forms. Here are a few examples:

   Have them teach less-experienced team members who are learning the skill.

   Encourage them to share their expertise in a public way: writing for industry magazines, starting a blog or podcast, or even educating others in the organization.

   Allow them to seek public speaking opportunities.

   Add new job responsibilities.

Everything we have covered around coaching up until this point has to do with ensuring that people are performing at the highest potential in their current job function or position. Before we move on to coaching beyond the role, I want you to think back to the story of Brad Stevens and his professional journey. If the first basketball coach he ever worked with had kept him in his current role or didn’t believe in his potential, Stevens might not have pursued more. The next “Brad Stevens” could be on your team—are you missing an opportunity to develop him or her?

Going Beyond the Role

As he looked down, the flashlight on his head illuminated his wristwatch, 5:20 a.m. He thought, “Is anyone going to come today? Will I do this on my own?” Sore from yesterday’s run, he stretched his legs long in front of him. One car, then a second and third pulled up. Looking again to his watch, he saw that only minutes had passed. There were soon 15 men standing in front of him clad in shorts and T-shirts ready to work out. He knew the scene well, having worked out with these men, in the same manner, dozens of times, but today he was blanketed by uncertainty.

With sweaty palms and a cracking voice, he addressed the group.

“Good Morning. I am Cadillac, a former football player, so it’s time to get your mind in the game. We are going to start with 50 high-knees, followed by 20 mountain climbers, 20 diamonds, 20 slow squats, 10 burpees, Jacob’s Ladder hill runs, Oklahoma wheelbarrow pushes, 40-yard dashes, and we will end with three 100-yard runs.”

It surprised him how fresh in his mind this routine was. Then again, he had been rehearsing his delivery in his mind for weeks. Just prior to beginning, Cadillac made one final announcement, “I have been working out with you for less than a month and this is my first time leading you. I am honored. Let’s go get it.” Inspired, the excited group of men let out a big, “huuhaa” and followed suit.

Cadillac wanted these men to push themselves beyond their own borders. He kept them focused and demonstrated the moves to those who were struggling. Offering words of encouragement, he challenged them to dig deeper and find that place of inner determination. As the final round subsided, the cohort of tired men formed the “Circle of Trust.” Cadillac thanked each of them for their participation. Just before parting ways, the entire group rose to their feet and gathered in a tight group. Putting their hands on the shoulders of the men next to them, Cadillac closed with a short prayer.

As the group broke, Dredd, who had invited Cadillac to be a part of the group a month earlier, approached him. Giving him a big sweaty hug, Dredd said, “You did an excellent job and I am proud of you. You made F3 proud today by influencing men to movement. You clearly remembered our motto ‘We don’t leave anyone behind, but we also aren’t going to leave you where we found you.’ Have a blessed day.”

What began as a Saturday morning activity between a small group of like-minded men has become an incredible example of individual development. Dave Redding, or Dredd, and Tim Whitmire, known as OBT, made the decision to leave an overcrowded workout group in 2011 and start F3. Several years later, over 18,000 men in 26 states have joined forces to do the same each week. F3 is named for Fitness, Fellowship, and Faith. Drawn in by the aspect of “fitness,” “fellowship” is the glue that keeps the participants coming back while “faith” encourages them to explore service. The mission of F3 is simple: “To plant, grow, and serve small workout groups for the invigoration of male community leadership.”

It costs nothing to join, and every workout is free of charge, open to all men, held outside regardless of the elements, and peer-led. Because it’s peer-led, each man who participates eventually leads his respective group through a workout. From the beginning, Redding and Whitmore knew this was critical because deep down inside every man has the desire to lead. Part of F3’s job is to scrape away the vines and weeds to reveal to men the leader they really are. Thus, they help create more leaders instead of just followers.

F3 doesn’t stop at helping people develop by leading workouts. It produces a weekly blog, F3 Nation, that is used to transfer knowledge around leadership to its members all across the country. The leadership principles members teach are woven into every event, race, or mud run they do together. On the surface, it’s easy to say F3 has done incredible things to keep men fit and healthy at a critical age in a man’s life, and that’s definitely true. But when you look at the most important thing the group does, it’s building, developing, and encouraging the best version of each man in all the biggest areas: life, faith, health, and family. While F3 is just for men, there is also a fast-growing group for women called FiA, which stands for Females in Action, that has the same passion for developing the best version of women in similar areas.

• • •

Groups like F3 and leaders like Dave Redding and Tim Whitmire are special because they exist to develop people beyond the job. Part of your role as a leader if you are going to build the best is to go to this level. One of the best ways to do this is by understanding your people on a deeper level.

Align to the Dreams and Goals of Your People

Think back to the example of Jason Lippert and his company LCI earlier in the book. When they began to make progress on their high turnover rate by moving it from 115 percent to 35 percent in a three-year period, they didn’t settle. Instead, they continued searching for ways to get better. One of the leadership coaches introduced an idea from the book Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly. The idea was simple: the key to motivation for employees was not necessarily the promise of a bigger paycheck or a title, but rather the fulfillment of a personal dream.

This struck a chord with Lippert. He knew if he wanted to have a meaningful impact on his people, it would require knowing what they ultimately wanted to achieve beyond their immediate role. As it turned out, many of the employees at LCI did not have a dream on their radar. Working paycheck to paycheck, they were making between $12 and $18 per hour and did not have the time or money to proactively think about a personal goal or dream. Lippert and the team had other ideas. They hired people to a new position called personal development coaches. Their job was not only to help team members flesh out their personal dreams and goals but to act as an accountability partner in helping to make them a reality.

In less than two years, the personal coaching program is now a companywide initiative called Dream Achievers™. Its mission is to educate, equip, and empower LCI employees to live more intentional and engaged lives through personal coaching and connection, to help transform business and society. The program has hired additional personal development coaches to hold one-on-one and group coaching sessions that seek to build productive mindsets in team members as they work toward accomplishing their goals and dreams in life.

By the first quarter of 2019, the program had reached over 1,000 LCI team members, resulting in over 300 large-scale dreams being achieved and a 92 percent retention rate. Dreams achieved included things like weight loss, debt reduction, improved marriages, and enhanced emotional well-being.

Since you probably do not have a program similar to this in your organization or personal development coaches to help you uncover the dreams of your team, it’s critical you grasp how important it is to understand and cultivate goals, dreams, and aspirations. While it may seem a little odd to coach your people beyond the role they are in, ask yourself this question: “How are you going to contribute to their long-term success and well-being if you don’t know what each person ultimately wants to do, become, or achieve?” The truth is, you cannot. It’s more likely you will end up using their hard work and effort in their current role to help you achieve your professional dreams instead of theirs.

Leaders who build the best coach their people beyond their role by doing these three things:

Uncover Goals, Dreams, and Aspirations

If asking your team about their dreams isn’t something you’ve done before, you may find it difficult to broach the subject. And if people aren’t expecting it, they may be scared to voice their true desires.

In situations like this, I always go back to legendary football coach Lou Holtz. The year was 1966, and Holtz was hired by Marvin Bass to come coach at the University of South Carolina. He and his wife spent every dollar they had on the down payment for a new home to quickly get settled in Columbia in preparation for the birth of their third child. A month after he started, Coach Bass resigned to take a job in professional football, leaving Coach Holtz unemployed. Holtz’s wife had always been a great encourager of him, so to lift his spirits and get him back on track she bought him a copy of The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz. The book explained clearly, “The reason people don’t get up and go do things each day is because they don’t have clear goals. And to be accurate in goal setting you have to take a piece of paper and a pencil and write down all the goals you wish to achieve.”

As legend has it, Coach Holtz started writing down his goals and dreams; before long he had come up with 107 clear and defined goals. When his wife got home one evening, he shared his goals list with great anticipation and excitement. As she finished reading the list, she looked up and said, “Honey, this is great but I don’t see ‘get a job’ on the list.” So instead of 107, it became 108. To date, coach Holtz and his wife have completed 102 of the 108 goals on the list.

Now, I share this story not just because it made a big impression on me but because it’s an awesome story to share with your team. Sharing a real story like this increases the odds team members will open themselves up to writing down their own goals, dreams, and aspirations. In our Building the Best workshops we have leaders complete an exercise in which they write down their goals or dreams within the context of five categories: body/soul, family, career, finances, and excitement.

It is important to note that this exercise isn’t about checking the box. Instead, it must come from a place of authenticity and getting people to think and communicate specific things they want to do or achieve. You can download the exercise worksheet at buildingthebestbook.com/tools.

You can use something as specific as this or, if you are comfortable enough, you can simply schedule a one-on-one meeting with each person on the team and ask them questions such as these:

   Is there someone whom you admired or aspired to be like because of the work they did or the person they were outside of work?

   If you surpassed this person, how would that make you feel?

   What kind of things would be happening in your life if you did?

   Are there any challenges going on in your life outside of work you want to solve or improve?

   What is a trip you haven’t been on that you would like to make happen?

   Is there a role or job inside of the business you aspire to reach or grow into?

Refine and Get Specific

Pilots do not track their flight course directly from point A to point B. They aim for something north of their destination in order to land where they intend. This is the perfect way to think about your role in refining and getting specific with your people’s goals and dreams. You must ask people to aim higher and be specific about what they aspire to achieve. I have found that size is relative based on whom you are talking to when it comes to goals or dreams. But what isn’t relative and is of utmost importance is getting specific about what those goals or dreams are.

The first round of writing down or verbalizing a person’s goals tends to be rather vague. Typically I see things like, “Go on a diet,” “Help others,” or “Make more money.” While these aren’t bad aspirations, they are far from specific and clearly achievable. Part of your job in coaching people is to challenge them to make the goal or goals achievable. The only way to do this is to ensure that when the goal is written down, you can clearly answer whether it has been or could be achieved with a yes or no. The revised list would be, “Lose 20 pounds by December,” “Coach a Special Olympics basketball team,” “Make $100,000 next year.”

Encourage and Help

Encouragement is rocket fuel for confidence, and confidence fuels perseverance during adverse times. Achieving any goal or dream requires changes in behavior and sticking with those changes when it gets hard to continue. Part of your responsibility is to be an encouraging voice in people’s head by leveraging words like:

   “You will,” “You can,” and “You have the talent to . . .”

   “Don’t quit, you are on the cusp of making it.”

   “Now is your time. Don’t stop.”

   “You are going to do great things, keep it up.”

While these might sound corny, they are important words to hear from another human being. But words by themselves won’t get people where they want to go. They also might require your help and assistance depending on the dream. Remember, you didn’t get to where you are today without the help of others, and you could be that person for the people you lead.

Coaching people beyond their role isn’t easy, and it often doesn’t show immediate results. Which means most people will ignore this part because they believe it’s less important than other things they do. Instead of taking this mindset, embrace the challenge of understanding your team members’ goals, dreams, and aspirations and relish the opportunity to help make them happen. Channel your inner F3 mentality and build the best.