13. Greater Goal Coaching

Alex’s assistant overheard the whole exchange with Dr. Stan and stepped back into Alex’s office to comment, “Isn’t that great? I do wish your dad was here to see that. By the way, Quinn is here to see you.”

As Alex waited for Quinn to come in, he looked around his office. Posted on all four walls were enlarged pictures of the whiteboards from the warehouse sessions with the goals and initiative descriptions. Almost metaphorically they covered up many pieces of Alex’s past accomplishments. He smiled to himself as he realized how much he appreciated the current office “artwork.” Quinn joined him in his office and also noticed the new décor. “What do you think of what’s happened, Alex?”

“Amazing,” Alex answered. “I just had Dr. Stan in here giving me some great stories. Just amazing—I never knew there were so many great ideas and such great energy for our Greater Goal. I guess when you constantly just tell people what to do, you never really tap into the greatness that lies within them.” His voice betrayed some sadness.

Quinn asked, “What’s wrong, Alex?”

Alex answered thoughtfully, his voice almost fearful. “Old habits die hard, Quinn. I’m afraid the ‘old me’ is going to mess this up. I am not so sure of how to run the organization. What happens next?”

Quinn moved closer to Alex and looked at him with his eyes focused and resolute. “Alex, you were created with extraordinary gifts to do extraordinary things. Your father saw this.” At the mention of his father, a lump rose in Alex’s throat. “And I see this.”

“I hope I can become the leader my father wanted me to be,” Alex responded quietly.

“Remember when we said the key is that it’s not about you?” Quinn asked. “Well, being a great leader means bringing out greatness in others, helping them develop their talents into strengths and success. With shared goals you are ensuring that everyone in the company is aligned and working together. But high-purpose–high-performance companies put in place a flywheel of achievement that combines alignment with breakthrough. Your people identified the Greater Goal and shared goals and then they designed initiatives they can commit to. Now help them accomplish those goals by sponsoring well-crafted initiatives. These initiatives link people across functions to reach the goals.”

Quinn wrote on Alex’s whiteboard.

“I call this approach ‘initiative-based development.’ Project success and people development are achieved with a special kind of coaching capability. I called it ‘Greater Goal Coaching.’ Like a demonstration?”

“I am completely intrigued, Quinn.”

Quinn smiled. “Great! I have some questions that could help you think through how you can make a great contribution to the company. And these are the kinds of questions that you can use to help others achieve their goals.”

“Carry on!” replied Alex.

“To implement the shared goals that were created, what high-impact breakthroughs would radically advance Beckley toward its shared goals?”

The power of that question was the first thing Alex felt. Man, Quinn can really frame a question. I could learn from that, Alex thought. He offered a number of ideas while Quinn recorded them on the whiteboard.

“What else? What other ideas do you have?” asked Quinn. Alex added to the list. “Give me a few more, Alex,” Quinn said, and then he asked, “What’s another idea?” after Alex offered more.

At first, Alex thought Quinn was looking for a certain answer that he wanted Alex to come up with on his own. After a few more minutes, Alex realized that Quinn’s prompts allowed Alex to fully investigate his own thinking. The variety of ideas that emerged was surprising. After about ten minutes, Alex pretended to wave a white flag and said with a smile, “Okay, Quinn, that’s all I’ve got!”

Over the next hour, Quinn asked more compelling questions that engaged and motivated Alex’s very best thinking, such as

• What bridges can you build to others to get their help in advancing the Greater Goal?

• What are the most persistent barriers that stand in the way?

• What actions would bust through these barriers and help you move toward success?

• What are the collective strengths of the individuals on your team?

• How will you deploy the strengths of your team members toward specific opportunities?

• What relationships, knowledge capital, experiences, goodwill, and other hard and soft assets could you use to create the breakthroughs better and faster?

• How will you gauge progress and continually improve along the way?

With each question, Quinn probed to get Alex’s best ideas. Only when Alex stated he was out of ideas would Quinn ask, “May I offer a thought on this?” This was motivating to Alex on a few fronts: he saw that he was able to access Quinn’s experience, and he was able to access his own good ideas first. And it felt good to know that the quality of his own ideas was strong enough that Quinn did not often have much to add.

Alex thought another question was on the way, but Quinn finally stopped.

“Wow, that was really powerful, Quinn. I can’t believe what just happened.”

“Say more,” Quinn prompted.

“I feel like we just accomplished more in one hour in terms of quality of thinking than I have accomplished in weeks of work at Beckley.”

Quinn smiled the smile of a teacher whose pupil had just discovered how to apply a theory. He then asked, “What did you notice, Alex, specifically about my role during our conversation?”

“Funny you should ask that—because it just struck me that you often go into a teaching mode when we are together. But this time you did not do that. Instead, you asked a lot of framing questions and I did most of the talking.”

The smile of the teacher broadened.

“And you did offer some very relevant points, Quinn, and even asked my permission to do so.”

“What do you think would have happened if I had offered my ideas first?” asked Quinn.

“I think I would have respected you as a great teacher and would have just gone with your thoughts.” Alex smiled as the lightbulb fully came on. “And I never would have had to do the hard work of thinking for myself. The old me would have stopped after my first few thoughts, but those would not have had the deep impact of the answers that eventually showed up.”

Quinn could no longer hide his teeth behind his grin. “There is greatness within you.”

Alex nodded. “So now I guess you’ll say my job is to go and help surface that greatness in others around me by being their thinking partner—as you just were to me.”

“That is a great way to describe what we just practiced. This approach is critical for Greater Goal Coaching. It’s different from other kinds of business or developmental coaching. This method aims to help others achieve the shared goals as guided by the Greater Goal and cascade the practice throughout the company.” With that, Quinn drew the now-familiar Star Model on Alex’s whiteboard.

“The third practice is about helping all leaders, at every level of the company, coach their teams to achieve crucial shared goals. In my research on high-purpose–high-performance organizations, I noticed that the leaders were practicing something uniquely effective. They were doing something I could only describe as ‘Greater Goal Coaching.’

“Here is what I saw these coaches doing—you’ve just experienced some of it. They coached their teams to target high-impact breakthroughs to radically advance toward the Greater Goal. Then these leaders coached their teams to engage with cross-functional partners to create success. They were coaching bridge building. These leaders inventoried the collective strengths of their teams and called on each and every person to help create breakthroughs. They also inventoried their teams’ relationships, knowledge capital, experiences, and goodwill—hard and soft assets they could build upon to create breakthroughs better and faster. This was coaching by building on strengths and assets. Leaders coached their teams to seek out, analyze, and destroy the barriers that stood in the way of breakthroughs. These included all sorts of ideas and ways of working that actually worked against the Greater Goal: culture, methods, tools, training, teamwork, creativity, and even styles of leadership. They were coaching barrier busting.

“Finally, leaders coached their teams to conduct effective after-action reviews. They reflected on their success in creating breakthroughs to learn from what worked and what did not. They created learning experiences and then coached their teams to improve their approaches based on that learning. And they challenged the underlying theories that did not work and adopted new assumptions as needed. They were building learning teams.

“Greater Goal Coaching is the key to the implementation of shared goals. As I said, a Greater Goal Coach is doing a different sort of coaching.” Quinn checked his watch and motioned toward the door. “Do you have a moment to roll down to Kevin’s office?”

Kevin was expecting them. His desk was clean except for a pair of very old football shoes and a clump of metal lying next to them. “Looks like a pair of football cleats,” said Alex.

Quinn asked Alex, “Do you know the Greek word paraclete?”

“Quinn, you are terrible!” Kevin chuckled, mentally chalking up a win for Quinn in their friendly “worst comedy” competition.

“I’ll admit, pretty bad,” Quinn replied. “But hear me out. Paraclete, in Greek, means ‘advocate’ or ‘helper’—one who comes alongside another in accomplishing a task or goal. A paraclete acts as a guide and resource in the business sense, a ‘thinking partner,’ as you said, Alex.

“Greater Goal Coaching is not telling or teaching. It’s about drawing ideas and answers out of those who have them but just need a guide or a thinking partner to help them.

“May I share another pocket card with you, Alex?”

“Of course, Quinn. I would be disappointed if you were not prepared for the moment!”

“Kevin,” Alex ventured, pointing at the cleats, “mind if I hang on to these for a while?”

“Keep them, Alex. I wore those in college before I was with the pros. Let the cleats be a reminder of Greater Goal Coaching and a reminder of how difficult getting traction for change can be.”