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THE MASTERFUL COACHING FIELDBOOK Grow Your Business, Multiply Your Profits, Win the Talent War! Second Edition
Robert Hargrove
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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THE MASTERFUL COACHING FIELDBOOK Grow Your Business, Multiply Your Profits, Win the Talent War! Second Edition
Robert Hargrove
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Copyright © 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Published by Pfeiffer A Wiley Imprint 989 Market Street San Francisco, CA 94103-1741
www.pfeiffer.com
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read. Pfeiffer books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317-572-4002. Pfeiffer also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. ISBN: 978-0-7879-8602-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hargrove, Robert A. The masterful coaching fieldbook : grow your business, multiply your profits, win the talent war! / Robert Hargrove. — 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-7879-8602-5 (pbk.) 1. Teams in the workplace. 2. Industrial efficiency. 3. Employee motivation. 4. Employees—Training of. 5. Group relations training. I. Title. HD66.H372 2007 658.3’124—dc22 2006033434 Printed in the United States of America SECOND EDITION
PB Printing
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CONTENTS Figures and Exhibits
vii
Preface
ix
Introduction: Grow Your Business Exponentially, Multiply Your Profit, Win the Talent War
xv
PA R T I : M A S T E R F U L C O A C H I N G — T H E M E T H O D : WAY S O F B E I N G , M I N D - S E T, A N D S K I L L S E T 1.
THE CEO AS COACH Coaching Is Job #1 in the Age of Talent
2.
MASTERFUL COACHING The Power to Make the Impossible Happen
3.
MASTERFUL COACHING IS ABOUT HOW YOU ARE BEING, NOT JUST A MATTER OF TECHNIQUE
39
COACHING IS A SPECIAL KIND OF CONVERSATION, NOT A SPECIAL EVENT ON THE CORPORATE CALENDAR
63
4. 5.
THE MASTERFUL COACHING METHOD A Five-Step Coaching Model
3 21
95
PA R T I I : Y O U R M A S T E R F U L C O A C H I N A B O O K : H O W TO REALIZE AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE AND WIN IN YOUR BUSINESS 6.
MASTERFUL COACHES INSTILL A WINNER’S MIND-SET
129
7.
COACHING EXECUTIVES TO CREATE AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE
153
8.
COACHING THE TEAM STRATEGY SESSION Building a Winning Game Plan
183
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9. 10.
EXECUTE WITH ACTION COACHING Leadership and Business Breakthroughs
205
CODA Coaching in Business as the Ultimate Self-Development and Growth Experience
221
PA R T I I I : C R O S S I N G T H E C H A S M : I N T E R V I E W S WITH LEADERS DOING COACHING
vi
11.
MIKE ESKEW, THE VISIONARY UPS CHAIRMAN What Can Brown Do for You?
12.
HERB KELLEHER, EMMA SCHERER, AND TERESA LARABA OF SOUTHWEST AIRLINES Sourcing a Powerful TPOV and an Extraordinary Leadership Culture
241
247
13.
DAVID BINKLEY OF WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION The Most Leading Edge Corporate Coaching Program in the United States
255
14.
JEFF KAUFMAN OF ALLSTATE A Coaching and Mentoring Tale
261
15.
JAY ABRAHAM Marketing Genius and Money Maximizer
267
16.
HUBERT SAINT-ONGE OF THE MUTUAL GROUP, CANADA Dragon Slayer of Human Resource Myths
275
17.
J. MAYS OF FORD MOTOR COMPANY Coaching Design and Innovation
283
18.
ART WILSON OF CRITICAL PATH STRATEGIES Coaching Big, Complex, Team-Based Sales Across Boundaries
291
Notes
303
Index
311
The Author
321
Contents
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FIGURES AND EXHIBITS FIGURES Preface Enrollment Card I.1 The Pull Versus the Push Approach in Leadership Development 3.1 The Four Interlocking Roles of a Masterful Coach 3.2 The Ladder of Inference 4.1 The Process of Drawing People Out 4.2 The Cycle of Reframing 4.3 Action Language Makes Things Happen 5.1 Translating Experiences into Teachable Points of View 5.2 Triple-Loop Learning 7.1 The Leadership Triangle: Coach Leaders in Three Areas 8.1 Left-Hand-Column Exercise 10.1 Leaders, Difference Makers, and High Achievers Love Living in the Gap 15.1 The Diving Board Method for Growing a Business 15.2 The Parthenon Method for Growing a Business
xiii xxi 52 60 82 85 88 102 122 162 190 225 272 272
EXHIBITS 4.1 Conversational Cues for When to Change Caps 9.1 E-Mail Conversation Between a Leader as Coach and a Coachee
93 217
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P R E FA C E
“
I aim to bring about a leadership revolution and change the world through masterful coaching.
I have been coaching top executives for a decade. In this book I am going to share my secrets of masterful coaching with leaders at all levels. When I wrote Masterful Coaching in 1995, I said
that I wanted to map the territory of coaching. I declared that coaching was about expanding people’s capacity to realize an impossible future and win in the great game of business. I articulated the notion that the fastest, most powerful way to develop extraordinary leaders is to coach them to produce extraordinary and tangible results. At the same time, what makes the journey to masterful coaching so fascinating and intriguing is that coaching people in business is the perfect alchemical cauldron where people can have the ultimate self-development and growth experience. In many ways I have been successful, but I am still working on getting people to see coaching from this perspective, rather than as everything but the kitchen sink.
“
Coaching is about passion for life, impossible futures, standing in people’s greatness, talent quests, great groups, transformational journeys, cool projects, and winning results.
Since I wrote Masterful Coaching a decade ago, coaching has crossed the chasm; it has gone from being a new, good idea that a small cadre of leading CEOs and companies were experimenting with to a game-changing idea whose time has finally come, one that is ready to go mainstream. It is already transforming the definition of what it is to be a business leader at a time when most managers have a talent war raging right outside their window and the great game of business is fraught with change, complexity, and competition. It is already displacing the role of both training and consulting in many organizations because it focuses on implementation and winning results.
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I see my job as being not just a leader, coach, and mentor but also a change insurgent. I have spent a decade coaching executives to realize an impossible future and win in their businesses. In this book I want to share my secrets of masterful coaching with leaders at all levels. I have discovered that even though companies value executive coaches from the outside, they want to be able to bring coaching deep inside their organizations. They want to develop leaders and managers who are masterful coaches in their own right and human resource departments that are coaching centers of excellence and that have coaches skilled both in working with executives and in leading people and groups to an experience of their own greatness. This book is designed not just for CEOs but for leaders at all levels who aspire to become masterful coaches, whether in Fortune 500–type firms or emerging businesses and whether living in the United States, Europe, China, India, Brazil, Korea, Russia, or wherever. I want to invite you to engage in the journey to masterful coaching, and at the same time to give you not just the roadmap but also all the gear you will need to be successful. I have taken the best of the best of the masterful coaching approach and put it in this book. All these ideas and practices have been field-tested, proven, and made foolproof. I particularly want to extend a warm, welcoming invitation to you who are human resource professionals who want to gain the inspiration, empowerment, coaching skills, and capabilities to make the difference you have always wanted to make.This starts with defining the role of human resources (HR) in a new way: HR (Talent) Strategy = Business Strategy, and HR Professional = Business Partner, Coach, and Mentor. In this book you will be introduced to world-class colleagues in your own profession who not only have created powerful partnerships with their CEOs but also have designed top-notch coaching and mentoring programs, becoming masterful coaches in their own right. I dare you to try to read it from cover to cover! This book is just what its title says, a fieldbook. It is chock-full of everything you need to know to become a masterful coach, realize an impossible future, and win in your business. I suggest you first get grounded in the masterful coaching mindset and methods; then use the book as a handy reference guide. The Introduction and Part One are very important because they will give you the mind-set, guiding ideas, tools, and methods you will need. Part Two teaches you to realize an impossible future and win in your business, and Part Three gives you examples of how people have brought coaching into their organizations. “OK,” you might think,“there is only so much I can learn about masterful coaching from a book. What else do you have?” My colleagues and I have spent the last decade doing executive coaching,
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CollabLabs, and team-based action coaching with hundreds of leaders at all levels. Now we have taken a new turn and are creating joint ventures with corporations and consulting firms, where we transfer our technology and help people build their own internal coaching capacity. It’s a great business opportunity for big consulting firms who want to establish a lasting relationship with the CEO and a wonderful opportunity for human resource and development departments who want to create an executive coaching center or certify rank-and-file managers as masterful coaches. Here is what we are offering: 1. Masterful Coaching Certification in Executive Coaching: articulating an impossible future; reinventing yourself and your organization 2. Masterful Coaching Certification in the Team Strategy Session: creating a winning game plan 3. Masterful Coaching Certification for Line Managers: a one-year program to be used in real time with direct reports 4. MyGamePlan: the masterful coaching online coaching system used in conjunction with the masterful coaching certification program
“
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game. Goethe
I aim to lead a leadership revolution and change the world. . . . I believe in the notion of creating a cause, not just a business. I want to lead a leadership revolution—command and control is obsolete; coaching and mentoring are in as we all move from the age of the machine to the age of talent.Yes, a lot of people are talking about coaching, but the topics in that conversation are left over from the days of abstract leadership training programs focused on homogenized lists of competencies and behaviors and fixing broken people. I am here to start a new conversation about coaching and map the territory (as I said in Masterful Coaching in 1995), and from what I can see, I still have a long way to go. The reason? Even though the idea of coaching has caught on, mind-sets are slow to change.
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If you believe that the leader as coach is an idea whose time has come and if you believe in the masterful coaching approach, please fill out the card at the end of this Preface. I have been talking about a leadership revolution and the masterful coaching mind-set and method for a decade, using the Technicolor language approach, making powerful distinctions to set this approach apart from 95 percent of the coaching programs that are out there today. For me, coaching is about passion for life, the CEO as coach not organization man, impossible futures, winning results, talent quests, cool projects, and transformational journeys. It is the ultimate self-development and growth experience. I have clearly taken a stand, but it dawned on me in writing this book that what is missing that could make a difference is a means for others to give me feedback: Do people really buy into the approach here? Do people want to join with me in this stand? I aim to get a critical mass of people to sign up for this cause—75,000 business leaders. Are you ready to take a stand to lead a leadership revolution in your organization? Do you personally want to enter the journey to masterful coaching, putting into practice the idea that coaching is about realizing an impossible future and winning in your business and not about analyzing leadership gaps? Do you want to set up a powerful leadership pipeline in your company based on the masterful coaching approach—vision based, business connected, and results oriented rather than the wornout, burnt-out, psychological, mechanistic, behavioral-based approach that we often see today? If your answer to these questions is yes, then I would like to ask you to take a stand simply by signing the following enrollment card. When you take a stand you are saying that this is an idea you believe in and a cause worth signing up for. It does not commit you to take any courses, and it does not require you to be certified in masterful coaching or any other program. I know that if you have a passionate commitment to becoming a masterful coach and taking on the masterful coaching mind-set, you will either come to my group or find the right coaching methods or certification programs elsewhere. If you allow yourself to be misled by false prophets or have a wrongheaded mind-set, your ideals will be dashed, your effectiveness diminished. I would like to say thank you for picking up this book, and for entering the journey to masterful coaching. I look at this book as a conversation, not something written in stone. Let’s keep the conversation going. Share with me about your coaching experiences or what you have done to bring coaching into your organization, or ask any questions or make any comments. You can contact me directly at
[email protected] or call me at 617-739-3300.
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LEADERSHIP REVOLUTION AND MASTERFUL COACHING ENROLLMENT CARD I take a stand to be a change insurgent and to bring about a leadership revolution in my company. Starting in my area, I take a stand for the masterful coaching approach. 1.
I believe in the idea of the leader as coach and that coaching is about impossible futures and winning in your business, not merely filling leadership gaps.
2.
I believe that coaching people to produce extraordinary business results can transform them into extraordinary leaders, giving them access to an ultimate self-development and growth experience.
3.
I commit to begin the journey to masterful coaching and to stand for the success of the individuals on my team—whatever happens.
4.
I commit that my coaching will be vision based, business connected, and results oriented, not behavior based and not about fixing people.
5.
I am committed to having my coaching be transformational—altering who people are being rather than just getting them to fit the homogenized, corporate competencies list.
6.
I commit to designing coaching and mentoring programs that are focused on real goals and real situations and conducted in real time, not done just as separate activities in a classroom.
Name
Date
Mail your signed card to Robert Hargrove, 1732 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02445, USA
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INTRODUCTION Grow Your Business Exponentially, Multiply Your Profit, Win the Talent War This book is about you! This book is for leaders at all levels. Perhaps you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company that wants to be a truly global organization, or perhaps you are the leader of an emerging $50 million business who has a passion for growth but has somehow hit a wall. Or perhaps you are a research and development chief, director of marketing, or team leader who has to achieve an extraordinary result or meet an impossible deadline.The Masterful Coaching Fieldbook is designed to help you become the kind of leader who can realize an impossible future and produce winning results. It will provide you with the guiding ideas, tools, and methods to grow your business exponentially, multiply your profits, and win the talent war. THE BUSINESS CONTEXT IS WILDLY ALTERED AND SO ARE THE RULES OF THE GAME Are you up for realizing an impossible future and winning in your business? Before we get started let us not forget that today’s business context is wildly altered. Globalization, rapid innovation, and the ability of three billion new capitalists to collaborate and compete have altered the rules of the business game. Consider these changes in our thinking: the shift from “CEO as organization man” to “CEO as coach and teacher”; from “big dogs own the street” to “small emerging businesses in emerging markets will rock your world”; from “being No. 1 or No. 2 in your market” to “creating something new, and cool and owning your market niche”; from “shareholders rule” to “the customer is king”; from “be lean and mean” to “collaborate and create”; and from “hire MBAs” to “hire passionate people.”
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MY INTENTION IS TO MAP THE TERRITORY OF COACHING FOR LEADERS, MANAGERS, AND CONSULTANTS
“
Masterful coaching is about passion for life, transformational leadership, impossible futures, winning results, talent quests, cool projects, extraordinary results, and the ultimate self-development and growth experience, not homogenized leadership competencies, behavioral modification, and attitude tweaks.
Excuse me while I rant. I wrote Masterful Coaching in 1995 with the sincere and honest intention to map the territory of coaching. Coaching is as distinct from training as training is from consulting. So what is masterful coaching about? A passion for life, transformational leadership, impossible futures, winning in your business, talent quests, great groups, cool projects, daring adventures, the pursuit of excellence, breakthrough results, and the ultimate self-development and growth experience. I have a beef with those people in the coaching world who are into filling leadership gaps based on homogenized corporate competency lists, along with behavioral modification and attitude tweaks. Some would tell you that this accomplishes the same objectives that I am aiming for, but I do not believe that is so. The difference is the same difference you see between the typewriter and the PC, the iPod and the Walkman, the electric oven and the microwave. They may do some of the same things, but what we are talking about here is state-of-the-art technology versus something that should be in the Smithsonian.
“
Today coaching is hot; as many as 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies make use of executive coaches or coaching in some way.
Today leaders more often than not go to one of the big five consulting firms or big five search firms when they have a business problem to solve or a talent to find. Further, the people who run these companies have a set of standard industry principles and practices they follow. The field of leadership coaching, however, has no standard industry principles or practices. As a friend, Grace Cheng, president of Russell Reynolds, China, told me,“With coaching there are thousands
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of firms, and you don’t know who is a reliable source, or even what it is you are getting.” There are self-appointed certifying bodies, like Coaching College, International Coach Federation, Coaches Training Institute, and so on, but who is certifying the certifiers? The sad fact of life is that coaching is a blinking word that means entirely different things to different people. WHAT IS A MASTERFUL COACH? Let’s take a look at what I mean by mastery and also what I mean by coaching. A master is someone who has found out how to enlighten people—Buddha, Muhammad, the Ba‘al Shem Tov. A master is someone who has found out not just how to deliver a virtuoso musical performance or paint within a certain tradition but also how to do it in a way that elevates the human spirit and creates a new tradition—Beethoven, Michelangelo, Picasso. A master is also someone who has found out how to dominate the competition and win—Lord Admiral Nelson (“mastery of the seas”), Vince Lombardi, Red Auerbach. If leadership in business is an art, then names like Alfred P. Sloan, Jack Welch, and Steven Jobs come to mind. These men pursued mastery not mediocrity in terms of developing talent, designing their organizations, and creating insanely great products. They not only played the management game within an established tradition but also changed the game and became legends.
“
A business guru is a wise man or woman who listens carefully, has a powerful and profound teachable point of view, and can say the one thing that can make a difference.
A masterful coach is someone who has found out how to realize an impossible future and win at the great game of business. Now that we have defined the term mastery, let’s acknowledge that mastery always takes place in a given context or game—business, the performing arts, sports. As far as the context of this book is concerned, we are talking about masterful coaching as it pertains to realizing an impossible future and winning at the great game of business.We need to take into account that this involves the pursuit of mastery in a whole lot of things—talent quests, dream making and motivating, business concept innovation, creating great groups, creative collaboration, wow projects, fast prototypes, driving for results, and never settling for less than excellence. The pursuit of mastery also involves recognizing that winning at the great game of business is not just about great products and great service; it is an opportunity “to lead people to the experience of their own greatness.”1
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“
Great coaches lead people to the experience of their own greatness. Warren Bennis
Masterful coaching’s flip side is recognizing talent and providing people with the ultimate self-development and growth experience. On one side of the coin a masterful coach (and leader) is someone whose entire orientation is to realize a mission impossible and win at the great game of business.Yet if you flip the coin over you will discover that what masterful coaching is really about is making everyone a player in the great game of business so that the end result is not just a promotion or raise in pay but the ultimate self-development and growth experience. There is a whole way of being that goes along with reaching an impossible dream, building winning teams, designing soul into man-made products, creating exciting services, and driving projects to completion.Your job is to call it forth in people. There is a way of thinking and interacting with people that allows them to break through whatever walls they have been staring at, and your job is to help them discover and express that ability.
WHAT SEPARATES WINNERS FROM LOSERS? GREAT COACHING, GREAT MENTORING, GREAT TEACHING
“
We’ve done a tremendous amount of research and we have found that leaders who have the best coaching skills have the best business results. Tanya Clemens 2
What is it that separates winners from losers in the great game of business? For twenty years I have researched both winning companies and losing companies, looking for the answer to that question. As far as Fortune 500 companies are concerned the winners have one thing in common—they consistently rank in the top quartile of the S&P 500, maintaining annual revenue growth of 20 percent, and at least a 10 percent return on capital employed. Having said that, wins and gains achieved by
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buying market share and slashing the payroll, rather than by organic growth, cannot be sustained over the long haul. Companies that are on the Fortune 500 list today are often gone tomorrow. In contrast, why is it that companies like General Electric, PepsiCo, Intel, and Southwest Airlines consistently show up in Fortune’s list of the most admired corporations, not just for setting new records for financial performance but also for coming up with game-changing strategies, recruiting top talent, designing great products, and wowing customers. Added to that they seem to be able to sustain this success over the long haul. The X factor here? They are led by men and women who think and operate from the bone-deep belief that if you are a leader, you are a coach and teacher. Former and current CEOs like Jack Welch of General Electric, Roger Enrico of PepsiCo, and Jeff Fettig of Whirlpool, who have created inspired, highperforming organizations, have spent a gasp-worthy 30 to 60 percent of their time coaching and teaching. This is in contrast to most managers, who spend little or no time in coaching and teaching. Coaching is the exception, not the rule. Walk into a hotel conference room, as I have, to make a speech to 200 to 300 decision makers and talk about winning leaders. Say to people,“Put up your hand if you spend at least 30 to 60 percent of your time coaching and teaching.” At most you will see one or two hands go up, along with mutterings like “Impossible!”“Never!”Then say,“Put up your hand if you have had a great performance review from your boss that told you your strengths, weaknesses, and exactly where you stand in the organization.” Again, you will see one or two hands.
“
Question: “When was the last time you had a coaching session with your boss?” Answer: “Never!”
The prevailing mind-set around coaching is wrongheaded. What’s wrong with this picture? Why do so few business leaders, even those who would secretly like either to be the next Jack Welch or to drop out of the corporate picture altogether to become a coach and teacher, spend so little time being coaches and teachers on their day jobs? The answer has to do with the fact that the prevailing paradigm of coaching is frighteningly wrongheaded. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that everything you say reveals you. In speaking with executives over the past decade or so about leadership and coaching, I find that everything they have said has led me to the conclusion that their mental model of coaching is shrouded in wrongheadedness.
Introduction
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“
My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. Muhammad Yunus3
THE FIVE MYTHS OF COACHING Five myths of coaching are at the heart of the reasons why most leaders and managers miss out on the opportunity coaching provides to attract, excite, and develop talent in the service of realizing an impossible dream and winning in business. Let’s look at each one.
“
If somebody said to me, “Herb, I’d love to be a great leader and coach, but I don’t have the time to do it,” my response to them would be, “You don’t have time to do anything else until you accomplish that.” Herb Kelleher4
MYTH 1
COACHING IS NOT THE LEADER’S AND MANAGER’S NO. 1 JOB BUT SOMETHING DONE BY HUMAN RESOURCES AND CONSULTANTS
Leaders are called decision makers, but the long-range consequences of their decisions are often not obvious. One of the most insane decisions made in the history of bureaucracy was to put line managers in charge of performance and the lowly personnel manager in charge of development. The long-range result of that decision is that the vast majority of managers automatically delegate such activities as coaching and training to the human resource folks or to consultants. In recent years, however, a handful of CEOs have recognized the power produced when CEOs define their jobs in terms of maximizing both performance and development. Once CEOs take this responsibility, they can then get a powerful assist from human resources or consultants as needed. xx
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MYTH 2
COACHING IS AIMED AT FILLING LEADERSHIP GAPS, NOT AT AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE AND WINNING
Walt Disney, Warren Buffet, and Steve Jobs did not become some of the greatest leaders of this century and some of the richest men in the world because someone pointed out their leadership gaps. They became great leaders by leveraging their talents and gifts and because they had a dream that was burning a hole inside them.They kicked off their leadership journey by making declarations like “We aim to change the world.”The traditional approach starts with identifying and filling leadership gaps.The masterful coaching approach to leadership development is a pull approach, which starts with a goal or result people passionately care about, rather than a push approach, which starts with a list of behaviors (as illustrated in Figure I.1). People discover and call forth their leadership ability in the process of learning to love politics, build teams, mount projects, and clear hurdles. FIGURE I.1 The pull versus the push approach in leadership development
Needs Assessment
• Leadership, teams, coaching, etc. • Develop a generic model
People Declare the Future
People Declare Their Own Gaps
• Based on personal, collective aspirations • Goals/projects • Performance measures
• Are responsible for their own learning • Coach is resource • Human resource tools are resource
Human Resources Identifies Gaps
• 360 ° feedback • LDS attributes • Behavior • Competencies
Mandate Learning • Abstract training programs • Taught by human resources consultants • Enforced by carrots and sticks
Coach Ignites Learning
• Recognized leaders teach key attitudes/ skills • Performance and development integrated • Daily coaching conversations
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MYTH 3
COACHING IS NOT A GOAL-ORIENTED, RESULTSDRIVEN, REAL-TIME ACTIVITY BUT A SEPARATE ACTIVITY DONE IN ABSTRACT TRAINING PROGRAMS
From time immemorial leadership development has been a separate activity, far removed from the real world of producing business results. It has involved marching managers off to abstract training programs where they are introduced to the 100 percent pure, homogenized leadership competencies, are given their 360-degree feedback, do some exercises, and are asked how they are going to apply what they have learned. And therein lies the rub—knowing what does not equal knowing how. There is also a big disconnect between the leadership competencies and having to produce results in your business with your colleagues and amid change and complexity. When human resource managers and trainers decided it would be a neat idea to take off the trainer’s hat and put on the coach’s hat, they kept doing the same thing, except under a different label. What they often failed to recognize was that coaching is a real-time activity that takes place around real goals, real problems, and real situations.
MYTH 4
COACHING IS A SPECIAL EVENT IN THE CORPORATE CALENDAR (THE YEARLY PERFORMANCE REVIEW), RATHER THAN A SPECIAL KIND OF CONVERSATION
As a leadership and coaching guru I have heard thousands of times: “I have an impossible job and I basically don’t have the time to coach and teach.” I tell people, “We are living in an age of talent, where the team with the best talent and the highest performance wins. If you do not have time to coach because of your job, tell me, just what do you think your job is?” Think of coaching as your day job rather than something you do at the annual review, given all the carrots and sticks that force compliance. Coaching is a special conversation, not just a special event on the corporate calendar. Yet, at the same time, you have to calendarize coaching. Engage in monthly coaching conversations with each direct report and each person you mentor. No excuses!
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“ MYTH 5
Bill Gates, Steven Jobs, and Warren Buffet became great leaders because they had a dream burning a hole inside them, not because someone handed them a list of leadership competencies.
COACHING IS NOT FOR WINNERS BUT FOR LOSERS, A LAST-GASP EFFORT BEFORE THEY ARE SHOWN THE DOOR
In the 1950s the ideas of coaching and counseling got introduced into business, usually in a context like this:“Joe is a real problem. I should fire him, but since he has been kicking around here for fifteen years and, frankly, I hate being confrontational with people (makes me damn uncomfortable), let’s get him a coach as a kind of last effort before showing him the door.”You can also see that coaching in most organizations carries with it an onus of this type:“Wow, if the boss says I need coaching, I must really be screwed up.” It is amazing that this point of view exists in business, because in sports and the performing arts it is just the opposite. Olympic athletes, golfers like Tiger Woods, and great musicians seek great coaches and spend huge chunks of time with them. THE NEW, DYNAMIC MIND-SET AROUND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND COACHING
“
The new leadership draws on a completely different mind-set, the mark of which is inspiration, improvisation, and coaching people to take successful action.
Most leaders and managers have a wrongheaded mind-set around talent and coaching, left over from the days when people who worked in big factories were seen as interchangeable parts. On top of that their coaching and teaching skills and capabilities are pretty much undeveloped. That is the bad news. The good news is that I intend to provide you with a whole new, dynamic
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mind-set around coaching that is consistent with realizing an impossible future and winning in your business (and in your life). Once you have this mind-set, you will naturally begin to discover and express your own ability as a coach. At the same time this book will provide you with the needed skills and attitudes and also practice and reflection assignments.
The Masterful Coaching Mind-Set 1. Coaching is a leader’s and manager’s No. 1 job. 2. Coaching is about finding the best talent on earth. 3. Coaching is about creating an impossible future and winning. 4. Coaching is about developing leaders in the process of going for extraordinary results. 5. Coaching is for winners who seek an edge or advantage.
MASTERFUL COACHING IS THE RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM OF THE COACHING WORLD
“
It can be important to have adversaries: Boston Red Sox versus New York Yankees, Apple iPod versus Sony Walkman, Google versus Microsoft, Howard Stern and Sirius radio versus terrestrial radio.
I passionately believe in ideas like this: leaders develop in the process of taking a stand to make a difference and bringing about irrevocable change. Further, I can hardly believe that most people think about coaching in the boring, dull, mundane terms of leadership competencies and behavior modification. I consider myself the religious fundamentalist of the coaching world. One person I have a coaching relationship with, Andy Gfesser, whom I once castigated for squandering his energies on the “spiritual supermarket” of too many different leadership (coaching) programs, said to my assistant, “Tell Robert I am worshipping at the altar of masterful coaching as the one true coaching religion.”
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“
I can only wish for my adversaries to develop, for as they develop, so will I.
I don’t take myself that seriously, but I do have an adversaries list. I have to say my adversaries have inspired me to more clearly articulate my ideas about masterful coaching, as well as having empowered me, in a sense, to develop the masterful coaching method and tool chest, which will take my company to greater heights and perhaps eventually win the day. I can only wish for my adversaries to develop, for as they develop so will I.
My Adversaries List •
CEOs and leaders at any level who lead without passion
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Human resource development leaders who don’t get that coaching is about realizing impossible dreams
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Big consultants, like McKinsey, who give answers and don’t deliver results
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Organization development types who try to make talented people match homogenized competencies
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Trainers who teach leadership by way of abstract training programs
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Professional coaches who sell leadership attitudes, culture change, and so on, but forget results
THIS BOOK IS ABOUT YOU! All right, enough about me and my friends and adversaries. As I said earlier, this book is about you. Whether you are a CEO, business unit chief, or team leader, it is designed to give you the opportunity to transform yourself into a better leader and coach. Please answer the following questions to determine whether you as a leader are a good fit for the journey we are about to embark on together. After you read each question and discussion, rate yourself on a scale from
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1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest rating and 5 being the highest rating. One of the first questions to ask yourself is, “Am I ready to start coaching?” The answer to that question depends more on your spiritual development, level of maturity as a person, and emotional intelligence than on your title, rank, or subject matter expertise.
QUESTION 1
ARE YOU READY TO ENTER THE JOURNEY TO MASTERFUL COACHING?
Most people in leadership positions are not really leaders but power wielders—they don’t stand for anything except taking the next step up the corporate ladder. They are like the kid who puts his or her hand up in class in order to look good, get an A on the test, and go to the head of the class. They operate entirely from a me point of view (“my job,” “my promotion,” “my raise in pay”). They want to prove how bright they are, what a big job they can do, how bold they can be, and so on. Once you develop into a real leader, rather than a power wielder, what you stand for begins to shift. It stops being about you and it starts being about them, and you show up as being interested in making the people around you brighter, bigger, and bolder. Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5.
QUESTION 2
DO YOU HAVE THE BOUNDLESS POSITIVE ENERGY AND ENTHUSIASM NEEDED TO TAKE ON AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE?
To lead or coach a team to realize an impossible future and win you need to have boundless energy and enthusiasm. Leaders like Jeffrey Immelt of GE, Steve Jobs of Apple, and Edward Lampert of Sears Holdings are where they are today not just because they are smart or accomplished but due in large part to their sheer, raw physical and mental stamina. They have been able to take on towering goals, mind-boggling problems, pressure-packed decision making, back-to-back meetings, bone-wearying travel, and often a sixteen-hour workday, six to seven days a week. They are not only highly energized but also highly energizing to other people, filling the room with passion and energy wherever they go. Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5.
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QUESTION 3
ARE YOU READY TO AGGRESSIVELY PURSUE WINNING IN YOUR BUSINESS?
I have discovered that a lot of leaders and managers in Fortune 500 companies don’t care all that much whether or not their company wins or shows up as just another me-too competitor, pushed along by the momentum of the marketplace. Their main concern is delivering predictable results as promised, collecting their bonuses, and keeping their boss in his or her cage.You can talk to these people about becoming extraordinary leaders and coaches, but in truth it is like talking to someone who is just not there. I much prefer to talk about coaching to emerging business leaders, people who aggressively pursue winning rather than just avoid losing. The best candidates for coaching and becoming coaches themselves are the individuals who have a hunger, a thirst, a yearning. Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5.
QUESTION 4
HOW MANY LEADERS HAVE YOU DEVELOPED LATELY?
You cannot realize a business breakthrough without a corresponding leadership breakthrough. Who do you need to be as a leader, and what do you need to do to reach your impossible future? At the same time, reaching an impossible future requires that leaders develop other leaders. Jack Welch mastered this, creating a virtual CEO factory in the process. He not only coached General Electric’s business unit leaders to reach goals that were a combination of the possible and impossible but also personally mentored hundreds of high-potential leaders. Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5.
QUESTION 5
HAVE YOU CREATED A COACHING ENVIRONMENT?
It takes not only masterful coaching but also a coaching environment to produce extraordinary leaders and extraordinary results.To create a coaching environment a leader must both coach others and be willing to be coached. CEO Robert (Bob) Nardelli of Home Depot, for example, considers
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board meetings an opportunity to get some good coaching rather than just an opportunity to try to look good. Nardelli believes it is absolutely impossible for a human being to reach his or her potential without coaching. Ask yourself:“Am I personally a request for coaching?”“Do people in my team show up as a request for coaching?”“Is feedback around here generally seen as an opportunity and gift or as a reason to get defensive?” Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5. DO YOU WANT TO DEVELOP INTO AN EXTRAORDINARY LEADER AND MASTERFUL COACH FASTER? BUCKLE YOUR SEAT BELT AND LET’S GO! I decided to write specifically about winning at the great game of business so I could provide readers with specific rather than generic strategies for coaching in business. The masterful coaching approach is a powerful, concise, step-by-step, proven method for growing your business, multiplying your profits, and winning the talent war. This book will give you both the inspiration to be a masterful coach and the guiding ideas, tools, and methods you need to be wildly successful. Moreover, what is written here about the leader as coach in business has a wide variety of practical applications in other areas—government, the military, health care, education, and more. To make the connections, you need to read the book extrapolatively, asking yourself,“How does this apply to the world I live in?” I have had the opportunity to coach some fascinating and intriguing people in areas other than business. For example, John Young, assistant secretary of the Navy, and Rabbi Steward Klammer, a principal at the Maimonides School in Boston, not to mention highly talented doctors and PhD students from China, India, Brazil, and other places. The underlying principles for these areas are the same, even if the applications are different. Here are my five top to-dos.
Prescriptions: Top Five To-Dos 1. Study with a master. Find a masterful coach and ask him or her to work with you. There is no better way to become an extraordinary leader and masterful coach than to study with a master. 2. Read the book. Read it! Dog-ear it! Underline it. It will tell you everything you always wanted to know about becoming a masterful coach. Some people have told me they read one page and then spent the rest of the day thinking about it.
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3. Sign up for the masterful coaching (MC) workshop. Reading the Masterful Coaching Fieldbook sets the stage for participating in the MC workshop.The workshop is based on the principle of study a little, practice a little, and as a result learn a lot. 4. Sign some people up for coaching (learn by doing). Once you take the workshop you will be fully ready to start coaching people in your organization. Look around you for people who are requests for coaching, or for a coach-ready situation. 5. Start by using this simple, powerful coaching conversation model. (a) Ask:“Got a goal or problem? Let’s talk about it.” (b) Listen loudly and assess the situation. (c) Provide a teachable point of view (TPOV) about success. (d) Provide a template for action (things to do, things to watch out for). THE ORGANIZATION OF THIS BOOK As I mentioned earlier I intend to transfer my knowledge of coaching people to create an impossible future and win in their businesses, and I also intend to create the ultimate selfdevelopment and growth experience for people. There are three parts to this book.
PART ONE: I WILL TEACH YOU THE MASTERFUL COACHING MIND-SET AND METHOD—THE GUIDING IDEAS, TOOLS, AND METHODS •
Learn how masterful coaching can lead you to—creating an impossible future and winning in your business.
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Learn how extraordinary leaders develop in the process of going for extraordinary results.
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Learn why coaching in business is the ultimate self-development and growth experience.
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Learn why masterful coaching is a way of being, not just a technique.
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Learn why masterful coaches speak from a stand, not out of emotional reactions or moods.
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•
Learn the five-step masterful coaching method (learn to coach executives).
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Learn how to deliver 360 feedback to executives that is absolutely transformational.
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Learn the six-cap coaching conversation system.
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Learn about coaching tools: left-hand column and ladder of inference.
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Learn about triple-loop learning in coaching.
PART TWO: I WILL TEACH YOU HOW TO REALIZE AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE AND WIN IN YOUR BUSINESS WITH SPECIFIC, PRACTICAL, AND IMMEDIATELY APPLICABLE STRATEGIES
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•
Learn how to discover and call forth the extraordinary leader within you.
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Learn how to motivate people to achieve business goals that are impossible but necessary.
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Learn how to reframe your business from a mature business to a growth business.
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Learn how to recognize, analyze, and capitalize on trends that will make you a winner.
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Learn how to come up with a game-changing strategy that makes competition irrelevant.
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Learn how to dramatically improve your business operations.
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Learn how to build a company or team known for being the rock star of talent.
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Learn how to bypass planning and make change happen through catalytic breakthrough projects, rapid prototypes, demos, and quick wins.
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PART THREE: I WILL INTRODUCE YOU TO LEADERS LIKE YOURSELF WHO ARE BRINGING COACHING INTO THEIR COMPANY WITH A BANG •
Learn how Herb Kelleher, chairman of Southwest Airlines, developed and shared a TPOV that makes every employee think, talk, and act like a CEO and full-fledged businessperson.
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Learn how Mike Eskew, CEO of UPS, is using coaching to both create a game-changing strategy for Big Brown and develop a leadership pipeline.
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Learn how Frank Sterns of a large oil company has used masterful coaching to transform business operations and make hundreds of millions of dollars.
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Learn how CEO Jeff Fettig and human resource director David Binkley at Whirlpool have developed a world-class leadership development, coaching, and mentoring program consistent with the masterful coaching approach.
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THE MASTERFUL COACHING FIELDBOOK
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P A R T
I
MASTERFUL COACHING— THE METHOD: WAYS OF BEING, MIND-SET, AND SKILL SET I am taking a stand in this book.Yep! I’m making a powerful commitment to teach you everything I know about being an extraordinary leader and masterful coach. I am going to do this in the service of two objectives.The first is to expand your capacity to realize an impossible future and win in your business.The second has to do with the fact that business can be the ultimate self-development and growth experience, and my role as a coach is to make sure that this possibility is realized.
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Today business has become a brawl, and the only rules are that there are no rules. Think al Qaeda, think Wal-Mart, think China and India, think info tech, think talent. Think about the need to do something creative and innovative—to move up the value chain. In this kind of world talent is all there is, the only thing that cannot be reduced to a commodity. As a result the old leadership based on barking orders, command and control, and doing the same thing better is obsolete. The new leader is a coach whose forte is inspiration and improvisation and who gets people to initiate and execute. Part One of this book is designed to introduce you to the idea of the CEO as coach and to teach the ways of being, mind-sets, and skill sets that go with that. In this part you will learn the fundamentals of masterful coaching. For example, you will learn that coaching is about realizing an impossible future and winning while developing extraordinary leaders and extraordinary results and that coaching is a way of being, not just a technique. You will learn about the masterful coaching five-step coaching model and how to engage in six-cap coaching conversations.You will be introduced to the masterful coaching toolbox—power tools for powerful results. I invite you to join me on the journey to masterful coaching.
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C H A P T E R
O N E
THE CEO AS COACH Coaching Is Job #1 in the Age of Talent REALIZING AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE AND WINNING IN THE GREAT GAME OF BUSINESS
“
A masterful coach inspires talented people to make a difference in their world.
Today, as we shift from the age of the machine to the age of talent, there is a dramatic shift taking place from the CEO as mechanist to the CEO as coach. The CEO today needs to put on a coach’s hat and become a connoisseur of talent in order to compete in a world where no job is America’s God-given right anymore. Today’s CEOs, like coaches in the world of sports, are put in their jobs to inspire, empower, and enable talented people to realize an impossible future and win at the great game of business. As we move from a smokestack economy to a creative economy, the rules of the business game are changing rapidly. The old leadership from up on high, barking orders and relying on command and control, is obsolete. The new leadership is about inspiration, improvisation, and coaching people to initiate and execute projects that will rock the world. 3
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I INVITE YOU—LEADERS AT ALL LEVELS—TO JOIN ME ON THE JOURNEY TO MASTERFUL COACHING I have already said a mouthful. Before going on I want to get up close and personal with you. I am very passionate about this idea of the CEO (the leader) as coach. I am also very passionate about the idea of using coaching to realize your impossible future and win in your business.Yes! It’s not just the whole idea of creating game-changing products or services that result in growing your business exponentially and multiplying your profits that turns me on. It is that business provides people with the possibility of having the ultimate self-development and growth experience. Consider these questions: Do you want to become an extraordinary leader and masterful coach? What would be an impossible future for you and your business? What would winning look like? Are you turned on by the idea of creating exciting products for customers and exciting opportunities for people to grow? If so, please join me on the journey to masterful coaching. A DRAMATIC CHANGE IN THE ROLE OF THE BUSINESS LEADER
“
In the past the [talented] man has been first; in the future the system must be first. Frederick Taylor
The first CEOs were mechanists who saw the organization as a giant machine and people as interchangeable parts. In order to understand the role of masterful coaching in today’s world, we have to look at the historical role of the business leader and how it is changing. What we are seeing as we move from the age of the machine to the age of talent is a shift from the CEO as mechanist to the CEO as coach. As the age of the machine dawned, efficiency experts were often brought in to make sure that the machine ran like a giant clock, independent of human skills. As Frederick Taylor wrote in his 1911 book, The Principles of Scientific Management, even extraordinary individual leaders would be outperformed by well-organized groups of ordinary men. Taylor said that “in the past the [talented] man had been first; in the future the system must be first.” According to Taylor, “Let’s organize this factory more efficiently.”1 Henry Ford added the assembly line. Later Peter Drucker and Alfred Sloan added the idea of the effective executive and the concept of the corporation based on decentralized business units.
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“
Coaching has to emanate from the heart rather than the head as people readily recognize the difference between the two. Herb Kelleher2
Today we are seeing the shift from the CEO as organization man to the CEO as coach. In the 1950s, William H. Whyte wrote a book called The Organization Man. The CEO was in fact an organization man, dedicated to strategic planning, rearranging the boxes of the organization chart, and making predictable results (in other words, avoiding losing). That was then. Today the CEO as organization man is being displaced by the CEO as coach. These new leaders are obsessed with possibilities, talent, and winning. Leaders who symbolized the shift from organization man to coach began to emerge in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. They include physicist Robert Oppenheimer, who led the Manhattan Project; Kelly Johnson of the original Lockheed Skunk Works; Robert (Bob) Taylor of Xerox PARC; Steve Jobs and the original Apple Mac team; and Herb Kelleher, chairman of Southwest Airlines. When Kiichiro Toyoda of Toyota and Taiichi Ono of Fujitsu came along, they recognized the power of talent, not only at the top but at all levels. They understood that the key to winning in a global economy was explicitly leveraging the knowledge and intelligence of factory workers. The shift to CEO as coach follows the shift from capital as the source of wealth to talent as the source of wealth. Who wants to be a billionaire? How do you reach such an impossible dream? How do you win? How do you create wealth? In the past investing capital in big factories was the way to create great wealth.Today talent is the source of wealth, due especially to the shift from factory work to knowledge work. Let’s do a little math. Microsoft has a total market value of $250 billion, which it has achieved using a mere $30 billion of financial capital. The difference is the amount of shareholder wealth the company has created: $220 billion. In contrast, Exxon Mobil has a higher market value, $252 billion, but has needed so much more financial capital to support its old industrial-economy business model that it has created less shareholder wealth than Microsoft ($143 billion). TAKE THE ACID TEST FOR BEING AN EXTRAORDINARY LEADER OR MASTERFUL COACH It is possible to talk all day long about the attributes of a great CEO or leader and masterful coach.Yet one thing may stand out above all the rest: whether a leader pursues mastery in leading
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a team to an impossible future and winning or is content just with mediocrity. Think about some of the things that fall under the umbrella of coaching, of being a talent maven and motivator of others: impossible futures, brilliant projects, extraordinary teamwork, and of course extraordinary and tangible results. Ask yourself:“Do I pursue mastery in these things, or do I just go through the motions?” I am passionate about the idea that a leader and coach does not have to possess any set of homogenized attributes. I think the best way to determine whether someone is an extraordinary leader and masterful coach is to see if he or she passes the acid test. This book has a hidden message: pursue mastery; don’t settle for less. In the normal course of events, people talk about great leaders and coaches in terms of a set of attributes. Yet some leaders and coaches are charismatic and visionary whereas others possess a stoic, workmanlike quality. To me a masterful coach is someone who can pass the following acid test. The masterful coach 1. Brings about an impossible future that represents winning—think Jack Welch of GE, Steve Jobs of Apple, Andrew (Andy) Grove of Intel. 2. Is a connoisseur of talent who leads people to an experience of their own greatness—think Robert Oppenheimer of the Manhattan Project, Bob Taylor of Xerox, Tom Kelley of IDEO. 3. Masters the secrets of great groups—think Clarence (Kelly) Johnson of Lockheed Skunk Works, Steve Jobs and the original Mac team. 4. Provides people with the ultimate self-development experience. A masterful coach is a real business guru, a wise person who listens carefully, has a powerful, profound teachable point of view, and can say the one thing that will make a difference. 5. Produces record-breaking financial results on a sustainable basis.
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ACID TEST 1
DO YOU INSPIRE AND EMPOWER PEOPLE IN YOUR ORGANIZATION TO REALIZE AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE AND WIN?
One of my favorite leadership gurus is James ( Jim) MacGregor Burns, a Pulitzer prize winner, a friend, and the author of Transformational Leadership. According to Jim, who visited the White House during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s time and was a personal friend of Jack Kennedy, the ultimate test of whether someone is a great leader and coach is that person’s ability to realize an impossible dream and bring about irrevocable change consistent with throbbing human needs and wants. Certainly Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and FDR would pass this acid test, as might certain CEOs in the business context. And no doubt many sports coaches and players would—especially those who not only won repeat championships but also changed the game. Vince Lombardi of the Green Bay Packers, Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics, and Jackie Robinson. How about you?
“
The leaders of great groups love talent and know where to find it. They revel in the talent of others. Warren Bennis3
ACID TEST 2
IS THE PURSUIT OF GREAT TALENT AN OBSESSION FOR YOU? ARE YOUR MARCHING ORDERS: “FIND THE BEST PERSON IN THE WORLD!”
There is a creative class of American professionals consisting of research and development people, scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, musicians, and artists. This creative class, drawn from all over the world, makes up about 30 percent of the U.S. working population and receives almost The CEO as Coach
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80 percent of the income generated by American companies. In order for CEOs to realize an impossible future and win in their business, they have to be able to recruit the best talent from this creative class, as well as to excite talent and develop talent. We talked earlier about Microsoft, a company that has thrown off more wealth to shareholders and employees than any other company on earth. What does Microsoft run on if not financial capital? Talent! A clue: ask Microsoft executives what the company’s core competency is, and they do not say a thing about software. They say hiring. That is why Bill Gates personally will call promising graduate students that the company hungers for. It is why Microsoft bought software maestro Ray Ozzie’s company, just to get Ozzie. It is no wonder that Microsoft went wild when Google hired one of its top talents.
ACID TEST 3
WOULD THE PEOPLE ON YOUR LEADERSHIP TEAM SAY YOU HAVE MASTERED THE POWER OF CREATIVE COLLABORATION AND THE SECRETS OF GREAT GROUPS?
The CEO as coach has to know something about creating an effective leadership pipeline if he or she is to realize an impossible future. At the same time, developing individual leaders is not sufficient to create a winning company. A leader has to know something about fostering great groups and also must master the secrets of creative collaboration. One of our guiding principles of masterful coaching is that the surest way to create new value is to connect people from one network (team) to another network (team). Creating new relationships between networks creates new relationships between people. Creating new relationships between people is a fantastic recipe for creating new industries. Look at what happened when Fred Smith of FedEx connected twenty-four-hour package delivery with computing and airfreight. Look at the connections among QVC, the Internet, and network television.
“ 8
Groups become great only when the leader and everyone in them is free to do his or her absolute best. The test of leadership is to lead others to their own greatness. Warren Bennis4
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ACID TEST 4
HOW MANY TALENTED PEOPLE WOULD SAY WORKING FOR YOU IS THE ULTIMATE SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH EXPERIENCE?
I have led leadership seminars throughout the world with over 30,000 people. These seminars were mind-boggling, heart-opening events in which transformation often occurred before people’s eyes.Yet as powerful as these programs were, they paled beside what happened when I took up the mantle of masterful coaching and began to coach executives in their businesses with colleagues, amid competition, change, and complexity. I believe this occurred not just because of the power of the masterful coaching approach and my coaching but also because the great game of business provides the perfect context for having the ultimate self-development experience. You can’t take a stand for an impossible future, source an inspired, high-performing organization, or create exciting products for customers and exciting opportunities for employees without rapid self-development and astonishing personal growth.
ACID TEST 5
DO YOU HAVE RECORD-BREAKING FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE?
There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that business leaders who devote significant amounts of time to coaching and teaching often deliver record-breaking financial performance. A study of thousands of companies by Hewitt Associates, a human resource consulting firm, showed that the CEOs who spent at least 30 percent of their time coaching and teaching other leaders produced a 20+ percent TRS (total return to shareholders) over a ten-year period, whereas those that spent less then 10 percent of their time coaching and teaching produced a –3 percent TRS. For example, during Jack Welch’s reign as CEO, General Electric’s market value increased from just $12 billion in 1981 to about $280 billion at the time of Welch’s retirement in 2001. Lawrence (Larry) Bossidy of Allied Signal, who says he spends 60 percent of his time coaching and teaching when he comes into a job and 30 percent when he turns a company around, took this flailing company in hand and delivered thirty-four straight record-breaking quarters of profitability.5
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What makes a leader stand out as a masterful coach is not being great at one of these abilities but displaying a dynamic combination of all of them. For example, Steve Jobs, Fred Smith, and Jack Welch each realized an impossible future and figured out how to win in his business. Each made the pursuit of talent an obsession, reveling in the talent of others. At Apple that future was to “change the world.” At FedEx it was twenty-four-hour guaranteed delivery. At General Electric it was “to be the most competitive enterprise on earth.” Each of these leaders created a great group and showed mastery in the art of creative collaboration—connecting people and networks together: Apple, Pixar, and Disney; FedEx, the Internet, airfreight, and logistics. Each leader coached and mentored direct reports, providing the ultimate self-development experience. General Electric became a CEO factory. Apple became the incubator for hundreds of Silicon Valley start-ups. FedEx has many stepchildren. Each delivered good to great financial performance over the years. A HANDFUL OF CEOS ARE FASCINATING AND INTRIGUING ROLE MODELS FOR THE CEO AS COACH
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The Talent Review Process is a contact sport at GE; it has the intensity and the importance of the budget process at most companies. Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod6
Historian Arnold Toynbee says that the rise and fall of civilization depends on leaders (creative minorities) who, when met with big challenges, respond creatively and effectively rather than merely react. In the 1980s and 1990s, a handful of big company CEOs who represented a creative minority took a stand for dramatically altering the way we define leadership, growing up perhaps in a time of parenthesis between management’s past and its future. They intuitively recognized that when you change the way you define leadership, you change the way you run a company. Among the leaders who made up this creative minority were Jack Welch of GE, Roberto Goizueta of Coca-Cola, and Andy Grove of Intel. Interestingly enough, each of these leaders proved remarkably successful in growing his or her business, multiplying profits, and winning the talent war.
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My expertise is not creating a strategy or building a product. But I do know something about coaching and teaching people. Jack Welch7
Jack Welch, building on General Electric founder Charles A. Coffin’s dream that GE was about building leaders, not just about making lightbulbs and transformers, spent a gaspworthy 30 to 60 percent of his time coaching and teaching—developing a virtual CEO factory in the process. He borrowed the idea from Wayne Calloway of PepsiCo that executives needed to be directly involved in developing other leaders, not just delegating that task to human resources or outside consultants. He often spent three days a month at GE’s leadership center at Crotonville, New York, as well as a full month doing talent reviews in every GE division. He looked for people who were star performers or good performers ready for a stretch assignment in a far-flung division, and weeded out nonperformers. He further differentiated through pay for performance—a rare practice in most companies. According to Welch,“You build strong teams by treating individuals differently. Just look at the way baseball teams pay 20-game winning pitchers and 40-plus homerun hitters.”8
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I was always coached and mentored to confront the very natural fear of being wrong. I was constantly pushed to find out what I really thought and then to speak up. Roger Enrico9
Roger Enrico of PepsiCo pushed the envelope further with his special classrooms (leadership encounters) that he taught once a year to rising stars within Pepsi. To qualify, participants had to come with a leadership and business breakthrough project that was a top priority for their division. Enrico would then spend the next year coaching them on this project, regularly meeting and speaking with them one to one and in groups. Instead of equating a leader’s development with leadership competency lists, Enrico equated it with being able to produce difficult or impossible results. He also had a teachable point of view to the effect that it is how you treat employees that will determine how they treat customers.10
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How do you define yourself as a leader? You calendarize coaching. Jeff Fettig11
Jeff Fettig, CEO of Whirlpool, points out that CEOs often have the most capacity to be great coaches simply because they have had lots of experiences of winning. Also, having climbed to the top of the corporate ladder, they are no longer competing with everyone around them. As a result their passion often shifts from maximizing winning and avoiding losing at all costs to helping others win. Their position at the top of the organization also gives them a unique view of strategic imperatives and a unique view of the playing field. Jeff Fettig coaches five Whirlpool people in executive roles and mentors five high potentials in various parts of the world—two in the United States, one in Latin America, and two in Europe. He believes that if you want to be a coach, you need to calendarize coaching rather than leaving it ad hoc.12
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China’s goal is to launch hundreds of true multinational firms. Today the primary obstacle is a leadership gap. To close it, China is going to have to develop 75,000 leaders in the next ten years.
Emerging leaders, in emerging businesses, in emerging markets. Today the CEOs of emerging businesses are pushing the envelope even further. One software company CEO I have heard about personally recruits talented engineers right out of college and then for the next year personally and methodically coaches and teaches them in small teams in developing the company’s next generation of products and services. Similarly, the CEOs of venture capital firms, like Thomas Binton of Palmer Inc., are shifting from being speculators and financiers (who, once they had listened to your business plan and decided to fund you, then kept a cool distance) to coaches and thinking partners (who, once they have decided to fund you, also help you decide what talent you need to hire, develop your business plan, and support execution). They are even venturing out of Silicon Valley to coach emerging leaders in emerging businesses in emerging markets—Shanghai, Bangalore, or Bangkok. They are often taking people who are the godparents of invention and turning them into their godchildren of marketing.
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THE IMPACT “CEO AS COACH” GOES RIGHT TO THE BOTTOM LINE, YET MOST CEOS JUST DON’T GET IT
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The top software developers are more productive than average software developers, not by a factor of 10x or 100x, or even 1,000x, but 10,000x. Nathan Myhrvold, former chief scientist, Microsoft13
Most CEOs and other leaders are by and large so preoccupied with their boards, bosses, reading the political tea leaves, and handling the nondiscretionary parts of their jobs—such as the annual round of planning and budgeting—that the discretionary parts of their jobs—such as coaching and mentoring—get put on the back burner. Leaders also usually fail to recognize that we have moved from the age of the machine to the age of talent, where marquee players can make a difference compared to average players in the same job. Say Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod of McKinsey & Company, “We believe companies can increase their market cap 50 percent in 3 years by putting in higher level talent.” 14 Steve Macadam at Georgia-Pacific changed twenty of his forty box plant managers to put more talented, higher-paid managers in charge. He increased profitability from $25 million to $80 million in two years.15
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Ninety-five percent of managers surveyed said they don’t act as though they are responsible for people’s performance and development. Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod16
It is not just that most CEOs do not get the need to put a great player in every key job, they also don’t get how important it is to develop people. Ed Michaels, who led the McKinsey study of
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what came to be called the war for talent, asked 12,000 decision makers,“Do you feel you should be accountable for the strength of the leadership talent pool you develop?” Over 80 percent said emphatically yes. When asked,“Do you in your role as a leader actually act like you are responsible for the strength of the leadership talent pool you develop?” all but 5 percent said no. Further, 82 percent seemed to feel that even though companies did provide some occasional leadership training, they grossly underdelivered on providing stretch assignments or one-to-one coaching. These results show that we are still living in a time of parenthesis between the CEO as organization man and the CEO as coach.17
Most CEOs Just Don’t Get It
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They fail to inspire anyone with the audacity of their dream.
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They are surrounded by sycophants and have a low tolerance for contention and risk takers.
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They think the great game of business is not about winning but about getting by.
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They focus on (big) mergers rather than organic growth as the key to offense and defense.
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They do not show up 24/7 like talent fanatics, and they spend less than 5 percent of their time coaching.
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They allow people to set goals that are not a challenge, and they accept less than excellence.
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They hold team meetings as a political contrivance, and they don’t encourage straight talk.
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They foster constant improvement rather than breathtaking, disruptive innovation.
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They believe that process beats passion, analysis beats action.
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They are not loved by frontline workers.
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MOST BUSINESS LEADERS ARE CRAPPY COACHES
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Most companies have a leadership development program. What’s missing is a formal coaching and mentoring program.
In this chapter I have been talking about the CEO, but it is a no-brainer to assert that leaders at all levels of the organization need to become coaches, given everything we now know about the importance of recruiting talent, engaging talent, and developing talent. The issue is that most people in leadership roles are merely posturing as leaders and are miles away from being coaches. The fact is that until you become a real leader, you are like the kid in school who puts his hand up in class in order to give the right answer and look smart.
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When you become a real leader, what you stand for starts being about making your people brighter, bigger, and bolder.
When you become a real leader, things shift in a powerful and profound way.You become much more concerned with making your people brighter, bolder, and better rather than always looking for the opportunity to put your hand up. It is this process of becoming a real leader that naturally evolves into the coaching mind-set:“Got a problem? Let’s talk about it.” Then there’s the issue of skills. Most leaders lack the basic skills needed for coaching. Learning to become a coach means being a dream maker and master motivator, setting high goals, discussing both the hows and the whats, holding people accountable, and most of all getting past superficial congeniality and giving honest feedback. This doesn’t come easy. ARE YOU READY TO ENTER THE JOURNEY TO MASTERFUL COACHING?
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When you see yourself differently, you will begin to act differently.
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The first step in the journey to masterful coaching is to see yourself differently: I am a coach, teacher, mentor. You will be surprised when you see yourself differently; you will suddenly begin to adopt the ways of being of a coach and begin to act differently. This can be as simple as changing hats. One day your job as a leader and coach may require you to put on the dream builder or the master motivator hat. The next day it may require you to take that hat off and put on the team builder hat. The day after that your job may require you to provide a strong teachable point of view about success in order to address a breakdown such as bad design or poor quality or possibly to draw people out as thinking partners.
Starting Right Now, See Yourself as a Leader and Coach •
See yourself as a leader who impacts people’s vision and values and enables them to create an impossible future, rather than as the one who makes all the decisions or is the center of action.
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See yourself as a coach who expands people’s capacity to perform at higher levels by intervening in situations and providing what’s missing, rather than as a supervisor or checker up on.
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See yourself as a teacher who transforms people’s paradigms and shares practical know-how with others, rather than as just a function head.
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See yourself as a mentor who furthers people’s professional development, rather than as someone who simply gets things done through other people.
The second step in the journey to masterful coaching is to adopt the concept of the leader as coach as the framework for all you do, rather than as a peripheral activity. Coaching is not just about finding leadership gaps, but also about creating a powerful new future. Coaching is not about a studying the leadership behaviors on your corporate competency list but about producing extraordinary and tangible results. Coaching is for winners; it is not a last gasp activity before showing people the door. Coaching is a day in, day out activity that makes sure feedback is around every corner, not just something that occurs only during the annual performance appraisal. Coaching is everything you do to recruit talent, motivate talent, and develop talent. Coaching is everything you do to come up with a game-changing strategy that “unravels the mind of the enemy.” Coaching is everything you do to mobilize people, build great groups, and execute. It is everything you do to improve
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performance, from setting high goals and never settling for less than excellence to providing honest feedback that builds people’s confidence. The third step in the journey to masterful coaching is to read this book, dog-ear the pages, and get involved. When I first wrote Masterful Coaching, in 1995, there was no cultural clearing in companies for coaching, and it was a while before I got my first phone call from a reader of the book. Then suddenly the book began to take off, in part because it contributed something to creating a cultural clearing for coaching. Today almost 80 percent of the Fortune 500 companies use executive coaches, something that I am quite proud of being able to contribute to. As my group’s coaching business increased I had to develop masterful coaches for client work. I found talented people with good raw material, ex-CEOs and top consultants, and trained them via the masterful coaching workshop. I then worked with each coach one-to-one before and after major coaching sessions with clients, using a learn-by-doing approach. I would like to suggest a similar approach here. As it may not be possible for you to attend a masterful coaching workshop with me, why not read this book, dog-ear the pages, and underline the golden nuggets as you find them? This will approximate spending a few days with me in a special training class. The fourth step in the journey to masterful coaching is to learn by doing, putting aside for the moment the desire to hire superstars and, instead, coaching the people that you’ve got. Please keep in mind these golden nuggets of the masterful coaching philosophy: (1) coaching is about winning at the great game of business; (2) coaching is about producing extraordinary results, and in the process extraordinary leaders; (3) coaching is a real-time activity that involves real goals and problems and real situations. I might then encourage you to create a thirty-day action plan for getting started with coaching, after which you might search for someone to be a coach for you in your own company, someone who could observe how you are doing with your coaching and give you feedback (your boss perhaps or someone from human resources or training). Now let’s step back and look in some detail at creating the thirty-day action plan for getting started with coaching. THE LEADER’S THIRTY-DAY ACTION PLAN FOR GETTING STARTED WITH COACHING
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The most powerful coaching tool is the human imagination.
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If you and I were having a coaching conversation about creating a thirty-day action plan, before looking at what actions you might take, I would encourage you to use your imagination, and we would have an invigorating conversation about that along these lines: •
Imagine your impossible future realized. How did you achieve it? How many talented leaders did it require and in what roles? How did you develop these leaders?
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Imagine four to eight people in the organization you would like to personally coach and mentor.
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Imagine what kind of formal leadership development program you would like to set up.
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Imagine what kind of mentoring program you would like to see established.
In our coaching conversation I would also encourage you to look around you at the opportunities you are presented with to step into the role of the leader as coach.You might consider these options. Get personally and methodically involved with coaching direct reports (or others) who are essential to your impossible future. This is a good place to start coaching but do not get too hung up on the chain of command. For example, you might start to see that Bill, a direct report and the president of your Asia Pacific region, needs to pay attention not just to the vision of “being a global leader” but also to the waterline of your business. Bill’s group is in danger of losing $300 million on some unsavory acquisitions. Give coaching to Bill on both his performance and his development. He will need to break the grip of and excel beyond the winning strategies that have made him successful in the past but that are now a source of his limitations. Mentor talented people and budding managers with lots of potential, whether they report to you or not, on both their personal growth and their development. You start to see that Josef in Europe, a thirty-something highflier who works three levels below you and manages one of your box plants, has the potential to do your job one day. What about offering him a six-month rotation as your personal assistant back in the home office so you can personally mentor him? You might be wondering what the difference is between coaching and mentoring. Whereas you coach Bill on his performance (not losing that $300 million) and his development (becoming a better coach), you can mentor Josef on his development by following the axiom “stretch, build confidence, correct.” Help him learn to extend autonomy, encourage innovative action, and master the political chessboard.
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Coach everyone in your company to think like a businessperson with a whole-business perspective, rather than like a bean counter in the accounting department. If you are going to lead and coach your team to win at the great game of business, then you have got to create a culture where everyone thinks like a businessperson rather than a marketer, tech rep, or bean counter. Make it a game by setting goals and focusing on the scoreboard: “How many new products in the pipeline?” “How many sales this week?”“How many packages shipped?”Yeah, I hear you thinking out loud; you are thinking about Ernesto, the finance guy in Brazil. If only he could think like a businessperson with a whole-business perspective, he might be a business unit manager one day. Sign him up for the masterful coaching leadership course How to Win at the Great Game of Business and a monthly coaching circle with other highfliers in the Latin American organization. Or what about setting up a formal coaching and mentoring program? IN CONCLUSION
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I need to spend 25 percent of my time leading; 25 percent of my time managing; 25 percent of my time coaching and mentoring; 25 percent of my time doing stuff where I am personally driving toward a result. Steve Marchetti
I have been putting out a lot, but as I often say, coaching occurs not in a coach’s speaking but in the coachee’s listening. What did you get? What are you left with? Well, if you have been using your ability to listen, it is probably safe to conclude that you already know a lot about coaching. As Steve Marchetti, president of Washington Group International’s engineering group, told me: “I know a lot about leadership, and I know a lot about coaching. It’s time to put on my coach’s hat and make a commitment to it.” It is a cop-out to say,“I kick off our leadership program three times a year,” or,“Once a year we do succession planning.” That’s great but not nearly sufficient to create an inspired, high-performing organization. Says Marchetti:“I need to spend 25 percent of my time leading; 25 percent of my time managing; 25 percent of my time coaching and mentoring; 25 percent of my time doing stuff where I am personally driving toward a result (pulling off a joint venture deal, bolstering profits, and getting back some lost money).”
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And the Winners Are Those Who . . .
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Become admired by other CEOs, creators of a new tradition, and legends in their own time
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Declare an audacious dream to change the world, inspiring everyone
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Preach a teachable point of view about what it will take to win
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Get personally involved in recruiting rock stars of talent
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Create new markets and become value innovators, and do not copy rivals
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Grow the business organically, rather than just trade companies
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Set stretch goals collaboratively, constantly improving performance
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Spend 30 percent of their time developing other leaders
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Become organizing geniuses, mastering the secrets of creative collaboration
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Become loved by direct reports, middle management, and frontline workers
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C H A P T E R
T W O
MASTERFUL COACHING The Power to Make the Impossible Happen Today’s leaders must do a job that is as impossibly tough as climbing their own Mount Everest. At the same time, taking on the impossible can be fun. On May 29, 1953, at 11:30 A.M., Edmund Hillary, a man who lived in obscurity as a bookkeeper in Auckland, and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa guide, became the first men to stand on the summit of Mount Everest. Hillary left not only his footprint on the mountain and his imprint on the world; more than a half century later the perpetual pursuit of things he once imagined has also resulted in the construction of schools, hospitals, medical clinics, bridges, and fresh water pipelines for the people of the Himalayas.Today Hillary’s example should be a source of inspiration to CEOs, leaders, and managers who are facing a job as impossibly tough as climbing Mount Everest.
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In 1966, Rollin King approached Herb Kelleher about starting an airline together. Herb responded, “Rollin, you’re crazy. Let’s do it!”1
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Imagine: you are the prime minister of Israel, and you are trying to focus on economic issues. Hezbollah rockets slam into Haifa, and two Israeli soldiers are kidnapped; citizens panic. As prime minister you follow the old Israeli winning strategy, one that has been used for the past forty years, dating back to before the Six-Day War—massive military strikes to unravel the enemy’s mind and to wipe out their tanks, planes, and battalions of foot soldiers. Except this time there are no tanks, planes, and battalions to be wiped out. The enemy is a terrorist network, embraced by citizens in the area where it is based but without an address. International opinion snaps like a loud dog; innocents are killed; a New York Times headline resounds,“12 Israelis Die and Sheik Threatens to Bomb Tel Aviv.” It is clear that this time a purely military solution to war won’t work. What do you do? Imagine: you wake up one morning to discover that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have unexpectedly retired to Hawaii and you have been appointed CEO of their company, Microsoft.You have been charged with the impossible future of leading the company forward, evolving it from a business based on virtually controlling the world’s personal computers and selling software at an astronomical profit into a completely different business where the rulers of the Internet control computer users’ world and a lot of competing software is free. What do you do? Imagine: Richard Wagoner, chairman of General Motors, has just appointed you director of special operations, heading “Take Back North America,” a project with an impossible future of achieving a 49.5 percent market share (the one GM had in 1955), a goal that may prove to be a harder managerial challenge than the invasion of Iraq. How do you reach this goal with a sclerotic bureaucracy, a confusing lineup of overlapping brands that all attempt to sell to the same customer, a company that is an indentured servant to the United Auto Workers union (given its power to strike), and health care costs that threaten to throw the company into bankruptcy?
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Taking on the impossible can be fun. Walt Disney2
Being the boss is a head-swimmingly tough job, given global competition, constant pressure to change, and an unrelenting talent war. Congratulations! You have just stepped into the world of today’s CEOs and managers, a world of difficult or impossible jobs that are monumentally tough. Former President
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George H. W. Bush once said to graduating students in a commencement address “the challenge to the leaders of your generation will be, what do you say when someone tells you something is impossible.” What ordinary leadership and management is about is gaining the power to make the possible happen—such as getting a job in a going business, producing predictable results as promised, and delivering occasional incremental improvement. This starts with paying attention to what you can predict, for example, goals that lend themselves to a simple or obvious plan. Masterful coaching is about an advanced level of leadership that gives you access to a new kind of power, the power to make the impossible happen. Gaining the power to make the impossible happen involves (1) realizing an impossible future and winning in your business, (2) hiring and exciting the best talent on earth to accomplish what needs to be accomplished, (3) mastering the power of creative collaboration and the secrets of great groups, (4) making playing the great game of business an opportunity to provide people with the ultimate self-development experience, and (5) producing record-breaking financial results over the long haul. This chapter is intended to provide you with a roadmap for what masterful coaches do. It is all about creating a sense of mission around an impossible future and winning, irrevocably changing your industry. It is about bringing your team together and mastering the secrets of great groups while being hotly engaged in wow projects that result in game-changing solutions for customers and life-altering opportunities for employees. It is about learning a whole new style of leadership based on collaboration versus command, being a coach versus being a cop, and being a mentor versus being a micromanager—a new style of leadership that at the end of the day shows people that what’s possible is not just breakthroughs in results but also breakthroughs for people. I want to provide you with a robust toolbox that gives you a part of the power to accomplish all these things. The last decade’s breakthroughs in electronic technology require a corresponding breakthrough in management technology. When Peter Drucker wrote Concept of the Corporation, in 1946, and then The Effective Executive, in 1967, management as we know it was still pretty much in its infancy. It was the era of the dispassionate manager, who could manage anything through rational analysis and the right carrots and sticks. Guiding ideas, tools, methods like strategic planning, management by objectives, and decision analysis trees were big news. Later, new ideas, tools, and methods imported from Japanese management—such as the total quality movement and lean manufacturing—began to have a significant influence. It seemed as though every leadership and management course was about continuous improvement and featured a module on using fishbone charts for problem-solving analysis.
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MASTERFUL COACHING PRACTICES REPRESENT A BREAKTHROUGH IN THE TECHNOLOGY OF MANAGEMENT
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The context then: peace, U.S. economy chugging along at 6 percent a year, oil at $10 per barrel. The context now: global war on terror, three billion new capitalists, rapid innovation, extreme competition, oil at $75 per barrel.
The old management technology was perfectly acceptable for an era when there was peace, the U.S. economy was chugging along at 6 percent a year, and oil was still only $10 per barrel. Then suddenly, due to a global economy, rapid innovation, and extreme competition, the world turned upside down. Today, emotional leadership is replacing dispassionate management. Concepts like strategic planning and built to last seem almost downright silly ideas in a world of discontinuities and rule-altering changes. Now we are living in a world where built to be agile counts. Furthermore, given that innovation is increasingly the determinant of success, many managers have years to take into account that incrementalism is innovation’s worst enemy. Here are some shifts you will notice:
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CEO as coach rather than as the dispassionate manager
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Talented individuals, strong personalities, and iconoclasts rather than sheep
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Growing organically by creating a niche rather than thinking “buy market share”
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Impossible, necessary goals rather than the predictable kind
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Aggressively pursuing winning rather than avoiding losing
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Focusing on execution rather than building out long-term strategies
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Thinking innovation rather than continuous improvement
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Building a rapid prototype rather than endless planning
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I have distinguished five practices that will give you a powerful assist in achieving your impossible future and that you can begin to exercise right away. Let’s look at each.
Master ful Coaching Practices for Achieving an Impossible Future 1. Begin with impossible thinking. 2. Get the best talent on earth. 3. Master the secrets of great groups and tap the power of creative collaboration. 4. Create a winning game plan. 5. Hire a masterful ninja coach.
PRACTICE 1
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TO CREATE THE IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE, FIRST ENGAGE IN IMPOSSIBLE THINKING
Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Goethe
One of the keys to accomplishing the impossible future is to first engage in impossible thinking. This involves breaking the grip of mental models that say,“It can’t be done,” and declaring,“So what, we are going to do it anyway.” Think John F. Kennedy and “man on the moon.” Think Edmund Hillary and Mount Everest. Think Steve Jobs in a garage working on his dream to change the world with personal computers. Think Jack Welch when he became head of General
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Electric, declaring in a speech at the Pierre Hotel in New York,“GE is going to be number 1 or number 2 in every business and the most competitive enterprise on earth.”
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I don’t know if it is possible; I do know that it is necessary.
One thing is certain. In order to realize the impossible future, you have to venture out into the domain of extreme leadership and avoid the mushy path of moderation.You have to have the audacity to not just declare outrageous goals but also push beyond constraints in order to realize those goals. Some of the constraints come from higher-ups with a 100 percent pure approach to corporate strategy. Some come from real-world limitations on talent resources and budgets. Yet more often than not the constraints of it-can’t-be-done-ism come from the conventional wisdom rooted in your own mind. For example, before Louis Pasteur almost every doctor in the world believed that bloodletting cured all ills. They never questioned what they took for granted.
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Coaching people is about helping people to break the grip of mental models that limit their creativity and effectiveness and to excel by going beyond those models.
You and I have mental models about the world that often limit what we see as possible and achievable. Our mental models are developed from past experiences and tend to set the horizon of our possibilities. For example, not too long ago the four-minute mile was considered a natural limit for runners. It was unthinkable to go faster. Then UK runner Roger Bannister shattered this barrier on an Oxford track in May 1954. Within three years, sixteen other runners had also surpassed this limit. What made this possible was a shift in people’s thinking, not a leap in human evolution. It was now considered possible. Coach people to engage in impossible thinking by breaking the grip of mental models and then excelling beyond those models. The power of impossible thinking is what allowed Ronald Reagan to say,“Tear down that wall, Mr. Gorbachev.” It is what allowed Federal Express to develop a delivery business
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based on “absolutely, positively overnight.” It is what allowed Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, to take a mature industry—the coffee shop—and transform it into a brand-new industry, adding $3 to the price of a cup of coffee in the process. It is what allowed Oprah Winfrey to transform the concept of the talk show from listening to celebrity gossip to participating in a life-altering experience. •
What difference would you like to make in the world?
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What would you like to change or achieve, if only it were possible?
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What looks impossible today but if it could be done would revolutionize your industry?
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What do you passionately care about so much you would be willing to reinvent your entire self?
Take something you currently see as impossible, and declare it possible. One of the best examples is from Nicholas Negroponte, founding director of the MIT Media Laboratory, who declared an impossible future of a “Computer for Every Child.” Negroponte, who believes that access to computers will turn children (adults) into “learning machines,” came up with a vision of a $100 computer that could be distributed to children in developing countries. To his critics who have all of the reasons for why it can’t be done, Negroponte says that it is as if people spent all of their time focusing on Columbus’s Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria and not where the boats were going. For Negroponte, it’s all about education. He believes that his impossible future will not only contribute to the democratization of education but also later provide job opportunities. Negroponte and his crew took on the impossible task of a “Computer for Every Child” as a creative challenge that could be solved through both social and technological innovation.They designed a structure for fulfillment that took into account all the missing pieces that needed to be put in place, starting with the computer itself, and then went to work on it like monomaniacs with a mission. Questions they needed to address were: How do you make a $100 computer when just the LCD screens in most computers cost over $150? What do you use for an operating system? How do you deal with the fact that electricity and Internet connectivity are not always available in
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developing nations? Who would manufacture the computer? How do people get the $100 for the computers in the first place? Some of the answers to these questions required Negroponte and company to invent a new screen that, while smaller, could be read in broad daylight and had a simple graphic interface for children to open software programs that looked like the face of the sun. To deal with the fact that Windows’ operating system was too expensive, Negroponte decided to use the free Linux operating system, something that has prompted Bill Gates and Intel to become detractors. To counter the fact that Internet connectivity is relatively limited, one approach the MIT Lab group came up with is the idea of each school becoming a wireless transfer base and each computer being able to relay Internet signals to the next computer up to 1/3 mile a way. Each computer would also have an electricity generating system when public power is not available through a foot-powered generator. Negroponte lined up the No. 2 computer maker in Taiwan to manufacture the machines, as well as governments and private parties to sponsor computers for a school system or an individual child. One innovative scheme involved individuals sponsoring a computer for a child in a developing nation and connecting sponsor and child by an e-mail “pen pal” feature. Thus far, one thousand prototypes have already been produced, with commitments for 3 million. The computer, which actually costs $150 to manufacture, will fall below $100 if things go according to plan by 2008. Although it will not be marketed in Western countries, the computer could become the biggest-selling computer in the world overnight.3
PRACTICE 2
TO ACCOMPLISH THE IMPOSSIBLE, FIND THE BEST TALENT ON EARTH
Get personally and methodically involved in recruiting, inspiring, and developing talent. When President Harry S. Truman decided to launch the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb, he first found Robert Oppenheimer, not a brilliant physicist but a connoisseur of talent. It took an Oppenheimer to get a George Kistiakowsky and a Niels Bohr to come to a desert outpost in
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Los Alamos, New Mexico. How does someone who has been a big-company organization man transform into a talent maven? Start with this leadership declaration: “I am committed to the possibility of being a talent connoisseur. I am committed to giving up being an organization man who rearranges the boxes of the organization chart, and I am committed to taking personal responsibility for getting the best talent to achieve our impossible future.” How to begin? Do a talent review. Take a look at your company’s impossible future, goals, key milestones, change initiatives, and breakthrough projects. Ask yourself:“What kind of talent are we going to need to reach our vision, achieve our goals, and pass our final milestone? What are the key roles on our team that are most pivotal, and what kind of talent do we need for those roles? Where are we going to find that talent—in the group, in the company, or from somewhere else? How are we going to motivate and develop the talent?” Once you pondered the answers to these questions, begin to focus a considerable chunk of your time on hiring enough talented people and on motivating them, so that a critical mass of excitement begins to grow and gives voice to, “Yes, we can do this!” Fill leadership talent gaps with talent scouts; build a whirling Rolodex; never waste a lunch. You need not only to be a connoisseur of talent but also to think outside of boxes to fill the gaps in your roster. For example, instead of just asking human resources and search firms to hire talent for you, do something different. Daniel Lamarre of Cirque du Soleil appointed twenty talent scouts and built up a whirling Rolodex of 20,000 performers. Another key talent strategy is to never waste a lunch. Always be asking yourself,“Who is a talented individual who may not fit into my plans now but may fit later?” A businessperson I know had lunch with Fred Smith, CEO of FedEx. In the middle of the lunch, Fred Smith said,“Jack, tell me, who are the most interesting people you have met in the last few months, and how can I get in touch with them?” Hire for stretch, not just fit. Employ coaching to accelerate development. Today many multinational companies want to achieve global reach but often encounter a shortage of local leadership and management talent. The solution? In the normal course of events companies hire for fit, matching job requirements to people’s résumés. In a world with a chronic leadership gap it might make better sense to hire for stretch and then use coaching to accelerate people’s development. Here are the steps: (1) hire for stretch, (2) assess capability gaps, (3) give individuals an executive coach, (4) focus on real leadership and business challenges, (5) sponsor learning circles with colleagues, and (6) supplement with executive education.
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“
When land was the productive asset, nations battled over it. The same is happening now with talented people.
Creating a talent strategy is all about your Rolodex. As we move from the age of the CEO as mechanist to the age of the CEO as coach, and the age of the machine to the age of talent, talent becomes not just one more strategy but everything—talent rather than employees, talent rather than personnel, talent rather than staff, talent rather than “my people.” Just using the word talent is a powerful coaching tool that alters the way you see people and interact with them. Scouring the world for the best talent on earth instead of just putting up with boring, dull, ineffective people goes hand in hand with accomplishing an impossible future.
Make the Pursuit of Talent a 24/7 Obsession
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Recognize that Talent Strategy = Business Strategy.
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Look at your impossible future and leadership (talent) gaps.
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Get personally involved in hiring and interviewing.
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Appoint twenty talent scouts in your company.
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Build a whirling Rolodex of 1,000 talented people.
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Hunt for rock stars of talent for key roles.
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Hire individuals with strong personalities—iconoclasts.
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Initiate a formal leadership coaching program.
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Buy companies to acquire talent.
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Rename the Human Resource Department the Talent Department.
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PRACTICE 3
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BECOME AN ORGANIZING GENIUS—MASTER THE SECRETS OF GREAT GROUPS
People want to be part of something larger than themselves . . . something they’re really proud of, that they’ll fight for, sacrifice for, trust. Howard Schultz4
In talking about the shift from CEO as organization man to CEO as coach, we don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. A big part of leadership is being a visionary leader and getting the right people on the bus; another part of leadership is being an organizing maestro who masters the secrets of creative collaboration and great groups. As I pointed out in my book Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration, great leaders (coaches) know how to bring extraordinary combinations of people together around a goal or project so as to light creative sparks and dramatically increase the chance of accomplishing the impossible. A good example of a leader on the contemporary scene who is mastering the secrets of creative collaboration and sculpting new patterns of relationship and interaction is Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric. He noticed that his predecessor, Jack Welch, did a lot of company trading in the 1990s, trying to buy market share rather than create markets or grow the company organically. Shortly after becoming CEO, Immelt set a goal that 10 percent of GE’s growth would come from organic growth. With a company bringing in $130 billion in revenues, that amounted to $10 billion a year. He coached his executive team, in a special strategy session, in what he called imagination breakthroughs in order to find opportunities that could produce at least $350 million in organic growth. He then got the insight that 60 percent of GE’s growth might come from emerging markets. In 2004, he went before the board, telling the GE directors that his top strategy was for “GE to be
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the general store for emerging markets.” GE would provide everything countries like China and India needed to improve their infrastructure. Immelt then put parts of many GE divisions under a new company, GE Infrastructure—coal and nuclear power plants, wind power, turbines for airplanes and road-building equipment, water purifiers, and GE Capital for financing growth. He coached his business unit heads that if GE was to succeed in the global economy, they would have to creatively collaborate with each other in the spirit of a boundaryless organization. Business unit heads had to come together on a regular basis and engage in dialogue about how they and their respective organizations could work together seamlessly. There were some rough spots, but Immelt intervened, and they got smoothed out. It worked! By 2005, emerging markets contributed $21 billion of GE’s revenues, a 37 percent increase over 2004. Master the secrets of great groups. As Michael Jordan once said,“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” Over the years I have collected from my own experience and various other sources the following secrets of great groups. (For resources, see Warren Bennis’s book Organizing Genius, my own book Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration, and the McKinsey quarterly Teamwork at the Top.) Create a cause not just a business. The leaders of every great group know how important it is to bring people together around a purpose larger than themselves. The idea is to create a cause, not just a business, so that people feel they are on a mission from God. Remember what Steven Jobs said to John Sculley, a PepsiCo executive, when he wanted to enroll him as Apple’s CEO.“Do you want to make sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?”5 Talented players need what George Bernard Shaw called a “noble” and “mighty” purpose if they are to subordinate their egos and become part of a great group. For example, the Manhattan Project’s dream was to end World War II and save lives. Though there were many moral dilemmas that building the first atomic bomb presented for the scientists involved, the mission did serve to galvanize people. Bring unlikely stakeholders together to light creative sparks. John Seeley Brown, the former head of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), told me how leaders of great groups unleash the power of creative collaboration: (1) bring unlikely collaborators together around a problem to light creative sparks; (2) brainstorm until you go beyond and come up to the moment of true insight that will crack the problem wide open; (3) forward the action with a view toward spearheading a breakthrough. (For example, you might produce a success that in turn will lead to a widening circle of successes and eventually achieve a wider breakthrough.) 32
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Get the chemistry right. Leaders also sometimes have to do a lot to manage conflict and to get individual egos to surrender to the pursuit of the dream. For example, at a crucial stage in the Manhattan Project, George Kistiakowsky, a great chemist who was later to become President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s chief scientific adviser, threw up his hands and threatened to quit because he couldn’t get along with a collaborator on the team. Robert Oppenheimer, the project leader, took a deep breath and said,“George, how can you leave this project? The free world hangs in the balance.” Conflict, even among diverse people, is often resolved by reminding people of the mission. Identify a real or invented enemy. Masterful coaches are also expert at identifying a real or invented enemy. During Apple Computer’s greatest years, for instance, the company’s implicit mission was not just to change the world with the personal computer but to “bury IBM.” (The famous 1984 Macintosh TV commercial, for example, included the line,“Don’t buy a computer you can’t lift.”) The fact is, most organizations have an implicit mission to seek out and destroy an adversary, and that is often more motivating than their explicit mission. Lexus had such a mission, to beat Benz; Canon to beat Xerox. The implicit mission of the Red Sox is to beat the Yankees. Be an underdog. There is another factor that is important to mission and motivation. Great teams, even if they have lost a lot of games lately, tend to view themselves as winning underdogs. Worldshaking groups are usually populated by freaks, crazies, mavericks—people at the periphery of their disciplines. These groups do not regard the current business model as the sacred Ganges. The sense of operating on the fringes gives them a don’t-count-me-out scrappiness. Deliver results. Finally, it is very important that the leader as coach or mentor knows that great groups don’t just have great ideas; they also execute and ship product. Steve Jobs constantly reminded his band of Apple computer geeks that their work meant nothing unless they brought a great product to market. Masterful coaches have the ability to both instill confidence—“you can do this”—and to get people to jump into action. In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Glendower, the Welsh seer, boasts to Hotspur that he can “call spirits from the vasty deep.” Hotspur retorts,“Why, so can I, . . . or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them?” (III, i, 53–55).
Guiding Principles for Creative Collaboration 1. Start with an impossible goal or project that captures people’s imagination. 2. Bring an extraordinary combination of people, with divergent skills and perspectives, together. Masterful Coaching
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3. Engage in robust dialogue around specific issues or problems, using disagreement as a resource. 4. Build shared understanding that perhaps leads to something new. 5. Forward the action, so that the speaking of that action spearheads a breakthrough.
PRACTICE 4
COME UP WITH A WINNING GAME PLAN THAT CLOSES THE GAP BETWEEN THE IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE AND REALITY
At Masterful Coaching my colleagues and I work with executives to define an impossible future, then we work with the executive team to create a game plan that tells people how we intend to win in this business. This is a far cry from the typical mission statement that is long on platitudes and short on specifics. I will be discussing how to create a winning game plan in a later chapter, so my intention here is simply to summarize the main points. Get all the stakeholders in one room for a team strategy session. Bringing all the stakeholders in one room allows you to capture the collective intelligence of the group and ensure that the decisions that need to get made do get made, rather than postponed until after Joe comes back from the dentist or Karin comes back from vacation. I usually prepare the group members for this type of session by talking to them about the importance of recognizing, analyzing, and capitalizing on trends. The idea is to create an information-rich environment that allows people to see new possibilities and opportunities brought on by discontinuous change. Look at the impossible future, the current reality, and the gap between them. The group leader talks to the team about the impossible future and gets reactions. For example,“Double car sales in North America,” or,“Create joint ventures in India to increase innovativeness, slash cost, and dramatically improve stock price.” The group then goes through what my colleagues and I call the What’s So Process, to assess where the company is in relation to the impossible future. As we inquire into each of the following points, we post flip charts all over the room: (1) facts about the business accomplishments of note; (2) strengths to build and biggest gaps; (3) opportunities and threats; and (4) what’s missing that if provided can make a difference.
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Identify what’s missing that if provided will make a difference. The What’s So Process, which is discussed further in Chapter Eight, gives people a very good idea about the gap between the impossible future and where they are today.The most important question in creating a game plan is to look at what’s missing that if provided will fill the gap. For example,What kind of talent in design, marketing, and purchasing do we need to hire to get the North American car business flying? What’s going to be our game-changing strategy for dramatically cutting out bureaucratic rigmarole and dramatically speeding up new drug development? How are we going to get intimate with customers? In reality these questions represent what’s needed and wanted. What’s missing represents a new idea, a fresh approach, an innovative solution that will produce what’s needed and wanted. If you try to fill the gap with your old winning strategies, you will fail. Most businesses have a winning strategy that is the source of their success and their limitations. In most cases the winning strategy will take you to a predictable future, but it won’t take you to the impossible future. Does anyone want to graduate from a new Chevy to a Pontiac anymore? How about a big, gas-guzzling SUV? Are you going to try to sell $30,000 cars in India? Are you going to let every department in your big pharma company operate like a silo or are you going to create a collaborative process that makes possible a powerful drug development pipeline? Start with a blank sheet of paper, and have a conversation about possibilities to address what is missing. As Carlos Ghosn of Nissan says,“I have the habit of working from a blank sheet, to observe without preconceived ideas and to listen to the players in all the sectors and at every level.”6 For example, you might build hybrid cars that look like Ferraris and go from zero to sixty in ten seconds.You want to speed up your drug development pipeline, bogged down by leaders who operate fiefdoms and government regulation. How about buying up small, entrepreneurial biotech companies that don’t make people jump through all the bureaucratic hoops to get things done? Give the rock stars of talent in these companies lots of leeway to pursue passions; protect them from the suits at corporate so they stick around. If they leave, you will be buying nothing but an empty shell. Forward the action with catalytic breakthrough projects, prototypes, demos, quick wins. I usually coach groups to bypass elaborate planning and preparations and to focus on jumping into action and getting some near-term results. Instead of planning, do a prototype. Instead of careful evaluation, do another prototype. Instead of a big PowerPoint presentation to get budgeted, build another prototype. I have recently fallen in love with the catalytic breakthrough project, an idea offered to me by Thomas Zweifel of the Swiss Consulting Group. It is basically a way to spearhead a breakthrough that will in turn create the opening to a larger breakthrough.7
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Four Criteria for a Catalytic Breakthrough Project 1. The executive team works on it together. 2. It is aimed at an unpredictable result. 3. It takes you to a different place. 4. It is accomplishable within thirty to ninety days. Remember, don’t plan; . . . do prototypes, demos, quick wins. For example, in his book Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, C. K. Prahalad talks about China’s and India’s rise and points out that the new source of wealth is where you would least expect it, among the world’s poor.8 Stop thinking of the poor as victims and start thinking of them as creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers, and a whole world of opportunity opens up. What are the poor missing that if provided would make a difference? GE recognized the opportunity and created GE Infrastructure. But what about you? Here are four ideas for catalytic breakthrough projects: What if you sold a car for $3,000? What if you built a computer to sell for $300? What about bank microloans? Take a global networking trip to meet people in a particular emerging market and begin to look for good potential joint venture partners for manufacturing or marketing, sales or distribution.
Guidelines for a Robust Dialogue 1. Treat everyone in the group as a colleague. 2. Shift your question-to-talk ratio (more questions, less talk). 3. Use disagreement as a resource. 4. Build shared understanding that leads to something new. 5. Discuss the undiscussable.
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PRACTICE 5
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HIRE A MASTERFUL NINJA COACH
In classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, “How well he spoke,” but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, “Let us march.” Adlai Stevenson9
When an executive has an impossible future but there is insufficient coaching capacity in the company, it can sometimes be a powerful assist to go outside the company and hire an executive coach. It is my experience that a powerful executive and a masterful ninja coach make one hell of a power-packed combination.Think of the combination of a passion for promotion and a passion for life; for heavy-duty industry expertise and for strategic “metaphysical” brilliance; for leadership clout and for leadership transformation, and for intellectual firepower and for emotional intelligence. It doesn’t matter who (the executive or the coach) plays which role; as long as the roles are covered the concoction will be potent enough to change the world in which you are operating. Only a ninja can stop a ninja! Stop thinking of a masterful coach as a traditional McKinsey-type consultant in a gray flannel suit or as a Silicon Valley leadership trainer with a loose-fitting, silk Mafia shirt (like Tony Soprano) and Gucci shoes. Start thinking of your masterful coach as a ninja, not only ready to support you in declaring your impossible future and winning game plan but also supporting you in a host of other stealthy activities. The word ninja is derived from a Japanese verb meaning “to do quietly” or “to do so as not to be perceived by others” and, by extension, “invisible.” The masterful coach does not work center stage, but practices ninjutsu—the skill of going unperceived, or “the art of stealth.” Stop thinking of your coach as a mere change agent who has to help you with a 100-slide PowerPoint presentation or with writing a thirty-page request for proposal for your next assignment. Start thinking of him or her as a change insurgent who is a master of moving your (or his or her) agenda forward by being charming and disarming, by using provocative and diplomatic, tactics, and by engaging in backroom deals and creative destruction.
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Forget being above it all. It is all politics. The rest is details. Ninja are said to have made use of weapons that could be easily concealed or disguised as common tools, the bo and hand claws (shuko, neko-te tekagi).Yes, I admit it, every time I do a coaching engagement with a top executive, usually a talented but noisy character who has tons of strengths and one or two big gaps, I bring along my ninja toolkit, disguised as such common tools as vision quests, 360-degree feedback, personal development plans, and team meetings.
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One of the first things I tell potential clients is to forget “being above it all.” It is all politics; the rest is details.
My executive coaching clients often have multiple motivations: (1) to become CEO, (2) to transform the company, and (3) to change the world. What better way to campaign for the CEO’s job than to employ the masterful ninja coach’s tool of developing a shared vision that builds public sentiment in your favor while at the same time genuinely doing something to create a winning company through a game-changing product or exciting new service? Of course your chances of success will be greatly increased if your masterful ninja coach uses stealth and skillful means to help you to master the political chessboard you are on. For every step you take will create either support or opposition. Another example of masterful ninja coaching stealth is the way I do 360 feedback interviews. It is almost like a ninja climbing up the side of a building in a black costume and entering the CEO’s office, both for the purpose of gathering feedback to improve the executive’s leadership style and to develop a relationship with higher-ups that I can later leverage to further my client’s goals and aspirations. In one executive coaching assignment with John Young, assistant secretary of the Navy, I interviewed the chief of Naval Operations, ten admirals, and four CEOs of big defense contractors. Let’s have a glass of wine some time and I will tell you about it. . . . Finally, a masterful coach does a whole list of things to mentor clients in order to transform them into monsters of effectiveness. These things involve—passion for living, talent quests, impossible futures, winning game plans, great groups, breakthrough results, dealing with breakdowns, cool projects, rapid prototypes, and masterful coaching skills.
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C H A P T E R
T H R E E
MASTERFUL COACHING IS ABOUT HOW YOU ARE BEING, NOT JUST A MATTER OF TECHNIQUE What makes masterful coaches stand out from the crowd? CEOs like Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines never make a product, conductors like Benjamin Zander of the Boston Philharmonic never make a sound, coaches like Joe Paterno of Pennsylvania State University never kick a ball, but somehow their presence is the difference between being the industry trend setter and industry laggard, between giving a great performance of Beethoven’s Fifth and a merely good one, between winning an NCAA Football championship and wearing the sad looks of losing team members at the end of the broadcast. One thing is for certain. Great leaders and coaches have ways of being that transcend mere technique. When you see these people in action, you may naturally ask yourself: “Are masterful coaches born or made?”“What are the ways of being that distinguish them from the pack?”“How do I get some
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of whatever it is that they’ve got?” In my experience, being a masterful coach is more about certain way of being than it is a matter of technique. It is a way of being that makes the biggest difference in attracting the most talented people on earth, generating the magic of teamwork, and winning championships, rather than the goals and game plans and 360 feedback instruments, as useful as these may be. When we take a stand for an impossible future and stand in people’s greatness, we begin to demonstrate the ways of being called masterful coaching. It is my belief that masterful coaching does not arise from people’s genetic makeup, a homogenized list of leadership competencies, or coaching technique. It arises more often than not from passionate individuals taking a stand for an impossible future that represents winning, as well as a stand for a great team and for the success of the individuals involved. By drawing their identity from their stand, as opposed to their position in the organization, these people continually call forth who they need to be and what they need to do to reach their objectives. By speaking, listening, and taking action from their stand, as opposed to their state of mind, mood, or emotional reaction, they help other people discover and call forth the greatness within. Masterful coaches have a desire to win, yet they possess in their attitude a motivation above and beyond winning, a desire to make a difference in people’s lives. Great leaders and coaches seem to possess in their makeup not only an appetite for impossible dreams but an unabashed desire to win.Yet masterful coaches also seem to possess a motivation above and beyond winning.Whether they are coaches in the great game of business, coaches in NFL football, or conductors of a symphony orchestra, they motivate not just by winning but also by providing people the ultimate self-development and growth experience. In many cases, impossible futures, winning, daring adventures, and quests for high performance are seen as no more than ingredients in the alchemical cauldron that helps people be more than they ever thought they could be and achieve more than they ever thought possible. Those moments in your life when you most admired yourself are typically those moments when you could truly say you made a difference in someone’s life. While writing this book I caught a television interview with Joe Paterno, who at eighty-five years old is still head coach of the Penn State football team. It sums up everything I have been saying here. The interviewer started out talking about the fact that “Joe Pa” had won three NCAA championships and amassed a great win-loss record. Before the interviewer could even finish getting the words out of his mouth, Joe Pa laughed, shook his head, and interrupted him:“That stuff doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. What means something to me is the great number of kids I impacted.”
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It is how you are being that will determine whether people see you as a cop or coach, mentor or micromanager, knower or learner.
It’s how we are being with people that shapes how people respond to us, much more than the leadership or management techniques that we try to employ. For example, I have often observed leaders and managers doing all the right stuff (setting aspirations and goals, motivating people, coaching, and so on), yet producing unintended results, such as people not buying into the goals, lacking motivation, and resisting coaching. In most cases, I have found that the problem is not a lack of mastery in coaching methods but a lack of mastery with respect to oneself.
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Coaching is not lighting a fire under people; it is building a fire within them.
I often tell leaders, “you need to operate as if you lived in a glass house.” People are constantly observing a leader’s way of being and the attitudes and behaviors that spring from it. Are you a cop or a coach? Jack Welch had a teachable point of view (TPOV) that leaders develop other leaders, which he demonstrated by spending 30 percent of his time coaching and teaching. Are you a micromanager or a mentor? Jeff Fettig, CEO of Whirlpool, personally mentors five people in his farflung organization. He doesn’t hover over people but rather mentors them on how to succeed in the company. Are you a knower or learner? Jeff Kaufman, a field vice president at Allstate Insurance, is a world-class leader and coach but considers himself “under construction,” an attitude that rubs off on his people.
It is how you are being that will determine whether people engage with you on your impossible future or resist it. Ask yourself if you are the kind of person who demonstrates a willingness to take on the impossible. Daniel Lamarre, president and chief operating officer of Cirque du Soleil, wakes up in the morning and asks,“What is impossible that I am going to do today?” He has coffee with the acrobats at 9 A.M., where he talks about “pushing beyond limits,” and by noontime they are trying to do triple somersaults in the air. Lamarre has realized the impossible dream of reinventing the
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circus, producing more money in a decade than Ringling Brothers or Barnum and Bailey made in their one-hundred-year history. It is how you are being that determines whether your TPOV leads to shifts in thinking and attitude or falls on deaf ears. I often tell the coaches I am working with that coaching doesn’t occur in the coach’s speaking, it occurs in people’s listening. The vision spoken by one person can show up as pure inspiration for another person but as “flavor of the month” for yet another. Further, a TPOV about success spoken by one person can be listened to as powerful, profound, and even lifealtering, whereas the same TPOV spoken by another can be listened to as “ho-hum, everybody knows that.” Again, it comes down to that X factor. When you give feedback with near-brutal candor, it is how you are being that will determine whether people see it as an opportunity and gift or as a reason to get depressed. It is how you are being that determines whether people will twiddle their thumbs or jump into action. Masterful coaches are known for inspiring people to embrace an impossible dream, to come up with a great game plan, and to come together to iron out conflicts.Yet at the end of the day a good coach needs to create openings for successful action and do whatever is necessary to forward the action. It’s great to say you want to be the industry game changer and global leader, but what if the design engineers in your company never build a product, the manufacturing group dillydallies on the assembly line, or the salespeople don’t get on the horn and make cold calls. The acid test of a masterful coach may, in the final analysis, be what people do when the coach finishes speaking. Do people say this thing needs more planning and analysis, or do they jump into action? ESTABLISH THE GROUND OF BEING YOU WILL COME FROM IN EVERY COACHING RELATIONSHIP In the masterful coaching certification program we talk about the Masterful Coaching Big 8, which spell out the ground of being, or place to stand or to come from, that you need in order to be successful as a coach. I tell people,“I promise you, if you make the Masterful Coaching Big 8 your ground of being, your coaching career will be golden.” As I talk to them about establishing their ground of being as a masterful coach, I look with them at how they are being today and any shifts they need to make. The proof is in the pudding. When you walk away from people, what kind of space do you leave them in—inspired, empowered, and enabled or uninspired, disempowered, and dysfunctional? If you establish the Masterful Coaching Big 8 as your ground of being, your coaching career will be golden.
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The Masterful Coaching Big 8 1. Stand for an impossible future and winning at the great game of business. 2. Stand for people’s greatness, even when they fall from it. 3. Stand for the individual’s success at all times, under all conditions. 4. Come from being challenging and being supportive—at the same time. 5. Come from first build on strengths, then address gaps. 6. Come from it takes an extraordinary combination of talents to make a team. 7. Come from every person or situation is transformable. 8. Come from there is always a path forward, no matter how much it may look otherwise.
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Think of who you are as a stand—a powerful commitment to an impossible dream—rather than who you are as your history.
GROUND OF BEING 1
STAND FOR AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE AND WINNING AT THE GREAT GAME OF BUSINESS
The first step in establishing your ground of being is to declare: “Who I am as a leader and coach is a stand for an impossible future and winning results that make a difference.” This needs to be your come from in everything you do. For example, there is no question about Pat Riley’s way of
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being. It is a stand for leading his team to an impossible dream and winning championships. It was Riley, when he was the LA Lakers coach, who went into the locker room after the Lakers won two championships and said,“Three-peat,” promising that the Lakers would win the title the following year. Riley is not just a dream maker but also a master motivator who gets people to do whatever it takes to win. In 2006, as coach for the Miami Heat, he went into the locker room before a big game carrying a bucket of ice water. He asked the team, Would you give your last breath of air to win? Riley then dumped his head in the bucket of water and kept it there until his players pulled him out. The team went on to win the 2006 NBA championship.1
GROUND OF BEING 2
STAND IN PEOPLE’S GREATNESS, EVEN WHEN THEY FALL FROM IT
I met Benjamin Zander when he was teaching a master class at the New England Conservatory of Music. The students were all afraid of making a mistake in playing their instruments and not getting an A in the class. Recognizing this, Zander told them all that he was going to “extend them an A” (give them an A in the course). All they had to do was write one page that began, “Dear Mr. Zander, I got my A because . . .” and went on to tell the story of how they transformed from a great technician to a great musician. Each student then performed in front of Zander and the class. Zander coached:“Play with more passion and boldness!”“Play with big notes that are the music’s architecture!”“Play with more speed!” Zander never settled for less than excellence:“Stop!! Do it again! You’re a two-buttock player, become a one-buttock player.” He was relentless— coaching, provoking, cajoling, interrupting. Right before my eyes each student broke through whatever was stopping him or her from being great.
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Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be. Goethe
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GROUND OF BEING 3
STAND FOR THE INDIVIDUAL’S SUCCESS—AT ALL TIMES, UNDER ALL CONDITIONS, UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES
To be sure, a great coach is someone who inspires people to a cause greater than themselves. A coach of any sports team gets people to win by playing as a team, passing the ball rather than taking the shot, and being unselfish.Yet a great coach knows that every great team rests on the success of the individual, and so the coach stands for the individual’s success and gets behind each person to make him successful, even when he fails. Coach Rick Pitino, when coach at the University of Kentucky, asked player Jamal Mashburn during his junior year,“Does it bother you that people are talking about drafting your teammates for the NBA and no one is talking about drafting you?” Mashburn replied,“I guess I just don’t have the skills to play at that level.” Pitino told him,“You have all the skills you need except one. That explosive first step off the ball.”“Really!” exclaimed Mashburn.“Yes,” Pitino said,“and, if I were you, I wouldn’t waste a minute being jealous. Instead, I would tell myself, ‘I want a piece of that dream’ and then get to work on that explosive first step. I will be here and do absolutely everything I can to help.” Jamal became Pitino’s first truly great player at Kentucky.”2
GROUND OF BEING 4
COME FROM CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE AND SUPPORTING THEM—AT THE SAME TIME
Great coaches are not reluctant to both challenge and support people. What makes them stand out though is that they do so in the same breath:“You are great player. I haven’t seen your greatness come out on this team, and I want to see it.” Great coaches challenge people to accomplish impossible goals, yet they also demonstrate support (compassion) for what people have to go through to achieve them. I once took a golf lesson in which I really struggled with getting the grip right. The coach, Dave Hewitt, put my hand on the club correctly, but as soon as I would attempt to move the club, my grip would slip to the left.The coach would stop me with the most gentle bedside manner,“Here let me help you with that.” He did this ten or maybe twenty times, until finally I got it.
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GROUND OF BEING 5
COME FROM FIRST BUILD ON STRENGTHS AND THEN ADDRESS GAPS—AVOID THE TYRANNY OF CORPORATE COMPETENCY LISTS
Great coaches don’t shrink from hiring talented people with strong independent personalities, iconoclasts who have built up a portfolio of wow projects in different companies. Great coaches lead them to their greatness, often just by freeing them to do their best work, helping them break the grip of and excel beyond old patterns. In contrast, when your typical human resource manager is tasked with hiring a leader or manager, instead of focusing on strengths, she often focuses on competency gaps, trying to figure out how to fill them (usually by packing people off to abstract training programs). Ask yourself: “What is my come from in dealing with people? Do I focus on talents and gifts and how to leverage these? Or do I focus on finding what’s wrong with people so that I and others can fix it?” Would a rock star of talent, like the guy who invented Linux, come to work in your company, and if he did, how long would he last?
GROUND OF BEING 6
COME FROM IT TAKES AN EXTRAORDINARY COMBINATION OF TALENTS TO MAKE A TEAM
Too many companies today have too many similar people, producing too many similar products, and selling to too many similar customers, which leads to similar blah financial results. The key to breaking out of this no-growth morass is to do something dramatically different. A good starting point is to get some different faces on your team, with different mind-sets and skill sets, and bring them together around a shared goal that will rock your world: for example, an innovative product or service that represents a game-changing solution. It starts with honoring differences. One of the big differences between checkers and chess is how the pieces can move. In checkers all the pieces move only in one direction, forward. In chess the different pieces can move in different directions. Learn how each player on your team moves, and then find out how you can best create a team that truly functions as a whole.
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GROUND OF BEING 7
EVERY PERSON OR SITUATION IS TRANSFORMABLE
As a leader and coach you not only have to have a dream but also have to be prepared to confront difficult facts and obstacles that need to be overcome. I am talking about such things as a bad relationship with your boss, your company being stuck in a no-growth morass for as long as you can remember, and demotivated employees who are walking across the street to join the competition and better pay. In these types of situations, as a leader and coach, you can come from the place that everything is transformable, no matter how much it may look otherwise, or you can come from a place of profound resignation, getting discouraged by the complexity of the whole situation. In general I find that it’s much more effective for a leader and coach to come from the option of transformation, rather than giving up and saying “why bother” or “the hell with them.”
GROUND OF BEING 8
THERE IS ALWAYS A PATH FORWARD
In my years of experience as an executive coach I have often had to deal with a situation like the following. I have coached an executive to come up with a vision and game plan and to make a presentation to the executive committee. In most cases this is highly successful, but there are other times when the person gets shot down and comes to me disgruntled and discouraged. After commiserating with the person to the effect of “they just don’t understand,” I usually say something to this effect:“There is always a path forward. Let’s find it together, by taking a closer look at what happened, what’s missing, and what’s next.” I have found that by coming from the stand that there is always a path forward and by delving into these questions for an hour or so, you are much more likely to find the path forward than you are if you spend the next hour commiserating.
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THE MASTERFUL COACHING APPROACH TO TRANSFORMATION STARTS WITH A LEADERSHIP DECLARATION
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I am committed to the possibility of [new ways of being] . . . I am committed to giving up [old ways of being] . . .
The power to transform yourself or others starts with the power of words. For example, you can make a leadership declaration that you will be a leader and coach who stands in people’s greatness and not a manager who can’t resist the temptation to belittle people. A powerful leadership declaration can alter where you are coming from as a coach and change your perspective. The fact is that most leaders and managers have not consciously and intentionally chosen their way of being but have inherited it from the past.
The Power of Words in Creating Yourself Anew
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You and I have been born into a certain historical community or background that shapes our horizon of possibility, goals, priorities, and way of being in the world.
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We draw our identity by using the power of words to define what it is to be a leader, a manager, and a human being, based on this background: for example,“I am the boss!”
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The way we define leadership becomes our conversation about ourselves. It shapes our way of being with people, our thinking, and our actions.
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It also leads to a biological conversation that gives rise to certain emotions and body language.
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You and I have the power to start a new conversation about ourselves and transform who we are, because you and I have the power to speak and listen.
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Make a leadership declaration that describes your old and new ways of being:“I am committed to the possibility of [new ways of being]. I am committed to giving up [old ways of being that are counterproductive].”
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Create a leadership roadmap that supports your leadership declaration.
TRANSFORMATIONAL COACHING—BREAKING THE GRIP OF THE PAST After a leadership declaration has been made, the issue becomes how to help people break the grip of and excel beyond old ways of being and thinking and behaviors that have become deeply ingrained habits. Here is a three-step process for learning powerful lessons in personal change.
Breaking the Grip of the Past Step 1. Unfreeze: recognize how you are being now—for example, a dispassionate manager. Step 2. Change: declare new ways of being for yourself as a leader and coach. Step 3. Refreeze: integrate new ways of being into your thinking and behavior in action. For example, I coached a CEO of Credit Suisse who was the spitting image of a brilliant but imposing Prussian field marshal. He was the smartest person in the room by far, and when people disagreed, he would stand up so that people could see just how big and intimidating his sixfoot-four, 240-pound frame was and would bark out orders. He told me,“My father was authoritarian, my bosses have all been authoritarian, and I am authoritarian. I know that even when I try to be more collaborative, my authoritarian attitudes still comes across in both my tone of voice and in my body language. I don’t know if I can change.” The first step was to do what we at Masterful Coaching call unfreezing. In this case it involved inducing uncertainty in this man’s present leadership style. I did this by pointing out to him that even though his leadership style and winning strategy led to smart, fast decisions and made things happen, it had unintended results, such as intimidating people and reverse delegation. The second step was changing (transformation), which involved getting him to make a leadership declaration to this effect:“I am committed to being a leader, coach, and mentor. I am committed to giving up being a field marshal, being a micromanager and having the smartest-person-in-the-room syndrome.”
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The third step, refreezing, involved helping him integrate new ways of being. We brainstormed a list of thinking styles and behaviors he was going to start doing and stop doing, as well as a thirty-day action plan based on opportunities to put these thinking styles and behaviors into practice. I then coached him on being less cold, austere, and aloof and on showing human emotions more, such as warmth, friendliness, and a sense of humor. I also sent him and his wife to a tango class in Zurich, to alter his stiff body language. Finally, I appointed one of his direct reports as a deputy coach, someone who could give him instant feedback when he reverted to his old ways of being, winning strategies, and habits. The result was almost miraculous. CHOOSE HOW YOU NEED TO BE ON A PRACTICAL, DAY-IN, DAY-OUT BASIS
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I coach leaders to prepare for every coaching session and for every important meeting by choosing who they need to be and what they need to do to get intended results.
So far we have been talking about making a fundamental shift from power wielder to leader, from cop to coach, from micromanager to mentor, from arrogant know-it-all to teacher in a way that is irrevocably life altering.Yet just as important, you can choose how you need to be on a practical, day-in, day-out basis. Our masterful coaching certification program teaches people how to do this in the process of preparing for each coaching session, and it will be worthwhile to briefly touch on it here.
REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT
Preparing Who You Need to Be and What You Need to Do to Be Successful in Your Next Coaching Session
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Take a piece of paper and write down your answers to the following questions: 1.
Think about the person you are coaching; what are your observations and assessments?
2.
What would you like to accomplish by the end of the session? For example, build shared goals, get a teachable point of view across, drive results.
3.
Who do you need to be as a commitment to accomplishing those results? For example, stand in people’s greatness, be challenging and supportive, be a committed speaker.
4.
Who does the coachee need to be in order to accomplish those results? For example: a request for coaching, a committed listener, a learner.
5.
Script the conversation by playing out how you would like the conversation to go.
FOUR INTERLOCKING ROLES FOR COACHES IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY
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Who we are in a company is to a large extent determined by the roles we play.
As I have said, the age of talent and the global economy with its new rules have given rise to the leader as coach in place of the organization man. The leader as coach not only has to hire rock stars of talent (people who will come up with innovative products and services), she also needs to pay attention to the development of people who can mount projects, bring teams of unlikely collaborators together, and maximize team performance. In researching over a hundred different organizations in forty different countries, I have discovered that there are four key roles that masterful coaches play in leading organizations (see Figure 3.1). As one manager told me,“The clearer people are about their roles, the more amazing things they will do.”
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FIGURE 3.1 The four interlocking roles of a masterful coach
Leaders who develop other leaders Performance maximizer Thinking partners in dealing with complexity Master architect of creative collaboration
Four Interlocking Roles of a Masterful Coach 1. Leader who develops other leaders 2. Performance maximizer—performance on demand 3. Thinking partner in dealing with complexity 4. Master architect of creative collaboration
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Coaching people to unleash their aspirations, move beyond what they already think and know, and maximize their results fulfills one of our highest aspirations of what it is to be a human being.
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ROLE 1
BEING A LEADER WHO DEVELOPS OTHER LEADERS
Today, many companies, both multinationals and emerging businesses, are suffering from leadership lag—the time between coming up with a new strategy and finding the leadership talent needed to implement it. It is often the case that the most important projects are put on the back burner due to a leadership supply gap. As a result, making leadership the starting point of strategy is a big, bold idea that is worth CEO attention. Let’s say you are the leader of your company. You’ve read all the articles about talent, and you take the view that in an age of talent, leadership talent that can make strategy fly is about the only thing that can’t be reduced to a commodity.You understand that developing leaders can be your way to gain an edge or advantage in a highly competitive marketplace. What do you do about it? Give a fifteen-minute launch speech at the leadership training? Call a consultant? Call the human resource department? These responses are the conventional wisdom. But how about pushing beyond conventional wisdom and doing something that breaks the mold? Let me emphasize some things (and review some of the things I mentioned in Chapter One) that you might do: (1) get personally and passionately involved in leadership development; (2) work with human resources to get a list of all the high-potential people you want to develop in the company; (3) send each one of those people a handwritten note inviting him or her to join your fast-track leadership program and emphasizing that business is the ultimate selfdevelopment experience; (4) personally coach four direct reports on their performance and four high potentials on their development; (5) supplement with professional coaching and 360 feedback; (6) make sure every highflier has a stretch assignment; (7) make sure your direct reports do these same things, so as to start a cascade. In this way you will create a leadership pipeline.
LESSONS FROM GREAT COACHES—GRASSROOTS LEADERSHIP Royal Dutch/Shell is an organization with $128 billion in annual revenues and a staff of over 101,000 employees in about 130 countries throughout the world. When Steve Miller, age fifty-two, became a group managing director, he realized that to grow Shell’s business in his area he would have to generate entrepreneurial leadership attitudes at the local level. Miller realized that he was going to have to find a way to
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reach through the bureaucracy and get leaders at all levels involved in creating a winning enterprise, especially in the European hypermarkets, where there was a dreaded loss of market share and slack growth. Miller saw that to do this, he was going to have to show leadership, but a different kind from what he had been used to. Instead of telling people what to do or giving them the answers from three layers above, he was going to have to reach through the bureaucracy and act much more like a coach and teacher. Week after week he met with people from more than twenty-five countries that together represented more than 85 percent of Shell’s retail sales volume—50,000 service stations. Each service station represented an entrepreneurial opportunity. “In an effort to improve service station revenues along major highways,” said Miller, “in Malaysia we brought in a cross-functional team that included a dealer, union trucker, and four or five marketing executives.” At this boot camp, team members were taught leadership principles and given some tools for market segmentation and creating a value proposition that could apply to a business opportunity in their local area. For example, the value proposition might apply to improving filling station performance in Malaysia or to selling liquefied natural gas elsewhere in Asia. Then those teams went home, and another group of teams came in. The first teams were asked to spend the next sixty days creating a business-building plan, then to return to the boot camp for a peer review. These sessions, which took place in a fishbowl setting, with Miller and others acting as coach, were tense but productive learning experiences. At the end of the boot camp the teams went back home to translate their ideas into action. They then returned again to report the “breakdowns and breakthroughs.” Miller himself felt personally challenged by the shift from the role of a leader and manager who figures it all out from the top to the role of a coach and conductor. His vulnerabilities were exposed. “One day, all of a sudden I found myself standing in front of 70 people talking about my transformation.” The scariest thing for him was letting go of control, but then he realized that he got control in a different way—by developing relationships and bringing out the best in people and groups. He also had to learn to be more authentic. “If a business team brings in a plan that is really a bunch of crap, I’ve got to say it. If I cover for people and praise everyone, what do I do when someone brings in an excellent plan?” The boot camps worked remarkably well. In January of 2001, he got a note from the business team leader for France. Before the boot camp the company had lost almost half its market share in less than two years to new, aggressive competitors, and managers were terrified and confounded as to what to do about it.
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But here was good news. The business had recorded double-digit profitability, exceeded its growth target, and achieved double-digit growth. More important, the people involved had learned how to lead, how to coach, and how to create an organization of businesspeople.3
“ ROLE 2
Today you need to coach people for high performance every day, or you and your business will sink to the bottom of the pool.
PERFORMANCE MAXIMIZER
In most companies leaders ask people to pay attention to what they can predict:“Let’s set some goals or objectives that we know are within the realm of what is possible to achieve. I’d rather underpromise and overdeliver, than overpromise and not make our bonuses.” Masterful coaches, in contrast, ask people to pay attention to what they can declare:“Let’s set some goals that are a combination of the impossible and possible. Now let’s look at who we need to be and what we need to do to reach them.” The coach then engages people in a robust dialogue about the whats and the hows, sticking around to ensure follow-through and holding people accountable for results. Performance maximizers can coach, push, cajole, or threaten, but they don’t just set the bar high; they help people get over it. This involves focusing not just on what is wrong but also on what is missing that can make a difference.
“
Focus on what’s missing, not what’s wrong.
Let’s take an example. Say you are a designer working for General Motors with its rental car fleet—a huge business. How are you going to sell more cars? If you are like me, you know where everything is on your own car—inside door handle, light switch, trunk release, AM/FM radio button—but if you get into a rental car at George Bush Intercontinental Airport at eleven o’clock
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at night and then try to get out to go back to the van where you left your computer bag, there is a good chance you won’t even be able to find the door handle—that’s what’s wrong. Now, if I were a coach in this situation, I might ask, “Do you know what’s missing that might make a difference in selling rental cars? Designing a better experience for customers. Let’s start with putting an LED light on the inside door handle of the car.”
LESSONS FROM GREAT COACHES—INTERVENE TO IMPACT PERFORMANCE There is a story about Jack Welch, former CEO and chairman of General Electric (GE), that illustrates what it means to be a performance maximizer. It starts with a customer visit where Welch found out GE’s CAT scan and X-ray tubes were good for only 25,000 scans, less than half the number of the competition. Welch reached down two levels of management, found the person who was in charge, Marc Onetto, a general manager for service and maintenance in Europe, summoned him to GE headquarters, and said, “I want 100,000 scans out of my tubes!” Onetto gasped at the number but was even more shocked by the fact the chairman would take an interest in what is one of GE’s smaller business units, and went to work. Onetto took this up as a personal challenge, one that captured his and his organization’s imagination. It was also an opportunity to be coached by arguably one of the most effective business leaders in the world. Every week for the next four years, he would fax Welch reports on the progress. Back would come handwritten faxes from Welch, sometimes cajoling and congratulating, “That’s great.” At other times growling, “You’re not moving fast enough,” or, “Have you thought of this . . . ? Have you contacted that expert?” Onetto brought his team members together and was at first afraid they would never be able to achieve the goal. But Welch’s relentlessness in pursuing the goal and his belief that they could do it, caused them to really come together as a team and challenge their own orthodox methods of building tubes, leading to a breakthrough. Eventually, they began to view the interaction with Welch as not only challenging and supportive but fun. Today the division produces versions of the tubes that put out not 100,000 but between 150,000 and 200,000 scans per tube. Onetto reported that this was the single most powerful performance breakthrough of his life, as well as the single most powerful learning experience. He learned a tremendous amount about leadership, team collaboration, and achieving something he and others didn’t really believe they were capable of.4
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“ ROLE 3
Peter Drucker was trying to stimulate thinking and get you to think about questions that you had not thought about before. Jon Katzenbach5
BEING A THINKING PARTNER
Today many executives still suffer from the smartest-person-in-the-room syndrome. They think they have to have all the answers, and they expect their direct reports to follow in kind. At the same time, there is still tremendous pressure on managers to be right and to give instant answers, even to the most complex questions. I have been fascinated at many meetings to see managers demonstrate so much noble certainty about answers to complex questions that they have thought about for barely a few minutes. They show up like experts, with an attitude of knowing, when what is often required is an attitude of learning and a beginner’s mind. Yet as today’s leaders in a global economy set higher goals and deal with ever more complex problems, there are more and more situations where the answers aren’t obvious and the solutions are unknown. This situation is worse when the boss is not an expert in the field of inquiry. Thus the role of a leader is shifting from being the smartest person in the room, with an answer for everything, to being a thinking partner who can help people do their own thinking and discover their own answers. The following protocol will help you to manage by collaborative inquiry: Step 1. Got a problem? Let’s talk about it. “How are you looking at this problem and how do you need to see it differently?” “What is your thinking about this? How does your thinking need to change?” “What do you know about this? What do you need to learn?” Step 2. Question what people take for granted. “Help me to understanding your thinking here?” “What data led you to that conclusion?” “Are you making an assumption?” “Have you considered. . . ?”
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Step 3. Listen for brilliance. Draw people out to help them come to a clearer understanding of their own ideas.“Could you clarify this? Elaborate on that?” “Let’s connect the dots to what you said earlier.” “Aha! That’s brilliant!” Step 4. When people are stumped. If you just give a person an answer, you wind up with a disempowered person with an answer. Instead ask,“Would you like a suggestion?” Step 5. Give up the need to be right. If you disagree but don’t want to act like an arrogant know-it-all, say,“I have a belief that. . . .” If people disagree with you, resist the need to be right. Instead engage and inquire further.
“
Marvin Bower—former McKinsey managing director and considered the father of modern management consulting—was good at asking questions to stimulate thinking, and he carried it out to determine recommendations for solving business problems.
LESSONS FROM GREAT COACHES—MANAGING BY COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY As Tom Kaiser, president of Zurich Financial, Customer Solutions Group, told me, “There are only so many customer relationships and projects that you can personally drive as a manager. Being a thinking partner is the only way to manage in a world where the people in your group are specialists who know much more about their jobs than you do. I cannot dictate their behavior or simply tell them the answers.” Kaiser sees being a thinking partner as asking questions and listening in a way that helps people come to a clearer understanding of their own ideas. It can also mean challenging assumptions or making provocative statements that lead to new creative insights. When Kaiser went to Zurich, the people on his team said, “We’re a mature business in a tough market, not a growth business. How do we preserve our market share?” Kaiser’s response was, “Let’s reframe that. Every business is a growth business. Now, what do we have to do to take on the world?” That stopped
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the discussion, and he continued, “Let’s do a deep dive into this.” This led to brainstorming ideas that would maximize Zurich’s underperforming possibilities, opportunities, and business assets. Sales went from $300 million to $700 million over the next three years.6
Being a thinking partner is a skill and art that often involves helping people make the best decisions. You will sometimes discover that people are overly analytical and don’t pay attention to their intuition, and at other times you will find that they make intuitive decisions that have not been fully thought out in a systematic way. In many cases people find their intuition telling them one thing and their rational mind telling them another. Then they choose one over the other, which leads predictably to making mistakes or to bad moves. Let’s say you are coaching someone who is deciding to hire one of two talented managers, A or B, and she can’t make up her mind. Her intuition tells her to choose A. Her reasoning tells her to choose B. Instead of coaching her to choose A or B, giving her the answer, ask her to wait awhile in order to learn why her intuition and reason are in conflict. There are some tools my colleagues and I use in masterful coaching that are very helpful when you need to be a thinking partner. First of all, you need to shift how you are being. To make it easy, take off your smartest-person-in-the-room hat and put on your thinking partner hat. Along with that, learn to balance advocacy and inquiry, which boils down to increasing your question-to-talk ratio. Instead of telling people the answers, ask more questions to draw people out, encouraging them to do their own thinking and discover their own answers. As people tell you their goals and plans, help them to question what they take for granted (their beliefs and assumptions). The ladder of inference, developed by Chris Argyris7 (Figure 3.2), is a very useful tool for making sure that people aren’t jumping to conclusions or for asking people to supply their reasoning process or the data that went into their conclusions. Oftentimes when you are being a thinking partner, people will present you with either-or dilemmas: for example, Shall we focus on long-term vision or short-term profitability? Shall we search outside to hire talented leaders for a new role or search inside for talented people? Shall we source goods in the domestic market or go to China, India, or Brazil? In many cases the job of the thinking partner is to transform either-or dilemmas into both-and propositions. For example, you can’t think just long term or short term; you have to think in both ways. Another powerful role when you are being a thinking partner is to imagine breakthroughs. Take an impossible future or
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FIGURE 3.2 The ladder of inference
“No, I’m right.”
“I’m right.”
Actions I take Beliefs I adopt Conclusions I draw Assumptions I make Meanings I add Data I select Witnessable Data Source: Adapted from Chris Argyris, Knowledge for Action (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1993).
breakthrough goal (like doubling your business in three years), and bring your team members together, telling them to brainstorm as many ideas as possible that will increase sales 20 percent and profits 15 percent.You may be amazed by the results.
“ ROLE 4
Coaching involves sculpting new patterns of relationship and interaction that result in creative and innovative solutions.
BEING A MASTER ARCHITECT OF CREATIVE COLLABORATION
Today most companies have discovered that to succeed they have to focus on businesses products and services within their circle of competence. At the same time, the need to do complex, difficult things for customers is causing companies to expand their circle of competence through
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alliances and outsourcing, with a minimum expenditure in costs and effort. In the first half of 1998 alone there were over 10,700 such alliances formed worldwide, so many that the Economist Intelligence Unithas suggested that the traditional corporation may cease to exist, except as a legal contrivance, and is being replaced by something called an enterprise community.
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Sustained success means making the greatest possible impact over the longest period of time. Marcus Buckingham8
At the same time, within companies people are increasingly discovering that solving problems of high complexity requires creative collaboration between extraordinary combinations of individuals who represent different views and backgrounds. It has become increasingly clear that creative genius is the result not of individual efforts but of collaboration, whether it is happening in research and development, in marketing, or on the factory floor. As Joan Holmes, executive director of the Hunger Project, pointed out to me in an interview for my book Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration, “Collaborations don’t just happen. They take leadership.”9 Thus one of the coaching roles that is essential today is what I call being a master architect of creative collaboration, or what Warren Bennis refers to as an “organizing genius.”10 It takes a certain kind of coaching skill beyond normal team building to articulate goals that inspire collaboration, to create (design) and bring together extraordinary combinations of people around a business problem, and to facilitate a focused dialogue that results in a collective work product. One of the best examples I have ever seen of this role is in the work of Douglas Dayton, the Boston director of IDEO, an industrial design firm that helped companies come up with the Apple mouse, the stand-up Crest toothpaste tube, and the Motorola flip phone. Dayton considers himself a horizontal engineer when solving customer problems. He regularly brings together motley groups—composed, for example of industrial designers, hardware engineers, fashion experts, venture capital finance people, and end users—for his famous brainstormer and back to brainstormer sessions. The idea behind this is that the more juxtapositions of talented people with different perspectives one has, the more innovation.
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It is important not only to bring unlikely collaborators together but also to ensure real dialogue. In Dayton’s world this often looks like a lot of people in one room shouting at each other, which is a sign that they have given up the need to be in agreement—a secret of real dialogue. It also looks like someone stating a first solution, someone else stating a second solution, and then yet another person coming up with a third solution that integrates the previous two and also takes the solution to a whole new level that represents the next great thing.11 Granted, you may not be a member of an industrial design firm, but the next time you are dealing with a complex problem, what extraordinary combination of people will you bring together to solve it? How will you create a dialogue where people give up the need to be in agreement? How will you move people past the warring tribes syndrome and the guild mentality?
REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT
Developing Leadership Agility Masterful coaches practice leadership agility. Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 is low and 5 is high) on your ability to play each one of these roles. What does your score indicate about new roles you need to take on or capabilities you need to strengthen?
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Foster a spirit of inquiry in complex situations when appropriate.
2.
Play a leadership development role when appropriate.
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Play a coaching and teaching role when appropriate.
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Play a demanding, driving execution role when appropriate.
5.
Play a collaborative leadership role when appropriate.
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Play a hands-off, fully delegating leadership role when appropriate.
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Play a (supportive) encouraging leadership role when appropriate.
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C H A P T E R
F O U R
COACHING IS A SPECIAL KIND OF CONVERSATION, NOT A SPECIAL EVENT ON THE CORPORATE CALENDAR
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If you ask me what I have come to do in this world, I who am an artist, I will reply: I am here to live my life out loud. Émile Zola
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The journey to masterful coaching is realizing an impossible future and making a difference in the world. My intention in this part of the book is to provide you with a roadmap and a course plotter with various waypoints.We have talked about the leader as coach, introduced masterful coaching as winning at the great game of business, and talked about how masterful coaching depends more on how you are being with people than it does on technique.We have also talked about the roles of a masterful coach.The next step on the journey to masterful coaching takes into account that coaching happens in conversations.You will learn that a coach has a certain way of speaking and listening—from a stand for realizing an impossible future and for bringing out the highest and the best in people.
COACHING IS NOT A SPECIAL EVENT As I mentioned earlier, one of the biggest reasons most managers don’t coach others is that they see coaching conversations as a set of additional meetings they have to add to their already busy agendas. I want to emphasize, however, that coaching is not a special event on the corporate calendar but a special place to come from and a special kind of conversation that you bring to the events already on the calendar. Once leaders and managers begin to see this, they are freed up to start coaching immediately.They also become interested in how they can develop the skills to have powerful coaching conversations. Great leaders and coaches transform royal appearances and obligatory meetings into extraordinary coaching opportunities. When Jack Welch became head of General Electric, he inherited a large number of obligatory business meetings. For example, he transformed what might otherwise be humdrum occasions, the General Electric annual meeting in Boca Raton and a royal appearance at a leadership development session at Crotonville, into opportunities to engage in powerful coaching conversations. “We all have some goals to meet that are a combination of the impossible and impossible.This year we are going to be experiencing world-wide inflation due to the price of oil. I want to make it clear that saying you didn’t meet your goals because of higher prices is just not acceptable.” After a while Welch would pause and then talk about one of his teachable points of view: “People are more important than a strategy,” or, “I’ve played 100% at putting together an Olympic level team. How about you? Could you put your team up against my team?”
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It’s not enough to have a teachable point of view. You have to find teachable moments to celebrate and express that TPOV.
Coaching conversations can happen anytime, anyplace. The point is that any leader or manager on the journey to masterful coaching has to take into account that she is presented every day with a myriad of coaching opportunities, both on and off the calendar. It is up to leaders and managers to recognize these opportunities when they are presented and take a stand to engage in coaching conversations that involve both committed speaking and committed listening.This starts with authentic communication. It was also at one of those Boca Raton meetings that Welch collared rising star and future successor Jeff Immelt, and said,“Jeff, I love you and believe in you, but you have just had one of the worst years in your life, and if you don’t fix it, I am going to take you out.” Immelt countered,“If I don’t fix it, I am going to take myself out.”1
Coaching Opportunities •
Strategy sessions
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Planning and budget sessions
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One-to-one and team meetings
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Business reviews
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Operating reviews
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Talent reviews
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Performance reviews
COACHING CONVERSATIONS ARE SPECIAL CONVERSATIONS IN OUR CULTURE Let’s take a closer look at the nature of coaching conversations. First of all, coaching conversations are different from conversations about our opinions.They are different from conversations
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where we engage in blame, shame, or guilt.They are different from conversations where we indulge in gossip and rumor. Coaching conversations are the conversations in which we dare to dream the impossible dream, in which powerful commitments are made, in which we hold and are held accountable for results, and in which we find value for growth and learning. Coaching conversations are an art and a practice, but also in a very real sense a discipline. Coaching conversations are the ones where we stand for something and draw our identity from our stand: impossible futures, dreams, quests, talent development, great teamwork, and so on.They are conversations where we distinguish ourselves from our moods, and where we speak and listen from our commitment to bring out the best in those around us. Coaching conversations are those in which we stand in people’s greatness, even when they fall from it.They are conversations where we speak and listen from a commitment to cause someone’s success, even when they make a mistake that costs the whole game and some part of us would like to shout and scream.They are conversations where we hold ourselves to account to speak and listen in a way that stretches, affirms, adjusts, and provides feedback with the near-brutal candor needed for growth and learning. Coaching conversations are focused at once on the dream, winning, excellence, top-line growth, and bottom-line ROI, in the knowledge that we cannot focus on these things without creating a context in which people can have the ultimate self-development and growth experience. A MASTERFUL COACH PRACTICES COMMITTED SPEAKING AND COMMITTED LISTENING
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If you are a brilliant listener who rarely interjects, the speaker will think you are brilliant—because he will have been listening to himself. Paul Arden2
Perhaps the most important lesson in coaching communication is that masterful coaches speak and listen from a stand.This means speaking or listening from a powerful commitment to realize
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a vision or noble and mighty purpose, as well as a commitment to interact with others in a way that brings out the highest and best in them. In contrast, in the ordinary course of events, most leaders and managers don’t speak from a stand, but from a kinda, sorta commitment to goals and from their reactive thoughts and emotions around people. There is perhaps no better example of a coach who speaks and listens from a stand to cause the success of a player than the following story. It happened at the last game of the 1985 NCAA Basketball Championship. John Thompson was coaching for Georgetown University, and Dean Beaman was coaching for North Carolina.The two star players that year were James Worthy, who later became an LA Laker, and Patrick Ewing, who ended up spending most of his career with the Knicks.The two teams were tied up, with one minute left on the clock, when freshman Michael Jordan scored a basket, putting North Carolina two points ahead. Steve Jones of Georgetown got the ball with more than plenty of time to score another basket. Just then, to the amazement of Coach Thompson, Coach Beaman, both teams, and 45,000 spectators, Jones took the ball and inexplicably threw it to James Worthy on the other team. It would be a mistake that would stay with Jones for the rest of his life.Thompson realized this in a second and, to everyone’s amazement, didn’t yell at Jones but instead walked up to him and instantly encircled him in a big bear hug, whispering support in his ear.3
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Alexey Brodovitch of Harper’s [Bazaar] offered advice to the young Richard Avedon, destined to become one of the world’s great photographers. The advice was simple: ‘Astonish me.’ 4
TEN PRINCIPLES OF COACHING COMMUNICATION The first five principles of coaching communication concern committed speaking. The last five principles address committed listening.
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PRINCIPLE 1
TALK UP YOUR IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE— USE COLORFUL, UP LANGUAGE
Coaches speak from a stand for an impossible future.They recognize that when it comes to exciting and motivating others, Technicolor language in one’s speeches and daily interactions is most likely to get Technicolor responses from people. “Let the word go forth . . . to a new generation of Americans. . . .We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty” ( JFK).“We seek to be the leading provider of air conditioner parts in New England” (PennBarry).“Three-peat!” (Pat Riley after the Lakers won back-to-back NBA championships).
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Teach the student, not the subject.
PRINCIPLE 2
DEVELOP A TPOV ABOUT WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN IN YOUR BUSINESS, AND COMMUNICATE IT WITH EDGE AND COMPASSION
Someone once asked me, “What is a masterful coach?” I said that a masterful coach is a wise person, who listens carefully and has a powerful, teachable point of view (TPOV).There aren’t a lot of people who have wisdom, listen carefully before speaking, and when they do speak, say the one thing that can make a difference. Here are some of my favorite TPOVs: (1) stand for something; (2) don’t get so far out in front of the parade that you don’t know it’s there; (3) initiate and execute; (4) don’t add before you subtract; (5) focus on the scoreboard.
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“
In all my years of coaching I never yelled at a player. If a player made a mistake in a big game, my gut level response was that I must not have given him enough coaching. John Wooden5
PRINCIPLE 3
SPEAK FROM A STAND
Speak from a stand–“You are great!”—and not from your emotional state and crappy moods— “I can’t believe you did that!” Great coaches stand in people’s greatness, even when people fall from it. Speaking from a stand (to cause people’s success) rather than from your emotional state is a discipline that allows you to build people up when they make a mistake rather than tear them down. It allows you to transcend the fact that you came to work in a crappy mood and you are just looking for an excuse to take it out on people. Former UCLA coach John Wooden once said that he never yelled at a player if the player made a mistake. If things went wrong,Wooden assumed he hadn’t given the player enough coaching.6
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People are so used to living in a world of prediction and explanation that they don’t realize they don’t make a difference.
PRINCIPLE 4
MAKE POWERFUL PROMISES AND REQUESTS
It’s a curious thing that although business is supposed to be about goals, most businesspeople I have met cannot distinguish goals from activities. Further, if they don’t meet their goals, they usually come up with a reason or explanation without ever realizing that the reason doesn’t make any difference.The only thing that makes a difference is whether they did what they said they
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would or not.To move people from explanation and prediction to creation and generation, ask them:“What breakthrough will you accomplish in the next 30 days?” When the 30 days are up, revisit with them, and ask them if they did it or not.The only answer is yes or no.
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Discuss the undiscussable.
PRINCIPLE 5
PROVIDE FEEDBACK WITH NEAR-BRUTAL CANDOR—NEEDED FOR GROWTH AND LEARNING
Creating a great coaching relationship involves to some degree adhering to certain social virtues— politeness, mutual respect, not saying things that upset people.Yet there comes a time in every coaching relationship when you have to put aside social virtues for a moment and communicate with the near-brutal candor needed for growth and learning.“Hey, you aren’t cutting it in this job. Let me tell you why.Then let’s see what you need to do adjust your thinking and behavior so that you can succeed.” It is best to talk about the need for such feedback up front, at the beginning of the coaching relationship.
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Get beyond like or dislike and agree or disagree in your coaching conversations; come from how can I make a difference?
PRINCIPLE 6
GIVE PEOPLE THE GIFT OF YOUR PRESENCE
It is said that when Warren Bennis, the great leadership maestro, is talking to a person, he has the ability to make that person feel he or she is the most important person in the world.When I talk
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about giving people the gift of your presence, I am talking about listening with a high quality of attention, whether you agree or disagree.That’s different from what I call out-to-lunch listening, or reactive listening (rehearsing, while people are speaking, what you are going to say when they are finished). In order to give people the gift of your presence, make eye contact and don’t allow yourself to be distracted by anyone or anything. Nod your head. Acknowledge what they are saying with a sympathetic understanding and awareness—“I get it.”
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It is almost impossible to succeed with a boss who treats you as a chronic C.
PRINCIPLE 7
LISTEN FROM A STAND AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Extend people an A; remember, people are “under construction.” At Masterful Coaching my colleagues and I sometimes talk about “listening for a person.” I might ask, for example,“Is your listening for Joe all about extending him an A, seeing him as under construction, and knowing that your job is to help him succeed? Or is your listening for Joe more like treating him as a chronic C, due to shortcomings or mistakes?” It is almost impossible to succeed with a boss whose listening for you is full of prejudice.What’s the first step in transforming Joe? Obviously, transforming yourself and your listening for him. Look at what you want to create with Joe in the future, complete the past, and let the good times roll.
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Listening for is different from listening to.
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PRINCIPLE 8
LISTEN FOR PEOPLE’S BRILLIANCE
If you listen for people’s brilliance, you will be surprised how smart people suddenly begin to seem compared to how they seem if you listen for them to say something stupid or for the opportunity for you to jump in with the right answer. Here is a protocol I got from my colleague, Bill Plummer, a master coach and super salesman, that will support you in being a great coach and thinking partner: (1) Ask, “Got a goal or problem? Let’s talk about it.” Find the pain, the blood on the other person’s shoe. (2) Ask,“If you had all the authority in the world and money were no object, what would be your ideal solution?” (3) Resist the temptation to spill your candy all over the other person’s desk (in other words, give the answer). (4) Let the other person build the vision of the solution. (5) If you are inspired with an idea for the solution, ask,“Would you like a suggestion?”7
“
Transform the person, not the behavior.
PRINCIPLE 9
LISTEN FOR THE WAYS IN WHICH WAY OF BEING AND MIND-SET ARE GETTING PEOPLE IN TROUBLE
I was coaching a woman, whose husband is an executive vice president at Perot Systems. She told me that he wanted to set his own leadership agenda and drive it in the company, but he was always getting sucked into back-to-back meetings from morning until night. She told me she gave him some coaching to set aside one to two hours in the morning and not let anyone or anything get in the way. I told her,“That is very good advice, but what masterful coaching is about is transforming the person, not just the behavior. Let’s talk about how your husband is being and the mind-set that is at the source of his behavior of getting sucked into meetings.” It came out in the conversation that although her husband had tons of leadership attributes, he had a tendency to be a people pleaser, who had a hard time saying no to a request.8
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A masterful coach penetrates illusions.
PRINCIPLE 10
TRANSFORM RUT STORIES INTO RIVER STORIES
It is true that a good listener is someone who gives you the gift of her presence.Yet a good coach does something more than just listens to your story. Good coaches listen for how people are being, their mind-set, and their action plans that are likely to misfire, and then they attempt to shift these things.They listen for rut stories—stories that get people stuck—and attempt to transform them into river stories—stories of growth and learning. For example, a supplier might not deliver a shipment at the time expected.The rut story of the person expecting the shipment is all about blaming the supplier.The river story starts with the person’s recognition that next time, he needs to take responsibility for communicating more clearly with the supplier or for having a Plan B. When you transform rut stories into river stories, you move.9 •
From being a victim with your boss to taking the viewpoint of accountability
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From competing in bloody red oceans to innovating new value and creating blue oceans
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From endless strategizing, planning, and preparation to execution
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From tranquilizing yourself by saying you did better than last year to scoring yourself against the competition
Committed Speaking Guidelines •
Declare the impossible future, you want to create.
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Speak from the heart, not just the head.
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Set your agenda, and deliver on your agenda.
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Balance passionate advocacy and inquiry.
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Listen to link personal and organizational aspirations.
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Provide feedback with near-brutal candor.
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Transform rut stories into river stories.
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Balance toughness and compassion.
Committed Listening Guidelines •
Give people the gift of your presence.
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Stand in people’s greatness, extend them an A.
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Listen for how people are being and old winning strategies.
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Listen for what people are passionate about.
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Listen for the discrepancy between the verbal and nonverbal talk.
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Question what people take for granted.
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Listen for facts versus interpretations.
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Listen for rut stories and river stories.
THE SIX-CAP COACHING SYSTEM I have observed that many people don’t distinguish among the different kinds of conversations that a coach can have. So my colleagues and I have created what we call the Six-Cap Coaching System, which distinguishes six distinct kinds of conversations that a coach needs to be aware of.
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Having each conversation requires putting on a different coaching cap. This metaphor can not only assist you in distinguishing the different conversations in your mind but also help you broaden and deepen your coaching practice. Second, I have observed that people draw their identity from one conversational style that has worked for them in the past—for example, teaching and advising. In calling such a style a coaching cap, the intent is to help you distinguish yourself from any one particular kind of coaching conversation that you might be entangled in.This approach may also help you change caps, taking the Teaching and Advising Cap off, for example, and putting on the Drawing People Out Cap. The Six-Cap Coaching System is a two-way street. Besides using the Six-Cap Coaching System as your own frame of reference, you can use it to structure the conversation at a key meeting, where either you or the coachee can suggest putting on or taking off a particular cap. Exhibit 4.1, near the end of this chapter, summarizes when to use the six coaching caps.
The Six-Cap Coaching System 1. The Dream Builder and Master Motivator Cap 2. The Assessment Cap 3. The Teaching and Advising Cap 4. The Drawing People Out Cap 5. The Reframing Cap 6. The Forwarding Action Cap
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Numbers aren’t the vision; numbers are the products. Don’t focus too much on the numbers.
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CAP 1
DREAM BUILDER AND MASTER MOTIVATOR
The call to leadership is throbbing human needs and wants brought on by rising desires and expectation, dire circumstances and conditions, and the experience of resignation.A leader and masterful coach articulates the vision that lies in people’s minds and hearts and, as a result, breaks the grip of resignation and gives rise to a new spirit of possibility and opportunity.This involves declaring new possibilities and making a powerful commitment to them rather than getting trapped in cynicism.
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We’re going to surprise the world. David Geddis10
In the normal course of events individuals don’t really see what’s possible for themselves. It often takes a masterful coach to recognize the possibilities other people don’t see and to raise people’s goals and aspirations. Oftentimes the coach is only echoing a secret dream in people’s minds and hearts. For example, a country’s new leader may declare a dream that opens the possibility of freedom or human rights; a business leader may hold forth a vision of creating a new market niche; a sports coach may articulate the desire of everyone on a team to win a championship.
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Reimagine your business—the brand, the story, the dream.
To put on the Dream Builder and Master Motivator Cap, you have to be a leader who is attuned to throbbing human needs and wants and not a mere power wielder who thinks only about himself or herself.You also have to understand something about the sources of human motivation. These sources are expressed well in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Instead of assuming people aren’t motivated, assume that they are and that you just have to discover what their motivation is.
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If you can articulate a vision that matches the source of people’s motivation and then create it, then people will not only be enlivened by the possibility you have created, they will be willing to walk through fire with you. It is important to not only articulate the dream but also infuse it with emotional energy, so people feel your commitment comes from the heart, not just the head. Let he who would move others, first move himself.Ask yourself:“What do we passionately care about? What is impossible that we are going to do today? What are we going to create together?” Putting on this cap involves (1) attuning yourself to throbbing human needs and wants, (2) declaring a dream that is something currently considered impossible, (3) connecting the dream to the sources of people’s motivation, (4) surrounding the dream with emotional energy, and (5) demonstrating through a dramatic act the willingness to make the dream real through action.
“ CAP 2
Creating a winning business is not just about taking on the impossible; it is having a sense of realism about where the business is today.
ASSESSMENT
A coach needs to be a dream builder and master motivator, but she also has to be capable of making a realistic assessment of the current situation, dark though it may be. Making an assessment is the act of judging or evaluating a person, team, or business. It usually starts with looking at a goal, such as creating a winning team or business, and assessing the current strengths and weaknesses and also what is missing that would make a difference. It could also involve assessing an individual’s or group’s performance or development.
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You have to understand your starting point. You need to know where Point A is on the map before you can navigate to Point B.
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It is very important to take the Dream Builder and Master Motivator Cap off sometimes and put on the Assessment Cap in order to assess the gap between vision and current reality. Masterful coaches love living inside that gap because it inspires them to identify what’s missing that will make a difference and go after it—for example, recruiting new talent, coming up with a gamechanging strategy, or preparing for the big game or big meeting.
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GE has set a standard of candor. There is no puffery. There isn’t an ounce of denial in the place. Kevin Sharer11
Just as it is important to take off the Dream Builder Cap and put on the Assessment Cap, sometimes it is important to do the opposite. It’s often the case that people don’t see what’s really possible for an individual or team because they are just too judgmental or cynical. I once told a manager that if his boss were as cynical about him as he was about his people, I didn’t think he could last a month without becoming totally depressed.The manager transformed his attitudes. Starting with a dream and making a realistic assessment of the current situation is often a pivotal act because it is the only way you can plot a course from Point A to Point B. If you don’t know your starting point, you have no way to navigate.Three assessment tools my colleagues and I use are (1) the What’s So Process, which is a business assessment; (2) talent reviews, which are a leadership assessment; (3) and 360-degree feedback, which looks at individuals’ strengths and gaps. The questions under each topic in the following list are very simple but very powerful. Remember, it’s not just what the question is but how deeply you engage in it. Business assessment—the What’s So Process. Look at your current strategy or projects: (1) Facts? (2) Accomplishments? (3) What’s working? (4) What’s not working? (5) What’s missing that will make a difference? Talent assessment. Look at your new strategy or projects: (1) What are the talent gaps? (2) Which gaps need to be filled for successful execution? 360 feedback on leadership. Look at each team member: (1) What are this person’s possibilities? (2) Strengths? (3) Gaps? (4) Blindspots? (5) Derailers? (6) Next development steps? (7) Next appropriate job?
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“ CAP 3
Give up the need to be right.
TEACHING AND ADVISING
Coaches need to articulate their own teachable point of view about success in their business or in business in general and look for opportunities to engage in coaching conversations with others to put TPOV across. At the same time, a leader and coach may be asked on an impromptu basis for wise advice.Today many companies have a chief information officer who circulates information.Yet as Michael Schrage, author of No More Teams!, asks:“Why not a Chief Wisdom Officer?”12
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A coach or teacher can affect eternity. You can never tell where your influence stops.
The question to ask when we put the Teaching and Advising Cap on is,What constitutes good teaching or advice? There are some simple principles to follow: (1) give advice that is caring and candid, (2) give advice that is practical, (3) give advice that is wise, and (4) give advice when people are open to hearing it. (Ask,“Are you open to some advice?”) A masterful coach has to listen long enough before offering advice (except perhaps when time is short).Advice too hastily given may be off the mark. One of the things that I do to avoid giving unwanted advice is to look for openings and then ask,“Would you like my advice?” Sounds simple, but it is not always done.The effectiveness of making this offer is that it gives people the power to say no.When people feel they have the power to say no to your advice, they will also feel they have the power to say yes. If people do say no, don’t take it personally; you may be speaking to them at the wrong time.
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Speak in a matter-of-fact way, without self-righteousness.
After listening, ask yourself,“What is the wisest thing for this person to do?”There are two kinds of advice, the kind that involves strategizing and scheming and the kind that is based on wisdom. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche has written that there is a basic human wisdom that can help the world’s problems.This basic advice is usually based not on prescriptions but on age-old principles. For example: (1) Stand in the future you want to create; take action today. (2) Walk a mile in the other person’s moccasins. (3) Balance toughness with compassion. (4) Your greatest strength becomes weakness. (5) Go in the opposite direction.
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The key perhaps to leadership is the effective communication of a story. Howard Gardner and Emma Laskin13
In crafting advice I generally triangulate between three questions. First, what is the practical thing to do—the best means to the end? Next, what is the wise thing to do? Step back from the heat of the moment and look at the deeper and broader view.Third, putting aside shoulds, coulds, and woulds, what is it that the person wants to do? Put your advice out as an option to consider, not as gospel. If people are not open to your interpretation or start debating with your advice, let them sleep on it, or recognize that it may be time for you to change caps.
Remember . . .
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Teach the student, not the subject.
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Give advice that is pure, practical, and wise.
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If people resist, tomorrow is another day.
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If they debate, try drawing them out.
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CAP 4
DRAWING PEOPLE OUT
“Tell me more.” Drawing out starts with suspending the impulse to teach and give advice. It involves giving people the gift of your presence and listening empathically to a person’s story or situation so as to create the opening for coaching. Everybody wants at least one person in the world to understand him, and the ability to listen with understanding is crucial to coaching relationships.
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The Latin root for our word education is educare. It means “to draw out.”
A masterful coach is someone who can suspend judgment and listen with compassion and understanding. Conversely, people aren’t going to open up to you if they feel you are going to judge them. Coaches who wag a self-righteous finger or who lecture only put people off. For a coach the question is not whether someone is good or bad, right or wrong, but whether what that person did worked or didn’t work.To move beyond the impulse to judge, hold your tongue, and then say, “Tell me more.” This allows people to unburden themselves, and you to walk a mile in their moccasins. Drawing out starts with giving people the gift of your presence and listening empathically whether you agree or disagree. If someone says, “The boss is a jerk,” the coach doesn’t say, “I agree,” or for that matter,“I disagree.” This gives people the space to sort through their thoughts and feelings, often coming to the realization of their own foolishness—“You know what, he’s not really a jerk, we just got off to a bad start in that last conversation.” “Tell me more” also helps people express ideas that are on the tip of their tongue or tacit knowledge they have never articulated before.
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Questions can be more empowering than answers.
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FIGURE 4.1 The process of drawing people out
Engage in conversation; goals and problems
Acknowledge and validate
Make explicit by asking for examples, metaphors, demonstrations
Adopt a stance that people are smart, sophisticated, business people
Draw out ideas, tacit knowledge
In the second part of drawing out, the coach adopts the stance that people are smart enough to do their own thinking and discover their own answers. Drawing out is also an excellent way to make tacit know-how (what people know on a vague, intuitive level but can’t say) explicit. For example, you might ask people,“Perhaps you would like a thinking partner or sounding board to talk about that issue.” Figure 4.1 illustrates this process. Someone once described what it was like to have dinner with Prime Ministers Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone.After leaving Gladstone’s company, you walked away thinking,“He’s brilliant.”After leaving Disraeli’s company, you walked away thinking,“I’m brilliant.” Disraeli, a superb statesman and orator, was also an expert at drawing others out. He was known for engaging people in conversations all over London and asking,“What do you think?” You will discover that it is impossible to ask people,“What do you think?” about an issue or opportunity without getting involved.The key lies not just in the asking but also in the listening for people’s brilliance.
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If people are stumped, ask, “Would you like a suggestion?”
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Oftentimes in talking about goals and plans, people will reveal beliefs and assumptions they have never challenged and questions that need to be reframed. At other times you will discover that a person doesn’t really have many ideas about how to reach the goals or firm up the plans and needs some help.Ask,“Would you like a suggestion?” I hate form junkies.There are a lot of people today who think that a coach should only ask questions and listen and should never put in his or her ideas.
“
If you disagree, say, “It’s my belief that . . .”. . .
A good technique, once you have heard someone out, is to ask,“Would you like a suggestion, or do you just want to ponder it for awhile?”This gives the person space to make a clear choice by saying yes or no, although in most cases the person will say yes. Also, in order to disagree with someone in a constructive way, without squashing his or her ideas, say,“It’s my belief that . . .” You will discover that when you share an idea as a “belief,” not as an absolute truth, people will be much more open to hearing a different side of the story. “That’s a great idea!” Another sign of coaching mastery is to be able to draw out ideas people know on a vague, intuitive level but are barely able to articulate. One of the best ways to grease the wheels is to acknowledge and validate good ideas (or even fragments of ideas) as they start to flow. Instead of responding with long-winded monologues, respond with short declarative statements, such as,“That’s interesting,”“That’s a great idea,” or,“Absolutely brilliant!” Of course your acknowledgment needs to be sincere and honest, not merely pandering to people’s desire for approval. Be prepared to answer the question,“What makes you say this is such a good idea?” Asking for metaphors and analogies is also a good way to draw out creative thinking:“Can you please give me an example or metaphor?”A few years back a group of people at Honda decided they wanted to build the next generation of car.They asked the design team to build a new concept car based on the notion of “let’s gamble.”This led the team to “theory of automobile evolution,” a phrase that helped the team to draw out their thinking on how cars would evolve in the crowded streets of Tokyo.The answer was “man maximum, car minimum,” and it led to the development of the popular Honda City Car, which was short and tall so it could easily fit into small parking spaces.14
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The next time people are struggling with expressing a creative idea, either suggest or ask that they describe it in terms of a metaphor:“What’s it like, or not like?” By connecting thoughts from different realms, like automobile and evolution, analogies and metaphors can jump-start the creative thinking process.Asking for examples is also an excellent way to assist people in articulating ideas that they are struggling to express on a conceptual plane.
CAP 5
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REFRAMING
One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer. Stephen Hawking
You will often discover in drawing people out that they are confronted with puzzles and dilemmas and are looking for insights to deal with them. For example:“Should I discuss my job aspirations with my current boss or not say anything?”“Should I recruit talent from the outside or develop it from within?” “Should we go after a joint venture in India to lower software costs, or protect our IP and find a suitable partner in the United States?”“Should we invest in this new technology that represents a new business model or try to gain market share with our current business model?” Move beyond the idiocy of either-or to the genius of both-and. In many cases when you are coaching, you will have no idea of what the answer is, and that is OK. Coaching is not about the answers, but about helping people do their own thinking and discover their own answers. In the case of dilemmas, there are certain situations that require making a decision with an edge, that is to say, a sharp yes or no decision. However, in many other cases what will be required is to take eitheror dilemmas and reframe them into both-and propositions. For example:“We should recruit talent from the outside and develop it from the inside.”“We should pursue our core business and invest in new technologies that represent the business model of the future.” In many cases you will find that people are making assumptions they have never examined or questioned.
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Look for red flags in the conversation—breakdown places where people’s way of thinking is getting them in trouble. People will say other things in coaching conversations that indicate the need for reframing. (1) As people speak about their goals or problems, learn to pick up on red flags—they have a victim attitude with their boss, a silo mentality with their peers, or a business model that doesn’t take into account that we are living in a global economy. (2) Demonstrate to people how their way of seeing (thinking) about things will get them in hot water. (3) Make new distinctions that allow them to see things differently and act differently. (See Figure 4.2.) Question assumptions that people take for granted. People often make interpretations about themselves, their business, or the world, acting as if their interpretation is a fact. For example, instead of arguing for their possibilities, rising stars may argue for their limitations. People may also have limiting mental models about their business. For example, in 1910, the Daimler Benz Corporation asserted in the London Times that the world market for cars would be limited to 10,000. The limiting factor? It was thought it would never be possible to train more than that many chauffeurs. IBM founder Tom Watson similarly predicted in the 1950s that the world market for computers would be about 1,000.The limiting factor? Storage space.
FIGURE 4.2 The cycle of reframing
Engage in conversation; goals and problems
Help make distinctions that allow people to see/think differently
Show unintended consequences
Listen for red flags
Make people aware of disempowering interpretations unexamined assumptions jumping to conclusions
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Ask, “Is that a fact or an interpretation?” Whenever I suspect that people I’m coaching aren’t separating facts from interpretation and are getting themselves into a corner as a result, I often say,“That’s just one possible interpretation.What would be another interpretation, one that would be more insightful, empowering, accurate?” or,“Aren’t you making an assumption? Do you have any examples or data to back that up?” Often in coaching you are in the position of encouraging people to do the “right thing,” such as speak up at the big meeting. I have often heard people resist doing this owing to totally unexamined assumptions: for example,“The CEO is going to be there, and if I say what I am thinking and feeling, I will definitely be fired.” In most cases I’ve found that there was little or nothing to corroborate this assumption. When I suspect that this is occurring, I ask questions with the intent of penetrating people’s illusions:“Do you have an example of people getting fired for speaking their minds or is it just an assumption that you haven’t checked out?” Invariably people say,“No, I don’t have an example, but it could happen.” Once people agree that their concern is an assumption, I work with them to find ways to test it. For example, I tell people to try a mini-learning project, such as being much more authentic at the next meeting. Eventually this often leads them to reframe their view of the world. The coach’s role in reframing is to engage people in conversations that act as a bridge between an old interpretation and a new one. Here are some examples:“Here is how you are looking at this. How do you need to see it differently?”“Here is how you are thinking about this now. How do you need to think about it differently?”“Here is what you know about this.What do you need to learn?” Distinguish powerful new possibilities based on dramatic differences that create new openings for action— openings that just didn’t exist before. A masterful coach not only has to help people break the grip of old paradigms but must also provide a teachable point of view or new distinction that creates new openings for possibility and action. In the normal course of events, people draw their ideas from the file cabinet of the past.The job of a coach is to help people come up with new ideas, fresh approaches, and innovative solutions. For example, the old rules of management were (1) stakeholders rule; (2) be No. 1 or 2 in your industry; and (3) volume cures all ills.These rules are pretty good, but the world has changed, and there are new rules that you won’t find in the file cabinet of the past. For example: (1) customers rule; (2) come up with an innovative product and create a new niche; and (3) specialists rule.
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REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT
Reframing Thinking Think of the people in your group whom you are coaching or of your group as a whole. Where are there breakdowns or potential breakdowns? What is the thinking that is behind the breakdowns or that might cause breakdowns in the future? How can you reframe people’s thinking so that new openings for possibility and action appear? For example, you might say, “Enough talk. Let’s do it.”
“ CAP 6
A good plan executed with vigor right now tops a ‘perfect’ plan executed next week. George Patton15
FORWARDING ACTION
Talk to any CEO and he or she will tell you that everything is happening ten times faster than it was a decade ago, due to globalization, rapid innovation, and extreme competition.You can’t just sit in your corner office pondering strategy or policy or being a guru who focuses only on altering people’s managerial frames of reference.You have got to define stretch goals, make decisions, and then jump into action. At the same time, you have to be able to mobilize people and forward the action through others. There is a time to move beyond strategizing, planning, and preparing and to take action.A coach forwards the action by helping people establish key performance (development) goals, which represent winning results, and then (re) focusing people on those goals.A coach can also forward action by guiding people in coming up with a concrete plan with specific actions that can be taken in the next thirty days and then revisiting this plan with people so they know they are accountable
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FIGURE 4.3 Action language makes things happen
Action Language
All action is initiated or stalled by the language we use. Coach people on using action language to make things happen. Declaration
is different from
Hope
Promise
is different from
Attempt
Request
is different from
Opinion
Offer
is different from
Complaint
for results. And a coach can forward action by building confidence when people are stuck in self-doubt and by helping people discover new openings for successful action. Use terms and concepts like action item, milestone, due date, accountability, consequences, and fanaticism. I have discovered that a certain language called action language is much more likely than other language to make something happen16 (see Figure 4.3).
Use Action Language •
From wishes and dreams to declarations
•
From predictions to promises
•
From complaints to requests
•
From judgments about others or the organization to offers
Encourage declarations, again. To put it simply, masterful coaches encourage people to make as many commitments as possible, starting with their own declaration of commitment to a vision or goal.
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A coach is much more likely to generate action when he or she publicly declares a commitment and begins moving the organization in that direction.A declaration by an organization’s leadership not only opens new possibilities but also has the effect of both generating excitement and focusing people on what really needs to be done. “What’s your promise?” I have discovered over the years that action is much more likely to ensue when people make real promises with explicit conditions of satisfaction—such as who, what, by when—than when they make predictions, such as “This will happen if . . .” I’ve also observed that people know this on an unconscious level and go out of their way to weasel out of committing themselves. Some of my favorite weasel strategies are these:“We’ll see,”“That’s a definite maybe,” and,“It all depends.”A coach not only elicits powerful promises from people but also listens for their sincere commitment.You can smell emotional commitment, or lack of it, a mile away.
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Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn, where the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking, and learning naturally results. John Dewey17
“Do you have a request?” One of the other ways to encourage action is to ask people to make powerful requests of team members, customers, or vendors. A powerful request is one that asks someone to do something that in the normal course of events would be considered unreasonable. For example:“You say the new product can be ready in ten weeks. Is it possible to ship it in six?” or,“We need another $25,000 to complete this new systems integration project, but have run out of budget. Can we borrow it from yours?”The key to summoning up the courage to do this is to recognize that just as you have the power to ask, others have the power to say yes or no.
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Every morning write a list of the things that need to be done that day. Do them.
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Or the next time you are in a restaurant, instead of complaining about your overly grilled steak or cold pasta to your dinner partner, how about asking the waitperson to ask the cook to dish you up another? You will discover that making requests not only feels empowering but that unlike complaining, it also can actually make something happen.“I would like to remind you of your commitment to . . .” Masterful coaches create a climate of breakthrough, not only by making powerful promises and requests but also by holding others accountable.When we hold people accountable for their commitments, we “force” them to bring out the best in themselves and those around them. There are no better practitioners of this than some of today’s leading CEOs, who not only set high goals but follow up on everything.They simply can’t countenance or even understand procrastination.The usual obstacles don’t seem to exist for them, and they don’t expect such barriers to slow their staff down either.When you sign up for something, you put aside explanations and do it. And intervening acts of God, customers, and competition are no excuse for not getting it done on time.This may seem harsh, but we do people a disservice when they promise something and we don’t expect them to honor their word as themselves. It makes them feel that they don’t matter. From the coach’s point of view a coaching conversation for action could look like this: (1) stepping back from the front lines and the heat of the moment and seeing a new opening for possibility and action when people are stuck, (2) providing a fresh perspective that gives people new insight into a dilemma, (3) giving people a tip or a technique that gives them a new action rule, or (4) returning people to themselves, to their promise, and to action when they hit a breakdown place and just plain want to give up.
GROUP COACHING ACTIVITY
Using Action Language The next time you are in a group and a lot of complaining is going on about other people, other departments, the bosses, or whatever, say, “No more complaints, only requests, promises, or offers.” And then coach the group on keeping to this ground rule. You will find that the quality of the conversation completely changes and that actions will be forwarded.
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BE AWARE THAT YOU MIGHT NEED A SEVENTH CAP There are other coaching caps that you may want to think of as a seventh cap. For example, I have not distinguished a Planning Cap, although this is something that is covered in the next chapter, in the Five-Step Model. If you want to add this, or another cap that is not mentioned, as appropriate for yourself or the people you are coaching, that’s your choice. For example, I have thought seriously about adding a Jerk Cap, to make people aware of when they were offering too much unsolicited advice or imposing their views on others after those others had clearly declined to adopt them.
MANAGING YOUR COACHING CONVERSATIONS Learn to separate the different kinds of coaching conversations so you are having one at a time. Many people have coaching conversations that are a jumble, where they are trying to have too many kinds of conversations at once. For example, they may start a conversation for possibilities, where they begin to create some long-term goals, then they intermix this with a conversation for action: “What are we going to do today?”The result is often near-sighted goals and misfired actions. Or they may try to have a conversation where they are making assessments (trying to understand) and giving advice at the same time.The result is hurried assessments or shoot-from-the-hip advice. Whenever you are trying to have more than one conversation, you are, in effect, a juggler with too many balls.You are likely to hear,“I’m confused; what are we talking about?”The key is to have one conversation at a time.The coach may invite the coachee to put on the Dream Builder Cap for a while, then when that conversation is complete, say,“Let’s take this cap off now and put the Assessment Cap on for awhile.” Another key to a powerful coaching conversation is to become aware of your own tendency to have one or two preferred conversations. For example, I know some people who are very good at setting goals and planning but who fail to recognize the need to have a conversation where they surface, question, and challenge assumptions.The result is that they never fundamentally question the strategy or goals, and the plans they make are not powerful enough for company reinvention. Learn to move beyond one preferred kind of coaching conversation so you have more coaching agility. Similarly, I know people who are excellent at reframing conversations, skillfully supporting others in surfacing, questioning, and revising assumptions.Yet these same people rarely, if ever, create clear goals or plan how they are going to reach their objectives in a systematic manner. Regardless of
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your preferred conversational mode, by adopting the Six-Cap Coaching System you can learn to become aware of which cap you have on and begin to broaden your range of options by taking it off and trying another one on for size. Listen for conversational cues that identify which coaching cap to put on and where to go next.The question may arise,“How do I know which cap the coachee and I need to put on when?”The first rule here is that there are no rules, as each person or interaction is different.The second rule is that coaches should not make a belief system out of any one approach, which is what a beginner coach tends to do.Teaching others is fine, but not when what is needed is to draw people out. Listening to people’s views is excellent, but not when they are making assumptions that need to be challenged. Trying to have more than one kind of conversation at a time can be very confusing for the coach and undermines the coachee’s confidence in the coaching process.The way to avoid this is to learn to pick up on conversational cues that it’s time to put on a new cap or change caps (see Exhibit 4.1 for more information on conversational cues). To think and work better with coachees, deliberately announce which cap you are putting on. In a coaching conversation, you might say,“We have been declaring some possibilities that seem achievable in reality, but I am hearing that you seem to be expressing a lot of questions about how we will achieve it. Shall we take this cap off and put on the Assessment Cap?” Or the coachee might say,“I have been listening to your advice, and I really appreciate it. At the same time, I have had some ideas bubbling up in me. Can you [we] put on the Drawing People Out Cap for awhile?” Perhaps you do put on the Drawing People Out Cap, but then you start picking up on the fact that the person is basing ideas and proposals on some far-fetched assumptions about customers and colleagues.You might then interrupt the conversation and say,“Look, I need to put on the Reframing Cap here and challenge your assumptions.” Or you might say,“I am now going to be deliberately provocative, in order to get you to think differently.” Because you have announced the change in the conversation, the person will understand why you are asking probing questions or challenging his or her assumptions, without taking it personally. Engaging in coaching conversations is not a linear process. It is important to understand that although there are six coaching caps, they do not represent six steps to be followed in a logical order.They are like navigation points. It is up to each coach and coachee to combine the caps in relation to what is happening in real time.
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EXHIBIT 4.1 Conversational cues for when to change caps
1. The Dream Builder and Master Motivator Cap Put it on: When people have labeled themselves “losers,” or say they have “no choice.”
Take it off: When people are interpreting things in a disempowering way, have jumped to conclusions, or are making assumptions or inferences not validated by witnessable data
Take it off: When people can’t buy into the
or examples; try the Assessment Cap.
“what” because they don’t see the “how”; put 5. The Reframing Cap
on the Assessment Cap.
Put it on: When you pick up red flags such as
2. The Assessment Cap
a crooked mind-set (interpretations), poor attiPut it on: When people clearly need to talk
tudes, crazy thinking, or limiting beliefs and
about a concrete plan to get from where they
assumptions.
are to where they want to be. Take it off: When people seem to have the Take it off: When people start talking about
appropriate mind-set and are ready to get on
“whether or not we are going to act on this”;
with their work or ask for a how-to technique;
put on the Forwarding Action Cap.
try the Forwarding Action Cap.
3. The Teaching and Advising Cap
6. The Forwarding Action Cap
Put it on: When people solicit your wisdom or
Put it on: When people have had enough
request advice and you have spent time let-
strategizing or theorizing and need to do
ting them talk things out themselves.
something, people don’t see any openings for
Take it off: When you hear a lot of “yes buts,”
taking successful action, or people need a
or when people start debating with you or are
technique to execute effectively; also when
not open to your interpretation; try the Draw-
people are depressed and discouraged.
ing People Out Cap.
Take it off: When doing the same thing harder doesn’t produce different results; this could
4. The Drawing People Out Cap
lead to putting the Dream Building and
Put it on: When people express that they feel
Master Motivator Cap or the Reframing
misunderstood; have the seeds of a brilliant
Cap on.
idea but are expressing it in a vague, inarticulate way, or don’t buy into your advice.
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IN CONCLUSION The coaching caps can guide you in specific situations.Another way of understanding coaching conversations is to think about them in the following three categories: (1) conversations for relationship, where we create partnerships with others; (2) conversations for possibility, where we declare what we will bring to pass; (3) and conversations for action, where we focus on how to actually make it happen. It also has to be understood that the more the goals we set fall in the breakthrough zone, the more likely it is that there will be breakdowns, which can result in sadness, anger, and upsets. When that happens, it is human nature to stop and get into a psychological conversation where we argue for our own limitations:“I can’t do it.”“This is impossible.”“Why bother?” A masterful coach’s role is to support people in holding what happens in a way that is consistent with who they really are, what their vision is, and what they are magnificently capable of.This might mean that the coach will interrupt the psychological conversation by affirming people or getting them to look at something in a different way, or it might involve getting people to take their attention off themselves and put it on what needs to be done. Simply put, the coach’s role is about returning people to themselves, to their promises, and to action, regardless of what happens.
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C H A P T E R
F I V E
THE MASTERFUL COACHING METHOD A Five-Step Coaching Model I have looked at the leader as coach, taught you that coaching is a way of being, not just a technique, and looked at how to have extraordinary coaching conversations.The next step is to introduce you to Masterful Coaching—The Method ™ as it applies to realizing an impossible future and winning in your business. It is a powerful, concise, five-step coaching model that will allow you to declare an impossible future that represents winning. Please keep in mind that a model is like a ladder you use to climb a building, a very useful tool.Yet once you get to the top, it disappears, and you focus on the sky. You may think by the time you finish this chapter that this coaching model is a lot to remember. In fact, I have condensed the masterful coaching five-step model from the first edition with that in mind. This simple but powerful model can be applied by executive coaches or by leaders at all levels in an organization. The model is based on the premise established earlier that coaching is a
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way of being, not just a set of ideas, methods, and tools. It is important to be grounded in the masterful coaching way of being before using this model. Stand in people’s greatness. Stand for people’s success. Speak from a stand and not your emotional state. Challenge and support people. Everything is transformable.There is always a path forward.
The Masterful Coaching Five-Step Coaching Model 1. Declare an impossible future and your teachable point of view (TPOV) about winning in your business. 2. Invest in relationships with talented people, teams, and networks. 3. Design leadership and business challenges, and develop a game plan. 4. Forward the action through thirty-day breakthrough projects. 5. Honestly acknowledge all breakdowns, and provide feedback and learning. If you have a passion for coaching and follow these steps, you will be successful. If you feel you need further guidance or want to master this process, you can contact Masterful Coaching and perhaps participate in the masterful coaching certification program.You can also find out about the masterful coaching online coaching system, MyGamePlan, which coaches, guides, and instructs you in using the five-step model with individuals or groups. MyGamePlan offers a learnby-doing approach, enabled by a powerful software tool. Again, the focus is on realizing an impossible future and producing winning results in your business, with your colleagues. It takes place over the course of a year and is structured around monthly coaching meetings, with coaching phone calls in between. Masterful Coaching’s MyGamePlan not only allows you to set goals and track execution of your game plan through a dashboard, but prepares both you and your coachee for each of the twelve coaching sessions, ensuring that the right conversations happen. GETTING CLEAR ON YOUR COACHING MANDATE One of my favorite stories is about David Geddis, who coached the World Cup Korean soccer team. He told his team,“We are going to surprise the world.” Geddis took a team whose players were much smaller in size and arguably less talented than their counterparts in Brazil or Germany, and did
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surprisingly well.The team didn’t win the World Cup, but it went to the semifinals and did surprise the world. The point is this: if you aim for an impossible future, one where the path to the result is unknown, you may actually achieve it. And even if you don’t, you will probably do a lot better than if you had merely set a predictable goal. Here the path to the result was clear right up to the last step. NEW COACHES CREATE A SPIRIT OF POSSIBILITY AND HAVE A NEW MANDATE I can remember the day when Steven Jobs was brought back as CEO of Apple, when Carlos Ghosn was named CEO of Nissan, when Jeff Immelt was named CEO of General Electric, when Bill Belichick was named head coach of the New England Patriots, and when Seiji Ozawa was named conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. There is always a spirit of possibility in the air whenever a new coach with a solid reputation takes over a team, whether in business, sports, or the performing arts. There is a belief that here is a leader who can, at last, bring out the best in a talented team and make the impossible dream come true. There is an expectation that the coach will apply some alchemical magic or “reinvention process” that moves an organization from mediocrity to excellence. And often enough it proves true. Take the perspective that you are a new coach with a championship-caliber player or team and that you are going to surprise the world. Whether you are a CEO, general manager, team leader, or professional coach, take the perspective that you are a newly hired coach with a freshly inked coaching contract and you have a mandate to cause the success of the individual or team.You are not just passively occupying the coach’s role; you are up to something! (1) Your mandate is to expand people’s capacity to realize an impossible future and win at the great game of business. (2) You want to produce some breakthroughs—business breakthroughs, leadership breakthroughs, team breakthroughs—plus create a coaching environment. (3) You want each person on the team to look back years later and say your coaching on creating a winning business and the fact that you never settled for less than excellence provided people the ultimate self-development and growth experience. Make an assessment of your (and others’) ability to deliver on the mandate. As a coach one of the things you will need to do is put on your Assessment Cap and ask yourself: “Does the individual or team have a strong personal and organizational ambition and the talent to match it? Is there a powerful, game-changing strategy, plus the ability to initiate and execute? Is this an Olympic-level team that I could put up against any team in the world?” As you go through this assessment, ask yourself whether you feel it is within your power to provide what is missing that could make a
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difference. If the answer to that question is yes, I suggest that you create a personal coaching contract that says just what your commitment will be. Don’t let people get crosswise with their bosses. If you are a professional coach, part of your job is to raise people’s goals and aspirations. Let me just offer one note of caution.You want people to win big, but you have to take into account that they and their bosses may have different ideas about what winning is. If you push a person on investing in growth, but his boss is interested only in cost cutting and bottom-line results, you are going to get him in trouble. In other words, you need to get clear on your coachee’s mandate from the boss. It is possible to change the mandate, but then you need to make achieving that change part of the coaching process, keeping in mind the importance of learning to love politics. THE MASTERFUL COACHING METHOD—A FIVE-STEP COACHING MODEL
STEP 1
DECLARE AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE AND YOUR TPOV ABOUT WINNING IN YOUR BUSINESS
In 1982, two guys in Michigan decided that what Ann Arbor needed and didn’t have was a worldclass delicatessen.They wanted to start a delicatessen that was going to be absolutely the best in the world. The sandwiches were going to be so great that the juice would roll down your arms. If you had a sandwich someplace else, even if it was very good, they wanted you to say,“Well, it’s a great sandwich, but it’s not a Zingerman’s.” Remarkably enough, over the next ten years, they succeeded. Zingerman’s Deli has become one of the top two or three delis in the United States, if not in the world.1
DECLARE AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE The first step in the masterful coaching method involves the leader (or coach) of a company or team spending some time reflecting to identify an impossible future for their organization that represents winning. It also involves that leader taking some time to develop his or her own teachable point of view about winning in this business or business in general.You may be well served in this process by engaging the services of an executive coach to draw you out and act as a sounding
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board or to offer suggestions that build on your ideas. A coach can make provocative statements that get you to raise the bar or ask questions that get you to think. A classic example of such a question is what Steven Jobs asked of John Sculley:“What do you want to do, change the world or make colored sugar water for the rest of your life?”2 Use colorful, up language to describe your impossible future; it makes people feel they are on a mission from God. Whether you are a CEO, department head, or project leader, ask yourself: “What would I like to achieve if only it were possible?”“What would it take for us to win in our business?” “What would be an extraordinary and tangible result for our area?”“What is the single biggest leadership or business challenge I am [we are] facing?” For example, the challenge might be to find a blue ocean strategy, where you can grow in uncontested market space, rather than competing in bloody red oceans—in other words, create the next iPod, the next Starbucks, the next Cirque du Soleil. It makes a big difference if you use colorful, up language. For example, “Absolutely, positively overnight” (FedEx). “We aim to change the world” (Steven Jobs). “The best corned beef sandwich in the world” (Zingerman’s). Coach people to first set goals that are a combination of the impossible and possible. Start by setting some goals that represent the waterline of your business—what you have to do to keep your company afloat in the next year. Now ask people to think about impossible future that cannot be easily accomplished in one year but that represents winning in your business. An impossible future might be becoming No. 1 or No. 2 in your business (or in everything your company measures); choosing to be great rather than choosing to be big; creating winning results with your business or team, breakthrough products, or services quadrupling sales. We are not talking just about Fortune 500s here but small companies too. Recognize that it’s not an impossible future if it does not force you to change the game of your business and learn powerful lessons in personal change. Another important dimension is that if your impossible future doesn’t require you to be a game changer, it is probably not an impossible future. Today most companies have remarkably similar leaders, similar people, similar cultures, similar products, similar services, and similar customers. How about doing something dramatically different that will change the game, not just for your company but for everyone in your industry? I enjoy listening to Howard Stern on the radio. Why? First, he is interesting, entertaining, and funny, whereas most of what’s on the radio is deadly boring. Stern may be a shock jock, but he did something to change the game in radio. When Stern was censored on FM radio, he went to Sirius Satellite Radio and took all of his listeners with him. Finally, one acid test of whether or not you
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have declared an impossible future that represents winning is to ask whether or not it forces talented people to grow and develop by pushing beyond constraints. Coach people that to reach the impossible they have to be obsessed. You don’t create the most competitive Fortune 500 company on earth, reinvent radio, or come up with the best corned beef sandwich in the world by being reasonable about things; you have to be out there on the lunatic fringe. As Jack Welch says,“You don’t get Six Sigma quality by being for quality.You have to be fanatical about quality.”3 The same applies to top-line growth, breathtaking innovation, or whatever else you had in mind. Can you imagine a great Iron Chef who wasn’t obsessed with food, a heart surgeon who wasn’t obsessed with hearts, or a PGA tour golfer who wasn’t obsessed with lowering his or her handicap?
REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT
My Impossible Future That Represents Winning 1.
Write down an impossible future that represents winning in your business.
2.
Be as specific as possible about how you intend to win; don’t offer just a list of platitudes.
3. 4.
Say how you will change the game in your industry, business, or team. Address the fact that in order to reinvent the organization, you need to reinvent yourself first.
5.
Write down some predictable goals that represent the waterline of your business: for example, sales for next year, productivity, costs, and return on working capital.
DEVELOP YOUR TPOV ABOUT WINNING IN YOUR BUSINESS It’s nine o’clock at Heathrow Airport. A Virgin Atlantic Airways employee is there to apologize personally for the late takeoff. It’s Richard Branson who started Virgin with a mission to wrest a
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big chunk of the airline business away from big carriers like British Airways and especially United, whose chairman he had once heard giving a press conference to explain why United was taking the lettuce out of the sandwiches. To realize his mission, Branson had a teachable point of view that was very simple: put yourself in the customer’s shoes and offer much more personalized service.4 Once you come up with your impossible future and definition of winning results, the next thing to think about is your teachable point of view (TPOV). A TPOV is nothing but a written explanation of how you intend to win in your business. It is based on the lifelong lessons you have learned over the course of your career about succeeding in your business and business in general. For example, Jack Welch’s impossible future for General Electric of being No. 1 or No. 2 was matched by a TPOV that he learned from both business and sports and that included these ideas: Create goals that are combination of the possible and impossible. Never settle for less than excellence. Good ideas can come from anywhere. Run big companies like a small business. His ability to communicate his TPOV had a powerful influence on his success. Articulate your TPOV. Without it your leadership style is like a black box to people. When a new coach comes into a job his or her leadership and management philosophy is like a black box. It often takes people a year or more to figure out what the new leader’s TPOV is. Articulating your TPOV in writing takes what’s in the black box and makes it explicit. This can dramatically accelerate the time it takes for the leader as coach not just to declare an impossible future or winning results but also to get his or her message through about the leadership and management mind-set necessary to achieve that future. Instead of letting your people sit around reading the tea leaves for a year or more trying to figure you out, you can help them “get with the program” in months or weeks.
REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT
My TPOV Is . . . . I suggest that every manager look at the impossible future or winning results he or she wants to create, and then think about his or her TPOV of success with respect to that. Do this simple exercise yourself or with any team leader you are coaching. Take a piece of paper, and on one side write down your TPOV about winning in your business. Think about things like the kind of
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talent you need to have, your strategy or operations, and so on. Then on the other side of the paper, write down what your TPOV is as it pertains to things like leadership and the kind of special corporate culture you will need to realize the vision. Come up with five to ten powerful, profound, but sticky phrases that will be hard for people to forget.
REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT
Translating Life Experiences into Teachable Points of View Create a timeline from the time you were born until today. Write down your most significant life events (five to ten events), the major insights you gained, and the people and situations that you can apply them to. (Use the worksheet in Figure 5.1.)
FIGURE 5.1 Translating experiences into teachable points of view
Key Life Experiences
TPOVs Gained
1
2
3
4
5
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Develop TPOVs designed to give your business a winning edge. As you read this book you will discover a very clearly marked set of TPOVs about winning in business that I have drawn from my own experience and other sources. They will help you with being able to recognize, analyze, and capitalize on trends, as well as offer you age-old nuggets of wisdom. For example: •
Ask,“Who do we intend to be as a business?”
•
Talent is more important than a strategy.
•
Do something dramatically different.
•
Don’t get so far out in front of the parade that people don’t know you are there.
•
Don’t add before you subtract.
•
Go where the money is: women, baby boomers, geezers.
•
Design in the soul of a manmade product.
•
Bypass elaborate planning with rapid prototypes, quick wins, demos.
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Instead of advertising your brand, create brands people join.
•
Focus on the scoreboard.
Develop TPOVs around leadership and creating a winning leadership culture. In writing this book I spoke to Jeff Kaufman, a field vice president at Allstate Insurance (basically, the company CEO for nine Western states). His impossible future and winning result had to do with dramatically growing the business through innovative products and empowering services. I noticed in interviewing him that he had some very well-articulated teachable points of view, which he said were the basis of creating a winning culture. Here are some of them:5 •
Stand for something that will rock your world.
•
Use colorful, up language to excite, motivate.
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•
As a leader you better think of yourself as being in a . . . fishbowl—you are!
•
Leaders need to consider themselves “under construction.”
•
The best ideas come out through the “power of multiple minds.”
•
Discuss the hippopotamus under the table.
•
Create a winning culture—No. 1 or 2 on every measure.
•
Have feedback around every corner.
•
Coaching is winning people over.
•
The most intolerable state is the absence of acknowledgment.
“
The more you put your TPOV out there, the more you will be transformed into a coach and teacher.
Look for coachable moments to get your TPOV across. Once you develop your TPOV, you need to find opportunities to communicate it with passion and edge. You need to look for coachable (teachable) moments to get your message across. Jeff Kaufman, for example, formerly a high school coach in football and wrestling, had a TPOV about teamwork and discussing the hippopotamus under the table.“I am a passionate (compassionate) guy,” he says,“but I can communicate with a lot of edge if I find that people in my group try to undermine the team. For example, if instead of discussing the issues at hand at the meeting, people leave the meeting and have the conversation around the water cooler.” Communicating your TPOV has both an accelerator and a multiplier effect on developing leaders and shifting corporate culture. I interviewed UPS chairman Mike Eskew. He told me that UPS used to be
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in the small (up to 50 lbs.) package business. Eskew saw an opportunity to leverage globalization so as to gain a competitive advantage. He changed the UPS strategy from small package delivery to “synchronizing the world of commerce.” He matched that with a TPOV of “One Company . . . One-to-One with Customers.” Today, if you order a Dell computer, Dell sends the order to UPS, which forwards it to various part suppliers, who send the parts to a UPS warehouse, whose workers assemble your computer and ship it to you. Eskew avows a TPOV of “synchronizing the world of commerce” and “One Company . . . One-to-One with Customers,” not just for the Dells of the world but also for such small enterprises as clothing boutiques and flower shops. Eskew got his TPOV across with a new logo on thousands of UPS trucks, at coaching and teaching sessions for UPS leaders, and in every other forum imaginable. He found it had an accelerator effect on developing the next generation of organization leaders and a multiplier effect of altering the genetic code of UPS’s one-hundred-year-old corporate culture.6 (Learn more about Mike Eskew in Chapter Eleven.)
STEP 2
INVEST IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH TALENTED PEOPLE, TEAMS, AND NETWORKS
It is 7 A.M., two hours before the bell that signals the opening of the New York Stock Exchange. The date is May 1990, and Peter Lynch, who at that time had built Magellan, the biggest mutual fund in the history of the world, is having a coaching session with a group of new, young Fidelity fund managers in a no-nonsense building on Devonshire Street in Boston. According to George Vanderheiden, manager of Fidelity Destiny, whom I spoke to, Peter would hold forth on his TPOVs about money making, investing in a relationship with these rising stars, and then have a roundrobin discussion of investment trends.This was supported from time to time by bringing in scouts from around the world who were part of Fidelity’s research group. As Fidelity managers are compensated in part based on their track record of results, according to Vanderheiden,“We were paid to learn from each other.”7
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In Step 1 you reviewed your impossible future and began developing a teachable point of view to help you succeed with it.You now have an overall sense of what you want to accomplish in your job and a particular perspective to come from as you interact with others to accomplish that future. This gives you a platform to stand on as well as a sense of confidence and power. Step 2 in masterful coaching is to invest in relationships with talented people who can leverage your effectiveness in accomplishing your mission. Imagine that you are scanning the earth with a huge radar device and about to zero in on a talented person, a cool friend who will take your business to the top. Your ability to accomplish your impossible future ultimately depends on your being the kind of leader who can recruit talent, excite talent, and develop talent. Imagine that instead of being the leader in a big Fortune 500 firm and recycling the same veteran staff members who have been around for the past twenty-five years, you are the head coach of a sports team with the desire to win the championship, or the conductor of a symphony orchestra with the desire to become world-class. One of the first things you might do is make an assessment of your team: Does it have the kind of talented people who can win?
“
I absolutely believe that people, unless coached, never reach their maximum capabilities. Bob Nardelli8
Look at your stretch goals and breakthrough projects, then do a talent review. Please keep in mind that until you declared an impossible future that represents winning, the people on your team probably seemed up to their task. They could probably deliver on predictable goals and the occasional incremental improvement. Now, given the stand you have taken, your view of the talent on your team may have changed. I suggest looking at the goals, milestones, and catalytic breakthrough projects you want to accomplish, and then put on your Assessment Cap and do an honest talent review.
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1. What is the impossible future we are seeking? What would winning look like? 2. What are the key positions on my leadership team? 3. Do I have A players in every key role? B’s? Chronic C’s? 4. Whom do I need to coach, redeploy, or release? 5. What kind of talent do I need to hire?
REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT
Relationships I Should Invest In Write down the names of people or groups that fall into each of the following categories:
“
1.
Rock stars of talent to hire.
2.
Direct reports on my leadership team to coach.
3.
High potentials to mentor.
4.
Technical people or knowledge specialist to bring in.
5.
Joint ventures to set up.
If Bill Gates takes the time to make recruiting calls personally to the best engineers graduating from college, how about you?
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Personally invite people with the potential to be franchise players to be on your team—no reasons, no excuses. Reaching your impossible future may require that you invest more in relationships with talented people than you have ever done before. For example, to deliver on your impossible future, you will have to coach the leaders on your team to get out of the comfort zone of predictable goals and incremental improvement and drive change across the organization. Further, you may need to recruit some rock stars of talent who can have a game-changing impact on marketing, new product development, operational excellence, and so on.You may need to find a way to connect the impossible future to everyone’s goals, so that everyone becomes a player in the big game. Once you decide that you have the right team, the next step is to create an extraordinary coaching relationship.
CREATING AN EXTRAORDINARY COACHING RELATIONSHIP
“
I am part of all I have met. Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Create personal chemistry with people by giving them the gift of your presence, investing your time and energy in them. One of the great rules a business leader needs to follow today is never waste a lunch. Take the people with whom you want to invest in a relationship to lunch and talk about your impossible future, your goals, problems, and whatever else is on your mind. Also give people the gift of your presence and ask them to talk about their goals, problems, and whatever else is on their minds. Look for openings that arise naturally in the conversation to talk about how much you would like to have them on your team, if appropriate, or to provide a teachable point of view. It is very important in one-to-one sessions to keep the coaching matter of fact and conversational.
“
Never waste a lunch!
To create an extraordinary coaching relationship, both people need to have lots at stake. I recall coaching Jim Nokes, ConocoPhillips former executive vice president of refining, marketing, supply, and
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transportation. I asked him what his goals were and he brought out a list. I asked him which goal he was most passionate about. He left the room, came back, and said,“Robert, I am not passionate about any of these goals. What I really want is to become CEO and transform this company.”9 We were off and running. Coaching someone to reach their highest goals and aspirations is a very demanding process. The coachee has to have so much at stake in the goals and aspirations that he is willing to surrender his ego and allow himself to be coached for awhile.The coach also has to have enough at stake in helping the person reach the goal that he or she is willing to make coaching that person a 24/7 obsession.The coaching relationship may start off with a bang in any case, but if the two people don’t have enough at stake in the game, the coaching relationship will tend to fizzle out. Align people’s dreams and aspirations with organizational needs and aspirations. Imagine you are talking to one of your direct reports in this way:“This is the impossible future I am going for and I want you to be a part of it. Please tell me about your personal goals and aspirations. If I can help you realize those in the process of your making this project successful, we will both be winners.” Once you know the personal goals, you might continue:“You say you want to have an entrepreneurial opportunity and to work internationally. Well, this project requires a joint venture with a software company in India that is developing a new technology. What do you think about heading that up?” In coaching rising stars (high potentials) who are still wet behind the ears, it is important to tell them:“Look, we see you as a talented person with lots of leadership potential. We need leaders like you to fulfill our vision of being a global enterprise. Do you want to develop faster? . . . Good! Buckle your seat belt and let’s go.” Get people to see the power of coaching and to see the opportunity in coaching for them. I usually start off by giving people some examples of famous people who were already successful but who went to the next level through masterful coaching. A great example is Tiger Woods’s relationship with Butch Harmon. Tiger won the PGA tournament and then received a phone call from Butch who told him,“Congratulations, but your swing sucked!” The two decided to work together and the rest is history. Tiger won the Grand Slam in the following year, after Butch took his swing apart and put it back together again. Talk to people in this vein:“Anything is possible. Coaching can make a difference, and the actions are up to you.” Or,“I am not saying you can’t reach your goals without coaching, but coaching can give you more power and velocity in reaching them, and also ensure you don’t step on any political land mines.” Define the rules of engagement. In talking about a coaching relationship a number of questions will come up. The coachee is likely to ask: “Is the coaching relationship about my performance or
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my development or both?” “How often will we meet?” In coaching executives I define the rules of engagement in this way: (1) This is going to be about coaching you to achieve goals in service of the impossible future. (2) I will bring my 100 percent commitment to creating an extraordinary coaching relationship with you, and I ask you to bring yours. (3) Each of us needs to “own” the success of the coaching relationship to make it successful. If it’s not working, let’s talk about it. (4) I’ve found that it’s important to calendarize the coaching and not to leave it ad hoc. (5) We will talk about your performance and your development, and use 360-degree feedback, which only you and I will see. (6) I will give you honest coaching and feedback, and because I want to be a better leader and coach, I ask that you do the same for me.
Creating Extraordinary Coaching Relationships 1. Get to know people by drawing them out; recognize their talents and gifts. 2. Introduce people to the impossible future and the idea of being on the team. 3. Offer to be a coach or mentor who will be dedicated to their reaching their potential. 4. Ask people for their commitment to the project and to the coaching relationship. 5. Define the rules of engagement.
STEP 3
COACH PEOPLE TO SET LEADERSHIP AND BUSINESS BREAKTHROUGHS AND DEVELOP A WINNING GAME PLAN
In the early 1990s, Jim Sacherman, who founded the Palo Alto Design Group (PADG), had a strategic planning session with his team. The company’s impossible future of innovative products and double-digit growth, written on the wall, had become the basis of cynical remarks. “Yeah, right!” The group used a process called imagination breakthroughs. One of the ideas generated turned out to be the PalmPilot, a highly successful retail product for Palm Computing. Sacherman
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then asked each individual on the team to develop a chunk of the new Pilot. He told team members that they each would also have a personal breakthrough to take the lead on and to stop competing with each other and work collaboratively as a team. In 1995, USRobotics bought Palm Computing, and Sacherman and his team cashed in.10 The next step in Masterful Coaching—The Method has to do with designing a team game plan and individual leadership and business breakthroughs. This is a way to make everyone a player in the big game of realizing the impossible future and to set the context for breakthroughs in results and breakthroughs for people. Once you decide on your impossible future, you now need to establish your playbook. This involves bringing the people in your group together and engaging in a robust dialogue on all the hows and the whats while holding people accountable for results. In Part Two of this book I will go through a detailed discussion about how to create a winning strategy and game plan for your entire business. In this section I will focus on declaring an impossible future or winning results for a small company, a function or project team, or an individual and then creating a game plan to achieve it.
“
You can’t get from here to there, but you can get here from there.
WHAT WOULD BE A BUSINESS BREAKTHROUGH FOR YOU? The masterful coaching approach to realizing an impossible future and coming up with a game plan is very different from the typical linear-planning approach. It uses the notion of standing in the future you want to create and then walking toward the present, imagining what you need to do today to make your desired future a reality. Most people, in contrast, try to stand in the present and walk toward the future. The problem with this is that most of the time they end up looking in the rear view mirror, and thus wind up recreating the past. Let’s say that you are coaching an individual or a group with a vision of a “hot growth company with cool products.” Ask the coachees to stand in that future as if it were already realized and ask
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themselves: “How did we get there?” “What did we do that was dramatically different? What kind of innovative products did we get in the pipeline?”“How did we deal with the competition? Customers? Investors?” Then ask the coachees to define one or two business breakthroughs that they will accomplish in the next couple of years. For example, instill a climate of breathtaking innovation and come up with game-changing products to be marketed and sold in a way that will not provide just customer service but also a life-altering experience.
Examples of Business Breakthroughs • Triple sales volume and double profits in three years. • Build a power band. • Create a breakthrough product for women or boomers. • Create a game-changing service. • Provide Six Sigma quality.
“
Masterful coaches always have a Plan B.
List the conditions of satisfaction for the business breakthrough. Stand in the future of your breakthrough realized and ask,“What does success look like?” Let’s imagine it is five years out, and you have already reached your goal of tripling the size of your emerging business. The next question to ask is,“What are the conditions of satisfaction? or,“What does success look like? How do you measure it?” Here are some examples of conditions of satisfaction: (1) We have some world-class talent in the company. (2) We have a brand based on a cool product that represents a game-changing solution. (3) We have a coaching culture where people are encouraged to do their best work. (4) We have a waiting list of clients. (5) We grew at 30 percent a year, with 10 percent net earnings before taxes.
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Create a structure for fulfillment. Ask: “What are the design elements or missing pieces that need to be put in place?” Creating a structure for fulfillment is a holistic way of taking an idea that is a mere possibility and moving it to a reality. It involves envisioning whatever it is that you are creating in its entirety and then imagining your way back to reality. Standing in the future, ask yourself:“What are the various design elements (building blocks) or missing pieces that need to be put in place?” I like this question because it implies thinking about something as if you were a world-class architect who has a vision of something extraordinary in her mind and needs to create a blueprint or prototype to realize it. If we think about an emerging business with a goal of double-digit growth, the missing pieces that the CEO or leader needs to put in place might include (1) create a business plan or narrative and get venture capital involvement; (2) recruit talented people who are masters in building brands that create customer intimacy; (3) develop a Web site to market the company’s products. Make sure not only that the structure for fulfillment has all the necessary pieces but also that those pieces fit together, like a solved puzzle, to make a whole. Identify the people or groups critical to the success of the breakthrough. Often people plan the actions that they need to take without first doing an assessment of the game board to discover who is with them, who is neutral, and who is against them. Identify the people and groups inside and outside your organization or group who will play a significant role (positive or negative) in achieving your breakthrough and then identify the conversations that you need to have with each of them. They might be in any of the following categories: •
They may take on the leadership of an aspect of your business commitment.
•
You may need their approval and alignment.
•
They may play a role in gaining high-level support or resources.
•
They may provide you with information that will make you more powerful.
•
They may be part of getting actions done.
•
They may be a roadblock or obstacle.
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Seek opportunities to be in action. The next step is to look for opportunities to be in action. Think big and act fast. What breakthrough can you accomplish in the next thirty days? What can you do with the authority, resources, and readiness that you have right now? What would give you the most leverage and create some early successes and new openings for action? What would you be excited to get working on?
“
Design leadership breakthroughs around aspiration goals, not boring competencies.
GIVEN YOUR BUSINESS BREAKTHROUGH, WHAT WOULD BE A LEADERSHIP BREAKTHROUGH FOR YOU? The next step is to define a corresponding leadership breakthrough, one that will help you achieve your business breakthrough. Again, ask people to stand in the impossible future, two to three years out, with their business breakthrough already achieved. Ask:“How did you develop as a leader to achieve your business breakthrough? How did you transform in the process?” It is important to frame the question in terms of how they are going to totally transform as a leader and not in terms of “make some improvement.” In order to get to the impossible future, there is no question that people are going to have to break their grip on their old winning strategies and excel beyond those strategies, which have perhaps resulted in promotion after promotion but which will limit them in being who they need to be and doing what they need to do to reach their goals.
“ 114
Transform your leadership style from barking orders and command and control to engaging in coaching conversations that encouraged people to innovate and execute.
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REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT
Transforming Your Leadership Winning Strategy Take one piece of paper, and on the front side write down how you showed up as a leader today, what your personal winning strategy has been—your formula for being successful in the past—and how that old winning strategy is the source of your success and your limitations. Then on the back side of the paper write down how you transformed as a leader in the future: for example, from command and control to collaborative, from passionate advocacy to balancing advocacy and inquiry, from focusing on continuous improvement to focusing on innovation, from focusing on cost cutting to focusing on top-line growth.
Get some meaningful 360 feedback. I have found that gathering 360 feedback is an invaluable way to figure out who people need to be as a leader to reach their goals and aspirations. I have also found that the process can be very transformational, especially if the feedback comes from interviews that reveal real insights about the individual rather than from computer tick sheets. Your job as the coach is to interview five to ten people—bosses, colleagues, and direct reports. Ask basic questions: Possibilities? Strengths? Gaps? Derailers? Next development steps? Ask follow-up questions to gain more insights. Deliver the feedback in a friendly, matter-of-fact way, letting the feedback do the talking, and giving the person plenty of time to ponder and reflect. Create a leadership roadmap—structure for fulfillment—for realizing the leadership breakthrough. I have found when doing 360 feedback that it can raise lots of issues. The key thing to remember is to focus on building on strengths and then perhaps a few areas of improvement. I suggest focusing on one or two shifts in the way people are being, as well as breaking the grip of their existing personal winning strategy and excelling beyond that strategy, which is the source of their success on the one hand and the source of their limitations on the other. For example, they might want to focus on the need to be a visionary leader rather than operating in a sea of predictability or the need to give up being in unilateral control and instead learning how to collaborate. It might be letting go of an obsessive tendency to want to compete and win, not just on big things like a major acquisition but on little things too, like where to go for lunch.
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Leadership Roadmap Template •
Start with a leadership declaration. “I am committed to the possibility of [new ways of being].” . . .
•
“I am committed to giving up [old ways of being].” . . .
•
“My old leadership mind-set was . . . My new leadership mind-set is . . .”
•
“Behaviors I want to start doing: . . . Behaviors I want to stop doing: . . .”
•
Opportunities to be in action next year? The next ninety days? The next thirty days?
Everything that we have gone over here—the impossible future, business breakthroughs, leadership breakthroughs, structure for fulfillment, thirty-day actions—are part of the masterful coaching online coaching system, MyGamePlan. Each month people are coached by their boss on the progress they are making, on both their business and their development goals. MyGamePlan guides both the coach and coachee in preparing for each meeting or phone call and in having extraordinary coaching conversations over a year’s time to accomplish the impossible future along with team and individual breakthroughs. People are coached through the five phases of breakthrough. (See Chapter Nine for more on the five phases.)
STEP 4
FORWARD THE ACTION—ASK: WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT’S MISSING? WHAT’S NEXT?
When Tom Kaiser went to Zurich Financial as president of the Customer Solutions Group, the people on his team said,“We’re a mature business in a tough market, not a growth business. How do we preserve our market share?” Kaiser’s response was,“Let’s reframe that. Every business is a growth business.”This led to brainstorming ideas that would maximize Zurich’s then underperforming possibilities, opportunities, and business assets. Sales went from $300 million to $700 million in the next
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three years. The key to Kaiser’s success? He got people to focus on basic things like getting and keeping customers. According to Kaiser,“It is not always about strategy but about execution on basic things. People have gotten so impressed with PowerPoint presentations that they have forgotten how to sell, sell, sell. It comes down to basic actions like banging away on the phone, offering customized solutions, and revisiting customers to capitalize on the goodwill we have built up.”11 Winning in business is the result of a creative vision plus persistent action. Once people have faced reality, set goals, and identified what’s missing, there is a feeling of optimism. They are standing in the new future they are creating with a coach who believes in them and who can empower them in reaching that future as nobody else can. In a sense it is like the beginning of grade nine at school or the start of a new year. The conversation in people’s heads is all about possibilities. It is like spring training, the time of year when every team is flush with the possibility, no matter how remote, of going all the way. It is the time when every play on Broadway will be the next Les Misérables, when all our dreams have the potential to come true. Please keep in mind, your dreams will be dashed and your feelings of hope will be short lived unless you begin to move from thinking to action. If you delay, soon the grand plan will start to look overwhelming, something that is hard to fit into all the other things that are happening—like the fact that the boss has asked you to work on a big customer proposal or that you have a weeklong conference in Hong Kong and then a sales meeting in Seattle, after which you need to attend your cousin’s wedding. So the next step in the five-step model is for the coach to interact with the coachee in a way that forwards the action, taking into account that people are always in the middle of their lives and there are always lots of other things going on. Bypass elaborate planning and preparations; go for rapid prototypes, quick wins, and demos. The old leadership was about goal setting and long-term planning. The new leadership, in a world of discontinuous change, is about initiation and execution. Wherever you are doing a catalytic breakthrough project, create a rapid prototype, a quick win, or a demo. Got an idea to reinvent your business as an e-business, from the ground up? Don’t spent months planning it. Spend a few weeks creating a rapid prototype of your new Web site. Go live with new products and services in thirty days. Start taking customer orders within ninety days. Or instead of fiddling with a new product idea in your engineering department, create a rapid prototype in weeks and then demo it with customers. Get some live feedback about what’s important to the customer and what improvements need to be made in the design.
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Forwarding the Action—Four Things to Remember 1. Coach people to go for a breakthrough result in the next thirty days. 2. Start small to win big—prototypes, quick wins, demos. 3. Revisit monthly. Ask:“Did you do it?” The only answer is yes or no. 4. If people don’t deliver, don’t belittle; look at what’s missing. Ask:“What breakthrough are you going to accomplish in the next thirty days?” I like to go from the business breakthrough to a specific breakthrough result that can be accomplished in the next thirty days—rapid prototypes, quick wins, or demos that will spearhead a breakthrough and take you and your team to a different place. Load your thirty-day breakthrough with what Robert Schaffer calls zest factors. This means it (1) exploits existing readiness for change (“Wow, this is what we have all have been waiting for”); (2) can be accomplished with existing resources and authority; (3) aims for success that is near and clear; (4) inspires a team effort; and (5) once achieved, takes you to a different place.12 Coaching is management by follow-up; ask:“Did you achieve the thirty-day breakthrough goals?” Once you coach people to establish a thirty-day breakthrough, creating some razor-sharp goals you can hold people accountable for, the next step is to create a concrete action plan that if executed will take people to the goal. The most important part of the coaching process is to remember something I said at the outset of Chapter One. “Coaching is about expanding people’s capacity to achieve an impossible future and win by focusing and refocusing on key performance goals.” Every two weeks, or no less often than once a month, revisit with people and ask: “Did you deliver on your commitment or not?” The only answer is yes or no. If people don’t deliver, don’t belittle; instead ask:“What happened?”“What’s missing?”“What’s next?” Coaching is about holding people accountable for their promises. Asking the question,“Did you deliver on your breakthrough commitment?” serves to create a climate of accountability and breakthrough that will move people from the realm of prediction and explanation to creation and generation, which in turn will lead people to take action.Yet what do you do if people say, “No. I didn’t do it”? Though you may be tempted to berate and belittle people, it will be much
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more effective if you simply ask three very powerful coaching questions:“What happened?”“What’s missing?”“What’s next?” For example,“Joe, you said you would deliver on this goal by doing these specific actions this week. Did you do that? [No!] Would you tell me what happened and what got in the way? [Lots of stuff.] What’s missing that could make a difference? Is there anything I could do to offer you an assist that would empower you to take successful action this week?”
STEP 5
OBSERVE BREAKDOWNS AND INTERVENE; PROVIDE FEEDBACK AND LEARNING
Sydney Lumet is a master moviemaker who directed such films as 12 Angry Men and Murder on the Orient Express. Lumet was coaching Paul Newman on the film The Verdict, about Boston attorney Frank Galvin. One day they ran through the whole script. Things looked quite good, but somehow Newman’s performance seemed rather flat. Lumet asked Newman to stay after the rehearsal. According to Lumet,“I told him, while things looked promising, we hadn’t hit the emotional level we knew was there in David Mamet’s screenplay. I said his characterization was fine, but hadn’t evolved into a living, breathing person.Was there a problem?” Newman was having trouble playing the unsavory part of Frank Galvin’s character. On Monday, Newman came to rehearsal and sparks flew. He was superb. His character and the picture took on life. Lumet went on to say,“I know that the decision to reveal that part of himself was painful for him, because Paul is a shy person, but he is very dedicated.Yes! he’s a wonderful actor and a wonderful man.”13
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Masterful coaches revel in the talent of others, yet when they observe breakdowns, they intervene with an amazing level of skill and artistry.
The next step in the masterful coaching five-step coaching model is to observe breakdowns as people make a committed attempt to perform and then to intervene by providing meaningful
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feedback and learning. The story about Sydney Lumet and Paul Newman is a great example of a masterful coach who sees something that is “missing,” something that the individual doesn’t see but that if achieved would produce a breakthrough. Lumet’s way of speaking to Newman was straightforward and honest yet at the same time gracious and respectful.“Paul said that he didn’t have the lines memorized yet, and that, when he did, it would be better. I, however, didn’t think it was the lines. I told him that there is a certain aspect of Frank Galvin’s character that was not particularly attractive that was missing so far. I told him that I wouldn’t invade his privacy, but only he could choose to reveal that part of the character and, therefore, that aspect of himself. I couldn’t help him with the decision.”
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A coach is a different kind of observer.
In becoming a coach, step back from the game and the heat of the action and become an observer. This is one of the most important steps a leader can take. I find that most business leaders are too preoccupied with their position on the corporate chessboard and their goals and problems to be astute observers of others. They also tend to collapse the distinction between carefully observing someone and making wild assessments. I have often seen executives jump to career-wrecking conclusions about people based on “what happened ten years ago” and gossip or rumor. For example, one leader I was coaching said about one of his direct reports,“Bill doesn’t stretch his people or get them to drive change.”Yet when asked to ground his assessment with examples, he drew a blank. Masterful coaches are a different kind of observer. In addition to being passionate people watchers they separate their observations from assessments, seldom jumping to conclusions. When they do make an assessment about people or a business, it is usually based on examples and solid reasoning. (See the ladder of inference, Figure 3.2.)
Basic Things to Observe When Coaching Others • Does the person show up as a leader who sets the agenda or as a people pleaser? • Is this person driving an impossible future or stuck in a comfort zone?
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• Does this person radiate positive energy or low energy and cynicism? • Is this person playing 100 percent or going through the motions? • Is this person stretching his way of being or coming from an old winning strategy? • Does this person operate with integrity, keep her word, deliver on promises, and take accountability for mistakes? When you see people produce breakdowns, get to the source through making fact-based assessments rather than jumping to conclusions. A common situation is illustrated by a leader I was coaching who complained that he had to come up with all the smart ideas and that even though he invited people on the team to contribute they never spoke up.“The people on my team are either not too bright, nonplayers, or timid.” Having a hunch that the people were very talented and that he was full of it, I went around and talked to the people on the team. They told me that they didn’t speak up for the following reasons: (1) the boss had a question-to-talk ratio that was high on talk; (2) like a blast furnace, he tended to shout down people who disagreed with him; and (3) he always had the last word. I conveyed this feedback to the boss, and the situation began to transform.
Things to Observe in the Event of a Breakdown 1. Observe people producing breakdowns as they make a committed attempt to perform. 2. Notice how people are being that is resulting in the breakdown. 3. Ask:“What is your mind-set, and how is it getting you in trouble?” 4. Determine whether people’s way of interacting with others is likely to be successful or to misfire. 5. Ask:“What’s missing that if provided would produce a breakthrough?”
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FIGURE 5.2 Triple-loop learning
History, Horizon of Possibility, Act, Winning Strategy Mismatch or Error Goals & Aspirations
How you are BEING
How you are THINKING
Your ACTIONS
Unintended Results
What do people need to do differently? What’s the winning strategy? How do people need to think differently?
How do people need to be different? Source: Adapted from Chris Argyris, Knowledge for Action (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993).
The triple-loop learning diagram displayed in Figure 5.2 is based on the work of Chris Argyris. It is a good illustration of coaching people on their ways of being and thinking that drive behavior, and it shows some questions to ask as people make committed attempts to perform and produce errors or unintended results. If you see a train about to go over a cliff, intervene; don’t just sit there and watch. Two friends of mine, Harry and Sally, had an e-business selling home furnishings. The business started out almost as a hobby but then took off like a rocket. Sales were coming in hand over fist, and they quickly built up a bankroll of a million in cash flow. Harry was good on sales, Sally was a great Web master, and they set up a call center. Then suddenly things started to go south. Harry and Sally got into some petty squabbles and didn’t talk for two months; call-center folks were hoarding orders to get their commissions and, as a result, losing customers. There were too many unprofitable items on their Web site as well and too many costly returns. One customer remarked,“Worst customer experience I ever had.” It seemed as if their working capital slipped from $1 million to $400,000 almost over night. My observation was that this was a bad situation. My assessment was that they were going to go out of business, and I chose to intervene in a rather loud way.
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Provide meaningful feedback and learning. Everyone knows what’s wrong! Focus on what’s missing that can make a difference. As you observe people making a committed attempt to perform and breakdowns occurring, make assessments about the cause (cure), and then intervene. It is up to you to provide meaningful feedback and learning. Providing feedback does not have to be heart wrenching or very difficult, and you don’t have to be an expert in leadership, management, or whatever. Ask yourself: “What is the one thing I can say to this person that will make a difference?” Your job is to set off fireworks, to light a spark that causes the right kind of explosion to happen in people, because people are already carrying around everything else they need.
GUIDELINES FOR PROVIDING MEANINGFUL FEEDBACK AND LEARNING The masterful coaching approach is based on transformational learning, not transactional tips. The secret of effective feedback is using the internal commitment model. People are often unaware of how their thinking or behavior leads to unintended results. How do you get people to accept feedback and change? The internal commitment model is invaluable. If people are going to take the feedback on board, it needs to be based not on prejudices but on valid information. Then giving people a choice whether about making a change allows them to bring their personal commitment to the change.
Internal Commitment Model 1. Valid information. Ask people if they agree that the 360 feedback on their strengths and gaps is valid. If people disagree, use examples to validate the feedback, or ask for their own examples, ones that might lead to a different assessment. 2. Free and informed choice. Ask:“Would you like to change?” and,“Would you like my help in doing so?” Explore the options for making the change: for example, finding a coach or a mentor or executive education. 3. Internal commitment. If people feel the feedback is valid and they have a free and informed choice, they will usually participate 100 percent in the change process.
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Don’t smooth things over or ease into them. Speak with the near-brutal candor needed to avert breakdowns: for example,“Jeff, I love you and I believe in you as a leader.Yet you have just had the worst year in your career, and if you don’t fix it I am going to take you out.” Or,“You are being too passive. You need to up the intensity level.” Or recall the example I just gave you of Harry and Sally, who created a successful e-business then had a falling out with each other. They needed this feedback:“You two have a good thing going here.Your business is in breakdown and bleeding cash. If you don’t fix it, you will be out of business in three months.” Think in terms of transforming people, not just their behavior. Focus on how people are being and their mind-set, which is the source of their behavior and in most cases the source of their unintended results. For example, when a leader is struggling to find time to think, don’t tell her to spend an hour in the morning with her door closed. Get to how she is being, the mind-set that causes her to have no time. For example, leaders who are people pleasers may have a mind-set of not being able to say no. In order to gain insight into people’s ways of being, I suggest doing 360 feedback interviews. Feedback derived from computer tick sheets is always designed to focus on the behavior. Don’t focus just on what’s wrong! Everybody already knows that. Focus on what’s missing that if provided could make a difference.You receive feedback on a person you are coaching that says that this person is a very dominating leader who always has to be the smartest person in the room, and as a result, everyone shuts down around him. This is what’s wrong. Focus instead on what’s missing that if provided could make a difference. For example, he might need (1) to make a leadership declaration (“I need to balance being directive with being collaborative”); (2) to create a TPOV about collaboration, the power of multiple minds; or (3) to create a template for action (increasing his question-to-talk ratio). Provide a written performance review at least once a year. Although it is important to provide feedback on a frequent, friendly, and informal basis, it is also important to provide written feedback on a formal basis, as conversations can disappear from memory or be recalled in different ways. Take one piece of paper. On the front write about the coachee’s strengths. On the back write down areas of improvement. Ask the coachee to do the same. At the feedback session, ask her to provide her view of how she is doing first. Then you follow with yours. Let people know exactly where they stand. If they are not getting the promotion or big bonus, tell them why, so they can
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do something about it rather than continuing to act in the dark. In addition, be sure to follow the strategies discussed in earlier sections: •
Come from standing in people’s greatness.
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Come from standing for people’s success.
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Speak from your stand with respect to the person and not from your emotional state.
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Model the feedback on the triple-loop learning model.
Someone once asked Ted Williams of the legendary Boston Red Sox about goals. Williams said, “It is important to have lifetime goals, not just weekly and daily ones. Mine is to have people say, ‘There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.’” Williams took action on his goals every day in the batting cage at Boston’s Fenway Park and was the last player to bat 400 for the season. What’s not commonly known about the sometimes cocky Williams is how open he was to feedback. He would frequently invite the best hitters from his own and opposing teams— including Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, and Willie Mays—to watch him hit balls and to give him some ideas on how he could do better. He would take whatever tips they had to offer until he started hitting balls over Boston’s “Green Monster” (the left field wall). Then the practice would stop and the game would begin.14
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P A R T
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YOUR MASTERFUL COACH IN A BOOK: HOW TO REALIZE AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE AND WIN IN YOUR BUSINESS
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In this second part of the Masterful Coaching Fieldbook, I am going to be standing in a different place, the place of taking a stand to coach you in creating an impossible future and winning in your business, as if you and I were engaging in a coaching relationship. I will start with coaching you as a leader, as if I were walking into your office for the first time, talking about the difference between an impossible future and a predictable one. I will ask you about your impossible future for your business and what winning would be for you. I will helping you establish a winning mind-set that allows you to recognize, analyze, and capitalize on trends. Together, we will look at who you need to be and what you need to do as a leader to realize that impossible future. Of tantamount importance in that process is learning how to develop other leaders at all levels. I will teach you how to recognize people with leadership potential. I will provide you with specific prescriptions for coaching, mentoring, and teaching both your direct reports and the highfliers in your talent pool. I will show you how to create a world-class, state-of-the-art leadership development program. I will provide you with the masterful coaching 360-degree feedback method. Once we define your impossible future, we will move on to the next step, which involves bringing your team together for a team strategy session and creating a winning game plan. The impossible future represents the what. The winning game plan represents the how. It starts out with looking at the What’s So (or current state) of your business today, analyzing the gap between where you are and where you want to be and discovering what’s missing that will make a difference.You will gain insight into what talent you are going to need to hire, create a blue ocean strategy, and learn how to achieve operational excellence. Finally, I will coach you to take that impossible future and desire to win and create a line of sight from that future to each person in your organization. I will tell you about a way to certify all the managers in your organization as masterful coaches. I will show you how to formulate team breakthroughs, leadership breakthroughs, and business breakthroughs and create a coaching environment.You will learn how to create a structure for fulfillment and a thirty-day action plan for each person on your team and how to hold monthly coaching conversations where you revisit these plans, forward the action, and drive toward results.
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C H A P T E R
S I X
MASTERFUL COACHES INSTILL A WINNER’S MIND-SET
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The age of talent and a creative economy is fueled by the desire to win.
Of course succeeding in your career is not just about getting rich and famous. Stephen A. Schwarzman, for example, built the Blackstone Group into one of the world’s largest private equity firms also for the sheer joy of winning.“People have to understand that the game really is to compete and win,” says this chief executive, who raised a record $15.6 billion for one fund. An article in BusinessWeek online points out that many top CEOs like to put a face on winning. For example, Rupert Murdoch, the madcap founder and chairman of News Corporation, likes to directly engage not just corporations but also individual adversaries, such as Viacom’s Sumner Redstone and CNN founder Ted Turner.1
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One of the secrets of creating a passion for winning is to put a face on your competitive battles. It is said that Steven Jobs had a vision with the first Apple computer of “burying IBM.” It is said that Martha Stewart always had a vision of her magazine beating House Beautiful, as well as running her own Fortune 500 company, not just a vision of making Christmas decorations on TV. And when legendary Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach played Little League baseball, what ignited his competitive drive was coming up to bat with two players out and runners on second and third base,“I looked at it as an opportunity.” The hunger to reach the top, be the best, and win is still a force of nature, despite talk about teamwork and emotional intelligence. Whether you are a brash CEO or a shy actuary in an insurance company, an extroverted marketer or an introverted design engineer, you want to win. Despite the tremendous importance that has been placed on emotional intelligence and teamwork, everyone has a hidden ambition to be the best there is. The yearning to make the ascent and reach the top, regardless of who or what stands in your way, remains a force of nature in successful people and firms—even if it sometimes brings out the dark side of human nature. In a special BusinessWeek poll of 2,500 American workers, two-thirds said “a modestly talented but extremely competitive person” would be more likely to get ahead at their companies. Only one-third gave the edge to “an extremely talented but uncompetitive person.”2
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One of the issues facing many executives is their excessive need to win, not just the big points but the small points. So they attack a debate over where to eat with the same intensity as they negotiate a takeover. Marshall Goldsmith3
Today there are many highly talented people and companies rich in resources that never reach their potential because they do not have a strong desire to win. At the same time, the motivation driving people to compete and win is completely changing. During the 1950s and 1960s, winning was all about getting to the next rung up the corporate ladder. There were winners (the people who became executive vice president of something) and clear losers (the people who didn’t get a promotion in ten years). In the 1970s, the decade known for the Me Generation, people became less concerned
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with building companies organically than doing big mergers that involved hostile takeovers, as well as amassing personal wealth. Women were liberated and entered the corporate world.
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Upstarts play to win, incumbents not to lose. Think FedEx versus the U.S. Postal Service, Canon versus Xerox, Virgin Airways versus British Airways, Google versus Microsoft, Apple versus Sony.
Upstarts aggressively pursue winning whereas incumbents avoid losing. Imagine you are the new leader of (you name the company) and you have discovered that instead of playing to win, everyone is operating with the mind-set of avoiding losing? Maybe you find out later on that people are following these unwritten rules of the game: don’t take a risk, respect your boss, never violate the chain of command, produce predictable results, and of course, practice continuous improvement. Let’s say that people may have tried to implement some new ideas, fresh approaches, or innovative solutions, but every time they did they, in effect, got hit over the head with a lead pipe, and a culture of profound resignation has resulted. How are you going to shift this? The biggest foe to overcome is often yourself. Today many people are obsessed with winning, not only at the expense of others but also by beating their own best. The real battleground in an age of talent and a creative economy is about gaining the ability to create something that never existed before and to make the competition irrelevant rather than compete head on. The biggest enemy you are facing is often yourself. Says Donald Trump, who likes to tout the ratings for The Apprentice in comparison to the ratings for Martha Stewart’s show,“I think of myself as my biggest competitor.” He tallies every piece of positive press and every rating point for The Apprentice on a mental scorecard that may be complete only when his body is in a casket. And Indy 500 racer Danica Patrick treats even the people beside her going up a set of stairs as rivals.“I compete in everything I do,” she says.“It makes me do my best.” And one more thing! Does the fact that I lived matter? Finally, with all this talk about winning, I want to reiterate something I wrote in Chapter One, as it is near and dear to my own heart. At the end of my days, I will evaluate whether or not I won in the game of life or lost, not by how many leadership seminars I gave, how many CEOs I coached, or whether I became rich and famous. I will look at the giant scoreboard of life, and ask,“Did I make a difference, whether in the life
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of one person, the community, the world? Did I make an impact on something I passionately cared about? Was I effective?” According to Pat Riley, coach of the Miami Heat,“Each Warrior wants to leave the mark of his will, his signature, on important acts he touches. This is not the voice of ego but of the human spirit, rising up and declaring that it has something to contribute to the solution of the hardest problems, no matter how vexing!”4
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If you ask great performers what percentage of winning is mental and what percentage is action, they will say it’s 80 percent mental, 20 percent action. Yet if you ask them what they are doing to create a winning mind-set, they will look at you dumbfounded.
Coaching People to Have a Winning Attitude: The Psychology of Winning
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Get people to focus on their impossible future and being competitive.
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Get people to create written goals, milestones, and images of achievement.
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Teach people that whatever they focus on—winning or fear of losing—will determine how they feel.
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Teach people to expect to win, not merely think about winning.
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Install confidence in people:“Yes! You can do this.”
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Coach people on the ways their body language influences their belief in themselves.
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Don’t indulge in conversations based on it-can’t-be-done-isms: just do it.
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Don’t indulge in conversations about how “those bastards screwed me.” Get off it and get on with it.
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YOUR ABILITY TO RECOGNIZE, ANALYZE, AND CAPITALIZE ON TRENDS CAN TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS INTO A WINNER
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Trends are worth trillions.
I once heard Paul Allaire, the former CEO of Xerox, say,“We are in a brawl where the only rules are there are no rules.” For example, U.S. soldiers sit in their Humvees in the desert in Iraq, looking for an enemy who never comes out and fights in the open but lurks around every corner. Hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs are being “outsourced” to China as a result of cheap labor and currency manipulation. Information technology is almost guaranteed to do the same with millions of white-collar jobs in the very near future. Wal-Mart mercilessly drives “Mom and Pop” out of business. Microsoft hires one of Google’s top people, and Google sues for intellectual property rights violation. The Internet speeds up and multiplies exponentially the number of collaborative connections between businesspeople all over the world. The competition is coming out of the woodwork. The only conclusion you can draw is that we are in a brawl without rules and the only way to win is to adapt. In today’s world the ability to adapt depends on being able to recognize, analyze, and capitalize on trends. In this chapter I will be pointing out ten winner’s mind-sets that will help you leverage the opportunities in change. In the following section I use a paragraph or two to describe, each mind-set, and then I illustrate it with some quotes and examples and suggestions for action. To give credit where credit is due, I found some great quotes for this section on Tom Peters’s Web site, tompeters.com. I have always found Tom’s love of business, willingness to take a stand for big, new contrarian ideas, and upbeat language a powerful source of inspiration. His writing is as energizing for me as three cups of black coffee—I can’t read more than a page or two before I am overstimulated.
Ten Winner’s Mind-Sets 1. Create a blue ocean strategy rather than compete in bloody red oceans. 2. Small guys win by thinking big, networking globally, acting fast.
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3. Design soul into your products; get people to join your brand. 4. Become a change insurgent; use the power of powerlessness. 5. Focus on projects and prototypes and not plans and preparations. 6. Reinvent your business as an e-business from the ground up. 7. Go where the money is—women, boomers, geezers. 8. Move from good products and services to gaspworthy experiences. 9. Sell as if your company’s survival depends on it—because it does. 10. Take charge of your own career—start Me Incorporated.
WINNER’S MIND-SET 1
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LOOK FOR BLUE OCEAN STRATEGIES THAT MAKE THE COMPETITION IRRELEVANT RATHER THAN COMPETE IN BLOODY RED OCEANS
Don’t benchmark, futuremark! Why? The future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed. William Gibson5
If you want to win in your business, stop competing in bloody red oceans, functioning as just another me-too competitor. Follow W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne’s advice and create a blue ocean strategy that makes the competition irrelevant.6 Stop benchmarking the competition,
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and start competing on being a value innovator. The plain facts of life are that you can’t compete with China or Wal-Mart on price, Japanese cars on quality, or Subway for a high-profit, low-cost sandwich franchise. In order to win you have to come up with a blue ocean strategy that is based on a new concept and is dramatically different. •
Cirque du Soleil: a shift in focus from kids to adults, from lion acts to spectacular performers with exotic themes, from one big show to three unforgettable experiences a year, from a $10 ticket to a $75 ticket.
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Instant infrastructure:“General Electric Becomes a General Store for Developing Countries.”7
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Starbucks: not a restaurant, not a coffee shop, but a third place—a place where people can take refuge.
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Whole Foods Market: sales of $798 a square foot versus Wal-Mart’s $415.
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“Big Brown’s New Bag: UPS Aims to Be the Traffic Manager for Corporate America.”8
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“Club Med: More than just a ‘resort,’ it’s a means of rediscovering oneself, of inventing an entirely new ‘me.’”9
WINNER’S MIND-SET 2
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SMALL GUYS CAN WIN BY THINKING BIG, NETWORKING GLOBALLY, ACTING FAST
Choose to be great, not just big. Great companies set the agenda, disturb other’s sleep. Who is an industry giant you would just love to topple?
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Small guys who think big and act fast can start to take on the characteristics of big guys and compete with anyone, given people’s power to collaborate and compete via the Internet. For example, Masterful Coaching is admittedly a small company, but my mission from God is to take on a company like McKinsey. They deliver answers; we deliver the 95 percent missing from most coaching engagements—implementation and, yes, results. I started building my brand with books, put up a Web site, packaged some products, and started getting calls from all over the world. At this moment we are romancing or doing joint ventures with established consulting firms in Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, and are outsourcing a coaching software project to a group in China, Shinetech. •
Small guys think big, act fast. Frederick W. (Fred) Smith first advanced his idea of nationwide overnight delivery and then took an infamous trip to the Las Vegas casinos, where he won enough hands at blackjack to help meet a payroll.
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Small guys need an enemy when starting out. Lexus wanted to beat Benz; Canon to beat Xerox;Virgin Airways to beat British Airways; Apple to bury IBM.
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Small upstart oil companies, like Apache, that aggressively pursue winning and believe you find oil only by digging more wells, are dramatically outperforming Big Oil (ExxonMobil, Shell, BP).
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BrickRed Technologies, a software development company in India, was discovered by CEOs (Web surfers) of small to midsize companies who were looking for good deal; it now competes with Computer Associates, SAP, Oracle, and IBM.
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Whole Foods Market, a fraction of the size of Safeway and Shaw’s, competes for boomer business in delicious, healthy foods in almost every major city in the United States.
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Nantucket Nectars (100 percent juice) is successfully competing with Coca-Cola in many convenience stores and office buildings.
Prescriptions 1. Come up with an innovative business concept; don’t try to be all things to all people. 2. Think big, act fast: leverage the Internet; create a mini-joint venture in India or China.
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3. Never attack the Wal-Marts of the world head on; capitalize on their frustrated customers and steal a niche. 4. Compete on soul, brand, dramatic differences, design, and experiences, not on price. 5. Create chemistry, a bond, an emotional connection with customers. 6. Provide an e-solution or local solution. 7. Make a big promise and even bigger delivery; survive by the power of repeat business.
WINNER’S MIND-SET 3
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DESIGN SOUL INTO YOUR PRODUCTS, GET PEOPLE TO JOIN YOUR BRAND
In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation. Steve Jobs10
Jaguar, BMW, Audi,Volvo—I haven’t bought an American car in thirty years. The reason? I hate the design, and I find most of the cars ugly. It is not that I hate the outside; I abhor the dashboard, the seats, cup holder, and so on. I hate the cornering too; they steer about as tight as my Saber sailboat. I am thinking about getting rid of my Dell laptop too and going Mac. There is just nothing beautiful about my Dell. I love my Callaway XL golf clubs, things of beauty. I don’t like buying expensive $2 golf balls and duck hitting them into the woods. I love going into WalMart and buying almost-new balls at the spectacular price of about 50 cents a ball. Brands too matter to me. I am immune to advertising. I am not just a Starbucks customer; I have clearly joined the “club.” I am thinking about joining Harley-Davidson too.
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I walked into a store and asked the clerk, “What is your best buy in a golf bag?” He pointed out one, and it was this boxy thing. I said,“It’s got all the features I want and more, but I wouldn’t buy that golf bag in a thousand years.”“Why?” the clerk asked.“It’s ugly!!” I said. The clerk said, kinda shy,“Yeah, it’s ugly.”
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If you want to win, think of the following: Starbucks versus Chase & Sanborn,Victoria’s Secret versus BVDs, Ferragamo versus Payless Shoes, Ferrari versus Ford Taurus, HarleyDavidson versus Yamaha.
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Design’s long coattails are great engineering and great systems: iPod—cool looking plus thousands of songs on a stick; BMW—mobile sculpture plus superb power and cornering; FedEx—nice envelope, overnight delivery, and the FedEx logistics system.
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Innovation not instrumentalism wins: the F18 fighter jet beat the F15, the PC beat the typewriter, the microwave beat the electric oven, the iPod beat the Walkman, biotech beat Big Pharma.
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The shared workspace—napkins, blackboards, flip charts—breeds creativity. Back in 1966, Herb Kelleher was sitting in a restaurant with Rollin King. He took a napkin and sketched on it a triangle—Houston, San Antonio, Dallas—and from that napkin came one of the world’s best airlines, Southwest. The original napkin is framed in SWA headquarters.
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Customized systems multiply value. All FedEx is a customized system that was designed to provide logistical capabilities for parts and pieces of the modern age to go from Armonk, New York, to Abilene, Kansas, on the same time cycle that they could go from Armonk to lower Manhattan. To do that, Fred Smith had to design a nationwide clearinghouse and a system that integrated the movement of trucks and planes in order to give the level of service customers needed.11
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Women don’t buy brands; they join them: Her Home Depot, Shiseido,Victoria’s Secret, Whole Foods Market, Home Shopping Network.
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More about “join the club.”What are the only brands in the world that people love so much they tattoo the brand name on their body? Answer: Harley-Davidson and Disney characters.
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WINNER’S MIND-SET 4
INSTEAD OF A CHANGE AGENT BE A CHANGE INSURGENT: USE THE POWER OF POWERLESSNESS
One of the big issues most people (you and I) face in working in big companies is that they want to make a difference but they feel powerless. In the typical scenario, you may see and hear the call to leadership in a stagnating situation such as zero business growth (a deplorable circumstance); the company’s best design talent walking across the street, resulting in me-too products; or miserable conditions resulting in crappy customer service.You decide you would like to be a change agent. You come up with a proposal, put it in a PowerPoint presentation, and run it up the ladder. The next thing you know, the higher-ups give you a no at the executive committee meeting and you bump your forehead on the door on the way out. It is about the third time this has happened. My point is, it is not enough to be a change agent who goes to some central authority for permission or funding; you have to be a change agent who knows how to operate with stealth and cunning behind the scenes. The idea of being a change insurgent is the idea of bringing about revolutionary change without having to ask any centralized authority for permission or capital. If you feel powerless because your change initiative was shot down by your boss and the budget committee, take advantage of the power of being powerless, instead of being obsessed about what your boss says you can or can’t do. •
Ask yourself some powerful questions:“What can I do under the radar screen? What small projects could I initiate with my present resources and authority?” Then start obsessing about that.
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Build a rapid prototype. Instead of planning to put up the Empire State Building, get a new hybrid sports car into production or launch a leadership development program. Don’t even tell your boss about it.
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Create buzz. Once you establish some success with your quick win, rapid prototype, or demo, create some positive buzz by sharing it with executive sponsors, colleagues, and friends.
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Some companies and projects that are change insurgents: Xerox PARC, eBay, Amazon.com, Skype, and Wikipedia.
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Some individuals who are change insurgents: Pierre Omidyar of eBay, Niklas Zennström at Skype, and Bob Taylor at PARC (who protected innovators from the “toner heads” at corporate).
WINNER’S MIND-SET 5
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BYPASS ELABORATE PLANNING AND PREPARATIONS: FOCUS ON PROJECTS, RAPID PROTOTYPES, AND QUICK WINS
Whatever you think, think the opposite. Paul Arden12
The profession of management always seems to get associated with long-term planning. The problem is that in a rapidly changing world, all that elaborate planning and preparation to take your engineering and construction company global, to open a new deep-discount store in Peoria, or to start up a new gourmet coffee shop in Bar Harbor, tends to get you bogged down in the discouraging complexity of the situation. Long-term growth versus short-term profitability? Budget? Competition? My suggestion: bypass elaborate planning and preparation and focus on projects, rapid prototypes, and quick wins.
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It gets back to planning versus acting. We act from day one; others plan how to act—for months. . . . Michael Bloomberg13
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Sponsor catalytic breakthrough projects to spearhead a breakthrough that (1) gets at a top priority, (2) aims at an unpredictable result, (3) takes you to a different place, and (4) is doable.
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Don’t think big; bet on innovation. “A small, low-bet, prototype is the godparent of Innovation.”14
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Create a parallel universe. If you are in a big company trapped in a business model that is the company’s entire universe, create a parallel universe, through a business incubator or venture fund ($50k to $500k).
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Fund innovation breakthroughs. Pull out and fund ideas in each business that will generate $100 million in revenue; find the best people to lead.15
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Start small to win big. Go for a result now. Get one success, and create a widening circle of successes.16
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“Reward excellent failures; punish mediocre successes.”17
WINNER’S MIND-SET 6
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REINVENT YOUR BUSINESS AS AN E-BUSINESS FROM THE GROUND UP
Skype: 100 million users, 150,000 new users a day.
Ever since we all read about the breakup of AT&T, we have been reading about merger mania with the Baby Bells. Then the Baby Bells started to mate like baby dinosaurs, which gave us Verizon, Bell South, and Pacific Tel. Yet in most cases, in spite of big infrastructure investment, no new value was created, except maybe in high-speed Internet connections. Then came Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, who founded Skype, a company that reinvented itself as an e-business
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from the ground up by leveraging those Internet connections. Skype offers free phone service over the Internet, with no central capital investment. It doesn’t advertise, but it has gotten millions of subscribers, just through the willingness of its members to share.You can call anyone on Skype for free—PC to PC. Now that it has a huge network built up, it’s going to start charging. “It’s almost like an organism,” says Zennström.18
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The nearly one billion people on line worldwide, along with their (personal) business contacts, share knowledge.
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“The power of us: mass collaboration on the Internet is shaking up business.”19
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“Everywhere people are getting together and, using the Internet, disrupting whatever activities they’re involved in.”20
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The CEO and executive team hold a collaborative gathering with the Web designers, Web consultants, and Web freaks in your company to talk about reinventing the entire business as an e-business.
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The normal value chain is (1) raw materials, (2) manufacturing, (3) distribution, (4) retailers.
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Think about how you can leverage the need for a basic service like information technology, given the millions of participants on line (Skype,Vonage, Netmeeting).
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Leverage network effects by providing an exciting “free” service that “consumers” are excited to share with each other, then find a way to scrape off some cash (eBay, Skype, Yahoo Messenger).
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Think about how you can increase cooperation, collaboration, and participation with others in the supply chain (Dell, FedEx, Taiwan Suppliers).
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Think about how you can cut out complexity and cost. Procter & Gamble send orders directly to Wal-Mart stores, without going through a distributor. Each store’s inventory is wired to P&G.
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Manufacturers: think about how you can build brand power so you can sell goods directly to the consumer, without having to go through the distributor or retailer (“Intel inside”).
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Retailers: think how you can connect both with customers to better understand their needs and with manufacturers and distributors to better deliver on those needs.
WINNER’S MIND-SET 7
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GO AFTER WOMEN, BOOMERS, AND GEEZERS
Forget China, India, and the Internet: Economic Growth Is Driven by Women.21
Women, boomers, and geezers are the new consumer majority. Women make most of the buying decisions. In home furnishings, women make 90 percent of the buying decisions, in vacations 85 percent, kitchen appliances 89 percent, new homes 70 percent, health care 95 percent. And yet women are often treated like dummies or children. Most organizations are so overwhelmed in top management by men that they don’t recognize that women are not just a market niche but a consumer majority of gigantic proportions. In the next few years a lot of baby boomers will be hitting sixty. They as well have tremendous consumer spending power and are obsessed, not only with getting their way at an airport, BMWs, and Callaway golf clubs but also with anti-aging products. Sixty is becoming the new thirty. A big part of the winner’s mind-set in business will be to design business around these two market segments. Trillions of dollars are up for grabs by companies that have strategically defined the geezer market as a market and then start producing an array of geezer goods. For example, L’Oreal has signed Catherine Deneuve (in her late fifties) to push its products to Geezers. Unilever has come up
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with Pro·activ spread, milk drink, or yogurt that lowers people’s cholesterol. Danone has introduced calcium-rich bottles of mineral water as well as a grip cap that aids people with arthritis to open them. Samsung phones offer larger, easy-to-read numbers for boomers and geezers. Sunrise has come up with the idea of assisted living communities with dining rooms, sports facilities, onsite handymen, and doctors and nurses.
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Imagine a car dealer that instead of making women feel that they are brainless, designed its whole marketing, merchandising, sales, and service approach to women’s way of being, needs, and wants.
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Imagine a store called “Her Home Depot” that women flocked to in droves to get home remodeling ideas, tools designed especially for women, and either do-it-yourself advice or do-it-for-me service.
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Imagine that you have started a beauty products company that sells products especially designed not just for the Elizabeth Hurleys of the world but for beautiful women of all shapes and sizes.
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A friend asked me to go to the orthodontist with her for a consultation. During the entire session the dentist (a brilliant guy from Harvard) looked only at me when he spoke. Excuse me, doctor, we aren’t talking about my teeth or my money. . . .
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Leading consumer marketing firms, worshiping at the altar of youth, tend to cater to the eighteen- to forty-four-year-old market, not recognizing that this is a stagnant market; it’s the fifty and over market that is growing, not just in numbers but in consumer spending power. Again, Boomer Nation is not just a microsegment or niche but a huge consumer block. Along with Woman Nation it is where the money is today.
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Imagine a consumer goods company offering a line of products designed to help aging boomers (used to getting their own way) celebrate their success.
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Imagine consumer goods companies offering products and services designed to help boomers confront and transform the aging process.
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How about executive health clubs that don’t smell; boomer airport lounges at $10 a visit; Yacht rentals in coastal cities; your own personal concierge service, on call 24/7.
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Riding down the highway in my BMW, I spot one of the ultimate symbols of power and money to many boomers, a cool fifty-something guy booming down the highway in a cherry-red Corvette with a hot thirty-something chick.
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A beautiful young woman was sitting next to a male boomer on an airplane. A flirtation was sparked, and the man, acknowledging the age difference, asked for a date. The woman said yes, and jokingly added, “Botox will take care of any age differences.” The man is now seriously considering it.
WINNER’S MIND-SET 8
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FROM GOOD PRODUCTS AND SERVICES TO GASPWORTHY EXPERIENCES
Experiences are as distinct from services as services are from goods.22
What made the industrial revolution so great is that people were able to participate in the most profligate consumption of consumer goods the world has ever known—autos, sewing machines, rotisseries on the backyard barbecue. In the 1970s, the postindustrial economy was born, based on services—from accounting to Merry Maids, from plumbers to stockbrokers, from rental cars to travel agents. By the time we reached the turbulent 2000s, a quantum leap in the value chain took place, from selling products and services to starting to sell experiences. It represents a whole new way to distinguish yourself from all the other me-too competitors and make more sales. Think Disney, Cirque du Soleil, Club Med.
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Don’t sell just the destination; sell the experience.
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If you aim just for providing a good product or service that produces a happy customer, you will miss out on the opportunity to provide gaspworthy experiences that bring people back for more.
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When was the last time you said,“great meal,” “great hotel,”“great health club,” or “great vacation”?
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Club Med is “more than just a ‘resort,’ it’s a means of rediscovering oneself, of inventing an entirely new ‘me.’23
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Offer a rebel lifestyle! “What we sell is the ability for a 43-year-old accountant to dress in black leather, ride through small towns and have people be afraid of him.”24
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Offer an escape.“We have identified a ‘third place.’ And I really believe that sets us apart. The third place is that place that’s not work or home. It’s the place our customers come for refuge.”25
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My normal business is executive coaching. I have been selling a coaching program. I’ve got to change that. Masterful coaching is the ultimate self-development, growth experience.
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Selling experiences doesn’t just apply only to fancy, high-end stuff but to basic stuff too.
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Imagine a Starbucks in your neighborhood around 8 A.M. when you are rushing to the airport, without a line of fifteen people.
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Imagine passing through an airport security checkpoint and being treated with dignity rather than having some self-important jerk yell at you:—“laptops out of the bag, unfasten your belt buckle, take off your shoes!”
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Imagine a small contractor who comes to remodel your kitchen, care of “Her Home Depot,” and makes sure that you have a great experience from start to finish—comes on time; says,“yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am”; does a great job; and undercharges.
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WINNER’S MIND-SET 9
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STOP DEPENDING ON MARKETING: SELL, SELL, SELL
Salespeople have become so dependent on marketing, that they have forgotten how to sell.
Today, in a world where every product (whether the cheapest or the best) can be reduced to a commodity, the old brands are running out of gas. As a result, marketing is being replaced by selling as a way to boost the revenue line. The old cigar-chomping salesman who carried a sample bag has been made obsolete by the point-and-click customer who can Google almost any product or service imaginable and find either the cheapest or the best in seconds. The new sales ace is like a masterful coach who can release the customer’s aspirations, find his or her pain, and then act as a thinking partner in designing a total solution to a complex problem. In most cases the sales ace is not only a coach but also the leader of a virtual team (no silos) of varied professionals, composed of insiders and outsiders.
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Become a sales coach. Don’t sell commodities. Instead, find the pain. Sell total solutions to complex problems.
Example! I own an investment property in a secluded area near Boston that was vandalized— thirty-three broken windows. Ouch! I called up ADT, a company that does a lot of marketing, and a salesman sold me an alarm system: $4,000. The salesman never told me the alarm system wouldn’t be set off by vandals throwing rocks at the window. Nor did he try to upsell security cameras to me, because they were with “another department.” I met then with the people of ADT Security Cameras. They told me I needed three; the price was over $7,000. However, when the installers came, the three cameras covered only one side of the house. I cancelled the order with ADT and went on line. I found a good deal on cameras and the DVR, but the telemarketer sent me the wrong equipment. I couldn’t find a local installer. Result: ninety days after the vandalism the property still wasn’t protected. M a s t e r f u l C o a c h e s I n s t i l l a W i n n e r ’s M i n d - S e t
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My point is that despite ADT’s huge marketing effort, the company blew it when it came to value-added, high-margin selling. All my needs could have been met by a masterful coaching–style salesperson who took ownership of a total solution and worked with a fluid team of people drawn from all the relevant disciplines, insiders and outsiders.
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State your marketing position in ten words or less; it should differentiate your company from all the me-too competitors.
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Forget institutional ads. Put your information out on your Web site and network. Make it easy for customers to trip over you when they go looking for your kind of stuff.
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Take 80 percent of your marketing budget and put it into hiring top salespeople; hire one person at a time, as people with a real sales orientation are as scarce as hen’s teeth.
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Train all your sales folks to see themselves as sales coaches, thinking partners, and professional problem solvers.
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Train your sales folks to be virtual sales team builders who can put together an ad hoc team of insiders and outsiders empowered to deliver a total soup-to-nuts solution.
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Get people to think and operate from a you point of view—customer’s needs, and wants— rather than a me point of view—my products, my services. Never say,“We don’t do that!”
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Make sure people in “sales” don’t have to do anything but sell, sell, sell. No reasons! No excuses! No exceptions!
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Never just take the order, always reframe the conversation to find the pain and sell a higher-value, higher-margin solution.
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Use a consultative, or solution-based, selling approach.
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Ask questions that allow you to know your product, know your customer, know your competition.
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The best presentation is the one you never make. Listen to what the customer’s needs and problems are before you start to sell your solution.
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If you don’t get the order the first, second, third, or fourth time, go back the fifth time. Take advantage of the good will you have built up by visiting the customer rather than feel rejected and never go back again.
Use the Masterful Coaching Sales Process 1. Pick up the phone and call. Use references to get people to talk with you. 2. Increase your question-to-talk ratio. Don’t just find the problem, find the pain, the blood on people’s shoes. 3. Ask how important it is to find a solution for their pain. 4. Don’t spill your candy on the desk (talking too much about your wonderful solution). 5. Instead, ask:“If money and time were no object, what would be your ideal solution?” 6. Keep asking questions, letting them build the vision. 7. Next, ask:“If I had that solution, would you buy it from me?” 8. Don’t try to get an elephant through a keyhole. Ask:“What aspects of the solution are most urgent or important?” 9. Tell them how you and your team will take 100 percent responsibility for delivering; use references. 10. Negotiate to a close.
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WINNER’S MIND-SET 10
TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR OWN CAREER: START “ME INCORPORATED”
Overall I love being an executive coach, but one of the things I actually hate about it is listening to people complain about the bastards upstairs or their boss on the same floor or the lack of opportunity in their company.“I would like to leave this company and go elsewhere,” they say, except that they never do. In most cases they have not built up what Tom Peters calls a “brand called you” but are content to be Employees of Big Mama Multinational Inc. Today, no sensible person expects to stay in the same job for his or her whole career.“Some call this ‘the end of corporate responsibility,’ ” says Peters, “I call it the beginning of renewed individual responsibility, an incredible opportunity to take charge of our own lives.”26 Starting right now, put yourself in charge and declare yourself the president of Me Incorporated. In an era where talent is the only irreducible commodity, this mind-set may serve you well. In his book The World Is Flat, Thomas J. Friedman says the first era of globalization was about big countries globalizing—England, Spain, France (1492–1800). The second era of globalization was about big companies globalizing—IBM, Ford, GE (1950–2000).27 The third era of globalization is all about talented individuals globalizing. It is much easier today for talented, ambitious people to make connections that will lead to great work, using Web sites like Google and TheLadders.com or even a whirling Rolodex. What do you have in common with Jack Nicholson, Joe DiMaggio, Steven Jobs, or Tim BernersLee? Instead of thinking of yourself as a leader, manager, or cubicle slave, think of yourself as a talent ready to go to work for a team vying for a championship or seeking a cool project. For example, Masterful Coaching—a microbe in the world of big consultants like Mckinsey, Accenture, Boston Consulting Group, and so on—is doing a big software project with some very talented individuals in China. •
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Adopt what Tom Peters calls the USA—“United States of Attitude.”Your grandparents didn’t like the old country and left for a new one, the USA, giving up familiar faces, customs and culture, and security. If it comes to your leaving your current company and job, can you do it? Of course!
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Create a personal mission statement. What is your life’s passion? Talents? Gifts? Who do you intend to be? What would be an impossible future for you? What’s your game plan for getting there? How do you intend to win?
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Create a new résumé. Make it read like a sales pitch and not like an obituary. Load it with impossible challenges you have met and winning results you have produced. What are your talents and strengths? What cool projects have you worked on in the last five years?
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Tell the people in your company the kind of job, project, or adventure, you would really like to be a part of. Don’t expect people to be mind readers.
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Brainstorm alternative possibilities. Think globally and locally. Go anywhere. Operate as though there is no plan that can’t be changed.
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If you are a seasoned veteran of a Fortune 500 company, you could be a CEO in Brazil, Russia, China, or India.
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If you are a young leader on the fast track, beg for a foreign assignment far away from the corporate constraints of the home office.
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If you hate big bureaucracies, start your own company and be president of Me Inc., offering your consultant knowledge and your expertise in your field, with an impressive inventory of great projects you have been involved in.
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Sign up on TheLadders.com (an executive job search engine); don’t wait for search firms to call you.
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Create a whirling Rolodex. Learn how to spot great people whom you want in your network; explore possibilities and immediate opportunities.
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Never waste a lunch! The secret of networking is being genuinely interested in making a difference in other people’s lives. Munch with people inside and outside your present company. Talk about what you are excited about. Share your frustrations.
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C H A P T E R
S E V E N
COACHING EXECUTIVES TO CREATE AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE
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Executive coaching is the fastest most powerful way for producing extraordinary leaders and extraordinary results. Richard Severance1
I have always felt that coaching leaders to realize an impossible future, produce winning results, and make a difference in their world is one of the highest aspirations for what it is to be a human being. The executive coaching I do is geared toward helping people meet the trickiest leadership, business, and career challenges they will ever face. It is all about solving puzzles, dilemmas, and classical conundrums. For example, these three executives are typical of the kinds of people I coach.
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Meet Bill Scott. Bill is a super-smart executive with an IQ of 160, and the EQ to go with it. As my partner said when she met him, “Bill reeks of talent and competence.” He worked as an executive in ConocoPhillips, a big oil company, before he opted out to take a job as the chief operating officer (COO) at Colonial Pipeline (ColPipe) Inc., an oil pipeline company that is responsible for bringing 95 percent of the oil and gasoline up the East Coast of the United States. As Bill told me,“I’ve got an itch to scratch. I want to win the job of being CEO of ColPipe and build a winning company.” But there were some big hurdles to overcome, not the least of which was a relationship gone sour with Bill’s boss.“The CEO brought Bill into the company on the promise that if he helped turn ColPipe around, he would be his heir apparent in no time. The CEO had hung on to his job long past his stated retirement date and Bill, who had done everything asked of him and more, was deeply resentful. The boss, however, felt Bill was competing with him. How do I coach Bill to become CEO?2 Meet Andy Gfesser. Andy is an emerging leader and CEO of Trendler, Inc., a $50 million emerging company in Chicago with an impossible future of tripling the business. The company makes “trouble free” swivels for furniture manufacturers and with 80 percent of the world-wide demand for swivels. Andy, who has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and faced down union negotiators who threatened to throw him in the river with fifty pounds of cement, wants to create a management culture that is a gift to the human spirit. The company was started by Andy’s father, Tony, who emigrated from Austria fifty years ago, the ultimate “Do what I say or else” manager. Andy runs the company with his three brothers. How do I make sure that Andy and Trendler succeed?3 Meet Grace Cheng. Grace is the country manager of Russell Reynolds in Beijing; Russell Reynolds Associates is one of the Big Five search firms. As Grace has pointed out to me, China has a shortage of leadership talent, despite all the cheap labor available, and Grace’s job is to find local talent for Western companies who want to create a “hallway to Shanghai” but don’t have the people at their home office to send abroad. Grace has a great job opportunity in her hands but a head-swimmingly tough job. There are dozens of search firms and fifteen to twenty companies fighting tooth and nail over every qualified leader. What should she do?4
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I love being an executive coach and a business guru, and I want to share my secrets about this work with you.
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Coaching executives is a fascinating and intriguing job where one has to put on and take off many hats—business guru, brilliant consultant, coach, mentor, taskmaster, and best friend and confidant. Make no mistake, this work is about a big ROI (return on investment)—getting the CEO’s job, realizing an impossible future, growing your business exponentially, multiplying your profit.Yet on another level the pursuit of business excellence takes people on a remarkable journey that often becomes (as emphasized before) the ultimate self-development and growth experience. Coaching people to win at the great game of business provides the perfect alchemical cauldron for both personal and organizational transformation.
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A business guru is a wise soul, who listens carefully and has great ideas.
Coaching a leader to learn to speak from a stand (a stand for people’s greatness) rather than an emotional state, to design products with a soul (think of the Apple iPod), to create not just exciting services but game-changing solutions (like Club Med), to run to Las Vegas to win enough money to meet payroll (as Fred Smith of FedEx once did), to master the vagaries of the political chessboard, to have his or her illusions of “we are the best” destroyed by the competitor’s latest move, and to have all the crud burnt off his or her ego in creating and holding onto customers, always goes hand in hand with the experience of transforming who a person is as a leader. Let’s get clear on one thing: executive coaching is not like standing center stage in a big auditorium with a suit and tie on, trying to inspire people with your best stuff, and providing “five points of coaching” while a blizzard of PowerPoint slides passes before your audience’s eyes. It is more like sitting with a master for awhile, in what the Indian gurus call darshan (discussed further in Chapter Ten), and engaging in conversation where people speak in a matter-of-fact way about whatever is on their minds—the boss’s attitude, fights with colleagues, breaking out of the no-growth morass, an impossible deadline, troubles at home. My definition of a business guru is a wise man or woman who listens carefully and then offers a teachable point of view (TPOV), or what the Buddhists call “crazy wisdom,” also in a matterof-fact way, that results in people later saying,“That was a life-altering conversation. I am not the same person I was before.” The converse of this is that if you are a masterful coach and people spend time around you, something about you will raise their goals and aspirations, get them to blossom, touch the highest and best in them. Coaching Executives to Create an Impossible Future
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In this chapter I intend to share my secrets about being an executive coach and business guru. I am going to share these secrets from the perspective of a professional coach who coaches executives for a living. At the same time, I am going to share some of the secrets I have learned from some of the best company leaders in the world about how they have coached the leaders on their own teams. I ask you to read this extrapolatively, applying what you can, whether you are a leader who wants to coach your executive team or highfliers or an internal or external coach or consultant who wants to expand your ability to coach executives.
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I admire business leaders like Jack Welch, Steve Jobs, and Herb Kelleher, but my real role models for coaching conversations include Lieutenant Columbo, Dr. Phil, and the crazy wisdom of guru Da Free John.
QUALIFICATIONS FOR EXECUTIVE COACHES: IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE, WINNING IN BUSINESS When I am looking for people to be executive coaches for Masterful Coaching, I look for these four things. 1. You’ve got the gravitas to talk to executives. Would you feel comfortable coaching Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, or Ross Perot? 2. You are a businessperson who knows how to get winning results. You talk business, not just HRD shoptalk. 3. You are a passionate people person who loves watching people. You’ve got insight into people; you have the ability to shift thinking and attitudes. 4. You can pass the airport test. If people are stuck with you in an airport, they stay around rather than run away. How about you? Rate yourself on these four criteria, using a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high).
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A MASTERFUL COACH CHOOSES PEOPLE TO COACH THE WAY A ZEN MASTER CHOOSES DISCIPLES I want to come out of every coaching engagement with a leader who has taken his or her game from “good to great,” who has realized an impossible future and winning business results. I consciously and intentionally choose the executives I work with. I love to work with people who have a passion for life, high intensity, big personal and organizational ambitions, and a proven track record of accomplishment together with an attitude of curiosity and humility and a love of learning. In most cases people seek coaching from me because they are trying to achieve something that is difficult or impossible, and they think a coach can give them greater power and velocity in reaching their goals. In only a few cases would my clients be put into the category “needs coaching!” If you are a business leader, you need to build a roster of talent that can compete with the best, but in the meantime you may have to coach the people that you’ve got. “Yes,” I can hear you saying,“some of the people on my leadership team don’t fit your criteria for the people you love to coach.” If they don’t, my first question is,“Why not?”You may need to go on a talent quest to find people who can realize a big vision. My second thought is,“Yeah, you are right! You’ve got to coach the people that you’ve got.” Talk to your direct reports or people on your team about their passion for life, high-metabolism leadership, personal and organizational ambition, and willingness to be coached to see if you can get them to raise the stakes. It could be an essential step on your part to look at your impossible future, then look at the leaders you have aboard now and discover what leadership gaps you are facing. What kind of leadership talent do you need to hire? What leaders do you need to develop to reach your goals? Executives? Team leaders? High potentials? What type of leadership development will you use? What kind of coaching program? A word of advice, when human resource managers get hot on coaching and decide to bring it into the organization, watch out for watered-down, competencybased 360-degree assessments and three-day training programs that focus on behaviors and attitudes that have nothing to do with creating a new future for the organization. You can’t produce a result in a three-day training program.
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CREATE A FORMAL COACHING RELATIONSHIP WITH RULES OF ENGAGEMENT AND CALENDARIZE THE COACHING
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My colleagues and I have learned that coaching executives in the context of a one-year coaching program that is vision based and business connected is the fastest, most powerful way to develop leaders.
Coaching can happen informally—in a conversation around the coffee pot, for example—or formally in a coaching relationship or program. Coaching relationships need a structure, and the structure must suit the purpose. As Frank Lloyd Wright said,“Form follows function.” Let’s say your goal is to develop executives like Bill, Andy, and Grace as leaders. The masterful coaching approach is based on the notion that leaders develop in the process of producing extraordinary results amid change, complexity, and competition.The masterful coaching executive one-year coaching program was developed to provide a framework to do this work. It addresses not just setting goals and making plans but all the vagaries of maneuvering around the corporate chessboard. Calendarize the coaching. Whirlpool’s CEO, Jeff Fettig, believes as we do at Masterful Coaching that it is vitally important to calendarize the coaching and not let it be ad hoc. “If you don’t calendarize it, it is probably not going to happen” he says, adding that “if you cancel a session it tells people that you don’t think it is really important.” At Masterful Coaching we also believe that it is very important, in our words,“to get coaching on the calendar.” I typically meet with people I’m coaching once a month face to face for up to four hours, and I have a Monday morning phone call with them to touch bases, revisit progress on goals, and discuss whatever is on their minds. If you let calendarizing the coaching slide and adopt a casual attitude toward adhering to the coaching schedule, then the coaching relationship tends to die a slow death. Design the rules of engagement. In order to set the stage for an extraordinary coaching relationship, it is important that the coach and coachee have a set of clear expectations. Each person comes to one of the early sessions with a list of mind-sets and behaviors that he or she thinks will create an extraordinary coaching relationship. Then coach and coachee agree on a set of expectations and act accordingly.
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Rules of Engagement for Coach and Coachee •
Stand for the success of the coachee.
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Play 100 percent; do not just tick the boxes.
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Live in the service of an impossible future.
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Set stretch goals for both performance and development.
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Use 360 feedback interviews and maintain confidentiality when appropriate, without forsaking candor.
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Give straight talk, honest feedback.
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Have progress checks:“How are we doing?”
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Maintain calendar integrity.
WHAT HAPPENS IN EXECUTIVE COACHING? In keeping with my purpose of coaching you to realize an impossible future and win in your business, I am going to present you here with the guidelines to conduct five coaching sessions that correlate to the masterful coaching five-step model offered in Chapter Five.You may notice some small differences, which are due to the fact that we are focusing here on coaching executives.
Five Executive Coaching Sessions 1. Coach people to declare an impossible future and create an extraordinary coaching relationship. 2. Coach people to develop a TPOV about winning in their business. 3. Coach people that to reinvent the organization, first reinvent yourself; provide 360 feedback.
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4. Coach people to forward the action—thirty- to ninety-day catalytic breakthrough projects. 5. Observe breakdowns and provide feedback and learning.
COACHING SESSION 1
COACH PEOPLE TO DECLARE AN IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE AND CREATE AN EXTRAORDINARY COACHING RELATIONSHIP
Objectives •
Talk about what masterful coaching is and is not.
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Develop a first draft of an impossible future.
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Get people to see the power of coaching.
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Design an extraordinary coaching relationship.
If you are the leader of an organization, you may already have an impossible future defined. The next step in the masterful coaching process is to invest in relationships with the people on your leadership team, especially those who can help you to realize that future. If you are coaching an executive in a far-flung business unit, your first step might be to talk to him about the company’s overall vision, so as to set up a conversation about the impossible future for his organization and what you can do as a coach to help him achieve it. Let’s start from there.
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I usually kick off an executive coaching relationship with an introductory phone call where we spend a few minutes chitchatting and getting to know each other. I then talk to the person about the masterful coaching philosophy: masterful coaching is about realizing an impossible future for yourself and your business. I am, from the first moments of the conversation, getting the person to make a shift from thinking in terms of the predicable future to thinking in terms of the impossible future. I want him to get the feeling that coaching represents the triumph of possibility over skepticism. If there is time, I go over the five myths of coaching (see the Introduction) to show what coaching is and is not: coaching is about an impossible future, not filling gaps; coaching is for winners, not losers; coaching takes place in the domain of accomplishment not therapy; and so on.Yet to engage in a coaching relationship, people need to have something at stake, something they passionately want to accomplish that looks like Mount Everest. Further, you have to show that you can help them get there. Recall the movie Chariots of Fire. Harold Abrahams says, “I want to win the gold medal in the 300 meter race. I can see it there on the Olympic podium. I can see it there waiting for me.” The coach, Sam Mussabini, who had been in the crowd watching him, approaches him and says, “I can give you a second and a half.” And thus began a coaching relationship that culminated in the Olympic Gold. Elicit people’s highest goals and aspirations, and correlate them with the organization’s needs. In speaking with Bill Scott, the COO of ColPipe, I asked him about his impossible future, making it clear my job would be to help him achieve it. He told me in short order that he wanted to become CEO of the company and in the process transform the company to top-line growth and innovation, building on the heritage he had played a big role in establishing—operational excellence and safety. I found Bill charming and disarming and so bright that I was drawn to the idea of working with him almost immediately. When I met with Andy Gfesser he radiated positive energy and boundless enthusiasm, but I also sensed he had a hunger for an impossible future that had eluded him. His impossible future included tripling the size of his business and transforming a culture of nepotism into a meritocracy. But I could sense there was something else, and his background in Tae Kwan Do gave me a clue. When I told Andy that masterful coaching is the alchemical cauldron for
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winning at the great game of business and could be the ultimate self-development and growth experience, his eyes and smile lit up like the bulbs at Chicago Stadium on a game night. Working with Grace Cheng involved solving a classical conundrum—being in a business where there is a huge market for your product but little product to go around, in her case, this described the talent business. I saw a light go on when I talked to Grace about the concept of hiring for “stretch” versus “fit”—finding intelligent, capable people with a hunger and yearning and providing them with the coaching that would allow them to grow into the job. Engage people in inquiry about their impossible future by asking a few provocative questions and listening carefully. I usually bring out the leadership triangle (Figure 7.1) and use it to engage people in a dialogue. Often I have found that questions can be more empowering than answers. What is your impossible future? Leadership challenge? Business challenge? Ask these three questions in a matter-of-fact way, yet don’t be afraid to make provocative statements or ask provocative questions designed to make people think outside the box or to push beyond apparent limits.
FIGURE 7.1 The leadership triangle: coach leaders in three areas
Leadership challenge
IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE
Business challenge
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Find the pain, the weight in the other person’s chest, the blood on the other person’s shoe.
Coaching Conversation Protocol for Defining an Impossible Future 1. Ask: “What would be an impossible future for your company?” 2. Ask: “What would winning be for you and your team?” 3. Ask: “Is the future you just described an impossible future or a predictable one?” 4. Ask: “What would success look like? How would you measure it?” 5. Ask: “What do you see as your biggest (a) leadership challenge, (b) business challenge, and (c) career challenge?”
Ask:“What do you see as the opportunity in coaching for you?” Talk to people about the power of coaching. Once I elicit a person’s impossible future together with her leadership and business challenges, I talk to her about how much I believe in the power of coaching. I use examples of great coaches, like Jack Welch of GE,Tiger Woods in pro golf, Ben Zander of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. At a certain point I casually ask,“What do you see as the opportunity in coaching for you?” I then shut up and give her the opportunity to talk to me about her goals and aspirations, as well as where she is in pain. In coaching Bill Scott, I asked him about his frustration level with his long struggle to become CEO. I said, “On a scale of 1 to 10, what level of pain do you experience about this?” He said, “I experience the pain on about an eight and a half on the Richter scale.” I countered by asking him,“What if I could help you become CEO and transform that pain into joy?” Bill responded,“You’re on. Send me the contract.” I then spend some time talking to people about the importance of both coach and coachee developing an extraordinary coaching relationship and about the rules of engagement (discussed
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earlier in this chapter). If I had to pick three rules as most essential, they would be (1) get coaching on the calendar; (2) set monthly face-to-face meetings, and weekly follow-up calls; and (3) never cancel a session (it’s OK to reschedule). If you have to always call or chase a coachee, it’s a bad sign and needs to be talked about. If he or she calls you, it’s a good sign and behavior that needs to be reinforced. I tell people my work is not just to help them declare an impossible future and master the political chessboard but also to help them to break the grip of and excel beyond their existing winning strategy so they don’t plateau or self-destruct. This sets the stage for me to ask them to identify seven to ten people for 360-degree feedback interviews. As a lot of executives have never been coached, it takes some getting used to, and people may need some prompting around the idea of “requests for coaching.”
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A coaching session may give you insight, but without follow-up action it is just hot air.
Top Five To-Dos of Session 1 1. Coach people to declare an impossible future. Get it so that it is 80 percent right, then iterate. 2. Ask coachees to declare their leadership challenge, business challenge, and career challenge. 3. Tell coachees that you would like to follow up with them in the next three to ten days. 4. Send coachees an e-mail outlining the rules of engagement for your coaching relationship. 5. Ask coachees to send an e-mail to seven to ten people letting them know you will be contacting them for 360 feedback interviews. Ask coachees to tell these people that they want to be a learning leader and to ask for candor.
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COACHING SESSION 2
COACH PEOPLE TO ARTICULATE A TPOV ABOUT WINNING IN THEIR BUSINESS
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In service of the impossible future, coach people to develop a TPOV that says,“This is what we need to do to win in this business.”
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Ask people to communicate their TPOVs with the executives on the leadership team (for whom their style is a black box) to create shared understanding.
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Help people use their TPOV to create a multiplier effect—leaders at all levels recreate the TPOV in a thousand and one situations.
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Teach that communicating one’s TPOV is one of the fastest ways to develop leaders and a culture of coaching.
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Teach that communicating one’s TPOV transforms one into a coach and teacher.
Once a person has created the first draft of his impossible future, it is important to give him a chance to iterate on it in the next session. As I often say, “Get it so that it is 80 percent right, then iterate.” OK, he wants to become CEO and revolutionize his industry with gamechanging products and life-altering services, and he wants to create an infrastructure of excellence and triple the company’s business. The next line of inquiry involves looking at his TPOV about winning in his business or in business in general. It is good to have a shared workspace such as a flip chart, a PC with PowerPoint as a working document, or one piece of paper with the TPOV about business on the front and, the TPOVs about leadership and culture on the back. You may want to launch the discussion by spending a few minutes (one hundred words or less) talking about the fact that the business context is wildly altered from what it was not too long
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ago and that he needs to take that into account in his TPOV. For example, point out that given Al Qaeda, China, India, Wal-Mart, information technology, and three billion new capitalists, business has become a brawl in which the only rules are there are no rules. Or, point out that realizing his impossible future is going to take passionate, radical leadership, not the dispassionate, moderate kind. Forget incremental improvement, it’s going to take breathtaking innovation. It’s going to take a team of entrepreneurial talent that is wild and nonconformist engaged in wondrous projects, not cubicle slaves toeing the line. And finally, it is going to take scrappy competitiveness and amazingly high customer intimacy. “OK, Bill [or Andy, Grace, or whoever],” you say to your coachee, “I wonder, if in addition to your impossible future you have a TPOV about what it is going to take to win in this kind of environment?” For example, Howard Schultz of Starbucks is passionate not only about his vision of putting a Starbucks on every busy street in every country in the world but also about the values he stands for and his TPOV. He is not just passionate about coffee but also passionate about treating employees and customers with dignity and respect, and he constantly communicates this to everyone he touches. If you walk into a Starbucks, as I have in Boston, Taiwan, Shanghai, and Singapore, you can tell almost instantly that his message has gotten through. Here is another example. I had the opportunity to interview Mike Eskew, the CEO of UPS, who created the impossible future of transforming UPS from a company that delivered 50 lb. packages to a company whose mission is “synchronizing the world.” He created a TPOV about winning in his business that set out these three strategic imperatives. (1) One-to-one customer approach: “What can Brown do for you?” I loved his comment that “there is no such thing as ‘we don’t do that’ when a customer makes a special request.” (2) One team, one company: in order to provide a one-to-one customer approach and synchronize the world, it can’t just be about optimizing the parts; it also has to be about optimizing the whole. (3) Nonstop innovation of the UPS system.5 Then there is the story of famed Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goizueta, who was looking for a different way to win in the marketplace and dramatically grow Coke’s business at a time when the company was spending billions of dollars on advertising to gain fractions of a point in market share in its competitive battle with Pepsi. Goizueta was stuck in a classical conundrum about how to break out of the box.
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One day when Goizueta was walking down Nanjing road in Shanghai and saw a woman with a pushcart selling tea-soaked eggs, he was struck by a brilliant flash of the obvious, instead of trying to increase Coke’s “share of market,” the company should focus on increasing “share of stomach.” This led to smart moves like buying snack and gourmet juice companies that could be leveraged through Coke’s worldwide bottling and distribution network, as well as leading pep rallies with route drivers to get their help in a campaign to put a Coke machine in every building.6 In coaching executives to realize their impossible future by creating a TPOV about winning in their business, I usually tell stories like this and then ask people questions like this: “What are some of your most pivotal life experiences?”“What insights did you draw from them that have become part of your TPOV?” For example, after fleeing Hungary when there were Russian tanks on the streets, Andy Grove developed the TPOV that was to affect his business career:“only the paranoid survive.”
Coaching Conversation Protocol for Articulating a Teachable Point of View 1. Ask:“What were some of your most pivotal life experiences in coming of age and going into business?”“What insights, TPOVs, can you draw from these?” 2. Ask: “Who were some of your greatest coaches and mentors?” “Did they have any TPOVs that shaped who you are today?”“What were the exact words?” 3. Ask:“What specific TPOVs do you have about winning in this business?”“What’s your leadership manifesto?”“What’s your ‘share of stomach?’”“What’s your Six Sigma?” 4. Ask: “What is your TPOV about winning in your business, given that the business context is wildly altered?” Wordsmith TPOVs with colorful, up, and sticky language. It is important for you as a coach to help people wordsmith their TPOVs. People should use colorful, up language that is sticky (memorable) and not colorless, down language that is as forgettable as a telephone book. Take the best TPOVs people have and help them to give voice to these insights in a vernacular, street-savvy tongue. The following are some good examples.
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Sticky TPOVs by Well-Known Executives •
Only the paranoid survive.
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Be a connoisseur of talent and have a talent obsession 24/7.
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Look at yourself as a leader as “under construction.”
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Execution is more important than strategy.
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Insanely great products.
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It’s not enough to be for quality; get out there on the lunatic fringe.
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Reward fast failures. Punish mediocre successes.
Look for teachable moments to celebrate and express your TPOV. It’s one thing to publish your TPOV in a vision or mission statement, to put it in the annual report, or to announce it at a town hall meeting with the troops. It’s another thing to look for coachable (teachable) moments in your everyday life as a coach or executive to communicate it. One of the best places to discover teachable moments is around breakdowns: the no-growth wall, poor profit results, missed production goals, safety issues, missed deadlines, stinky customer service issues, quality lapses. Remember to speak from a stand (a stand for people’s success) rather than your emotional reactions, lousy moods, and temper tantrums. It is much easier for people to hear your TPOV when you have invested in a relationship with them. Communicate your TPOV with every breath you take until it starts to exist independently of you. What’s the secret of success, of prime-time CEOs like Jack Welch, Herb Kelleher, and Howard Schultz? It is not just that they have a vision; it is that they communicated their TPOV with every breath they took until it existed independently of them. Coach executives that by passionately articulating their TPOV, they will create a multiplier effect as leaders at all levels begin to recreate their message.
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Herb Kelleher at Southwest Airlines was brilliant at communicating his TPOV so as to create a multiplier effect with leadership at all levels. At Southwest Airlines the vision of being the low-cost carrier that gives people the “freedom to fly” makes SWA people feel they are on a mission from God, especially when they see Granny and Grandpa taking a flight on Southwest Airlines they otherwise couldn’t afford to take. After Hurricane Katrina, Southwest Airlines got requests from firefighters for group rates. Southwest Airlines flew them to New Orleans at no charge. I was blown away when I interviewed Emma Scherer and Teresa Laraba, SWA district marketing manager and vice president of ground operations, respectively. They were so much the personification of Herb Kelleher’s TPOV that it was as if I were speaking to him. In fact I didn’t feel I needed to speak to him to be inspired by the vision or get the Southwest Airlines TPOV, and the same must be true of thousands of other SWA employees. One way SWA people fulfill Herb Kelleher’s mission and TPOV is to create a game out of keeping the cost down and making everyone a player in that game. Says Emma Scherer,“There’s a lot of things that ordinary employees do to keep the cost low and still give great service. Instead of throwing files away, we turn them inside out. If they see me burning down trees because I am firing away on the printer, a lot of employees will call me on it.‘You are burning away my profit sharing.’ ”7
Top Five To-Dos of Session 2 1. Get coachees to articulate their TPOVs about winning. 2. Review whether each TPOV will lead to the impossible future. 3. Coach people to wordsmith their TPOVs with colorful, up language and stickiness. 4. Look for teachable moments this week, this month. See breakdowns as opportunities to communicate. 5. Coach people to keep putting out their TPOV with edge and compassion until it exists independently of them in the company.
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COACHING SESSION 3
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COACH PEOPLE THAT TO REINVENT THE ORGANIZATION, FIRST REINVENT YOURSELF; PROVIDE 360 FEEDBACK
Fifty percent of coaching is all about the impossible future, the other 50 percent is about helping people break the grip of and excel beyond winning strategies.
Objectives •
Ask people:“Who do you need to be as a leader to realize your impossible future?”
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Provide 360 feedback, with the intention of transformational learning.
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Create a leadership roadmap.
The discussion of the impossible future will lead to another discussion, this one about creating a winning game plan. To be sure, not only will goals and plans come up in this discussion but also the need to reinvent the organization.Yet as I often tell executives, to reinvent the organization, first reinvent yourself. The reason I say this is that the executives are often the source of the company’s existing winning strategy, which got it to where it is today, but won’t take it to the impossible future. Imagine going to Ford and telling the guy who was one of the biggest champions of the Ford Explorer that it might be time to get out of the gas-guzzling SUV business and get into hybrid cars and electricity-powered vehicles.
Coaching Conversation Protocol for Inquiring into People’s Winning Strategy 1. Ask:“What is your winning strategy as a leader, the strategy that is the source of your success?” 2. Ask:“In what ways is your winning strategy a source of your limitations?”
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3. Ask:“What is your organization’s winning strategy?” 4. Ask:“Will your winning strategy take you to the impossible future or a predictable one?” 5. Ask:“Specifically, in what ways is your winning strategy getting you into trouble?” We can see where our winning strategy is the source of our success, but we are often blinded to the fact that it is also the source of our limitations. People have a leadership winning strategy or strong suit that is the source of their success, but at some point it will backfire and become the source of their limitations. Bill Scott, whose goal was to become CEO of ColPipe, was a very good example of this. Like a lot of executives I come across, Bill was smart, talented, and competitive. He could mobilize other people by a shared vision, a set of values, or if necessary by sheer domination and intimidation. He could set an agenda, come up with an inventive and effective strategy, execute, and then improvise like a jazz musician. The ColPipe CEO and other colleagues had nothing but admiration for Bill’s leadership strengths during the turnaround years, seeing it as what was called for to shake up an overly complacent corporate culture. Bill saw his ways of being validated by the admiration of employees, the Golden Eagles in the office vestibule, and dramatically improving financial results. Yet once the turnaround was successfully completed, the CEO and others began to feel that a more collaborative leadership style was now needed in order to take the company from good to great. Bill had a set of blinders on as to where playing to his strong suit was actually getting him in trouble. For example, prior to one executive team meeting, the CEO told Bill about his position on an issue, knowing that it differed sharply from Bill’s.Yet Bill who was naturally competitive and hated to lose went to the executive meeting ready to pursue his change agenda, and advocated for his position anyway. The CEO blew up. The CFO, Bill’s rival, smelled blood and began sabotaging Bill and some of Bill’s “friends” on the leadership team, especially those who were pissed about Bill’s forays into their sacred control ground, began to act like rats on a sinking ship.
Examples of Personal and Organizational Winning Strategies Gone Awry •
Looking good may be a way to climb the ladder, but you may not accomplish enough, so your vote gets cancelled.
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•
Dispassionate leadership and analytical decision making is a way to run a tight ship but not a way to unleash the human spirit.
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Passionate advocacy can persuade people to your views, but without inquiry it can also lead to blind decisions and enemies.
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Setting predictable goals may allow you to please the boss and make your bonus but will always stop you short of an impossible future.
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Continuous improvement becomes irrelevant in a world of discontinuous change.
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Avoiding risk keeps you out of harebrained schemes but also leads to lost opportunities.
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The darling of the 1990s, the SUV reaches its limits in the 2000s when gas hits the $3.29 per gallon mark.
The purpose of the masterful coaching 360 feedback process is to rip the blinders off. Once Bill and I struck up a coaching relationship, I told him I was going to do some 360 feedback interviews to get a handle on how he was showing up today and how he needed to show up differently in order to become CEO of the company. Three key premises lie behind providing 360 feedback: (1) People can see what they are doing to get intended results (for example, Bill had played a huge role in turning ColPipe Inc around). (2) They can see where they are getting unintended results (Bill was very frustrated about not getting the CEO job to date). (3) They have a set of blinders on that prevents them from seeing what they are doing to get the unintended results. (Bills continued to use the more directive style that was useful in turning the company around when what was called for was a more collaborative style and people were getting pissed off.) The purpose of the 360 feedback is to rip off the blinders. A word about the masterful coaching approach to giving feedback with executives. I love doing 360 feedback interviews that focus on who a leader needs to be or what she needs to do to reach an impossible future. I hate 360 feedback for executives based on computer tick sheets and a set of homogenized leadership skills and competencies. I find that the 360 feedback interviews and the coaching conversations that result from them can be as transformational as a retreat with the Dalai Lama, going into “the Pit” with Jack Welch, or being advised by Dr. Phil and company.
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In contrast, feedback from tick sheets turns out to be a numbers game. (“Let’s see; on a scale of 1 to 5, he got a 4.3 on leadership, a 4.4 on collaborates well with others, a 4.3 on whatever, and so did everyone else in the group.”) The masterful coaching 360 feedback process is a trade secret, but I am willing to share the questions.
360 Feedback Interview Questions 1. What do you see as this person’s possibilities? 2. What do you see as this person’s biggest strengths? 3. What is this person’s winning strategy—strength that becomes a weakness? 4. What do you see as this person’s gaps? Learning edge? Breakdown point? 5. What do you see as this person’s biggest blind spot—what gets her [or him] in trouble? 6. Next development steps? 7. Next appropriate job? Skillfully provide 360 feedback so people see the opportunity in it. The 360 feedback revealed many of Bill’s strengths—brains plus brawn; his boss called him a “mountain mover.”Yet it also revealed how his winning strategy was making him very unpopular in the company. Bill, a tough but admittedly sensitive rascal was shaken by some of the comments, like being “the man people love to hate.” Said one colleague, “there are few people around here who would vote for Bill to become CEO.” Said another, “Bill is not only competitive about the big things like a merger negotiation, but about the little things like where to go to lunch.” Bill’s noble certainty in his winning strategy was rocked as a result of the 360. We discovered that to become CEO, he had to show up dramatically different.Yet he wondered aloud if the view from the CEO’s office would be worth the climb. I reassured Bill during the 360 summary session at a local winery that he had all the talent and ability necessary to become CEO, and urged him to see the 360 as an opportunity to learn who he needed to be and what he needed
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to do to get there, rather than as a reason to give up. I told him, “You have produced a lot of victories around here, but you have not yet seen your finest hour.” Bill smiled and sipped his glass of Merlot. CREATE A LEADERSHIP ROADMAP THAT INCLUDES A LEADERSHIP DECLARATION The first step in creating a leadership roadmap is to get people to ponder and self-reflect on the 360 feedback. In most cases, people cannot take it on board all at once and need a bit of time. If the feedback has been powerful, this will almost happen automatically. Then the next time you meet with people, ask them about what they have reflected on around their talents, gifts, winning strategy, and so on. This leads to making a leadership declaration. I came to the session on developing a leadership roadmap very confident about Bill’s CEO campaign, as well as his ability to show up differently as a leader.“Bill,” I told him,“you are going to need to transform your heavy-handed leadership style if you want to have any hope of being CEO. You are going to need to learn to be more collaborative, and you are going to need to become a master politician.” I continued, “Bill, you will never get to the top unless you learn to love politics; you are creating too many enemies.” I had all the confidence in the world Bill could do this as he had already proved to be an excellent collaborator with me. All he had to do was choose to call this part of himself forth into the current situation. I asked Bill to make a leadership declaring based on completing the following sentence. I am committed to the possibility of. . . . I am committed to giving up. . . . His leadership declaration said, In my quest to be CEO and transform this company, I am committed to balancing my directive leadership style with a collaborative leadership style in service of building a shared vision and a powerful new future for ColPipe. I am committed to giving up unilaterally pursuing my agenda, maximizing winning, and avoiding losing at all costs. Also, as part of the leadership roadmap, we created a thirty-day action plan, which included working with Bill on a scheme to master the political chessboard of his organization, on the top of which was winning over his boss, the CEO, and board.We spent a day with his boss in Baltimore in a very candid conversation designed to get the relationship on a positive track. It involved gaining the CEO’s support for Bill as his successor, in exchange for Bill tweaking leadership style and acting as a thinking partner with his boss and consulting with him more on important initiatives.
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DESIGN CATALYTIC BREAKTHROUGH PROJECTS THAT WILL TAKE THE LEADER AND THE COMPANY TO A DIFFERENT PLACE The leadership roadmap also included two catalytic breakthrough projects. From the feedback it was evident that Bill needed to transform his relationship with colleagues whose votes might be important in his CEO quest. The first breakthrough project Bill designed was a brilliant opportunity to do that, something he called “confrontation meetings” set up to clear the air. These meetings took place with me present over dinner in a restaurant. Bill acknowledged openly that whether or not he ever became CEO, he had really appreciated the feedback on his leadership style and he acknowledged that he needed to become more collaborative. He wanted to use this opportunity for people to talk to him in a conversational way about how he could improve as a leader and vice versa. I encouraged my dinner partners to discuss the undiscussable and not to go home saying,“I wish I would have.” I also encouraged people to get past focusing on old positions about each other and to focus on interests. “Bill, you want to become CEO and you are going to need Dale’s vote. Dale you are fifty years young and if Bill ever becomes CEO, you are going to want to keep your job versus being forced to retire. Besides that, you would both enjoy a better relationship with each other on a day-in day-out basis.” For the most part, the meetings proved to be a highly effective vehicle for transform Bill’s relationship with the entire executive team and winning their backing for his CEO campaign. The second catalytic breakthrough project emerged out of the 360 feedback, which not only elicited meaningful feedback about Bill but also about the company. The younger people in the company were hungry for possibilities and opportunities and felt it was time to build a shared vision of the future based on growth innovation, and also building on the heritage of system integrity. I sold this idea to Bill and the CEO, who promptly put Bill in charge of the project. Bill led the vision quest in a very collaborative way, listening to the needs and wants of board members, executive team, and rank and file employees. Crisscrossing the company with a team of people, he asked everyone from the board room to the mail room: “What do you see as an impossible future for yourself and the company?” People who had previously seen too many good employees chewed up and spit out by the board’s cost cuts began to feel like they had both a say and a stake in the company’s future.
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The vision quest was a brilliant success. The result of this catalytic breakthrough project included coming up with a new “miszion,” a term Bill coined that combined vision and mission, and all about creating opportunities for both the people and company to grow.
Top 5 To-Dos of Session 3 1. Coach people to ponder and reflect on this question:“Who do you need to be as a leader to reach your impossible future?” 2. Provide meaningful 360 feedback. 3. Coach people to reflect on these questions:“How has your winning strategy made you successful?”“How has it limited you?” 4. Create a leadership declaration and leadership roadmap with people. 5. Design some catalytic breakthrough projects that are an antidote to the winning strategy and identify specific calendar opportunities to be in action around them.
COACHING SESSION 4
COACH PEOPLE TO FORWARD THE ACTION
Objectives •
Encourage people to take action after every coaching session.
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Create a thirty- to ninety-day breakthrough project, not a laundry list.
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Follow up (coaching is management by follow-up).
You can think of forwarding the action as a session that follows on the heels of formulating an impossible future and a leadership and business breakthrough for the executive. Or you can think of forwarding the action as a key step in every coaching session. As I said before, the acid test for
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knowing whether an executive coaching session was successful is not whether people got a lot of insights and were all fired up but whether they went out and took meaningful action. It is of utmost importance then that the coach interact with the coachee after every session in a way that forwards the action. You need to take into account that executives usually have very little discretionary (unscheduled) time and try not to overload them with things to do. If they commit to too much, it doesn’t bode well for the coaching relationship. Instead of focusing on a million things and then having to chide people for not doing them, focus on a critical few things. I think a good place to start is to take a look at the impossible future and winning game plan and ask:“What is a catalytic breakthrough project that you are going to accomplish in the next thirty to ninety days, in the service of your impossible future?” The idea is to produce a small breakthrough in the form of a tangible result that will help to spearhead a larger breakthrough in the service of the impossible future. For example, coach the person to: 1. Create a first draft of a winning game plan about how she and her team are going to realize the impossible future, a draft to be discussed with the team. 2. Share information about the impossible future at three key meetings with staff members in the next ten days. 3. Find someone in her immediate environment who can be a deputy coach for her, making sure that feedback is around every corner. It is important for you as an executive coach to follow up on every commitment your coachee makes so as to create a climate of breakthrough and accountability. At the end of the thirty days or at the next coaching session, ask her:“Did you deliver on your breakthrough commitment?” Make it clear that the only answer is yes or no. In addition to the catalytic breakthrough project, ask her: “What are three things you are going to take action on between now and thirty days from now?” Another aspect of forwarding the action that is important to understand is that there are going to be many times in the coaching process when people get stuck or are in breakdown. Your job as a coach when breakdowns occur is to help people step back, see the big picture, and get their perspective back:“Hey, it’s business; don’t take it so personally.”
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You can discover breakdowns and help people move through them by asking three simple but powerful coaching questions and engaging in a creative dialogue around the answers:“What happened?” “What’s missing?” and “What’s next?” Please keep in mind that the answer to What’s missing? needs to describe a new idea, fresh approach, or innovative solution, not what’s wrong or what’s broken.
Top 5 To-Dos of Session 4 1. Ask:“What happened?”“What’s missing?” and “What’s next?” at every coaching session. 2. If people are in breakdown, help them get their perspective back. 3. Coach people to create a catalytic breakthrough project that can be completed in thirty to ninety days. 4. Follow up with people. Ask:“Did you do it?” The only answer is yes or no. 5. Don’t belittle people if they didn’t do it? Ask:“What can we learn?”
COACHING SESSION 5
OBSERVE BREAKDOWNS AND PROVIDE FEEDBACK AND LEARNING
Objectives •
Celebrate and acknowledge successes. Observe breakdowns as people make a committed attempt to perform.
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Look at the gap between intended and unintended results.
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Provide feedback and learning.
Your job as a coach is not just to get people pointed at the right goals and on the right road but also to observe people as they attempt to perform. In order to do that, you need to step back
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from everyday battles, the heat of the action, and the front lines so you can observe people. Things like 360 feedback and coaching conversations with individuals are great opportunities to observe people’s mind-sets and behavior. At the same time it is invaluable to find an opportunity to observe people interacting with bosses, colleagues, and direct reports. For example, one of my clients, a terrific manager by the name of Bill Patterson, of ConocoPhillips Upstream, was challenged by his boss, Greg Goff (a passionate, high-metabolism leader if ever there was one) to not just create an impossible future but also to “get out of his comfort zone of predictable results and drive change across his organization.” Bill, who passionately believes in a philosophy of “underpromise, overdeliver” and in “empowering people to make improvements” rather than driving change from above, wasn’t buying it. These two leaders had brilliant track records of success but totally different TPOVs, and as a result, they clashed like pirates of the Caribbean with knives clenched in their teeth. In truth, it was hard for me to buy into Greg’s point of view about Bill, as the 360 feedback did not indicate that he was failing to set ambitious enough goals or to push his people out of their comfort zones. Also, when I talked to Bill, he was pretty convincing in terms of enrolling me in his views. I pushed back on Greg, whom I respect immensely, trying to create some breathing room for Bill to be himself, and at the same time pushed Bill and his group to create an impossible future. They came up with a humdinger—100 percent reserve replacement in U.S. operations (that is, in oil grounds that had been picked over since the days before John D. Rockefeller went to Texas and drilled for his first gusher). We started up a team-based action coaching program, with a cross-functional team pulled together to deliver on this breakthrough. On the plus side Bill did a hell of a lot to bring the team together, to get objectives agreed upon, and to break down silos and mental models about the one right way to do things.The group formulated catalytic breakthrough projects. But on the minus side there was after three to four months still a very low level of initiation or execution, and this began to concern me. Secretly, people began telling me that Bill wasn’t really forwarding the action, or doing anything that would create a rallying momentum. One day six months into this breakthrough project, we all sat in a big team meeting. I kicked it off by asking everyone to check in, updating the group on his or her progress. Almost universally, they said that since the previous month they hadn’t done much of anything. Instead of pushing back on people, Bill rationalized and justified,“Well, we all have a full plate.” Also, instead of telling people they needed to “up” their intensity level and making some unreasonable
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promises and requests, he simply made what appeared to me an underwhelming response:“What would you like to do?” The teachable moment had arrived at last. I called a time out and pulled Bill aside and said,“I am going to make a provocative statement. Now I see with my own two eyes and ears what Greg has been talking about—you not stretching people and not pushing people beyond their comfort zone.You and your team are in a breakthrough project. People have to be in and out, and at this stage you need to be kicking some butt. Instead of asking people,‘What do you want to do?’ You need to tell them,‘This is what I need you to do.’You need to start making some powerful promises and requests.” Bill accepted the TPOV with grace and immediately put it into practice. He went back into the room and lit two fires, one within people, the other under them.8 THE THREE-STEP COACHING CONVERSATION CYCLE Master this three-step coaching conversation cycle to guide people toward the ultimate growth and self-development experience. The masterful coaching process is not as linear as an interstate highway but often meanders like a back road across many hills and valleys, smooth spots and bumps. Perhaps one of the most critical steps in an executive coaching process is just to check in with people on a regular basis, not later than every ten days, and ask how it is going. The following three-step coaching conversation cycle comes naturally and is enormously useful, not just in helping people reach goals and aspirations, amid all the hills and valleys, but also in guiding them toward the ultimate growth and self-development experience.
STEP 1
GOT A PROBLEM? LET’S TALK ABOUT IT
Listen carefully. Assess the situation. Listen not just to the story but also to how people are being, their mind-set and behavior—especially things they are doing that might get them into trouble.
STEP 2
PROVIDE A TEACHABLE POINT OF VIEW
The TPOV is provided to alter how people are being their mind-set and behavior. A list of my favorite TPOVs for coaching executives closes this chapter. You will discover and express
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yourself as a masterful coach as you get practice in putting these TPOVs out to clients and watching people transform before your eyes.
STEP 3
PROVIDE A TEMPLATE FOR ACTION
Once you deliver the TPOV, brainstorm with the coachee about what actions he can take to shift his mind-set and behavior, and thereby the results he is getting.
Masterful Coaching TPOVs for Executive Learning •
Be a high-metabolism leader—offer boundless positive energy and enthusiasm.
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Stand for something—“We aim to change the world.”
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Speak from a stand and not from your emotional state—extend people an A.
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Learn to love politics—performance is not enough.
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Yesterday’s personal (and organizational) winning strategy is obsolete—get it!
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Do something dramatically different—find a blue ocean strategy.
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Don’t add before you subtract—stop doing dumb stuff.
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Increase your question-to-talk ratio—balance advocacy and inquiry.
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Don’t get too far out in front of the parade—they won’t know you’re there.
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Don’t plan, execute—think prototypes, quick wins, demos.
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Never settle for less than excellence—the key to the ultimate growth experience.
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Focus on the scoreboard—watch top-line and bottom-line key business drivers.
Top 5 To-Dos of Session 5 1. Find times to observe people in action and think about how they are coming across. 2. Ask people to talk about what is on their minds. 3. Contemplate how people’s way of being and thinking may be producing unintended results. 4. Provide people with a TPOV that gives them powerful new perspectives. 5. Ask, What new openings for action do you see and want to take?
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C H A P T E R
E I G H T
COACHING THE TEAM STRATEGY SESSION Building a Winning Game Plan
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You’ve got an impossible future. Next create a winning game plan.
I am in Chicago, Illinois, with Andy Gfesser, the forty-year-old CEO of Trendler, Inc., who is exuding boundless positive energy and enthusiasm. The company is a $50 million manufacturing company in the U.S. rust belt that makes swivels and other movable parts for furniture makers. In the room is the Trendler leadership team, including Andy’s father,Tony, the founder of Trendler, who emigrated from Austria and is now in his eighties. Seated around the table are two of Andy’s brothers, Anton, who is the vice president of acquisitions, and Stefan, vice president of marketing and sales. Also present are Juan Perez, head of manufacturing; Jim Schnepp, head of engineering;
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Mike Holstead, the chief financial officer (CFO); and William Vernon, president of a recent Trendler acquisition, Now and Then.1 Stefan is telling a story about the history of the company and the “Trendler boys’” involvement in it. He says,“Talk about command and control. In the old days, if I was sleeping in and I heard Spanky (his nickname for his father) turn over in his bed and his feet hit the floor, I would leap out from under my blankets or else not be able to sit down for a week.” Everyone laughed, even Tony, who strikes me as a really wonderful guy. Andy, calling the meeting to order, says,“Look, guys, we are a small Midwestern company, struggling with a no-growth morass, high costs, and labor unions. I not only want to break through the walls we have been staring at but also create a culture that unleashes the human spirit into action.” Andy continues,“Yesterday, Robert Hargrove and I met to talk about an impossible future for Trendler, and he gave me my 360 feedback. I have come up with an impossible future that I am excited to share with you. I want to not just double but triple the size of this business in the next five years. I want to do that by creating an inspired, high-performing organization and by creating a high-growth ecology.” I could see by people’s expressions that they had already bought into the whole idea.“The reason why I have asked everyone to come to this meeting is that now that we know what the big game is, I want to think and work together with everyone in the room to create a winning game plan.” Andy introduces me as a big-time coach and consultant from Boston. I emphasize that I like working with CEOs like Andy and companies like Trendler for three reasons: First, small business is the new big business. We are living in a global economy made up of emerging leaders, emerging businesses, and emerging markets. The majority of people in the world today are not employed by Fortune 500s but by family-owned businesses like Trendler. Second, every person is a businessperson with a whole-business perspective. Small businesses give each leader in the organization the opportunity to really be a businessperson and to take on the wholebusiness perspective, unlike multinationals that are so big people can’t see the forest for the trees. Third, the old way of leading has grown cold. The new way of leading and managing is hot. I noticed in talking to Andy that he has a hunger, a yearning to grow the business that is often absent
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in big-company execs. I kick off the session with a riff about old leadership versus new leadership and us versus them.
Old
Versus
New
MBA Good grades Stoic, quiet leaders Pursue not losing Predictable thinking Command and control Teamwork Plan Careful evaluation Revised plan Careful language Built to last Quality first Operational excellence Incremental improvement Product or service
versus versus versus versus versus versus versus versus versus versus versus versus versus versus versus versus
Street smarts Cool projects Noisy, emotional characters Aggressively pursue winning Impossible thinking Inspiration and improvisation Great group, creative collaboration Prototype Another prototype Another prototype Colorful, hot language Built to change the world Design first Breathtaking innovation Imagination breakthroughs Game-changing solution, great experience, dream fulfilled
The intended result of the session is to align on the impossible future and come up with a game plan that says, “This is how we intend to win in this business.” “Gentlemen,” I continued, “you have an impossible future which is about unleashing the human spirit, tripling the business, creating a high-growth ecology. Now we need to come up with a game plan. I am not talking about a concrete plan, nor your typical mission statement that is long on platitudes and short on specifics, but something that tells everyone this is how we are going to win in this business. To do this, we are going to think and work together in this team strategy session in the spirit of creative collaboration.” Here are some of the guiding principles of creative collaboration that I recommend for such sessions:
C o a c h i n g t h e Te a m S t r a t e g y S e s s i o n
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“
Bring a crazy combination of people together to light creative sparks. Robert Hargrove2
Critical Success Factors for a Team Strategy Session •
Get all stakeholders in the same room so the decisions that need to get made get made.
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Have a big goal or problem, one to which people will subordinate their egos.
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Get to fundamental causes and solutions; use the power of multiple minds.
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Scan the horizon to learn, focus on the best ideas, and take action.
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Create imagination breakthroughs—ten ideas that can grow the business by $50 million.
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Bypass elaborate planning and preparation; instead use rapid prototypes, demos, quick wins.
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Discuss the undiscussable.
We are going to take the results of the conversation and put them into a source document, a blueprint for the future. “We are going to be engaging in an extraordinary coaching conversation, but please keep in mind that conversations disappear. What we are going to create by the end of the day is version 2.0 of the impossible future and winning game plan, and we are going to put that into a source document, or blueprint for the future—a written artifact of this conversation. A source document is designed to tell everyone in the organization who we intend to be as a company and to give everyone in the company a place to stand. It is the basis on which goals can be set, planning is done, and action is taken. It creates line of sight to every person in the company, from the boardroom to the mail room.”
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Ingredients of a Source Document or Blueprint for the Future 1. Vision of an impossible future and teachable point of view (TPOV) about success 2. Winning game plan 3. Game-changing strategy 4. Major goals and milestones 5. Key change initiatives 6. Catalytic breakthrough projects 7. Guiding principles and methodologies The conversations we are about to engage in are designed to catalyze breakthrough thinking, and they don’t have to fit together. I told Andy and company,“We are going to be engaging in a series of conversations that roughly follow the scan, focus, and act model [outlined at the end of this chapter].3 The conversations are designed to take you and your group through a process that basically involves reimagining your business so as to reach your impossible future and winning game plan. The conversations are not a hierarchy, and each question posed is just as important as every other question. I would suggest going through the series of questions once, gaining a keener appreciation of both the whats and the hows, and then doing a second or even third iteration. But by the end of this session everything will come together and the path to the result will be clear.”
Five Coaching Conversations for This Session 1. Clarify the impossible future—the first step in creating a winning game plan. 2. Look at the impossible future and assess strengths, gaps, and what’s missing that will fill the gaps.
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3. The business context has morphed—coach people to recognize, analyze, and capitalize on trends. 4. Do something dramatically different—come up with a game-changing strategy. 5. Execution—key change initiatives, catalytic breakthrough projects, action coaching.
COACHING CONVERSATION 1
“
CLARIFY THE IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE—THE FIRST STEP IN CREATING A WINNING GAME PLAN
Get it so that it is 80 percent right and then iterate.
In the executive coaching session previous to the team session, leaders come up with the first iteration of the impossible future (as described in Chapter Seven).They next present their first iteration to the team and get reactions, with the intention of creating an aligned team that truly functions as a whole. If the impossible future is a cause worth signing up for and really represents winning in this business, alignment will naturally occur. It is important that the impossible future not be seen as too big (pie in the sky) or too small (small potatoes).
Coach the Leader to Follow This Protocol 1. Say:“I am really excited about the impossible future, I want to win in this business.” 2. Say:“Yet it’s not something that’s a finished product; it’s ‘under construction.’” 3. Ask:“What’s your reaction to the impossible future? To the winning game plan?”
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4. Ask:“Do you think it makes sense? Is it too big? Too small?” 5. Ask:“Where do you stand with respect to it?” Discuss the undiscussable. You may be surprised by some of the team’s reactions to the impossible future. If the company has been stuck in the no-growth morass, profits have been dismal, and management has been acting in a way that has demotivated people, you might even get some angry reactions. If the organization has been staring at a wall for a long time, you may have to let people express their frustration and resignation so they can fully participate in the conversation about creating a winning game plan. Encourage people to discuss the undiscussable—“The higher ups aren’t committed to change”;“We’ve been here before”;“It can’t be done.” After people have gotten a chance to vent, you might then say,“You may have a lot of reasons for being resigned, but if you stick to those reasons, you automatically forfeit your ability to create a new future.”
REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT
Left-Hand-Column Exercise Ask people to take a piece of paper and fold it in half lengthwise, making two columns. Then ask them to write in the right-hand column (RH) what they would be willing to say publicly in the meeting about the impossible future. Then ask them write in the left-hand column (LH) what they are thinking but not saying (as illustrated in Figure 8.1). Then get people to share what they have written in both their right-hand and left-hand columns. The intention is to get them to say whatever is on their minds, so they can fully participate in the conversation. This exercise will also bring out those things that might be barriers further down the line. Here are some examples:4 1.
(RH) I admire your stand. (LH) The CEO will never change.
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(RH) That’s a great vision. (LH) It can’t be done.
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(RH) Terrific game plan. (LH) We’ve been here before.
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(RH) It is a practical solution. (LH) God, another project! Arghh!
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FIGURE 8.1 Left-hand-column exercise
What you think, but do not say
What you will say
The CEO will never change.
I admire your stand.
The first step in creating the new future is to take a stand for a vision that addresses throbbing human needs and wants, especially the needs and wants of the people in the group. Invite the group to participate in doing a second iteration of the impossible future, to throw it out, build on it, or make it stand out in bold relief. Clarity is power. The clearer the team members are about the impossible future and winning, the more power they will have in crafting a winning game plan and executing it.
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Stand in the future you want to create, and work your way back from there.
Craft a vision of the impossible future in one sentence. To clarify the vision of the impossible future, I suggest using the process called backcasting. Let’s return to Andy and company and the Trendler vision. The team members were asked to stand in the future five years out and look at what they have achieved. They said,“We are an inspired, high-performing organization that is a gift to the human spirit.” Anything else? “We have tripled the revenues of the business.” Anything else? What would success look like? “Well, we have honored our heritage, what got us here, the foundation that Tony, our father, built, and at the same time we are willing to forward new possibilities
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that represent doing something dramatically different.” Anything else? “I am excited about our possibilities of making Trendler not only one of the most admired companies in the USA, but also an expanding, highly profitable, global, world-class organization.” Anything else? “We have produced both a leadership breakthrough and business breakthrough for Trendler over the next five years. We have also produced a breakthrough in teamwork and created a coaching environment.” How would success be measured? It is very important to create some major goals and milestones that steer you toward the right priorities and toward producing measurable results. Coaching, or management by follow-up, with respect to goals becomes the basis of creating a climate of breakthrough and accountability. Let’s continue with the Trendler example. What are the major goals and milestones? “We will triple sales in five years by establishing a high-growth ecology that energizes employees and generates an expanding customer base, who increasingly recognize Trendler as the sole source supplier of furniture components and the leader in niche furniture. We will grow the business at approximately 20 to 30 percent a year, achieving sales of $150 million in 2011, with a 10 percent net profit of $50 million.” What are the waterline goals? As you pursue your impossible future, don’t forget to take into account that you need to also set up some waterline goals, which represent generating enough sales and cash to keep your business from getting into a state of crisis or even going under. Waterline goals need to be set up around (1) sales, (2) costs, (3) cash, and (4) return on working capital.
COACHING CONVERSATION 2
LOOK AT THE IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE AND ASSESS STRENGTHS, GAPS, AND WHAT’S MISSING THAT WILL FILL THE GAPS
It’s often easier for people to create a wonderful vision than it is for them to face reality. However, the first step in making a vision come true is to conduct a realistic assessment of the current situation in your business. If you have ever used a Global Positioning System (GPS) on a boat, you will have realized right away that you can’t navigate from Point A to Point B unless you know where Point A, or “home,” actually is. At the same time, it is important to make sure that
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you not only think about reaching your long-term goals but also confront and address issues that are a threat to your company’s waterline. Strategy in action. There is a process we at Masterful Coaching use called strategy in action. As I have mentioned before, it was developed by Joan Holmes and the leaders of the Hunger Project, a strategic nongovernmental agency (NGO) dedicated to the end of chronic hunger and poverty, and we have found it very effective in creating a winning game plan.5 The first step is the What’s So Process, an assessment of the business’s current state (a process introduced in Chapter Four). This process is very good for revealing the gap between your impossible future and your current reality, as well as for revealing breakdowns that need to be addressed to maintain your waterline. It’s said that Nero fiddled while Rome burned rather than face reality and do something to put out the fire. He was like many leaders today in denial about the what’s so of the situation. To coach the What’s So Process, write your impossible future on a flip chart paper and post it on the wall. Then write each of the following headlines on a sheet of flip chart paper: (1) Facts About the Business, (2) Strengths, (3) Weaknesses or Gaps, (4) Opportunities, (5) Threats, (6) What’s Missing (That If Provided Could Make a Difference)? and (7) Opportunities to Be in Action. For each category, the group lists as many items as they can come up with, not limiting, judging, or rebutting people’s contributions. The idea is to draw out a complete picture of current reality from different points of view. The flip chart papers are posted on the walls. Fill up a minimum of one sheet of paper and a maximum of three sheets under each headline. Here is the Trendler team’s response to these headlines. 1. The impossible future: Who do we intend to be? An inspired, high-performing organization; triple the revenue of the business; $150 million in sales. 2. Facts about the business today (facts are different from wishful thinking): Eighty percent market share; $50 million in sales; no growth; small salesforce; no Web site. 3. Strengths for getting to the impossible future: Brand image as “trouble-free” furniture components; core competency in manufacturing; strategic sourcing; strong customer base.
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4. Weaknesses or gaps: Attitude that we are a mature business—Where will growth come from given that the company has an 80 percent market share in its core business? 5. Opportunities to grow the business: Andy’s tons of manufacturing sales and distribution contacts in China; building an e-business from the ground up—Now and Then (a small dinette manufacturer with big potential that the company has acquired). 6. Threats to the business: The company has higher manufacturing costs than Chinese competitors do and is subject to being wiped out. 7. What’s missing that if provided could make a difference? Trendler needs a professional culture rather than an entitlement culture; it needs to reframe itself from a mature business to a growth business. It needs not just game-changing products and services but also gamechanging solutions and new distribution channels. Get people clear on the fact that what’s missing is different from what’s wrong. It’s my experience that most groups have trouble with this seventh question.The reason is that they don’t get that “What’s missing?” is different from “What’s wrong?” Everyone already knows what’s wrong, but people don’t know what’s missing that will address what’s wrong. Today everyone knows that American cars guzzle too much gas—that’s what’s wrong.What’s missing might be a car that has great design, quick acceleration, and low gas mileage. Furthermore, where what’s wrong is obvious, what’s missing is not always obvious. In most cases, what’s missing to grow a business is not just turning the crank on the old business model but inventing a new idea, a fresh approach, an innovative solution.
COACHING CONVERSATION 3
THE BUSINESS CONTEXT HAS MORPHED—COACH PEOPLE TO RECOGNIZE, ANALYZE, AND CAPITALIZE ON TRENDS
One of the best ways to find opportunities to realize an impossible future and win in your business is to recognize, analyze, and capitalize on trends. Today the business context has been dramatically altered by the new global economy (the emergence of the BRICK countries—Brazil,
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Russia, India, China, Korea), with three billion new capitalists collaborating and competing over the Internet, and by Wal-Mart, outsourcing, the innovator’s advantage, and new competitors rising fresh in almost every niche. The art of achieving business acumen, according to Ram Charan, is linking an insightful assessment of the external business landscape with the keen awareness of how money can be made and then executing the strategy to deliver the desired results.6 For example, Richard Harrington is the CEO of the Thomson Corporation, a media company based in Toronto. When Harrington became CEO a few years back, the company was best known for its fifty-five daily newspapers in seven states. Business was good, but Harrington saw the shift to the digital economy and that newspapers were becoming obsolete. With the full support of his board, he began to divest Thomson’s newspapers and its travel and leisure business, steering the company instead toward delivering information and services on line to professionals in law, education, health care, and finance.7 Given your impossible future and intention to come up with a winning game plan, engage in a dialogue with your team intended to help the business recognize, analyze, and capitalize on trends. This inquiry is designed to help the group see the big picture, to look at the company from the outside in rather than the inside out. The objective is to see if you can find ways to build on strengths, offset gaps, seize opportunities, avert threats, and finally, identify what’s missing that if provided could make a difference. The team should consider these questions: 1. What major business trends are happening in the world? 2. What are leading companies doing to recognize, analyze, and capitalize on trends? 3. What can we do to recognize, analyze and capitalize on trends? 4. How do we need to reframe our business? What do we need to do differently? 5. To get to the impossible future, what would have to happen first? What’s next? Also use the ten winner’s mind-sets discussed in Chapter Six and reiterated later in this chapter as a reference point for this discussion, as they represent what leading companies have done to leverage opportunities in change. (Note that these mind-sets have been geared to a business.)
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For example, the Trendler team members immediately saw that to reach their impossible future, they had to see things differently and act differently. First of all they reframed their business, from “a mature business with 80 percent market share in swivels” to “a growth business.” They needed to find not just products and services but game-changing solutions and gaspworthy experiences. The group also came up with some key change initiatives that stemmed right out of the discussion on trends and the winner’s mind-sets: (1) leverage the Internet; (2) achieve global reach; (3) integrate “now and then” acquisition; and (4) create a high-growth ecology for both people and the company. All these initiatives represented ways to increase top-line growth with a lean manufacturing base. (More on these change initiatives later.)
Ten Winner’s Mind-Sets 1. Create a blue ocean strategy rather than compete in bloody red oceans. 2. Small guys win by thinking big, networking globally, acting fast. 3. Design soul into your products; get people to join your brand. 4. Become a change insurgent; use the power of powerlessness. 5. Focus on projects and prototypes and not plans and preparations. 6. Reinvent your business as an e-business from the ground up. 7. Go where the money is—women, boomers, geezers. 8. Move from good products and services to gaspworthy experiences. 9. Sell as if your company’s survival depends on it—because it does. 10. Every business is a growth business. I asked the Trendler team members:“Who do you intend to be as a company? What companies do you aspire to be like? Who would be your favorite adversary that you would like to topple
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from their perch?” This led to a fascinating and intriguing discussion, which then led to teasing out powerful TPOVs for Trendler, Inc. •
Trendler builds a world-class brand, like Harley Davidson and Intel. Like Harley customers, our customers take pride in our products; we have a world-class brand—“Trendler Inside.”
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Trendler grows like Leggett & Platt. We grow organically within and by focused acquisition.
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Trendler operates like Toyota. We achieve Six Sigma quality in all our plants, establishing world-class business processes by eliminating complexity and waste.
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Trendler delivers like Dell. We adopt just-in-time supply chain methods, creating optimal inventory levels and quick turnaround for all orders.
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Trendler generates value like Berkshire Hathaway and Microsoft. We return great profit and growth to our shareholders.
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Trendler’s culture is like the Southwest Airlines culture. People who come to work at Trendler say that it unleashes the human spirit into action.
COACHING CONVERSATION 4
DO SOMETHING DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT—COME UP WITH A GAME-CHANGING STRATEGY
Ready for this? Here is the bottom line! You can’t beat China or Wal-Mart on price or Microsoft on mass-market penetration. There are only two types of companies in the world today, those that offer the cheapest mass-market products, and those that are the most innovative and best. Unfortunately, most companies get stuck in the middle—the no-man’s-land of being neither the best nor the cheapest. They often have a hard time gaining the attention of their customers because they are just another me-too competitor. These companies are run by similar people who offer similar products and similar services to similar customers who find them almost by accident. Take heart! There is still hope.
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The next step in realizing your impossible future is to look at what everyone else in your field is doing and then do something dramatically different. The idea is to change the game for your company, if not for your whole industry. How do you do this? You don’t do it by benchmarking your competition. You do this as W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne say, by coming up with a blue ocean strategy, one that allows you to grow in uncontested market space.8 This means learning to be a value innovator rather than a me-too competitor. Coaching people on coming up with a game-changing plan that represents doing something dramatically different is not as difficult as it sounds. Ask the team members to look at their business and whatever it does that makes it a me-too competitor and then encourage them to think about their customers’ throbbing needs and wants or the biggest frustrations with their industry.Then ask them to brainstorm on the following questions.You may want to give them some examples of dramatically different business models first. (Some of these models are presented later in this chapter.)
Brainstormer on Your Dramatically Different Business Model 1. What is the traditional business model in our field? 2. What are our customer’s throbbing needs, wants, biggest frustrations? 3. What would be a blue ocean strategy for us? (For instance, stop benchmarking.) 4. What can we do that is dramatically different? 5. What can we do that would change the game and win in our business? 6. What if we couldn’t do our business in the way we have always been doing it? When I asked Andy and company these questions, they decided that who they would like to be as an organization was not just a manufacturer of trouble-free components (swivels) but also a strategic (actually pioneering) supplier of any component a furniture manufacturer needed. However, the concern was raised that this might land them in a red ocean, competing head-on with industry leader Leggett & Platt, which offered “bundled component packages.” Then, looking more closely at the competition, they recognized that Leggett & Platt treated special requests as “we
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don’t do that.” This led them to decide on a game-changing approach based on one-to-one marketing methods. The game-changing strategy would be one source, one-to-one solutions, one team. This may be an approach you have heard of before, but in the furniture industry, which is pathetically backward in many respects, it was damn near revolutionary. This game-changer could only then be realized by a beefed-up version of the change initiatives mentioned earlier: (1) focus on key accounts with a one-to-one marketing and sales approach; (2) redesign Trendler as an e-business from the ground up, selling not just swivels but a glorious array of products over the Internet on a global basis and sourcing an equally wide array of products; (3) establish an ISO 9000–type program for Trendler’s suppliers, reinforcing Trendler’s brand of ensuring trouble-free products.
Some Examples of Dramatically Different Business Models Dramatically different grocery shopping. Shaw’s Supermarket, right across the street from my house in Brookline, Massachusetts, is absolutely indistinguishable from any other supermarket I have ever been into, with similar products sold at similar prices to similar customers.Yet a block or two away from my house is a Whole Foods Market that offers the top-of-the-line, healthy, gourmet groceries to a dissimilar up-scale client, with at least a 30 percent higher price on most items. When my son graduated from Syracuse University Business School, he took me to another dramatically different grocery store, Wegmans, which was like a food happening. It captured the excitement of a oriental marketplace where you could shop to your heart’s content and stuff your face with delectable goodies at the same time. Dramatically different clothing. America is the land of the outlet store and the fire sale.You have to really hunt at most stores to find clothes that were designed for anything except to be put on sale at 30 percent off. The styling is for the most part absolutely pathetic for both men and women. There are some stores that offer young and active people more style, but you have to break the bank to shop there, as everything is over $100. How about a DressMeUp chain store or dot-com that is a value innovator, offering really freaky, cool, stylish stuff to people under thirty-five for around $50? Dramatically different shelter. Housing buyers are suffering from price gouging! I am sure you have noticed that house and condo prices in big cities like Boston, New York, Beijing, and
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so on have climbed to a point where the average family can no longer afford the dream of owning its own home. Further, apartment rentals are often at fantastically high prices, with little value to offer except tired kitchens, scuzzy baths, yucky carpets. What can you do that is dramatically different here? Consider some alternative possibilities: using the guaranteed loans for housing offered to GIs after WWII as a partial model, people might buy houses valued at $500,000 for $250,000 from owners or banks (that is, for half the value) with an option to buy the other half when they have the money; or going with the idea that “small is the new big,” a business might sell minicondos, the size of a hotel room, with kitchen, bath, and living room.
COACHING CONVERSATION 5
EXECUTION—KEY CHANGE INITIATIVES, CATALYTIC BREAKTHROUGH PROJECTS, ACTION COACHING
When you get to this point, you will find that people talk about execution but then go off into elaborate planning and preparations. In most cases the so-called team breaks up after the big strategy session, and the team members go back to their own fiefdoms to plan big. Rarely do executive teams ever work on anything together. The coach’s job at this stage is to get the team to bypass elaborate planning and preparations and instead do a rapid prototype. Instead of careful evaluation, do another prototype. This is to be followed not by review by higher-ups but, you guessed it, by another prototype. I love the idea I heard from Matt Taylor and Gail Taylor:“It takes 7 iterations to get to brilliance. Each iteration takes half as long and doubles the output of the previous iteration.”9 For example, at Trendler, I coached Stefan and the sales team to stop focusing on marketing paraphernalia, sales engineering, and shipping and to start to sell, sell, sell using a rapid prototype of a new customer-interaction model together with going for some quick wins with A-list customers. I coached Andy to develop a ninety-day prototype of an “Andy and Company” Web site, which would rock the furniture world. I coached Juan in manufacturing to create a Trendler ISO 9000–type trouble-free component process for suppliers interested in being certified and thus making more sales.
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I LOVE THE IDEA OF THE CATALYTIC BREAKTHROUGH PROJECT In Chapter Two I shared with you the concept of the catalytic breakthrough project (CBP), which is designed to take an impossible future or big goal and transform it from something absolutely positively overwhelming to something seen as possible and achievable. A CBP is a small breakthrough that has the power to spearhead a larger breakthrough, a small success that creates a widening circle of successes. Catalytic breakthrough projects—are the biggest advance in execution since the to-do list. Coach people to set up a catalytic breakthrough project as follows: (1) the project is aimed at a breakthrough result (not predictable); (2) the team works on it together; (3) it happens in thirty to ninety days; (4) success is near and clear; and (5) most important, it takes you to a different place.
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Inspire talented, high-potential people in your organization to take the lead on a catalytic breakthrough project that is all about doing something dramatically different.
Let me share an example with you. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, Haiyun Guo, a thirty-something actuary who works at Tufts Healthcare (medical insurance). We were having a conversation about the fact that health care insurers are all pretty much cut from the same cloth, with very few distinguishing differences. Haiyun, who is dedicated to her Tufts team’s winning, got interested in the idea of coming up with a blue ocean strategy rather than competing in those bloody red oceans. She said, “I like that idea, but those blue oceans are hard to find.” I said,“Not as hard as you think.”
Gather an extraordinary combination of people with divergent views and perspectives. I told Haiyun,“If you have aspirations of being a leader in the company, you’ve got to take into account that leaders set the agenda, as opposed to just following the crowd. How about if you led a CBP?” She said, “I’m on, tell me what I have to do.” I advised her to gather a group of people from her company—marketing people, actuaries, underwriters, veteran employees, and new kids on the block—and invite them to a brainstormer session.“Should I tell the Chief Actuary?” she asked. “No, you don’t have to!” I said. “This is about being a change insurgent.” Then I told her to brainstorm as many ideas as possible about Tufts Healthcare doing something dramatically different from all the other me-too competitors in the health care field.
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Passionately share winner’s mind-sets to trigger creative thinking. I told her,“I will come in there, if you like, and perhaps catalyze some creative thinking by reviewing the latest trends and then encourage the group to come up with some dramatically different ideas: for example, go where the money is—market and sell specialized health insurance products at a premium price to women, baby boomers, and geezers.” Get people to look at how their company could leverage opportunities in change. “Women and boomers are interested in anti-aging treatments, not just cholesterol checks and catastrophic health care,” I continued.“If your company, offered ‘deep discount Botox treatments’ for the wrinkled part of the population, for example, people would probably sign up with it in droves. Then once they do, you can sell them add-on services, also at a premium.” Brainstorm alternative possibilities. “For example, I am a baby boomer, a member of that part of the population that not only has money but is used to getting its own way. I hate waiting in line when I get to the doctor’s office. What if I could pay a bit more and get premium fast-lane service at the doctor’s office? Or premium service if I have to go to the hospital, with a private room, gourmet meals, and a guarantee of seeing the top specialist, rather than just taking what I get.” Forget “yes but”! Haiyun, who is less entrepreneurial than practical, gave me some “yes buts,”“Yes, but it will be a lot of work. . . .Yes, but we are already doing different things.” Yet I could see that I was starting to convince her. “If you don’t do something dramatically different, what do you think the future of your company will be?” I asked. She said she thought that Tufts would stay the course, be just another me-too, or most likely, would be taken over by one of the big boys from out of state. . . . I reminded her that the people in the buggy whip business were doing a lot of different things when the era of the automobile dawned, like designing thinner and thicker buggy whips and buggy whips in not just the traditional black or brown but in red, green, and blue. She laughed.“What should I do?” Go for a rapid prototype, quick win, or demo. “OK, as I said, gather a group of people from the company to work on a catalytic breakthrough project, brainstorm as many ideas as possible, then focus on the best one. Once you come up with the idea, inspire the group to improvise. That is to say, come up with a rapid prototype of the customer profile, marketing approach, product, and so on. If possible, get the idea into an alpha market test within 90 days and out into the field with the salesforce within 120 days. See if you can come up with a product demo and some quick wins with some live customers.”
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“Yes, but—if we do those ideas,” Haiyun said,“we might get a lot of new business, but then the other companies will just copy us.” “Haiyun,” I said, “in this economy, you don’t build anything to last and there is no permanent competitive advantage; winning takes exciting, thrilling, nonstop innovation.”
CREATE A SOURCE DOCUMENT OF YOUR IMPOSSIBLE FUTURE—WINNING GAME PLAN
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The source document is an artifact of the conversations about the whats and the hows of the impossible future that keeps those conversations going.
Up to now you have been thinking and operating like the conductor of an orchestra.You have been coaching people to engage in some extraordinary coaching conversations in service of the impossible future. Yet remember what I said earlier, conversations disappear. In order to keep these conversations going, you need to create a source document, an artifact of the conversations that gives rise not just to another conversation but to a whole network of conversations at every level of your organization. A source document gives everyone in the organization a place to stand. As mentioned earlier, a source document is a blueprint for the future that gives everyone in your organization a place to stand. It is the base on which strategies and goals are set, plans are made, and action is taken. It is a way not just to make everyone a player in the big game but also to create line of sight from the company strategy and the department goals to each and every person in the organization. (We will look at this more closely in the next chapter.) A source document makes everyone a player in the big game. The coaching conversations that have taken place have no doubt led to the business insights necessary to create a source document that answers all the questions posed earlier. Here’s a topic summary as a reminder: 1. Impossible future 2. Teachable point of view about winning in this business
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3. Winning game plan: (a) game-changing strategy, (b) major goals and milestones, (c) key change initiatives, (d) catalytic breakthrough projects, and (e) methodologies Put the message out there with every breath you take. Technicolor language gets Technicolor responses. Coach leaders at all levels that it is their job to “be sourceful” with respect to the source document. Put the message out there with every breath you take until it begins to exist independently from you, the executive, and from the whole executive team. In writing your source document use colorful, up language, keeping in mind that this will produce colorful, up responses from people, rather than, “Oh, flavor of the month again.” For more guidelines on creating a source document, see my book Your Coach (in a Book).10 Here are some statements taken from source documents created by people I have worked with in a coaching relationship: •
“I want to create an inspired, high-performing organization and to grow the business very selectively, very imaginatively, and very profitably” (Greg Goff, president, Europe and Asia Pacific, ConocoPhillips).
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“I am writing this source document for the men and women who put on the cloth of the nation. We are going to build the strategic capability necessary to ‘Strike anyone, anytime, anyplace’” ( John Young, assistant secretary of the Navy).
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“We are going to build a brand like Harley Davidson, innovate like Apple and its iPod, run production like Toyota, and deliver like Dell” (Andy Gfesser, CEO, Trendler, Inc.).
YOU CAN ALSO THINK OF CREATING AND ACTING ON A GAME PLAN AS A THREE-STEP PROCESS At Masterful Coaching, when we are holding collaborative gatherings like the team strategy session outlined in this chapter, we always start with a clearly stated goal or problem, one that can be defined in one sentence. In Trendler’s case the goal was to “triple the business.” We then go through a three-step process: scan, focus, and act. In the scan phase, people go to a higher viewing place so they can see the broad trends affecting all companies today, regardless of industry or nation. The insights gained here can both alter the vision of the impossible future and help to frame a winning game plan. One part of the scan phase is to have people brainstorm alternative possibilities for taking their business to the next level. This leads to the focus phase, in which the best possibilities are selected and others are abandoned. The third phase is act, which is all about execution.
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C H A P T E R
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EXECUTE WITH ACTION COACHING Leadership and Business Breakthroughs
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The art of execution is engaging in robust dialogue about the whats and the hows and tenaciously following through, holding people accountable for results. Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan1
I loved coaching Richard Severance, the charismatic, sometimes controversial, one-armed president of a Big Oil refining and marketing organization. He bears a striking resemblance, with his Texas twang, to the film star Tommy Lee Jones.When I started working with Severance, as he calls himself, he was known for a “no growth vision” (oil refineries are expensive to put up) and his
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infamous strafing missions, where he would swoop down on a refinery and do a ninety-minute walk-through looking for “stuff that needed fixing,” whether it was a foreman’s attitude in the control room or a suspicious valve on a pipe. Severance attended one of my leadership and masterful coaching workshops and decided to hire me as an executive coach. The two of us got on like a house afire—lots of warmth between us and lots of sparks. We worked one on one on tweaking his leadership style, from command and control to inspiration and empowerment, and on coming up with a first draft of an impossible future. Then we held a CollabLab (a monster-sized version of the team strategy session), with about one hundred people, to iterate on the impossible future and create a winning game plan. The impossible future created at the CollabLab started out with a motto—“Be the Best; Create the Next.” It also involved selectively and profitably growing the business and, for the first time ever, a full-blown implementation of Six Sigma quality in a big oil company. There was also an idea for a new business concept incubator, to give talented employees a chance to spread their wings. Severance went around giving inspirational speeches about his impossible future to almost every group in the company. Soon people started talking about him as being CEO material. The impossible future that came out of the executive coaching with Severance and the CollabLab was going to come to pass only if there were both inspiring leadership at every level and the kind of management that gets people to roll up their sleeves and execute. So the next step was going to be all about execution. The idea came up for a team-based action coaching, where the different leadership teams would implement the vision. One of the first to jump on the bandwagon was Brad Naester, chief of the Gulf Coast business unit and its massive Gulf Coast oil refinery. The place had struggled in previous years with poor performance, environmental issues, and safety problems. It was decided to bring in a new refinery manager, Frank Sterns, who had been a refinery manager previously in the one of the other company refineries and who had also been through the Masterful Coaching Workshop. Frank was smart as a whip but kind of a tough, cowboy type who came across as though he had cut his teeth on a branding iron. He had a reputation of being “great on results” yet “hard on people.” Naester, who had benefited from executive coaching and was very people oriented, immediately signed Frank up for executive coaching, and then Frank
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himself took the lead in signing his refinery leadership team up for action coaching. What was to follow was an act of extraordinary leadership, and it produced extraordinary results. THE STRUCTURE OF TEAM-BASED ACTION COACHING Let me pause in this story for a moment to talk about the structure of the team-based action coaching program, which is all about execution. The program is designed to take a big idea, like a vision of an impossible future and winning game plan, and make it a reality. The program is often carried out by the executives on the leadership team together with a masterful coach. It is designed to produce leadership breakthroughs and team breakthroughs in the process of producing business breakthroughs that can be measured by hard, bottom-line results. It is also designed to create masterful coaches within an organization and a coaching environment. The masterful coach and the team leader meet with the group each month. These sessions are supported by ninety-minute coaching phone calls in between sessions. The structure of the program is brilliantly simple but powerful. It usually involves, as mentioned, a masterful coach, a business unit or team leader, and the leader’s direct reports (usually a group of seven to ten people). The team looks at the impossible future, creates one or more catalytic breakthrough projects in service of that future, and then asks each individual on the team to create a leadership breakthrough and a business breakthrough with a concrete plan. (See the description of the structure for fulfillment in Chapter Five.) Further, each individual is asked to coach two or three other people who report to him or her and who are not in the program, creating a cascade effect and developing a coaching culture. To reach their impossible future (goals), people are coached through the five phases of breakthrough over the course of a year. The five phases of breakthrough are (1) formulation, (2) concentration, (3) momentum, (4) breakthrough, and (5) sustainability. Each phase requires different leadership behavior from the boss and a different focus from the team.
Coaching the Five Phases of Breakthrough 1. Formulation Key activities: Formulate goals and concrete plans Leadership style: Collaborative, gathering diverse views and perspectives
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2. Concentration Key activities: Execute; use focused and disciplined intensity in doing things Leadership style: Lighting fires under people; thirty-day action plans; rapid follow-up 3. Momentum Key activities: Create a widening circle of successes; don’t let up Leadership style: What happened? What’s missing? What’s next? 4. Breakthrough Key activity: Get results over the line to achieve breakthrough goals Leadership style: Don’t let up; celebrate successes; look at what’s next 5. Sustainability Key activities: Capture learning; develop processes and procedures Leadership style: Refocus energy; apply learning People learn that a different kind of leadership and coaching is required for each of the five phases. For example, I mentioned in Chapter Seven a team-based action coaching program that I did with Bill Patterson’s group at ConocoPhillips Upstream and that involved an impossible future of 100 percent reserve replacement in the United States. Patterson’s group did a great job of formulating the breakthrough but needed strong coaching to get to the next phase, concentration (execution). Team members needed to be coached to have great strategic conversations, set goals, and make plans, as well as to just “do things.” Patterson needed coaching on lighting a fire both within and under people.2
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At the monthly meeting people get TPOVs from the masterful coach, and each individual goes into the hot seat. The masterful coach and the leader meet with the team each month for a day. In the meeting the masterful coach provides various pieces from the masterful coaching toolbox. For example, people are given a teachable point of view (TPOV) about creating a culture of breakthrough and accountability. And they are shown how to design business breakthroughs, together with a plan, and how to coach people, to do management by follow-up. The power of team-based action coaching is that it produces both leadership and business breakthroughs and the feeling of being accountable to a group. During the meeting each individual in the group goes into the hot seat, to look at his or her leadership and business goals and to discus What happened? What’s missing? and What’s next? As Barry Kumins, another business leader who participated in executive coaching, a team strategy session, and then action coaching with his group, said,“The power of action coaching is a lot about individuals setting leadership and business breakthrough goals and then feeling accountable to a group.”3 In action coaching, people are asked to make powerful promises and requests, and nothing is allowed to fall through the cracks. The team members have ninety-minute coaching phone conversations with the masterful coach in between group meetings. On every other call the group leader (and champion of the action coaching) also participates and provides coaching to the individual. This has proven to be an excellent way of engaging coachees in a candid coaching conversation where they are free to express whatever is on their minds, as well as a way to check progress on their leadership and business breakthroughs and to formulate thirty-day action plans. Often these calls are an opportunity for the coachee to get more personal coaching on leadership than he or she might get in the group. When the leader is on the phone as well, it provides an excellent opportunity for the leader to observe a masterful coach at work and to see how the coach picks up on certain conversational cues to gain insight into a coachee’s character, personality, and winning strategy. FRANK STERNS USES THE ACTION COACHING TOOLBOX TO REACH HIS GOAL OF OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE The work the Masterful Coaching coach did with Frank Sterns and the Gulf Coast refinery not only showed transformational leadership in action and a game-changing strategy but also superior execution. The playing field here was not top-line growth but bottom-line operational
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excellence and turning lost profit opportunities into windfalls. The coach assigned to Frank and the refinery leadership team was a man by the name of Manuel Manga, whom I had known for twenty years. Manuel was perhaps the opposite of Frank, very strong in people skills but not so driven in terms of results. It turned out to be a perfect match in many ways. When Frank first met Manuel, who was born in Colombia and grew up in New York City, he said, “How does a city kid like you, born in the barrio, become a big league coach in the oil industry?” Manuel had once told me a story about talking to the guidance counselor in his high school about his aspirations to go to college. The guidance counselor said, “College, that’s for white kids that get good grades in school, not for Puerto Rican kids like you.You go to a vocational school.” Manuel countered, “First of all, I am an American who was born in Colombia. Secondly, I am a straight A student. Now let’s talk about college.” Manuel went on to earn a PhD degree in psychology and became a top human resource development person working for Digital Equipment Corporation before joining Masterful Coaching. The way Frank Sterns spoke and listened demonstrated to me that he had mastered the masterful coaching teachable point of view and the robust toolbox. Manuel was an astute student of the masterful coaching method, checking in with us before and after each coaching meeting with Frank and his leadership team. It wasn’t until I interviewed Frank for this book, however, two or three years after Manuel had worked with him, that I realized that Manuel had really earned a third degree black belt in masterful coaching. It came through to me clearly in listening to Frank speak about his coaching experiences at the Gulf Coast refinery that Manuel had recreated the entire masterful coaching teachable point of view so that it existed independently of him, and of me, its originator.
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Passion for living, impossible futures, winning results, standing in people’s greatness, leadership and business breakthroughs, talent quests, coaching, and management by follow up.
I have captured here the interview almost in its entirety because there is a difference between the way a professional coach or consultant speaks about these things and the way a hard-driven manager speaks about them.You can learn a lot about leadership and action coaching from this interview, as well as a lot about how to dramatically improve any business operation. I have
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reserved most of the interviews for Part Three of this book. However, Frank offers such a brilliant example, I have moved this interview up to the front chapters, where it stands alone, and written the rest of this chapter as a wrap for what he has to say. Frank has moved on from being the Gulf Coast refinery manager. He is now leader of capital projects for the company and is involved in monster jobs like the construction of a multi-billion-dollar oil refinery in Saudi Arabia and a major refinery upgrade in Germany. ROBERT:
Did you declare an impossible future at Lake Carles Refinery?
FRANK:
We really did create an impossible future for our company. Yet I want to start out by saying that the work we did with Masterful Coaching was really an important part of my success at the refinery, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of profit for the company. Our vision was “one team, engaged, able, and stable.” I was pretty consistent in using the Masterful Coaching approach at Lake Carles. We were really struggling at the refinery with lots of shutdowns, which translates into lost profit opportunities. Due to a poor market and operating problems, we were not making any money, and when I left that job, both the market and our operations had improved to the point that we were the highest-earning refinery in the system. At the same time, the refinery had its best ever safety performance my last year there. Good work processes with a design for sustainability and attention to detail helped us run the refinery well on all fronts.
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My vision was one team, able, and stable.
When I first got to the refinery we had a strategy session and in that first meeting with the leadership team, we put up a lot of Post-it notes on what we had achieved.We looked at facts, accomplishments, strengths, gaps, what’s working, and what’s not working. We then looked at “what was missing that could impact the situation.” We created three strategic imperatives that everyone was involved in: (1) production, (2) operating costs, (3) people development to build organizational capability. I turned this into a very formal coaching and work process. Goals were set, plans were made, and there was a master schedule. It was very regimented so people knew exactly what to expect. I eventually put it on line.
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I needed to inject tons of positive energy to transform the climate of resignation into a climate of possibility.
I asked people what they liked and did not like about the refinery. One thing that became very clear was that in many ways the refinery felt bad about itself. Supervision appeared somewhat dysfunctional, and the operations didn’t make the expected return on investment. Many of my top managers said,“If I had a choice, I would get out of the place as fast as I could.” I did everything I could to inject positive energy into the place, starting with building a shared vision and taking every opportunity to share it with other people at all levels. This was vital to breaking the spell of resignation that seemed to be prevalent, and to creating a climate of opportunity.
ROBERT:
What was your winning game plan for turning the operation around?
FRANK:
It is my belief that talented people and a winning team are more important than a clever strategy in a commodity manufacturing business. We had some of the wrong players on the team, and as a result, things went slower than I wanted them to at first. We had to build a winning organization, and to do that we had to have the right players in the right jobs. We wanted to make a bunch of winners out of that team. We were committed to redeploying our talent in a way that would make us very capable at all levels of the organization. My standing orders are:“Look for great people, not just ordinary people.” I would rather run short handed in a key leadership position and wait for the right person than operate with mediocre, middle-of-the-road people. I also won’t tolerate poor people on my team. I will coach people to get better, but I will also redeploy them, or let them go, if they are a square peg in a round hole.Yet we not only needed to be one team of talented, able people to get to our vision, we needed to be a stable facility. One thing I wanted so we could reach our vision and be a team was stability, not emergency operations. The first year I was there, we were in emergency incident command twelve to thirteen times. We were running around the place 24/7 and I was saying to myself,“This is a hell of a way to live.” To achieve stable operations not
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only involved setting high goals and working together as a team but setting up processes that would ensure the sustainability of the improvements we made. We needed to become very process oriented and to set up the metrics and audits necessary to ensure we followed the processes. We began by asking people to stand in the future and describe what success would look like in their area of responsibility three to five years from now. From this starting point we worked backward to the present and identified the sequences of big milestones necessary to achieve that success. From these milestones, we developed the multiyear strategies and near-term tactics necessary to start moving toward that future. We then told people to imagine that they had successfully reached their goal.“If you come back five years after leaving the refinery and the improvement has disappeared, you would have failed.” We coached people to make the improvement sustainable by asking them,“How do you know it is going to survive you when you leave?” We coached around getting improvement processes in place and then kept up with them. In a big organization you have to have something that stays when people leave. I told people our job is to make money, not just to run a refinery. We don’t control the market, but we control other things, such as energy consumption, utilization, up time, and operating costs. We must track improvements in their areas right to the bottom line and show steady progress regardless of the market. I coached each individual on the leadership team to set goals, taking responsibility for a work process and the metrics necessary to support that work process.
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One key coaching tool was to set up high goals and metrics that really mattered. Every metric was mapped to a work process.
The refinery historically produced many metrics of ongoing operations. The problem I saw was that the ownership of the metrics was poorly defined, and they were not tied to any particular work processes. Metrics came and went, depending on the focus of the various supervisors currently in place. As a result, critical measures once put in place as a result of some painful lessons learned often just faded away when the next manager arrived.The problem would then reemerge, and a new task team would be assigned to
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solve it. As a result, there was a saw-tooth history of performance at the refinery of getting better and then backsliding. To the hourly workers, who saw plant supervision come and go over decades, this performance pattern seemed a ridiculous way to run a business. I agreed and became committed to find long-term solutions that would survive after people moved on. This is when we structured our manufacturing management system (MMS). The MMS was a master framework of all the activities required to run our business, from HR to shipping quality products on time. A hierarchy of work processes was fitted within the framework to cover everything from refinery leadership activities down to hourly operating and maintenance procedures. Many of these items already existed but in a variety of systems and with overlaps and gaps. The MMS provided a full picture of our work, including the interrelationship of the various processes. The metrics for our business were then mapped to the work processes and procedures within the MMS.Like the work processes,each metric had a defined owner.If the owner believed the metric should be changed or eliminated, he had to take it to the next level and go through a change management process to do so.Once a year,the leadership team had to perform a formal attestation of all the metrics that fell under its area of responsibility,to confirm the metrics were still valid and still being watched in the appropriate manner.A formal audit program was made part of the MMS, to ensure that the proper level of performance would be maintained as managers came and went from the refinery.
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ROBERT:
What role did coaching play in both coming up with the winning game plan and executing it?
FRANK:
Coaching played a huge role in declaring and aligning everyone around our vision of achieving stable operations, as well as developing a winning game plan. I want to emphasize that it is important to create a multiyear plan to achieve the vision. If all you want to do is accomplish something this year, then you probably don’t have a big enough plan. As mentioned earlier, I ask people to put themselves out into the future— three or more years—and ask,“What do I want to accomplish? What would that look like?”You work backward by asking them,“What would have to be in place this year to set the stage for achieving that goal? What about next year? What do you have to do first? Buying technology? Building something? Nurturing relationships?”This becomes the basis of everyone’s formal three-year, one-year, ninety-day, and monthly plans.
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Where most leaders screw up is that they have a vision of where they want to go but they put together the most rudimentary plan for how to get there, without any specific actions and without a schedule. Sometimes the kind of coaching I am talking about here is a pain in the neck to people. One human resource guy told me,“I don’t like doing this, but it has made a difference.” The three-year plan is not too detailed, but does chart what success will look like.The one-year plan has more details, and the ninety-day plan is even more detailed. Obviously, the thirty-day plan that we review once a month is the most detailed, and for that reason I coach people on the what and the how on a monthly basis. Multiyear planning helps people see that we are on a structure improvement journey and minimizes corporate flavor-of-the-month syndrome. As people left the refinery, their three-year plans were passed on to their successors. Now and then things will go wrong. If that happens, I don’t talk to people in terms of “what’s wrong with you.” I say,“Let’s talk about what happened, and what we can learn from it,” and,“Let’s talk about what’s missing that will produce the desired results.” Sometimes people do not know what to do, and you have to be prescriptive. I say,“I will tell you how to do this one. Next time you are going to tell me how to do it. I am going to act as your thinking partner.” The worst thing managers do is to tell people that they expect them to do something, then go off and forget about it. It tells people,“This isn’t important.” If it is important enough for you to ask for, you do a disservice to people if you don’t follow up on things that you ask them to do. If you do not do the follow-up, they could be just sitting there, floundering, when a few words from you could help them a lot. ROBERT:
Did you set up individual leadership and business breakthroughs?
FRANK:
I wanted people to have some passion about things, and so I asked everyone on the leadership team to create a leadership and business breakthrough. I think an organization has more energy when people have something they are going for bigger than themselves. I coached people to the effect of, “How can you expect your folks to get excited about what they are doing if you are not excited about what you are doing.” People would say,“Here is my business breakthrough goal for the year, and I am really excited about it.”
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People would say, “Here’s my business breakthrough.” I’d say, “Good, tell me about your leadership breakthrough.”
I would say,“Good, tell me about the kind of leadership breakthrough you need to have to achieve it. Stand out into the future five years from now and imagine what you look like as a leader. How is that different than how you look as a leader today?” I would sit down with people at least once a month (most of the time on an everytwo-weeks basis) and review their leadership breakthrough and business breakthroughs. We would look not at the goals but at the concrete plan and go through it. It is a vitally important part of coaching to keep revisiting these things rather than letting them drop through the cracks. Many managers set goals with people, urge them to act, then never follow up at all.
I discovered one coaching conversation can make the difference between a breakdown and a breakthrough.
ROBERT:
How did you measure whether you achieved your leadership and business breakthroughs?
FRANK:
We established, in addition to business goals, certain conditions for success.We knew we achieved a breakthrough by dramatically improving key metrics such as refinery up time and lost profit opportunities associated with the refinery being shut down for repairs or whatever. Every month we would review those key metrics around up time.We decided that it would be a breakthrough if we could make a 20 percent less lost profit opportunity (LPO) than the prior year.Then we said,“Let’s cut LPO in half for the next year.” We wanted to be at our target of 88 percent of utilization of the refinery with a 90 percent reduction in LPO. Again, I coached individuals on the leadership team and others on not just their business breakthrough but also the metrics and processes that they were tied to, which turned out to have tremendous bottom-line impact.
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ROBERT:
Did you coach anyone to make a dramatic leadership breakthrough that involved them coaching the next level?
FRANK:
Yep! John Toll, a high-potential fella with great attitude and aptitude.You could just see him blossom as he got the leadership and masterful coaching tools in his hands. He started as our optimization manager. I sat down with him and set his business breakthrough and then his leadership breakthrough. He really turned his business piece around. His big leadership breakthrough was taking a team that had kind of mediocre performance and getting it to be great. He got people focusing on leadership and business breakthroughs. I gave him the coaching tools he needed to make that happen by telling him to bring his team together around a shared vision, set the goals, plan, and keep at it with people. Create a written plan, that is time based, and coach around that. If people don’t get it, you don’t beat them up. It is not,“Why didn’t you do that?” It is,“What happened and what can you learn?” He was able to use that accountability model to work with people to get them performing. Exhibit 9.1 is an e-mail exchange between Frank Sterns and one of his coachees. It is a great example of powerful and effective coaching.
EXHIBIT 9.1 E-mail conversation between a leader as coach and a coachee
From: Frank To: Ralph Subject: Action Coaching Business Challenge As you requested, I took a look at your Action Coaching business challenge. It looks like a very detailed plan that should move you well down the road toward “Be the Best . . .” I would offer a few comments as food for thought. To be the best is sometimes an abstract destination. You have put very specific numbers in your Conditions of Satisfaction to ensure that everyone understand what “the best” means. You are, however, setting your sights on being the best in so many categories, I wonder if your organization really understands what you want them most focused upon. Pacesetter refineries are never the best in every category. They are good in
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nearly all categories, but usually the best in those that they drive with a clear focused message. I don’t have a magic answer for you, but if you wanted every last employee to remember just 2 or 3 points of your message; what would they be? That should help with your focus. It is difficult to be the best all at once. Consider setting some performance milestones 3 to 6 months out. Some of these are already shown in your Conditions of Satisfaction and could be moved to Short-Term Breakthrough Goals. The most significant comment I have to make to you is to thoughtfully fill out the sections “Dilemmas and Breakdowns,” “What’s Missing That Will Make a Difference,” and “Key Learnings and Coachings.” People striving for success often put all their efforts into accounting for what they have accomplished, and little effort into openly reflecting upon their dilemmas. If we are to ever be truly successful, people must be more forthcoming with identifying shortcoming and breakdowns. This is not a sign of weakness or failure, but quite the opposite. Only people secure in their abilities are willing to be vulnerable in this way. Our best people must lead the way in putting breakdowns on the table or employees who already feel insecure will never have the courage to do it. It has been my challenge in Action Coaching to be more open with my boss about where things did not go as planned and get his input. When I have done this and put away my natural defensiveness about all the good things I have been doing, our conversation becomes much richer. He knows I work hard and do many good things, but the gold is in reflecting on what is missing. If we put 20% of our time on discussing what we accomplished and 80% on what could be better, our coaching time will be more leveraged and our success more assured. Hope this is of some value to you, Ralph. Have a good day, Frank From: Ralph To: Frank Subject: RE: Action Coaching Business Challenge Thank you, Frank, for the thoughtful comments & insight. I appreciate having the opportunity to benefit from your wisdom. I will make adjustments to my business challenge per your suggestions. I am especially intrigued by the insight conveyed by your last point . . . your “most significant comment.” This feedback hits me square “between the eyes.” You have helped me over the past year to truly recognize a significant flaw in myself that I must change: I have always driven to be at the “top of my game” in everything, all the time (being “vulnerable” simply hasn’t been in my repertoire). And as you articulated, since this isn’t really possible, then my performance gaps can be clouded w/ defensiveness &
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consequently important opportunities for growth & performance improvement can be missed or at least impaired. I must & will have the courage to more openly identify & close these gaps. Please continue to hold me accountable for making this change. I will need help along the way. Ralph
MASTERFUL COACHING CERTIFICATION PROGRAMS At Masterful Coaching we pride ourselves on having some of the best executive and team coaching programs in the world. At the same time, we are always asking ourselves, “What’s missing that if provided would make a difference?” Since working with Frank Sterns and others, we have noticed two things that fall into this box. First, people saw value in our having a formal masterful coaching certification program, and as a result, we decided to design one. (For more information visit RobertHargrove.com.) In conjunction with the masterful coaching certification program, we have developed a masterful coaching online coaching system, MyGamePlan.Net. This system is both a way to transform leaders at all levels into coaches and a way to create line of sight from the impossible future to each person’s job. Far more than a performance management tool, it allows people not only to formulate leadership and business breakthroughs with a structure for fulfillment but also to engage in monthly catalytic coaching conversations that otherwise might never happen. This masterful coaching online coaching system has many additional benefits. First, when you are coaching five to ten people, it is enormously useful to have a dashboard with each person’s goals and structure for fulfillment for reaching those goals all in one place. Second, coaching people to design and review progress on key goals, metrics, thirty-day actions plans, and so on can generate a tremendous amount of paperwork, and the system helps you keep track of what might otherwise be random pieces of paper floating around your desk. Third, the online system prompts you to get that next coaching session on the calendar, like the performance review you might otherwise avoid having. Finally, it puts a library of the masterful coaching situation-specific TPOVs, methods, and tools at your fingertips. With MyGamePlan, people are coached to reach their own impossible futures and to move through the five phases of breakthrough. There are twelve coaching sessions over the year, and MyGamePlan helps the coach prepare for each one by looking at three distinct questions: (1) What results do you want to achieve from this session? For example, build shared understood
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goals, get across a teachable point of view about success, or provide performance feedback. (2) Who do you need to be (where should you come from) in your interaction with the person, so that she, for example, stretches herself, listens to your TPOV, or takes your feedback to heart? (3) If you could script how you want this conversation to go, what would you say first? Second? and so on. MyGamePlan also prepares the coachee for the coaching session by asking him a series of questions designed to stimulate his thinking; the answers are sent to the coach before the coaching session. This gives people clarity about their goals, where they are in relation to achieving each goal and where they would like coaching. It also ensures that the right conversations happen at the right time.
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C H A P T E R
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CODA Coaching in Business as the Ultimate Self-Development and Growth Experience A young and freshly minted Harvard MBA in the marketing department of Proctor and Gamble was asked by her boss to determine how big the hole in the Ivory shampoo bottle should be: threeeighths of an inch or one-eighth of an inch.When she complained that this was not very meaningful work, her boss’s advice was to do the best job you can do at whatever you’re assigned, even if you think it’s boring. She followed his advice, but went home at night wondering how she got from HBS to this. Later she realized that any job was an opportunity to prove herself. Her name was Meg Whitman, and she went on to become CEO of eBay and one of the most powerful executives in the world.1 I have stated many times in this book that masterful coaching in the context of business is the ultimate, self-development and growth experience. The role of a masterful coach is a two-sided coin. On one side of the coin masterful coaching is all about helping people grow and develop as human beings for the sheer joy of making a difference in people’s lives. On the other side of the coin masterful coaching is about expanding people’s capacity to produce extraordinary and
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tangible results in their business, with colleagues and amid change, complexity, and competition. The point is that the two sides of the masterful coaching coin are structurally coupled, not only in theory but also in practice. When Fred Smith invented FedEx, it involved not only a brilliant act of leadership—the willingness to take a stand for an idea whose time had come—but also putting himself in the pressure cooker of having to design the massive FedEx logistics system, meet payroll (even if it required flying to Las Vegas and gambling his last dollars), and delivering on the promise of “absolutely positively overnight.” One can only imagine who Fred Smith was as a human being before he did all of that, and who he was to become as a result of doing it. I am not talking just about his position as CEO of FedEx but who he was as a person. How did he need to develop as a leader, financier, team builder, master politician, and salesman? People may be able to reach their goals and aspirations without coaching, but coaching gives people power and velocity for achieving what they need to achieve. One of the tools in masterful coaching (Zen and the Art of People Development) is choosing people to work with who have a passion for life, big ambitions, and lots of desire. If you match that with people who have pursued mastery in a domain—so that they now have both consummate skill and artistry in terms of their ability to deliver virtuosos performances—and who have the desire to develop their protégés, you have a potent combination for accelerated people development. One of the most important things for you to notice as a coach is whether the people you want to develop have a big enough personal and organizational ambition? Do they have the wild look in their eye that tells you they are willing to push beyond constraints internally (and externally) to get the results? Do they have the hunger, the yearning? Ask yourself, does this person have a big enough ambition? A hunger? A yearning? My client (friend) Andy Gfesser, for example, of Trendler, Inc., has an intention to transform a small, Midwestern (rust belt) manufacturing company dealing with foreign competition, high costs, and union issues into a world-class global company and an inspired organization that triples its revenues in ten years. Andy constantly injects positive energy into his business and is incredibly results oriented. Yet he realizes that the first step in dramatic organization change is obviously dramatic personal change. He took to masterful coaching like a duck to water, listening profoundly to most of the advice I have given him about how to transform his business. How do I know? He has enacted at least 85 percent of the stuff I have talked to him about. People need a healthy ego to realize an impossible future and win, but they also need to learn how to subordinate that ego. Coaching an individual or team to achieve an impossible future and win in the great game of business today, in a tough environment where the only rule is that there
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are no rules, is a little bit like alchemy. The quest to come up with a game-changing strategy, master organizational politics, create insanely great products (not just exciting services but gaspworthy experiences), create customer intimacy, and yes, pay the bills provides the perfect alchemical cauldron in which people can discover and express their ability to achieve extraordinary results and at the same time become extraordinary leaders. In the normal course of events we don’t associate business with spirituality and transcending the ego, but you cannot inspire people with a vision that unleashes the human spirit into action; bring a team together around a noble and mighty purpose so that people subordinate their egos; design, build, and market test the next iPod or Cirque du Soleil; create customers who are raving fans; deal with bone-crushing competitors; or just roll up your sleeves and get the job done without reaching up and touching things spiritual.You cannot do such things without burning off a lot of the crud in your personality or character and dropping baggage you have been carrying around since childhood.
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Winning at the great game of business often requires calling forth personal and corporate courage you did not know was there.
A story Andy once told me also reminded me that you can’t reach your business goals and aspirations without courage. I am not talking just about personal courage but about corporate courage. As the story goes, Andy and company were in a labor negotiation, speaking and listening in good faith, when one of the union negotiators abruptly stood up and said, “We are not getting anyplace; we need to go to arbitration.” The next week Andy and company met with the arbitrator, and a whole new set of union guys. Each side made its case, at which point the arbitrator stood up and said,“I see Trendler is negotiating in good faith and so there is no need for me to be here except to say the union needs to operate in good faith.”
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The union guy said to Andy, “50 lbs. of cement will do,” threatening to throw him into the East River if he didn’t come to terms.
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After the arbitrator left, Andy stood there packing up his stuff. All the union negotiators left the room, except for a six-foot-five guy named Julio who was built like King Kong. Julio closed the door to the room and stood in front of it. He stared at Andy and said, “I think all it would take would be 50 lbs. of cement,” implying that if Andy and company did not come to favorable terms with the union, they were going to throw him in the river with a pair of cement overshoes. Andy, who is slim and wiry and stands about five foot nine inches, said, without missing a beat, “No, I think it will take about 150 pounds of cement.” Julio said,“You are not that heavy.” Andy responded.“I am not talking about me. I am talking about you.” The union bully, whose pals were probably listening in through the peephole in the doorway, looked surprised. Andy went on, “Look, you scumbag, my parents didn’t immigrate from Austria, coming to this country penniless to start a business on a shoestring, so that their third-born son could stand in this room and be threatened by a big bag of wind like you. “I tell you what. We either end this right now, and you tell me that you will never ever threaten me again, or we take it out into the parking lot and settle our differences there. I want to sleep at night, and I have a family, and I want to know that this is going to end now, before we leave this room, or you and I are going to go at it in short order.” Julio blinked and nodded, saying it was over. When they left the room, Andy, who is trained in the Asian art of saving face, said with a big smile to the other union guys, “Julio did a really great job.” Yet he reflected as he walked out the door,“I don’t know where that act of courage came from.” Andy, who believes in accord with the spiritual principles of Kabala mysticism that “God put us on earth to help each other and we are fulfilled in doing so,” later went way out of his way to befriend Julio, greeting him warmly whenever he came to the Trendler offices.“I really did a lot to help him and his family, including helping his son get into college. We have a great relationship now. We’re friends.”2
OK, COACH! HERE’S HOW TO MAKE BUSINESS THE ULTIMATE SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH EXPERIENCE I could fill volumes on this topic, but for now I am going to give you just three big ideas in the rest of this chapter to think about, along with some things to do and pitfalls to avoid:
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1. Set high goals; hold people accountable for results; never settle for less than excellence. 2. Put on your guru’s hat; sit with people in darshan; provide your teachable point of view (TPOV) in a way that is life altering. 3. Give people the opportunity to study with a master (foster mastery in entrepreneurial leadership, product design, operation excellence, cooking . . . )
BIG IDEA 1
SET HIGH GOALS; HOLD PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE FOR RESULTS; NEVER SETTLE FOR LESS THAN EXCELLENCE
The role of the coach is to make sure coaching people to create a winning business can provide the context for the ultimate self-development and growth experience. That is, self-development and growth should happen consciously and intentionally rather than by accident. I think that perhaps one of the first things to do is to enroll yourself in the game:“I am here to develop extraordinary leaders and extraordinary results and to make a difference in people’s lives.” Set big goals, ones with a big gap between the future and current reality. The first step when coaching people is to declare an impossible future and to set high goals that represent a significant gap between the aspiration and the current reality. Big leaders, difference makers, high achievers love living inside the gap. The gap represents not just what people need to go to work on to achieve the desired results but also how people need to grow and develop (transform) in order to meet those goals. (See Figure 10.1.) FIGURE 10.1 Leaders, difference makers, and high achievers love living in the gap
Current reality
Impossible future
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Welcome the breakdowns!
Masterful coaches love living inside the gap and looking for what’s missing that if provided will fill the gap. In Chapter Nine I discussed setting business breakthroughs and then looking at who you needed to be as a leader to achieve your breakthrough. On the business side it’s a good idea to identify some catalytic breakthrough projects that if fulfilled would make a difference in filling the gap. It is also a good idea to create a leadership roadmap (Chapter Five) that represents the personal growth and development side of the equation.
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The faster you can get to the breakdown and to what’s missing, the faster people will get out of it.
It is important to create a climate of breakthrough, accountability, and learning. It is setting high goals and holding people accountable that creates the opening for breakthroughs in results and breakthroughs for people. In the masterful coaching certification program I am often asked:“How do I hold people accountable for extraordinary results so they get excited about learning from breakdowns rather than shutting down and clamming up?” There is a place to come from in yourself that will allow you to do this. When I am coaching people on their leadership and business breakthrough goals, I follow these guidelines.
Holding People Accountable for Extraordinary Results in the Face of Breakdowns 1. Tell people:“I just want to consistently bring to the forefront your commitments for the year, not manage you on something.” 2. Say,“I want to look with you at (a) how you are doing with your goals, (b) what you have accomplished, and (c) whether you are on track.” 3. Always come from the belief that people are committed and that people want to succeed with their commitments.
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4. Respect that direct reports have taken on a large commitment and recognize that there will be breakdowns. (A breakdown is an unexpected problem that arises in going for a result, interrupts progress, and must be resolved to proceed. There is a tendency among coaches to want no breakdowns, but that’s kind of stupid.) 5. Welcome breakdowns in the face of large commitments. It is not wrong to have them. A breakdown could involve a leadership issue, a team conflict, hitting a political quagmire, failing to accept coaching, not delivering on a concrete result, or settling for less than excellence. All these conditions are opportunities for coaching and learning. 6. Honestly acknowledge breakdowns, and then look at what’s missing in them and around them. What’s missing is different from what’s wrong. What’s missing is what needs to be provided for people to achieve their goals. 7. Recognize that despite our tendency to question people’s commitment, 99 percent of the time it is not commitment that’s missing. Questioning people’s commitment invalidates them and shuts them down. 8. Instead, if people do not fulfill their commitment or fail to do something they said they would do, ask this question:“What’s missing that if provided will make a difference?” 9. Be aware that what’s missing is not always obvious. You and the coachee together must discover the answer. Once that happens the lightbulb goes on and the person gets back into action. Consider these things: a. Is it your acknowledgment that’s missing? b. Did you force the goal on the person, or does she have a poor plan? c. Is the person unable to distinguish between excellent results and results that are just good enough? d. Does the person need further work on his leadership development or help with resolving team conflicts?
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e. Does the person need coaching or mentoring in subject matter expertise? f. Does the person have a misguided belief or assumption that led to a poor plan? g. Does the person have a “give up” attitude due to changes in the business environment? h. Does the person lack alignment with others? i. Does the person lack information? 10. Remember, you cannot manage the scoreboard, only things that will lead to the scoreboard going up.
BIG IDEA 2
PUT ON YOUR GURU’S HAT AND SIT WITH PEOPLE IN DARSHAN; PROVIDE YOUR TPOV IN A WAY THAT IS LIFE ALTERING
When you are talking to people about their leadership and business breakthroughs and their catalytic breakthrough projects, you will start to notice where you need to talk about altering how they are being or about a teachable point of view that will shift their perspective and allow them to adjust their actions. There are two ways to do this: one-to-one or in groups. Either can be done in formal meetings or on the fly. Back in the 1970s, I had the opportunity to interview some of the greatest gurus on the planet, from places like Tibet, India, and China. Among them were Swami Muktananda, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and Da Free John (an American), who was extraordinarily powerful. The gurus have a practice they call darshan, which means, basically,“sitting with the master,” and by extension,“seeing” things clearly, as if for the first time. Masters with great spiritual natures are able to give people Shaktipat, a term from Sanskrit and Hindi that refers to the act of a guru conferring a form of spiritual power or awakening on a disciple or student. Shaktipat can be carried out by either touch or presence, intentionally or accidentally, igniting visions or enlightenment, or at the very least leading to the moment of true insight.
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These gurus were always talking about this thing called Shaktipat, but I think it is well beyond the range of most executive coaches, CEOs, and human resource types. Nevertheless there is a part of the gurus’ darshan that is well worth emulating. In an earlier chapter I said that a business guru is a wise man or woman who listens carefully and provides a powerful teachable point of view. Business gurus can in the odd moment—the hour of the unexpected—say the one thing that can alter another’s perspective, way of being, mind set, and behavior. I think that if we want to be masterful coaches, we would do better to emulate the great gurus than to fall back on being keynote speakers or trainers, parading around a room with amateur theatrics, while PowerPoint images dance on the screen. I have reached a point in life where I have accumulated enough golden nuggets of wisdom that I would like to sit in darshan with a big group of people who have a big listening for the masterful coaching approach, and give my satsang, that is, my “lessons.” I have a basic come from in my work consistent with what the Dalai Lama once told me,“Compassion is experiencing other people’s suffering as your own and our work in this world is to alleviate suffering.”
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Compassion is experiencing other people’s suffering as your own and our work in this world is to alleviate suffering. The Dalai Lama
It is my greatest pleasure to listen to people talk about whatever goal or problem is on their minds. In so doing, I listen for ways of being, mind-sets, attitudes, or behaviors that will lead to breakdowns rather than intended results. I listen for a long enough time and then when I come to the moment of true insight, I share with them one of the many TPOVs I have built up over the past twenty-five years or a favorite story or quote. If you are too young to have gathered a lot of golden nuggets of wisdom, spend the next few years doing so.
CREATE A MASTERFUL COACHING READING LIST FOR YOURSELF I began my career as a masterful coach reading dozens of spiritual books: The Tao Teh King, the I Ching, The Art of War, The Analects of Confucius, the biography of Miyamoto Musashi
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(the great Samurai), The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Holy Bible, the Essene Gospels, the Koran. I also read many books by social historians, such as Lewis Mumford’s The Human Prospect and William Irwin Thompson’s Passages About Earth. Here are some of my favorites. I read the autobiographies of Einstein and Freud and, biographies of great leaders such as George Washington, John Adams, and Abraham Lincoln. I also love all of the books of James MacGregor Burns (author of Transforming Leadership and the Pulitzer prize–winning Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox). I love business books, like Alfred P. Sloan’s My Years with General Motors, all Peter Drucker’s stuff, and of course the ever-passionate Tom Peters’s In Search of Excellence and everything else of his since.
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When I walk into a room for a coaching session all of this collective wisdom comes with me, together with thousands of quotations I have committed to memory over the years.
In my early career I read dozens of books of famous quotations and then would go outside my home in Boston and speak them out loud to the trees in my backyard. Soon I began mixing them up (creatively synthesizing them) in my mind, and couldn’t tell which were mine and which came from the great masters. I made a discipline that comes out in my darshan, both one-to-one and with groups: “My commitment is to make sure that everything that comes out of my mouth creates value for people.”
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I love the big idea, the profound insight, but try to lace all of my comments with what the Buddhists call “crazy wisdom.”
I have learned over the years that it is not the teachable points of view and ideas one reads in books that are the most powerful but the ideas that come directly from the hard lessons of personal experience. I have already shared with you, in describing the masterful coaching fivestep model (Chapter Five), the importance of articulating your TPOV. I encourage you to do a simple exercise that you can do on one page of paper. On the front write the headline, “My TPOV About Winning in This Business or Business in General,” and then write out that
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TPOV. On the back write the headline,“My Favorite TPOVs About Leadership, Coaching Culture, and People Development,” and then write out those TPOVs. As I have mentioned several times already, use colorful, up, sticky language.
TPOV Examples 1. Leadership emerges in taking a stand and discovering yourself as the stand that you take. 2. Speak from a stand and not from an emotional state; don’t belittle. 3. Never settle for less than excellence. The pursuit of excellent results is the ultimate selfdevelopment experience. 4. Get beyond your noble certainties and take a learning attitude. 5. All of us are smarter than any one of us (Ken Blanchard). Stop trying to be the smartest one in the room. 6. Increase your question-to-talk ratio. Balance advocacy and inquiry. 7. Don’t be stupid on both ends of a stick—go from one extreme to the other (Bill Patterson). 8. Make a list of things to do, and do it. Execute! 9. Don’t plan, prototype—bypass elaborate planning and preparation. 10. Punish mediocre successes; praise fast failures experiments.
IF DARSHAN IS NOT YOUR CUP OF TEA, START A LEADERSHIP CIRCLE You have worked hard to grow a business.You have a passion for growth but have hit a wall.You need to call yourself forth as a leader and come up with some breakthrough strategies to get
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through it.Yeah, you are worried that you may be trapped in your old personal (or organizational) winning strategies. You don’t have a professional coach or perhaps even a human resource department to send you to Harvard for executive education courses with people like Michael Porter. What do you do? A great idea for producing leadership and business breakthroughs is to create a leadership circle. First, find someone to be a coach (moderator), someone who can bring value to the dialogue. Second, invite seven or so business leaders to participate, people whose jobs are roughly related to your own: for example, CEOs of entrepreneurial firms, business unit leaders, or team leaders. Each person goes into the hot seat and talks for about twenty minutes about his or her goals and problems. The other people in the group are requested not to say anything, just to listen with sympathetic understanding and awareness. I have discovered that simply being a committed listener in a learning circle as others talk can bring tremendous insights on goals, problems, breakdown places, and learning edges. After everyone has finished speaking, the group engages in a free-flowing dialogue. People are free to ask each other questions and to give or seek advice. The group may choose to home in on one topic, such as inspirational leadership, or to reflect deeply on a TPOV offered by the coach (moderator), such as “don’t add before you subtract,” or to discuss topics such as breaking out of the no-growth morass. The leadership circle is a very powerful process that not only creates a network of peer-level coaches but also leads to job-related insights about leadership and job performance.
USE THE HOT SEAT EXERCISE TO DEVELOP MASTERFUL COACHES AND CATALYZE PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION The Hot Seat is a very powerful group exercise designed to support people in giving others in their team or group feedback that makes a difference. Besides influencing individuals, this exercise also affects the team and begins to create a culture of coaching, authentic feedback, and people standing for each other. (This exercise, if done correctly, takes some time to complete. Make sure you have set aside enough uninterrupted time to complete it.) 1. The coach invites people to sit in chairs in a circle or around a table, so that everyone can see all the others.
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2. The coach tells people that they will be participating in an exercise that is designed to support the team members in giving each other authentic feedback. The intention is to be able to coach each other to be better leaders and team players. 3. One by one, each person will go into the hot seat. When a person is in the hot seat, the others (going around the circle) will give him or her feedback, using the following coaching protocol. (The coach should monitor this very tightly. Have people use the exact words. If people stray from the wording, bring them back to it.) • “What I appreciate about you is . . .” • “Where I have difficulty with you is . . .” (or,“What I believe your learning edge is . . .”) • “What I would like to create with you is . . .” (state this personally and in terms of the business). 4. The person in the hot seat does not respond while getting the feedback. This person’s job is just to listen (whether he or she agrees or disagrees) and to try to get the message in what the other people are saying. 5. People giving the feedback should focus on the following: • Consider what you can say that will make a difference for this person. • Give feedback using both your head and your heart. • Don’t sugarcoat it. • If you make an assessment, give data that substantiate it. • Give people the gift of your presence, whether you are giving feedback or listening to others do so.
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6. When everyone has given feedback to the person in the hot seat, that person has a few minutes to respond. This is not a time for the person to defend himself or herself or to give another point of view, but an opportunity to say something to the group that lets them know that the person is appreciative of the feedback and that he or she “got” it. 7. During the session the coach makes sure there is no talking, joking, or other behavior that might arise as a result of people’s discomfort with either giving or getting authentic feedback or watching others receive it (something that is often difficult for people). Create a respectful space where the feedback can go deep enough to make a difference for people.
BIG IDEA 3
CREATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR PEOPLE TO STUDY WITH A MASTER ON WHAT THEY ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT
The whole idea of studying with a master is based on creating a special relationship with someone who has consummate skill and artistry in a domain and is willing to recreate that in you. The master designs special classrooms where people study with the master, and then creates opportunities for people to practice what they have learned in real-world situations where they are held accountable for results. For example, the evening before I sat down to write this chapter, I watched a reality show called Hell’s Kitchen, which was intended as entertainment and may have been written off by the casual viewer as just another silly reality show, but in actuality it demonstrated both the power of studying with a master and how the pursuit of mastery in any field of business can lead to the ultimate self-development and growth experience. The star of Hell’s Kitchen is master chef Jack Ramsay, who takes ten journeyman cooks on as apprentices for a year. The student chefs are there to master the culinary arts and to compete with each other to win the ultimate prize of their own trendy, upscale restaurant (a $17 million showpiece) at the billion-dollar Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas. So you are a master at . . . The apprentices go to “cooking school” with master chef Jack Ramsay between shows and then have to perform, in prime time, in a five-star, gourmet restaurant.
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To draw on a sports metaphor, people move back and forth between the performance field and practice field, accelerating their ability to produce results and develop. Decide whom you want to grow and develop and what results you want them to be able to produce. Coach Ramsay is constantly putting the participants in a culinary pressure cooker—situations where the young, inexperienced, fumbling chef and restaurateur wannabes have to perform gastronomic miracles under high degrees of stress and pressure. Ramsay gives them, in advance, the menu and a recipe book and then puts them on stage to cook in Hell’s Kitchen, a five-star gourmet restaurant with live customers. Create a practice field where people can learn. The bar of excellence is very high, and Ramsay’s feedback is so far to the side of near-brutal candor it’s almost abusive. (No superficial conviviality, as we see in most Fortune 500s.) “This Lobster Fra Diablo looks good but tastes terrible.” Yes, Chef. “Rick, move your big fat ass faster so we can get the appetizers served.” Yes, Chef. As Hank “plates” a chicken cordon bleu dish, Ramsay grabs it from the waiter.“This is raw, Hank.You are going to kill people. Cook it three more minutes.” Yes, Chef. “Larry, you are sweating into the food.” Sorry, Chef! “Virginia, you are a . . . friggin’ nightmare in a kitchen; cook the Chilean sea bass again, this time without preserving it in salt.” Yes, Chef. Create a performance field where people have to produce excellent results under time constraints and pressure. It is interesting that whatever Ramsay says, the students say “Yes, Chef,” either because they have surrendered to being coached by a master and are egoless or because they are afraid of being eliminated. As the series progresses over weeks and months, you can see people begin not only to master the culinary arts and produce great meals but also to grow and develop accordingly. Those that can’t are eliminated, either for attitude issues or lack of the ability to execute gastronomically. Move people back and forth between the performance field and practice field. You simply can’t turn out superb meals without discovering and expressing your passion for life, creativity, and imagination or your ability to move with speed and deftness around a kitchen—all qualities that may have been completely unknown to you before. In the episode I watch, there are only two chefs left—two attractive women, twenty-five-year-old Virginia, who, Ramsay said, could “taste excellence,” but whom he had frequently called a “kitchen clod” in earlier episodes, and Heather, who was “passionate” but had also had frequent run-ins with Ramsay due to slowness.
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Inspire and improvise by creating new challenges appropriate to people’s next developmental steps. You can see, however, by the last episode, where the ladies get to design their own restaurant in Vegas for the final cook-off, that who they are as human beings (wannabe head chefs) has been totally transformed by Ramsay and the pressure cooker he has created for them. Whatever their IQs are, it is obvious that the two young women have grown up a lot in terms of their EQs. At the same time, both of them, though friends, have developed incredible competitiveness, which neither had before.“I am going to take out Virginia,” Heather says,“I am going to give her the friggin’ fight of her life, and I am going to give everything I’ve got, with nothing left in reserve.” Acknowledge successes:“The person who I am now didn’t exist before; the person who I was before is no more.” The two women set out on the final cook-off and countdown, with assistant chefs being drawn from those who were eliminated on earlier shows. Ramsay’s love and affection for the people begins to express itself with helpful hints for restaurant design, menus, and tastings and his toughness, though still there, recedes. He emphasizes that it is obvious that the two women have to take leadership of their teams and generate teamwork order to turn out great meals on time to fifty people in a top Vegas restaurant that night. Heather picks up on the message, “I am not your friend,” she says to her team in sharp tones. “During the next three hours,” the twenty-five-year-old Heather says,“I am your boss.” As the appetizers are being served, she is readying her group to serve the main course, or signature dish, Chilean sea bass.“I need you to fire this scallop appetizer in three minutes.”“I need the sea bass sautéed. Now! Now! Now!” Virginia is arguably a better chef by a smidgen, but struggles with her team to get them to stand for her success and therefore to get the food out on time. She has a few scallop appetizers sent back, then makes a brilliant recovery with her braised short tips over mashed turnips with shitake drizzle. The show leads up to a big finale, with each woman being given a key that will fit one of two doors right next to each other. Only Heather’s key turns the lock and opens the door to her own restaurant. “Heather won,” says Jack Ramsay,“because of her determination and leadership. I have met my challenges and am on to new things . . . ,” he says, breaking up with a smile and signing off. In effect, what Jack Ramsay has created with this show is a situation where people not only study with a master but also work in a practice field. People on the show practice their dishes and get
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expert feedback under low-pressure conditions and then have to move to the performance field, the gourmet restaurant, and cook under stress and pressure. I suggest that executives and managers who want to develop passionate, talented, and ambitious high potentials give them the opportunity to study with a master, and also emulate Chef Ramsay, if not in style at least in the substance of creating both practice and performance fields that allow people to become extraordinary leaders and team managers in the process of producing results. 1. Find people who are really masters in a domain and recruit them. These people can come from inside or outside your organization: leadership and coaching gurus, marketing maestros, soul-in-the-new-machine product designers, Web masters, master chefs, maîtres de cabine. 2. Identify passionate, talented, ambitious people whom you want to develop. Brainstorm with a colleague until you can come up with five to ten of these people:“Let’s see, we need to develop 4 CEO candidates, 10 world-class operations people, 7 soul-stirring product designers, 25 marketing and sales maestros of the future, 3 master chefs, and 187 firstclass flight attendants.” 3. Create a cool business project that a person cannot achieve without morphing into a great leader, great designer, great chef. . . . Give apprentices the opportunity to pursue mastery in what they are passionate about. Find one or more cool projects, rapid prototypes, demos, quick wins, or menus to cook where people are held accountable for excellent results— the perfect alchemical cauldron for people to morph into great leaders, great designers, great salespeople, great chefs, whatever. I cannot overemphasize that never settling for less than excellence is the key to breakthroughs for people and breakthroughs in results. 4. Use the project as a practice and performance field to drive winning results and accelerate personal growth and development. Great coaches in sports move people onto the team from the practice field during the week in which they master the game plan and develop new skills and capabilities, putting them on the performance field where they have to perform against competition under stress and pressure. The coach notices what’s missing in people’s ways of being—leadership, teamwork, competitiveness—so people can adjust their actions. This concept applies not just to sports, but also to business and almost any field where the goal
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is accelerated people development or high performance, or both. Master chef Ramsay, as I discussed, is a great example of this. 5. Create a high-pressure timeline. People need to produce a result in weeks, not months. Ten days to make a sale; ten days to develop a rapid product prototype. For example, Tom Kelley at IDEO trained a group of up-and-comers by giving them seven days to reinvent the shopping cart so it would wow shoppers.3 6. Provide frequent feedback with near-brutal candor. Balance your edge in giving people feedback on results with compassion for how people need to transform to get the results. 7. Get behind people and help them succeed. Coach. Teach. Don’t focus just on what’s wrong; focus on what’s missing that if provided can make a difference.
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P A R T
I I I
CROSSING THE CHASM: INTERVIEWS WITH LEADERS DOING COACHING In this part of the book you are going to hear from leaders and managers in some of the best companies in America who are not only masterful coaches but who are also bringing coaching into their organizations.
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Coaching may be a hot idea, but for the most part it is still a new idea in many companies and just breaking daylight in emerging economies. Sure, many companies have run coaching workshops and tried mentoring matching programs, but new big ideas in the field of management, like technology, change faster than people’s mind-sets. Still, there are some business leaders who have become what Geoffrey Moore, in his book Crossing the Chasm, calls paradigm pioneers and new technology adaptors.1 In the following chapters you will see how top CEOs of leading companies are using coaching to create game-changing strategy and to develop a teachable point of view that creates a special and powerful leadership and management culture.You will learn how operations managers are using the same action coaching techniques described in this book to save hundreds of millions of dollars.You will learn how world-class product designers are using coaching to create soulstirring products, and you will learn how to build and coach world-class sales teams. As I’ve said, business is the ultimate self-development and growth experience, and that idea is reflected in the attitude of the people interviewed in this section. It comes through so clearly that the lives of people like Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, Jeff Fettig and David Binkley of Whirlpool, and Jeff Kaufman of Allstate have been somehow transformed as a result of living from a commitment to their business vision and values, a commitment that has brought out the highest and best in them over time and burnt the crud off the ego. They have been transformed inside the crucible of leading people to excel, building winning organizations, delighting customers, dealing with Olympic-level competitors, and dealing with 1,001 complex problems, issues, and dilemmas. It is curious that after decades of experience, each ended up with a coach’s spirit and a servant’s heart, and this was clearly demonstrated by their making it clear they wanted to help me.
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C H A P T E R
E L E V E N
MIKE ESKEW,THE VISIONARY UPS CHAIRMAN What Can Brown Do for You? Mike Eskew, UPS chairman and CEO, is a good example of a leader who comes into a “mature business”—shipping small packages, up to fifty pounds—and comes up with a game-changing strategy that can rock your world. Remember the old UPS logo, a shield with a bulldog on it? If you haven’t noticed, it has been retired. Under Mike’s leadership the logo on the Big Brown UPS truck now says,“Synchronizing the World of Commerce.” Mike creates lots of opportunities to coach people on his game plan and on developing the strategic capabilities to match it. He never stops communicating his teachable point of view, “One Company . . . One-to-One with Customers.”When a customer makes a special request, says Mike, “we never answer, ‘We don’t do that.’ Instead we look at what we need to do to come up with a one-to-one solution that makes the customer feel like they are our only customer.”1
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INTERVIEW WITH MIKE ESKEW Do you have an impossible future for UPS, and how do you communicate it in such a big company? We are going to be 100 years old next August. A short while back, we conducted an executive team strategy session and set our sights on UPS at 100. We asked, “What do we want to look like in 2007?” We drove the discussion not from a market share perspective or from the numbers, but from a commitment to changing the game. We understood the possibility of creating a whole new dynamic business model, as well as building the strategic capabilities necessary to fulfill it. We had some robust dialogue and it came out as “Synchronizing Global Commerce.” What’s your (UPS’s) game plan to get to your vision of Synchronizing the World of Commerce? We created four strategic imperatives: (1) Value-Added Solutions; (2) Customer Focus, (3) Enterprise Excellence; and (4) Winning Teams. We created teams to support this initiative, and they plotted a course to get UPS to 2007—taking into account all the hills and valleys we would have to cross and all the missing pieces that would have to be put in place to achieve our vision. We asked people on the teams to use their imaginations and to engage in a free-flowing dialogue, rather than have the outcome be driven by the strategy group or by the numbers.
UPS Game Plan: Strategic Imperatives 1. Value-Added Solutions. Provide superior value and significantly improve our customers’ supply chains by leveraging our intellectual capital, assets, and capabilities to deliver innovative global services and solutions. 2. Customer Focus. Develop a deep understanding of what customers need and expect in global markets so that we can anticipate, create, and deliver solutions that will differentiate us. 3. Enterprise Excellence. Create an atmosphere of performance excellence for the UPS worldwide enterprise that delivers the highest-quality service and value at a competitive cost. 4. Winning Teams. Attract, develop, and retain a highly skilled, motivated, and diverse global workforce that enhances our ability to meet the competitive demands of the marketplace. 242
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What were the missing pieces that needed to be put in place? We wanted to change this company in two dimensions and this is what I told our district managers: (1) we are going to create a One-to-One environment for our customers and, at the same time, be the tightest ship in the shipping business; and (2) we are going to create a company that can move any package, any size, via any mode of transportation, and we are selling solutions— not just products. To do that, we are going to have to increase our strategic capabilities. First of all, we need to change the brand from just satisfying customer’s small-package needs to Synchronizing Global Commerce. We need to change the perception from just being the tightest ship in the shipping business, where what we do means shipping small packages, to where what we do means Oneto-One. Second, we need to learn to think about customers differently. Third, we couldn’t be more than a small-package company, if we didn’t add commerce capabilities. We couldn’t be One-to-One if we didn’t create The UPS Stores. Fourth, we couldn’t be One-to-One if we didn’t create innovative technology solutions to improve our customers’ businesses. And finally, we couldn’t be a commerce company until we successfully communicated our vision to everyone in the organization. It requires an “us” mentality. How is your relationship with your customer changing? Instead of telling our UPS customers, “This is what we do,” we now ask them, “How do we make you more successful? Where do you source your material? Would you like to buy it globally? How do you go to market? How can we help you do it through the Internet, across the whole country and the whole world?” We ship almost 15 million packages a day. How do you do treat each one as something special? You have to understand each customer’s personal and business needs.You need to know where every package is and exactly when is it going to be there. All of these abilities require a technology component. And it’s important that we have the buy-in of our people. Where we are going is Synchronizing Global Commerce. Where we are going is One-to-One. And to get there we have to get out of our fiefdoms and act like one company all over the world. How do you get the message through to employees, and how do you coach them around this?
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You have to have a vision, and you must align the organization behind that vision. Our vision is clear,“One Company, and a One-to-One Relationship with Customers.” Our purpose used to be to satisfy customer’s small-package needs. Now it is to facilitate global commerce. We’re building on all those things that made us successful in the past and finding new ways to manage the enterprise to serve our customers better. Those four teams I mentioned earlier act together all around the world to help us move forward. Unless I lead from that vision, we are not going to be that company. One way I’ve gotten the message through is asking managers in the company to set goals for their departments based on these change initiatives and coaching to these. It is a matter of coaching people to acknowledge their progress but be willing to learn from mistakes. We try to think of ourselves as “constructively dissatisfied.” That is the notion that no matter how good you are, you can always do a little better. We have expanded our capabilities. We have built a lot of what it takes to be a One-to-One company.Yet we think we can do a lot better.
Mike Eskew’s Three Teachable Points of View Vision: Synchronizing Commerce 1. One Company 2. One-to-One with Customers 3. Build the Capabilities to Deliver What things have you done to coach people to make this a reality? I would say my main coaching activity is communicating this story to everyone in the company. We have communicated this story face to face, through video and print, across the U.S.A. and globally. This story has been presented relentlessly, and we have changed the perception of the brand. The old brand didn’t represent all we are today or who we can be tomorrow. We’re showing a new face to the world, and employees need to understand our strategic vision. In addition to getting the message through, we have a staff meeting each month, and we talk about one of the four change initiatives. We also have leadership development and talent reviews that
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match these initiatives. We have one each Monday and a longer one once a month. Essentially what I want to do is have each direct report come in each month and talk about his or her game plan, as well as talk about his or her development as a leader and manager. At the end of the year I want to talk to the person about his or her advancement. We have leadership training all the way up the ladder, and by speaking at these sessions, it serves as a coaching opportunity. Still, a great deal of coaching and teaching is done one-to-one in my office in a conversation. I also do it over lunch, in conference rooms—not only with my team on the big goals and priorities but with people who surface issues and opportunities during those meetings. Sometimes they only need to hear your teachable point of view once and you see a dramatic change. A lot of my coaching is just getting across to people the business strategy. And you have to ask,“What’s your take?” Perhaps they are right on some things, but sometimes it is just not practical to do what they are suggesting. How about coaching for yourself? When I became CEO, I asked myself:“Where do you want to spend your time, with employees, customers, shareholders? On strategy development? On self-renewal exercises? How do you stay fresh, not get stuck in a rut?” Every three months I look at my calendar and check on myself to make sure I’ve still got my priorities in the right order. I want to make sure I spend as much time as humanly possible interacting with the people of UPS.
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C H A P T E R
T W E L V E
HERB KELLEHER, EMMA SCHERER, AND TERESA LARABA OF SOUTHWEST AIRLINES Sourcing a Powerful TPOV and an Extraordinary Leadership Culture The story of Herb Kelleher is a wonderful example of the CEO as coach. Herb’s way of getting his teachable point of view across was through telling stories and cracking jokes, often while sipping Wild Turkey bourbon. He learned the art of coaching and mentoring from his mother, who would often keep him up until the wee hours of the morning talking to him about her golden nuggets of wisdom. She once told him a story to emphasize the importance of good values, a story about
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a business leader in the small Texas town Herb grew up in who strutted around with his white silk suit and talked down to people. She told him that God’s work in this world must truly be our own and that we were all here to help others. She also told him that leaders value people not for their titles and rank but for their inherent desire to make a contribution and that leaders treat everyone with dignity and respect. She even encouraged him to take risks, quoting Eleanor Roosevelt, who said “You must do the thing you think you cannot do,” and,“Do at least one thing a day that scares you.” That may have been in the back of his mind when Rollin King came to him in 1966 and talked to him about the idea of starting an airline, taking out a napkin and drawing a triangle between Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston. Herb, said,“Rollin, you’re crazy. Let’s do it!” Yet when Herb went whole hog on starting Southwest, his leadership style and teachable point of view that led to Southwest’s special management style seemed to come right out of those conversations with his mother. First of all, he created a company that was a cause not just a business. Southwest offered “fares so low, it gave bus and car travel companies a run for their money.”1 It democratized flying by making it possible for grandma and grandpa to fly to their grandkid’s graduation, and it gave sports fans the possibility of flying to see their team play in the World Series. The price of the airline ticket was cheaper than the price of the game ticket. Southwest became a miracle of operating efficiency. It used only one kind of airplane, saving tons of training time and making maintenance quicker and less costly.“It eliminated airline meals in favor of peanuts—saving money and manpower. It threw out assigned seating on the principle that customers were capable of finding their own seats, which cut valuable minutes off its boarding times and turned its planes around faster.”2 Yet it was Herb’s teachable point of view, his penchant for cracking jokes, and drinking Wild Turkey with passengers and employees that perhaps turned Southwest into a great success story. I called up Southwest Airlines to talk to Herb Kelleher but found out that he was in
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“self-imposed exile.” He doesn’t want to steal anyone’s thunder and therefore doesn’t want to be associated with running the company. He is down in Washington lobbying Congress 24/7 to get long-distance routes for Southwest, a tough battle when the Speaker of the House is against you. I interviewed two people from Southwest, Emma Scherer and Teresa Laraba: Emma Scherer, district marketing manager in the Northeast. “My job is to tell the Southwest story and market SWABIZ—an online business product. Our office visits with small and medium-sized companies to support their travel needs, assists in planning and supporting promotions and sponsorships, and develops and maintains relationships within the communities we serve.” Teresa Laraba, vice president of ground operations. “I oversee our stations in nine of the cities that we service.I oversee everything that happens at those airports—the folks that sell the tickets, check you in,escort you down the ramp.” How these women spoke about Southwest made it clear to me that Herb Kelleher had gotten his teachable point of view (TPOV) out there so that they lived in the hearts and the minds of the Southwest people.3
INTERVIEW WITH EMMA SCHERER AND TERESA LARABA Does Southwest have an impossible future? TERESA:
The mission for us is to continue to give Americans the freedom to fly, to keep our costs low enough that people can take advantage of that. My mission, as the station director, is to ensure that our stations exist within what Southwest is trying to accomplish. Herb has put his teachable point of view into every leader in the company, and my job is to recreate that at the next levels.
EMMA:
The goal is to continue to be the No. 1 low-cost carrier, together with providing customers not just good service but a great experience that keeps them coming back.
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Our future is exciting and, as with the entire industry, foreseeably full of change. Southwest leaders have instilled a high level of trust and perseverance that mitigates the fear of change. Does Southwest have a winning game plan for reaching its vision? TERESA:
You can’t be a low-cost, high-service airline if you don’t operate at the lowest costs. You need to have the fewest amount of employees to accomplish what you need to accomplish safely, which allows you to be the most productive airline, which is what allows you to keep your costs low. Safety is paramount. If it wasn’t for the customers who fly our airplanes, we wouldn’t exist anyway. If you don’t treat employees or customers well, you wouldn’t exist. Some people would say the secret of Southwest’s success is Herb Kelleher. Herb would say, you can copy everything about us but you can’t copy our people. They are the only thing in the airline business that can’t be reduced to a commodity.
EMMA:
Our employees understand that if we can’t absorb the cost of what we can’t control, we have to control the cost of what we do control. Run your business efficiently in good times so you can be prepared in bad times. After 9/11, all airlines took a huge financial hit. We were able to absorb the effect of what happened and the lack of people that traveled initially because we had such a strong balance sheet and warrior spirit.
What did Herb do to establish his TPOV in the company, and thus create Southwest’s special culture? EMMA:
First and foremost, he taught us about the vision of providing customers a great experience while being the No. 1 low-cost carrier that democratized air travel. He made it clear that each and every person at Southwest had to have a “servant’s heart” and a “warrior spirit.” He also ensured that we recognized that we truly are a part of the process and our actions—either good or bad—mirror our success. We have established our culture by keeping our philosophies simple. We only fly Boeing 737 aircraft, we follow the Golden Rule, and we work hard. There is a sense of empowerment, involvement, and problem solving among the employees. There is no hierarchy or greater value on titles or positions. Each employee has worth in his
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or her thoughts, suggestions, and visions. Our culture is maintained with open communication, being courageous, and building relationships. Herb established this early, and employees have ensured it is still strong today. What’s the percentage of time you spend coaching employees? TERESA:
70 to 80 percent!
EMMA:
About 50/50. I receive coaching as much as I administer it.You have to really believe in what you are doing here, and you have to enjoy it. As a leader you have to walk the talk, and continue to make our vision a reality through a thousand moments of truth.
TERESA:
Every new hire that comes on gets a class on our history, what made us successful, and where we are now. Not so they can be in awe but so that they can understand the vision and the hard work and sacrifices people have made so they can be here. If you talk to our employees, you will see the pride they have in being high service, low cost, and the safest in the airline industry.
Does Southwest Airlines have a coaching culture tied to its business success? EMMA:
Absolutely, coaching is part of our expectations, although it is not found in a form of hierarchy. I’ve coached my peers and regularly receive coaching from the team who reports to me. We have a program in place for our new employees called First Flight. This program gives the new employees more information about the company, as well as more opportunities to understand company culture, mission, and goals. Leaders within the company are paired up with a new employee and hence the coaching begins.
Do you have any particular coaching methods or techniques? EMMA:
Individually, coaching will be different with each person you are working with.You have to adapt to each personality and how each person interprets feedback. There must be clear expectations of one another that involve clarifying questions and opinions.You must be able to identify communication styles that work for each other and how to accommodate each other’s needs.You must create a trusting and empowering
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environment where the employee feels encouraged to take risks. Most important, you have to foster the courage to discover perceptions about yourself that may require a change in behavior or communication techniques. On a company-wide level, we have created a coaching method that helps us to ensure a very high standard for our customer service. This is our Morning Overview Meeting (MOM) program, which has been designed to respond to the needs of our customers in the event of an unusual flight disruption that causes the affected customers to become concerned or to question our decision to operate. How it works is a designated group of leaders from each operational department meets every day to discuss the previous day’s flight and airport operations. Their objective is to evaluate incidents and to support our frontline employees if our operations have been significantly disrupted. They confront each situation with the thought,“If your Mom was on that flight, would you have heard about it?” From there we provide the directly affected customers with a proactive acknowledgment of the situation. This includes a letter of explanation about the incident, along with a heartfelt apology and an open invitation to each customer in the hope that he or she will come back to give Southwest Airlines another try. In many cases the customer receives their letter before they even get home from their trip. We do this because we want to ensure our customers know that we care about their well being, especially when things don’t go according to plan. This program is a great coaching opportunity as it gets so many people in different departments talking daily about what happened and, if it is in our control, how we can fix it or ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Herb said something about talent, coaching, and succession planning in every job? TERESA:
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If you are a leader in this company who has people who report to you, there is a special conversation you are asked to have with your people. It starts with the question: “Where do you see yourself going, and how can I help you get there?” If you want to be a leader, let’s talk about how to make that happen. If you are already are a leader, let’s talk about how to keep you fresh. In your review, we discuss how the people who report to you are doing.
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Can you give me an example of an individual whom you coached? TERESA:
I have one in particular, a woman named Joan who, when we first met, was a manager in one of our ground operations departments. I coached and mentored her with a real commitment to her success. Three years later I was able to promote her to a director, and a year later she was promoted to a senior director. Now we co-coach each other. I first tried to get her to play to her strengths, her writing skills, for example, and to develop her presentation skills. It would have been easy for me to write and present everything. We don’t do things like that here; we help the people who work for us grow. If we discover that there is an issue, we address it. When she got nervous making presentations, the class clown would come out. Even though we are a company full of humor, she would overplay this. I suggested that when she got nervous, instead of talking faster, slow the pace down, and limit herself to one little side story versus three or four.
Any examples of being coached? TERESA:
The first person who talked to me like this was the manager of customer service in our station. He saw some leadership skills in me. He asked me if I had any aspirations to be a leader. There was an opportunity to be a supervisor if I wanted it. I said “Heck, no! I am trying to go to college.” Yet I was so moved by his acknowledgment that two months later I changed my mind. A year later I climbed the ladder and became a supervisor. From that point forward I realized that it was up to me to take charge of my own destiny and my leaders were responsible for helping me get there.
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C H A P T E R
T H I R T E E N
DAVID BINKLEY OF WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION The Most Leading Edge Corporate Coaching Program in the United States I have come across two kinds of executive vice presidents of human resources: those that create a powerful partnership with the CEO in totally transforming the company and those that are human resource “boss-pleasers” and that do all the typical transactional human resource stuff. The first is focused on creating this equation: Human Resource (Talent) Strategy = Business Strategy.The second is focused on salary, on benefits, and on being a politically correct “cop.” David Binkley, senior vice president of global human resources at Whirlpool is in the first category.To build a global enterprise like Whirlpool Corporation, you need leadership at every level. Most executives talk a good game: “Yes, I kicked off every leadership training for new employees,” or,“I believe in coaching,” but few
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executives are as personally and methodically involved in coaching as David Binkley and Whirlpool Corporation’s chairman and CEO Jeff Fettig are. Whirlpool is headquartered in Benton Harbor, Michigan, and manufactures home appliances in twelve countries, under such major brand names as Whirlpool, Maytag, Amana, Jenn-Air, and KitchenAid, and markets them in more than 170 countries.1
INTERVIEW WITH DAVID BINKLEY What is Whirlpool’s vision or impossible future that represents winning? We realized awhile back that for us to grow exponentially, we had to challenge orthodoxies such as, when consumers buy appliances, they are driven exclusively by quality and price. It came through to us like a brilliant flash of the obvious that although consumers have a rational component when buying appliances, there is an emotional component that far outweighs it. At Whirlpool, our impossible future is built around the idea of creating unmatched customer loyalty to our brands by consistently delivering innovative products and services that delight our customers. In 2005, we achieved $14.3 billion in revenue, up almost 10 percent, largely as a result of the innovation strategy we began in 1999. Our vision is “Every Home . . . Everywhere with Pride, Passion, and Performance.” What is your game plan for realizing your impossible future, winning? Our strategy for winning is tied to our innovation process, a long-term strategic commitment we’ve made to consistently deliver the products and services that our customers want and need, along with driving loyalty to our brands throughout the world. It should come as no surprise that in today’s global marketplace, customers are more knowledgeable and have more choices than ever before. In order to continue to succeed in the marketplace and drive our performance to the next level, we need to continually provide customers with innovative, high-quality products that deliver upon the positive reputation of our brands. But you can’t develop innovative products and drive customer loyalty without great people and great leaders. At Whirlpool Corporation, we’ve found that coaching, mentoring, and feedback are key components of successful leadership development. 256
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What’s your relationship to the CEO, business partner or HR guy? I would categorize myself as a business leader first, focused on results and building organizational capability. My office is two offices down from the CEO or CFO.We have never had trouble in this function trying to get the people part of our business on the strategic business agenda. We have a balanced scorecard, which includes financial metrics, customer metrics, and people metrics. We are focused on developing talent from the inside. We have been successful in taking people who aren’t quite ready for a big leadership job yet and developing them from within their current role in preparation for the next big move. It’s a great model, if they have the right leadership fundamentals: great values and ethics, strong performance and results orientation, and lots of runway for growth. If they have these important fundamentals, plus strong business acumen, we coach and mentor them to grow and develop so they succeed. How do you find leadership talent in emerging markets, where finding executives is like finding hidden treasures? Although we strive to develop people inside the company, there are times when an outside search is the best solution. In foreign markets such as China and India, you can count on your hands the number of people who will be available to you through search. There are few people in emerging markets who have the leadership fundamentals and who can also set aggressive performance objectives, plan how to reach them, and drive accountability. So when we do hire, we do so for stretch, rather than just hire for the immediate role, and then assign one of our seasoned pros to coach and mentor them. What role does coaching play in realizing your vision and game plan? Coaching has been highly successful in this company. The order of magnitude of what we have invested versus the benefits that have come out is really great. Our Leading at Next Level program is for people who have lots of leadership capability and potential, not about fixing derailing people who have performance problems. In Leading at Next Level we have established a formalized coaching process where people are coached by their boss and provided a formal skip level mentor. We also assign external coaches as part of the program, which can bring tremendous insight. At any given time, there are at least twenty to thirty people enrolled in the coaching and mentoring program (Leading at Next Level). Coaching has been great at Whirlpool, and we have had an
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incredible ROI on coaching in terms of talent development, delivering innovation, and financial results. What role does the CEO as coach play in this program? The success of the program is in large part due to the fact that it is so strongly advocated by our CEO, Jeff Fettig. Jeff has five people he coaches today. He is a real natural at this. What is it that makes the CEO good at this? He looks at things from an enterprise-wide perspective and he has an unconstrained view. Further, he likes to help people win. He has a point of view of what that might look like for that person he coaches and then focuses them on achieving those results. The CEO also coaches people who are outside the country: two in Latin America, one in Europe. I see to it that when he goes there he has the latest information on where they are in terms of their leadership development, business performance, and coaching. I provide Jeff the person’s 360-degree assessment report, leadership development plan, together with my perspective on coaching tips. Tell me more details about the design of the coaching and mentoring program? The design of the program is one year. We have never terminated a program if it warrants continuing, but we do want people to know that graduation is typically after twelve months or so. It consists of (1) a targeted 360-degree assessment, with a report and development plan created for each person; (2) coaching by the person’s boss on their performance; (3) mentoring by a senior executive in the organization; (4) external professional coaches also provide regular feedback and coaching against their established development plans; (5) as head of HR, I have oversight of the process. Jeff, as I said, has people he coaches and people he mentors. They include people like the CFO, business unit presidents, and all the way down to directors at a small to medium-size plants. He gets a copy of their goals, a copy of their 360-degree report, and a copy of their growth and development plan. He creates the time to coach at least four people and mentor four others. He goes out of his way to never cancel a session, and he expects others to do the same. He tells people,“If you cancel a session, it tells them, it’s not important.”
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Please share more details about the role of the professional outside coach and the 360 assessment. In some cases, there are 360-degree tools (instruments) used, but in most cases it’s based on interviews. The CEO and HR get the report, the individual gets the report, and the individual’s boss gets the report. The individual’s boss works with me to generate the criteria to do the assessment.The professional outside coach generates the assessment results and debriefs the individual first, then Jeff Fettig and myself. The coach engages them in a conversation, gives them honest feedback, and helps them to gain insight into one to two key points that if focused on could seriously prepare them to lead and perform at the next level. The coach also talks to them about “owning” the assessment, and about the execution of their developmental recommendations. When I went through this process myself, the opportunities I had to improve really hit me. There is a last page to the report that says, “Here are some things David Binkley has to stop doing right away. Today!” Other things were more midterm and long term, including strengths I could leverage for success. I read the report several times over a period of two to three months, pondered it deeply, and in the process put together what we call a My Plan with my coach. The whole process really had a huge impact on me. What about the role of Whirlpool rank-and-file leaders as coaches and mentors? As I mentioned, the coaching people get from their boss is directed toward day-to-day performance improvement. What are their goals, game plan, performance gaps, and adjustments? The mentoring focuses people on the kind of leader they need to be at the next level. I am personally a mentor to one of the Whirlpool brand managers. I create opportunities to see him in action and share my view of how he is interacting with others, such as being overly aggressive or domineering. How do you decide who is in the coaching and mentoring program? The program is geared toward the next generation of leadership talent in our company including vice presidents, directors, and some managers. We nominate a few dozen people from the regional businesses all around the world and by business unit. We then whittle down the list to show we are developing a talent “roster” that is the best of the best. We stage it throughout the year so there is capacity to get it done. We tried the massive roll-out approach with leadership
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training and we built in 360-degree tools and follow-up coaching. We have learned the hard way—“mass” coaching and mentor matching doesn’t work that well.Yet in the final analysis, this approach we are now taking has given us the largest ROI in the leadership development arena. What do you do to get the coaching on the calendar? How is it scheduled? Getting things on the calendar is an important part of operationalizing coaching. A person meets with the professional external coach the first month to create their personal development plan [PDP]. Then they check in with their boss thirty days later. The boss talks to the person about what they “heard” in the assessment, what they are going to “own,” and what they are going “to do” about it. Then they continue to meet with their coach (boss), mentor, and outside consultant monthly or every other month. How do you keep track over the year of progress. Do you have a Web-based system? You meet with your boss a minimum of four times and discuss something we call My Plan (PDP). Together you create updates about what progress you have made and stuff you still need to work on. I, as the senior HR person, am accountable for the overall leadership development of the people in the program. I track what is going on with the development plans, based on the last session with each coach, mentor, outside person, and so on; progress people made; stuff they are working on; and updates, so I can brief the appropriate person. What makes the program so successful? It’s the fact that the whole program is so strongly advocated by our CEO, Jeff Fettig, as well as the dynamic combination of all of these factors I just mentioned. The coaching model is very results driven and aligned with the Whirlpool leadership model. It’s about helping the person take their leadership game to the next level and it’s about being a stronger performer in the current role. Along with Jeff ’s advocacy, we have operationalized coaching at Whirlpool through a rigorous and disciplined approach. This has enabled us to achieve incredible returns on our coaching programs.
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C H A P T E R
F O U R T E E N
JEFF KAUFMAN OF ALLSTATE A Coaching and Mentoring Tale Jeff Kaufman is an Allstate Insurance field vice president who is in charge of nine states. His home office is in Denver. He describes himself, as many top executives do, with self-deprecating humor. “I am a large frame, super-active older guy into outdoor sports, wilderness adventures, fishing, highelevation elk hunting, running, and being as physically fit as possible.” He is on one of Allstate’s executive committees for leadership strategy and with his colleagues is codeveloping an accelerated mentoring process for high-potential people. Says Jeff,“In my performance appraisal we are evaluated 50 percent on business results, 50 percent on leadership and coaching.” Jeff is in the class of Baby Boomer executives who are about to turn sixty but who feel like thirty. Having been in leadership roles for thirty years, he in the ideal position to coach and mentor the rising stars in his organization, and he has such powerful, if not profound, teachable points of view as these:“Every business is a growth business”;“Innovate or die”;“Reward fast failures”;
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“The power of multiple minds.” What comes across in the interview is his passion for coaching, the challenges he has faced coaching people decades younger than himself, and his willingness to see himself as “under construction.” The one thing that impressed me most about Jeff is that he seems to have that Leadership X Factor—a desire to always improve who he is as a leader, coach, and person.“One day I will leave this company and go on to my next career,” he says.“I want to stay engaged in my growth and development and I want to stay under construction until I die.”1
INTERVIEW WITH JEFF KAUFMAN Does Allstate have a vision of an impossible future? I am not sure about that, but you are making me think about it. I think of myself as the CEO of my business or region. My number one challenge is to grow my business faster. I am a unique animal in that I like change, to do things better or different. I have been challenged the most I have ever been challenged because, for the first time in my career, I am “the old guy” and, for the first time in my career, I have a very large number of new leaders. A lot of the people in my business unit have been in their jobs less than two years. Does your organization have a winning game plan to realize its business goals? I use a thing here called winning culture. It is based on some strong guiding principles: (1) do what we say we are going to do (integrity, keep your promise, employee development, practice open-door communications); (2) be in the top three in every measurement (competitive nature, seek best practices); (3) have fun (celebrate accomplishments, laugh, achieve work and family balance)! As a senior guy, how do you coach younger people with far less experience? There is this blurry line between coaching people on performance and mentoring them on their development. I was much more senior and older in this group, and working with such a volume
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of newness has taxed me a lot. I have given it a lot of thought, explored a lot of avenues, and looked in the mirror. I asked myself,“How do I lead from this position?” I started to think about the expressions I used. and some were time dated. Other, newer ones seemed contrived. In coaching my staff, some have tried to please me as a father figure, rather than getting me to coach and mentor them on how to achieve better results. Can you give me an example of a young rising star you coached where you didn’t get intended results? Having a staff of new leaders, they approach their job with a strong desire to be great and to adhere to the home office policies and procedures. I am of the belief there is more to leadership than policies and procedures. For example, I worked with a young leader who focused on success but believed that it could only be achieved by enforcing policies and procedures. The place they came from was,“I am going to be a great manager and there are clearly identified corporate policies and procedures that must be enforced to be successful.” The problem was that this person came across either like a school teacher who was scolding people or as a very sharp student that always wanted to be right. My intervention with him was, “Hey, I appreciate that you are so committed to doing the right thing, but don’t be so rigid. Instead of telling people ‘this is our policy,’ explain the rationale behind it and get them to think about it in a different way.” His reaction to my coaching surprised me. My comments hurt, because the listener had been viewing me as a father figure, not a coach. The process took awhile but now we have a more powerful relationship, and he has also developed his relationship with his peers and I have seen improvements in their performance. What did you learn from the breakdown that occurred in the coaching? There are things I had to be more aware of, like the father figure image for people more than two decades younger than me. How do I at fifty-nine, where you have a different mindset than you did at forty-five, successfully coach someone in their mid-thirties? I tell everyone in a leadership role when I coach them that it is not about trying to be a perfect manager. It is about holding ourselves as if we are always “under construction.” Once I got this message across to the person I was just telling you about, I was able to help him to widen his vision and realize that leadership is more than policies and procedures, looking good and being right. Sometimes leadership is knowing when to follow as much as it is when to lead. We have an agreement now that “sometimes you don’t have to be right; you have to get together and come up with the right answer.”
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Do you have another example of a rising star you coached and mentored? I have a talented guy on my team who has great leadership potential. Our earlier discussions centered around the fact that having great leadership potential doesn’t make one a leader. A follow-up discussion was about him having an overly competitive mentality, which I told him he needed to change. He showed up in meetings as always wanting to appear smart, coming up with a fast answer, and always wanting to beat others. His questions would put people on the spot and put them in a defense posture. For example, in an open meeting he would put on the grand inquisitor’s hat and ask someone: “How do you think the people working for you are doing?” I grabbed him after the meeting and said,“Don’t do that in a big general audience.You ended up making people lose face and leaving an emotional wake behind you.” He would leave them in a way they would be scarred for the next couple of years. Again, these discussions were challenging, but because of this person’s willingness to be better, he engaged in a personal process to eliminate troublesome behaviors and to become a better leader and peer, and it worked! This young leader recognizes that he is under construction. I tell people when they are new in leadership positions,“Act like you are in a fishbowl, because you are.” I am a corporate officer in Allstate, and when you are in a leadership role, people really look up to you. They want to know everything about you, and until they do, they don’t trust you. When I first got into this job, people were driving around trying to find my house so they could check me out. I tell our leaders that because they are in a fishbowl, they can’t afford to have a bad day or the repercussions will go on forever. I ask them, “Do you have a car in the parking lot that is clean or dirty? Do you have a clean desk, messy one? Do you display family pictures or not?” People want to know about you, and they watch every move you make! What about getting people in your team to collaborate? I am always seeking to find new ways to provide exciting services to customers that will help us to meet the challenge of growing the business. I believe in the power of multiple minds and thus like to bring people together to brainstorm. This has recently resulted in a very effective implementation of an auto insurance product. I also like to address breakdowns that have occurred and move beyond the kind of corporate culture where people don’t feel safe to bring an issue up. I tell people the guiding principle we need to operate by is,“Don’t pretend not to know what you know.” If people reveal a breakdown, we attack the problem, not the person who may have
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been involved. I coach people that a breakdown is an opportunity to learn, not an excuse to get down on yourself or cast blame. What are your rough edges as a coach, and how do you deal with them? People who work for me tell me I have a set of standards that I talk about and another set of standards that is much higher that I don’t speak to. If I don’t speak to these standards, I am setting people up for failure. One of the standards I hold as important is total team responsiveness in times of need. As an ex-wrestler and ex-offensive tackle, I understand the value of team play. I can really get upset if I see someone holding back in terms of doing everything possible to land a customer due to a silo mentality, as in most cases it takes three to four departments to get the customer. I also get upset if I see someone doing something to undermine the team. For example, instead of speaking up at the meeting, they go down the hallway and say what they really think.” So one of my challenges as a coach is to communicate vividly my standards and not assume that people see things the same way. Any last points about coaching? When I am coaching someone and they do not accept my teachable point of view, instead of getting frustrated, I need to remind myself that people truly are under construction and it might take some time for them to take on the point of view that I am trying to get across. For example, I think a big part of my vision is that leaders not only seek to impact business performance but seek to grow and develop as individuals. I had a coaching conversation with a young leader. His performance was suffering and his attitude was way down. His view was,“You either have leadership or you don’t” and he did not. It bothered me at first that this fellow thought this way, but I focused my efforts on creating an ongoing conversation with him about leaders viewing themselves as being under construction so they could grow. I emphasized that there is value in continuous improvement and this is what I expect of my leadership team. Over time, by my driving for deeper conversations, he has changed his view around this and is much more open to developing as a leader. What could your company do to improve coaching, mentoring people development? I would have said a year or two ago we weren’t doing enough coaching and mentoring, but we were making good progress. In fact my perception is that most organizations need to do more
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in the way of developing people faster. I worry that when the Baby Boomers go, they are going to take with them a tremendous amount of wisdom, knowledge, expertise, and this will be a loss to the next generation of people. In the past people would develop primarily by moving to different jobs in different geographical areas. It’s harder now to find people willing to relocate and the expense for companies is huge.You have got to develop leaders locally, and you have got to coach and teach them yourself. I am at an age where leaving a legacy is very important to me, to leave something lasting rather than temporary, and one of the best ways I can do that is take the leadership philosophy I have developed over the past thirty years and instill it in the next generation of leaders.
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C H A P T E R
F I F T E E N
JAY ABRAHAM Marketing Genius and Money Maximizer Jay Abraham is an extraordinary coach. He has helped to grow 10,000 businesses in over 400 different industries through one-to-one and group interactions. He’s been called “America’s Number One Marketing Wizard” by the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and others. During his twenty-five-year career as a business coach and money maximizer, he has developed a large body of principles that can be applied successfully in any business or profession. He’s prodigious in thinking of different ways to maximize money for himself and clients. He sometimes charges up to $2,500 an hour for a consultation, or a healthy percentage of the economic value added when he takes careful control and manages a client’s hidden business assets—like the untapped market potential of a new IPO, Internet start-up, or thirty-something privately owned company. For the rest of us, there is a wealth of supercharged marketing wisdom put out by Abraham Publishing in Rolling Hills Estates, California. Says Jay, “I make money when my clients make money.”
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Jay’s clients run the gamut from companies like FedEx to veterinarians, from HBO to cosmetic surgeons, and from Shearson Lehman to Australian dentists. All rave about him and his generosity of spirit and business impact. For example, Jay coached one investment firm to grow from $10 million in sales annually to $500 million in sales in less than a couple of years. Admittedly, the majority of Jay’s clients in the last ten years or so have been small to medium-sized business owners, but here lies opportunity in disguise. Says Jay,“Calling me a ‘marketing wizard’ has a certain appeal, but in some ways that has become a limitation. What I really am is a ‘performance maximizer.’ I have the ability to recognize that almost everybody is sitting on overlooked business assets, undervalued possibilities, and underperforming opportunities.What I do every day is help people turn their untapped assets into windfall sales and profits, and then convert these into recurring streams of income.”1
INTERVIEW WITH JAY ABRAHAM What is your teachable point of view about winning in business? It is that whoever you are and whatever you do in your work—whether you are a Fortune 500 CEO or have division responsibility for any part of a profit-oriented business, or whether you own your own business or professional practice, or even whether you are a staff member in another’s employ—you owe it to yourself, your business, your employer, your future to learn how to generate maximum return from everything you do. Let me be clear that when I say maximizing, I am talking about more than just getting the most profit, greatest productivity, and effectiveness from an action. It means also accomplishing maximum results with a minimum of time, effort, and risk—something most people never even think about. Why do some companies get stuck in the “no-growth morass”? I come from a viewpoint that says no individual or company purposely creates underperforming assets, doesn’t take advantage of the possibilities and opportunities available to them, or operates with the intent of getting less impact from what they do. It’s just that they have some
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blind spots that prevent them from maximizing. First, either they are not aware of what their hidden assets are, or if they are, they undervalue them. Second, they keep trying to do the same thing better (like doing the same mailings to the same people) even though it doesn’t get different results, because they just don’t know the superior options that are available. What I do is to shine a light on people’s underperforming possibilities and assets and give them the essential strategies they need to optimize their business actions. This also involves getting them to recognize that lack of business growth or their present circumstances does not represent the way it has to be. What often surprises me is the astonishing results the people and businesses I coach get from applying just one or two of these ideas. For example, when companies first started making computers, the computers came with the software. I coached someone to recognize that this was a hidden asset, and today software sales exceed computer sales by far. [Similarly] most employees tend to follow a job description rather than asking themselves,“What are my real talents and abilities?” and then figuring out a way to maximize these for their own and their employer’s benefit. What is the secret of breaking out of the no-growth morass? I want to share a fascinating discovery I made years ago. If you look at a hundred different industries, you discover that each industry has pretty much depended upon just one basic winning strategy to generate and sustain clients: direct sales, referrals, a field salesforce, the Internet, and so on. That alone is amazing, but what’s more incredible is that if you look at a hundred different industries, you will see over ninety-five totally different success practices being used. Industry A doesn’t know anything about the methods of Industry B, Industry C is totally unaware of the way Industry B sells and markets, and so on. By helping people study and identify the fundamental principles that drive the successes in a hundred different industries, you will be able to choose the most powerful and effective breakthrough strategies to introduce into your company. How do you coach people to grow their business? What does the process look like? Step 1. Get the lay of the land. I put my Socrates hat on—one of my favorite role models—and start interviewing the person, whether a Fortune 500 CEO, a small business owner, or a professional. I come from the place that people have hidden assets, potentialities, opportunities that could produce a much higher yield for them, and knowing that, I am going to hit pay dirt. First, I just want to get the lay of the land. What’s their passion, the nature of their business, and how
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it works? For example, if your field is coaching, I would ask,“What does a coach basically do? Who are the biggest clients for it? Why do they seek you out? What would be the most tangible application? Who is the competition? What are the ways you traditionally market and sell your services?” I always want to observe and appreciate the whole premise on which people’s business is founded before I challenge their reality. Step 2. Find out the method in their madness. Next I start to look at the rationale behind doing something in a particular way. I question whatever they take for granted in a curious way, not in a judgmental way. Then I take each piece of their business apart and explore the method in their madness. This could include new product innovation, their usual approach to marketing, and their primary method of getting customers. I want to know in my own mind that they do it that way because they have studied fifteen other alternatives and decided it is the most viable. Step 3. Plant the seeds for a superior strategy. I start to get them to question their stratagem and tactics, without necessarily leading them anywhere. I am planting the seeds of their needing to defend their position. I want them to be able to defend it, because if they can’t, I want them to come to their own conclusion that the basis upon which they are doing something is not fundamentally sound or viable. For example: (1) “How do you run your business?” (2) “Is that the most creative and effective, way to run it?” (3) “How do the most successful people in your industry do it?” (4) “How come you don’t do it that way?” Step 4. Maximize what they are already doing well. I try to be empathetic, knowing that they probably don’t know why they are doing it that way. I let them off the hook of culpability, while opening the window of a superior solution. I am not trying to win the war; I am trying to give them battle strength. I start by making suggestions about what they are doing right now that they could get much more leverage out of, whether Jay Abraham is in their life or not. For example, let’s say you have three hot products coming down the innovation pipeline, fifty salespeople in the field right now, and twenty magazine ads that you are running. I want to look at each of those transactions and figure out what I can do right now that can give increased boost, thrust, and performance to each one of those transactions. This is a way of giving people a validation, a confirmation, a win, as I work my way toward an overall superior strategy. Step 5. Suggest lots of alternatives based on other industries. I then begin suggesting lots of alternatives that they have probably never thought of. I say that “here are two or three examples of where that has worked really well in other businesses outside [or inside] your industry that I have been involved
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with or studied.” Then I look for peer confirmation by asking for examples they may know of where this same approach has worked in their field. It gives them comfort because they know I am not asking them to do something that has never been validated before.We go through a litany of . . . what-ifs and why-dos and how-woulds, and so on. I am subtly introducing tons of provocative, superior, or comparable alternatives for them to add to, buttress, or replace what they are doing. Step 6. Discover a money-maximizing solution. Now I have looked at all the complexity of their business, processed it, and boiled it down to the lowest common denominator. Somewhere in this process I am going to make use of one of my greatest gifts, which is to be able to come up with an elegant solution. It may come out in a declarative way, but as it is usually a result of a long process of curious questioning on both of our parts, most of my clients are able to seize it and own it, seeing it as their idea, not mine. I like to get the “Aha!” response, which is eyes going up and the person saying, “I just realized something.” Step 7. Execute. Make a list of things to do today, and do them. What are some power strategies for leveraging your marketing? The first thing I do is to give people a whole, dynamic new mind-set. I show people how to work on the geometry of their business, which is a metaphor that I use to help people engineer exponential growth. How you get quantum leaps is to work simultaneously on the three ways to grow a business: (1) increase the number of customers; (2) sell more per transaction; (3) increase the number of transactions. Let’s say you have 1,000 clients. They average $100 per transaction or sale, and they make two purchases a year, for a total income of $200,000 (No. of Clients Transaction Value per Client Transactions per Year Total Income). Watch what happens if you increase these numbers by only 10 percent. 1,000 $100 2 $200,000. 1,100 $110 2.2 $266,200. Most companies operate like a diving board in their selling strategy. The board is their revenue stream; the stand is the primary method the company employs to generate that revenue: for example, joint ventures and channel distributors, direct sales, a field salesforce, or referrals. If anything happens to that mechanism, the company is in danger. (See Figure 15.1.)
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FIGURE 15.1 The diving board method for growing a business
Direct Sales
Revenue
FIGURE 15.2 The Parthenon method for growing a business
Host/Benefit Relationships
Endorsements
Developing a Back End
Advertising
Direct Mail
Joint Ventures
Referral System
Telemarketing
Direct Sales
Revenue
Now, imagine the Parthenon, in Greece. It has been there for thousands of years, and the only reason it has eroded is because it got shelled and demolished in wars and by acid rain. (See Figure 15.2.) It is strong because it has pillars and pillars supporting it. My concept is to have pillars and pillars of revenue generating (or assisting) activities working in conjunction with each other to multiply and bring geometry to bear in that business. Imagine how much your business could grow geometrically, if you were generating sales only through a field salesforce that made cold calls and you brought to bear additional revenuegenerating pillars, like a word-of-mouth referral system or direct mail. More importantly, imagine that underneath each of these additional pillars you engineered additional reinforcing pillars— twenty other selling approaches that vastly reinforced that approach.
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For example, a company may be trying to increase revenue through advertising. I know at least fifty different ways to improve advertisements—such as getting rid of institutional ads (or tombstone ads) and replacing them with ads that lead a customer to actually do a money-making transaction with you. Another good example is evident with entrepreneurial firms that have a field salesforce. That group usually does just one thing—sell the product. I might know fifty different ways to use a field salesforce. Or referrals—it is amazing that companies think their business comes from their field salesforce when it actually comes from referrals.Yet they have no systematic ways of multiplying the number of referrals they get. Please share some of your favorite strategies, methods, and tools in more specific terms. Create a unique selling proposition. Write in one sentence what your company does that is dramatically different. Test all marketing and advertising. Create multiple ads and Internet banners, and see which one pulls the best. Don’t rely on your subjective decisions. Break even today; break the bank tomorrow. Stop thinking in terms of making a big profit on the first sale. Start thinking in terms of the lifelong value of a customer. Reverse the risk. Guarantee people will get the outcome they want or they can have their money back. A lot of companies offer some kind of guarantee but don’t push it into the heart of their selling process. Always have a back end. Many people and companies make an initial sale but don’t have a back end or some add-ons to sell. You can reach Jay Abraham at 800-635-6298.
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C H A P T E R
S I X T E E N
HUBERT SAINT-ONGE OF THE MUTUAL GROUP, CANADA Dragon Slayer of Human Resource Myths In his landmark book The Practice of Management, published in 1954, Peter Drucker asked a very provocative question:“Is personnel management bankrupt?”1 Drucker saw firsthand, through his consulting work with companies like General Electric, General Motors, and Sears, that even though the executive group of most firms included a vice president of human resources, few HR managers were integrated into strategic thinking processes, and at best, their opinions were merely tolerated. Drucker felt that human resource people, no matter how sincere or well intended, were too often trying to drum up fanciful programs that would justify their existence, only to become caught up in dispensing salaries and benefits and doing token training.
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In the past decade almost every business function, from finance to marketing, from production to customer call centers, has been reinvented and given an attitude adjustment, except human resources. Says René Jaeggi, former CEO of Adidas, “No other area of business is in so much need of a revolutionary thought leader.” In 1998, I received a scratchy cell phone call from just such a person— Hubert Saint-Onge, of the Mutual Group in Waterloo, Canada, near Toronto, who had come across my name on the Internet:“Can you send me some of your stuff?” We soon developed a robust relationship. To me, Hubert is not only an inspired, erudite, and original thinker on human resources, knowledge management, and organizational learning; he is also one of the most practical, down-to-earth implementers of such lofty concepts in the real world of organizations that I have seen. For example, when he came to the Mutual Group, he put an end to its stodgy human resource organization altogether and replaced it with “Strategic Capability” and “Membership Services.” I knew something was afoot when I asked one of his team members where she worked, and the answer was “in Capabilities.” Hubert had a long history of being a human resource innovator. Previously he had worked at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), parent company of the Mutual Group, where he had been given the mandate to create a learning organization. At CIBC, one of his first moves was to shut down “training” and start up “learning networks.” He disassembled a 150-person training organization and set up a learning network that would spread knowledge through discussion groups, books, videos, and so on. This was part of a larger set of initiatives where the key objective was to shift the culture from one of entitlement to one of personal responsibility. According to Hubert,what the 150 folks in training at CIBC were doing was really the antithesis to learning.Their whole interest,skills,and capabilities were invested in running classes.Ninety percent of what they were doing was classroom based,and they had to cart people at great cost from across the country to attend these scheduled programs,which usually ended up happening either too soon or too late for most of these attendees.Hubert wanted to move from a“just-in-case”to a“just-in-time”understanding of what people actually required in order to meet the performance expectations they had to meet.
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To make this happen, Hubert had to spend a great deal of time explaining how the considerable amount of money spent on training was for the most part a net waste. He took the business leaders through a logic that demonstrated that less than 10 percent of what is invested in training was actually contributing to enhanced performance. Once business leaders got this, they were ready for the solution: transforming training into learning.This means that individuals, instead of attending the scheduled course, are given access to the support material to learn what they need, when they need that knowledge to perform. Learning then is driven by the self-imitative of the learner. The time people spend learning has full impact, and they acquire the capability when it is needed on the job. Having changed just about every part of the people management system at CIBC, Hubert also convinced the senior management to build a $26 million leadership center, with an annual budget of $15 million, based on the principles just discussed.2
INTERVIEW WITH HUBERT SAINT-ONGE How is the role of the HR director morphing? What do you see as the future of HR? If you look at the role of Personnel—as it has been called over the last hundred years—its job was primarily to manage the employment contract with a population of employees. The primary job of the HR manager was to administrate salaries, benefits, and the pension plans. In the industrial era, what most companies needed was some warm bodies to throw at a stack of unskilled jobs. The strategic capability of the organization lay in its structural capital, like the machines in the factory. In today’s new economy, where the bar of excellence is continually being raised by rising needs and expectations of customers and global competition, the role of human resources has shifted from managing the employment contract to expanding the strategic capabilities of the organization. In this context it makes sense to have a function called Strategic Capability, whose role is to close this gap—whether it involves strengthening the structural capital of the organization, its human capital, or customer relationships.
H u b e r t S a i n t - O n g e o f t h e M u t u a l G r o u p, C a n a d a
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Before I joined the company I had discussions with the CEO where we both agreed that traditional HR was not what the company needed. He readily accepted my proposal for a whole new business function called Strategic Capability, which is not human resources but embraces some of its functions.You have to make it a strategic role that involves sitting at the table with the top-management group as a businessperson, not a stereotypical HR person who is focused on salary, benefits, and training. It also involves codetermining the strategy of the organization. He said,“Yes, I would like to do that.We don’t want someone who comes in and just does HR work.” I then joined the firm and became a business partner involved in strategic discussions at all levels. I also made it clear to the other people in the top-management group that I don’t think of myself as an HR specialist in my job. I think of myself first and foremost as a business partner, although I contribute from a capability perspective. I expressed my opinions forthrightly from the beginning, because I wanted to make it clear that I was not going to be relegated to HR matters. My role is to ensure that we take a systematic approach to the management of our tangible assets. I see my role as that of an organizational coach whose job it is to close the gap between strategy and capability. One of the most important aspects of this is to transform the leadership style of the people in the top group from command and control to coach, given that we are in a talent war. We need the leader as coach to make certain that performance of the individuals, groups, or networks is maximized in a competitive business environment. Coaching is an integral part of this high-performance, more collaborative approach to leadership. At the same time, while I act as a business player on the executive team with strong views on our strategic direction, I also play the role of a kind of coach, which means I am always dealing with a kind of dilemma. I express my views on how to deal with business challenges, such as the importance of developing strategic alliances, while looking for ways to enhance the quality of our strategic dialogue in order to produce together a level of insights that is greater than the sum of the parts. Opening up a new area of conversation and breaking a logjam to look at things in a different way are interventions that can help a team make progress. Coaching is not limited just to the individual or to teams; it can be used by the organization as a whole. How do we leverage our structural capital, human capital, customer capital? I see my role as vice president of human resources overall as coaching the organization, especially in closing the gap between the strategy and the capability of our organization to deliver great
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products and services to our customers at a profit. Some people may prefer to coach the individual, others within teams. As an organizational coach, I look at the organization as a system, and even though I work with people either one-on-one or in teams, I seek primarily to have an impact on increasing the capability of the organization to perform as a whole. The place that I come from is the synthesis of structural capital, human capital, and customer capital with whatever issues are arising. How do you conduct yourself at meetings? I will tend to take more risks in our team conversations by raising ideas that might be on the CEO’s mind or someone else’s. The others can legitimately reject the idea, because they are rejecting my idea, not the CEO’s idea. If I put something out as an idea, it is a possibility; if he puts something out, it is closer to a commitment. I am often consulted as a coach, a sounding board, by people at all levels of the organization. In fact our CEO sometimes calls me the company “chaplain.” Please share your approach to designing learning organizations. Many of the lessons I learned doing community development with native communities in Mexico still apply in the work I do today. First, you have to share a clear view of the future you want to create with people, but you have to work with them where they are at, instead of where you want them to be. Second, large-scale structural changes delivered through big program rollouts often fail to make a difference where it counts. The real difference such change is meant to create rarely trickles down to the individual. Human resources, for example, in most cases does not care that much about the vision and often gets stuck in big scale rollouts. Not unlike the diamond cutter getting more preoccupied with his tools than the diamond he is cutting. Human resources has a great tendency to get more preoccupied with its tools and programs—things like 360 feedback, appraisal, and standardized curriculums. I have discovered that you create a context for learning by paying attention to three principles: (1) linking the learning to the person’s (group’s) vision, goal, or mission that they care passionately about; (2) inviting the person to be responsible for their own learning (or lack of it) and to accept the consequences of either; and (3) providing learning resources that fit each person’s or
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group’s learning style on a totally equitable basis. It is also clear that if someone is actively involved in learning, he or she will be much more open to change. This in turn creates an organizational context that allows for a great deal more agility. This is why, for instance, we make available to our staff the opportunity to take an online MBA. This is costly, but we believe that the benefits are many times greater. The first thing we did at CIBC was to create a system for matching individual aspirations to organizational needs. I created a job-posting system where all vacancies were posted by spelling out positions in terms of the kind of personal attributes that were required (like being market orientated or a professional problem solver) and in terms of specific areas of competency, such as a discrete skill or piece of knowledge (like investment management or systems integration). This system allows organization members to assume responsibility for their careers. They are given the information they need to make their own choices. We also helped people practice expressing their strengths in those values, attributes, and skills when they went on interviews. We gave them competency maps for different categories of jobs, so they could say, “Well, I am not prepared for this job now, but if I take a three-year job in investment management or take these courses in systems design, I will be able to do it.” One day, after I had left the organization where I had put in place these career development and learning programs, a young woman in middle management came up to me and said,“When you first came to this organization, I thought you were totally unrealistic in what you wanted to achieve in giving us responsibility for our careers and learning. But I took full advantage of these programs as they came available. I have had three jobs since then and I am really proud of what I achieved . . . and there are many more like me. I had to thank you when I just saw you.” I was deeply touched by this testimonial. This is the most validating statement anyone has ever made about my work. Would you get rid of classroom training altogether? It is a matter of distinguishing what medium works best for the learning needed. In general, classrooms should be preserved for transformational learning or double-loop learning, which requires a reexamination of one’s beliefs and assumptions about the business: for example, introducing a new vision or culture change or working with people in a leadership seminar in an intense way with the idea of changing acquired mind-set. In most cases these kinds of courses are a small percentage of the training budget.
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The classroom is not an effective medium for the exchange of explicit knowledge or single-loop learning—improving what we already do (like answering a customer call or handling taxation questions about a product). This kind of transactional learning can best be delivered through a learning resource center with a strong Web-based training platform that results in the creation of self-serve virtual learning. At Mutual we are currently in the process of launching a learning center as part of our new intranet, which we call Mutual On Line. This virtual learning facility will guide our member on how to acquire specific competencies identified in their development plan. We even have some leadership development modules in the center. For instance, we have just completed an interactive program on change management where a business can explore how they can be more effective at managing the change facing them. Closing thoughts? It is important for me to create value in the organization where I work. And it is equally important for me to make a difference to people in the organization who might benefit from what I have done. One of the things that I have most appreciated about working at the Mutual Group is the support I receive from the CEO and the management team to present these ideas, in written form and in various venues around the world.
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C H A P T E R
S E V E N T E E N
J. MAYS OF FORD MOTOR COMPANY Coaching Design and Innovation Innovative design is the mark of today’s leading companies, as quality is the price of admission in today’s marketplace.Those who have the ability to coach talented people to create fashion-forward new products will be in increasing demand in the years ahead.You may not have to be a brilliant designer yourself to be able to coach ( facilitate) people in this work, but you do at least have to understand its nature. It involves creating something that never existed and at the same time working within the constraints of human buying habits, desires, and tastes. One night while driving home from the airport after a trip to Oklahoma, I was wondering who could be our design innovation guru for this section.Then shortly before entering Boston’s Sumner Tunnel, I looked up and saw a billboard that grabbed my attention. Lit up against the night sky was a picture of the new Ford Thunderbird; it stopped my mind wandering. It was one of the most distinctivelooking cars I had ever seen. I said to myself,“I want to talk to the person who designed that car.”
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Shortly thereafter I contacted J. Mays, who, I found out, was also responsible for the design of the new Volkswagen (VW) Bug. He had since left Volkswagen to become Ford’s top design guru. As vice president of corporate design at Ford Motor Company, Mays is responsible for eight brands: Ford, Ford Truck, Mercury, Lincoln, Jaguar, Aston Martin, and Mazda and now Volvo—all in all, sixty-three different nameplates. Mays says,“Those brands and the products that are delivered under those brands are my responsibility in terms of the styling content and visual messages the vehicles give off.” Mays’s background includes fourteen years in Europe at VW Audi. He told me,“When I left Audi, I was director of design worldwide for Audi. Highlights of my career include the Beetle, and the Audi Avus (a show car) as well as the A4, A6, and A8.” When he left VW, Mays had decided to be an independent consultant for Ford and others. His goal is to visually position automobiles and products in the marketplace and to communicate to the customer through design. Today, having accepted a full-time job at Ford, he coaches the designers of every one of Ford’s cars and light trucks.1
INTERVIEW WITH J. MAYS Why did you go to Ford Motor Company as head of design, and what are your responsibilities? I came to Ford Motor because it gave me incredible palette of possibilities as a designer. We have sixty-three different nameplates here at Ford and last year we sold almost seven million cars. In the automobile business a product is made up of different kinds of attributes. It is made up of functional attributes and it is made up of emotional attributes. It is my job to deliver the emotional attributes, which are everything that is part of a sensory experience when you look, touch, smell, hear anything that an automobile does. How important is design to making buying decisions today? The emotional attributes are the “why buys” for customers. To deliver on the emotional attributes, you need to understand that they involve creating more than the styling on an automobile,
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they apply to the entire automobile. They make up one of the most important criteria. There is so much information out there at our disposal that it is impossible for us to really process it all. How we cope is by using visual signals or visual receipts that a product gives off. Let me shift the conversation to you as a coach. Did you create an impossible future for people when you came to Ford? I laid down the gauntlet for our one thousand–strong design team around the world by setting some goals so that we would have clarity about where we are going. The impossible future was that, in four years’ time, we are going to be considered the number one automobile design group in the world, bar none. That is a massive undertaking for us, but it is a goal that we are sincere in reaching.We are saying that to the press, and we are saying that to our employees internally as well. When I laid out this goal for people, I said,“This is possible and I will lie down on the tracks to get there, but we are going to do it a very specific way by creating very focused vehicles under each one of these different marques (brands) we have.” I also set the goal that we were going to separate, clarify, and amplify each of our brands into what I call a power brand. A power brand, in my mind, is a brand whose product you recognize from the first second you see it.You can name it and it has an immediate emotional impact. We have a couple of good examples of what I am talking about in the company, one of them being the Jaguar. There is no Jaguar on the road today that is not instantly recognized as a Jaguar. The other one is the Ford Truck, which is another one that we are very strong in. The truck stands for “tough,”“durable,”“trouble proof.” These are the attributes that people look for in a Ford Truck. I spent a lot of time getting this message through, as we have nine studios around the world— two here in Dearborn, one in California, three in Europe (Italy, Germany, and Britain), one in Hiroshima, and one in Melbourne. We have to have clarity about where we are going, to reach that as a group, because I can not be everywhere at once. How do you coach people to design a distinctive brand that is connected to customers? I use the word marque. It is the old word we used to use before someone came up with the word brand. In my field it is the distinctive marque of automobiles. For example, Jaguar, Lincoln, and Ford
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Truck are all great marques with strong traditions. By deconstructing their design into shape, materials, color, and texture, and so on, you can start to develop a design vocabulary for each marque. This vocabulary provides a palette for constructing again a new design that while taking tradition into account is fresh and original. It is very important as the design elements go back together that the product communicate a very focused set of values that connect almost umbilically, if possible, with the customer. If we know that our customer base for Lincoln has an income of $130,000 a year and the median age is fifty-two to fifty-five years old, we probably wouldn’t be designing a four-wheel-drive, extreme-youth off-roader for that brand. We would take a vehicle like that and place it under a brand where there would be a more natural connection with the customer, and would design a more luxurious four-wheel drive for the Lincoln. How did you apply this thought process to the development of the new version of the VW Beetle? In 1990,VW sales were down to 43,000 cars a year in the U.S. Basically, they were out of business. The problem was that there was a disconnect between what the people thought a VW was and what VW was selling them as a product.You could have asked anyone on the street what a VW was, and they would say that the VW was the old Beetle.They would say it represented a simple, honest form of transportation, and on top of that, it was trustworthy. Then I got the whole team interested, through some brainstorming, in the question of how do you represent simple and honest visually. So in the case of the VW, the whole idea of simplicity was paramount, and in terms of forms, the forms were very geometric. They were very simple. In fact they were all circles, which is the most simple of geometric shapes. The VW Golf was very boxy looking, but the original VW Beetle was actually quite bulbous, very circular. If you look at the shape of the VW, the shape is made up of three concentric circles. The large circle is the passenger compartment, and two smaller circles make up the front and rear wheels. The VW design is so simple that if you asked a child to draw a car, that is what it would look like. I believe what sends an intuitive message to people is the subliminal connection between simplicity and honesty—which are the exact values people saw in the original Beetle. If you go out into the parking lot and look at a lineup of cars next to each other, you will see a parking lot full of rectangles. And this little circle would pop its head out of all those rectangles, becoming immediately obvious to anyone who might look at it.
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Can you show me how you are applying your teachable point of view to the Ford Thunderbird? The new Ford Thunderbird has a totally different set of values to people.We pulled our design team together and sent them out to ask car buffs and customers what the most important Thunderbird was to them. They all said ’55 through ’57. A few people said ’61, ’62. What was interesting was that the T-Bird exuded the confidence and optimism of postwar America, which connected powerfully to the drivers’ sense of their own possibilities. The car also portrayed a very relaxed type of sportiness, as opposed to a more overt sportiness that we find in culture today. So we began brainstorming a design based on these verbal metaphors. Interestingly, if you look at automobile design now, as opposed to the fifties, a lot of the vehicles have higher rear ends than front ends. We call that in the automobile industry a wedge, which signifies and conveys a more overt sportiness. One of the design cues we found for communicating relaxed sportiness is to have the tail end of the Thunderbird be lower than the front end. In other words, trailing off toward the back. So the weight of the seat shifts back, not unlike that of the Harley Davidson. It gives off a much less overt sporty cue when you visualize that. For the confident and optimistic side of the design, I coached the team to study our vocabulary of design cues. If you look back at the postwar fifties, one thing that was associated with the confidence and optimism of that period were the jet planes that were used by the military. In fact the design of the tail lamps of the original Thunderbird was from the afterburners of those jet planes, which signified very high confidence and optimism in the back of people’s minds. So we decided to create headlamps and tail lamps that although very simple in shape, conveyed a sense of power. I think we have recreated that in a much more graphic, simple way on the new car than it was on the original. How do you coach a team to meet the design values, once you have decided what they are? I will give you an example of that. Design is a very intuitive profession, and designers make a lot of mistakes until they come up with a great solution. If they didn’t use intuition, the design would become a formula and that is not something that we’re trying to do. What we are trying to do is to take the verbal information that we know about the customer, give it a visual definition, then measure what the designer comes up with against that. So, if I am coaching a team toward “relaxed sportiness,” I can tell when I look at what a car design team is
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proposing just how far up the spectrum of relaxed sportiness they have come. If it is too overtly sporty or two sedate, then it doesn’t make the cut. It is important for the head of a design group to maintain a teachable point of view over time to preserve the integrity of the marque. For example, if you look at some of the Thunderbirds that were produced in the ’70s, they actually got less sporty, less relaxed, and less distinct. This was at a time when what was important in the country was downsizing and creating a more fuelefficient vehicle. This resulted in throwing different nameplates across the board on what was basically the same car, as this was the quickest way of downsizing and creating a fuel-efficient vehicle. So the brand or the nameplate Thunderbird really suffered in the ’70s due to a low cost orientation. What other things do you coach people on when you are visiting one of your design centers? I make a point of talking to designers about the fact that we are living in a what I call an overcommunicated society. I say that there are three things you need to communicate a product’s attributes. First, it needs to be . . . simple—so simple that the average Joe on the street can understand the moment that they look at the product what the message is. Second, it needs to be credible. By credible I mean it needs to not promise any more than it can possibly deliver functionally. So that the visual and the functional attributes of the vehicle are in line. And third, regardless of the income of the consumer, the vehicle has to be aspirational. That can be a $13,000 entry-level product or it may be a $130,000 luxury vehicle. But if it is a $13,000 entry-level product, it can be an very ordinary product, but it should be done so extraordinarily well that it has an aspirational value. At the point that there is no aspirational value, we are back in the commodity business, and we might as well as be producing sausages. Other coaching points? First of all, I usually use three questions:“Are the visual values of the car design true to the marque that you are designing it for?”“Do the values of that design differentiate our product from the competition?” and, “Do the values of that design have any meaning to the customer?” If I can answer those three questions, then I am well on my way to, at least, creating a foundation from which to work. If even one of those three questions is not answered, then it is back to the drawing board. In most cases when I work with a team, even on a visit, I get much deeper into the design process, but I use these crucial design criteria as a general rule of thumb.
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Could you give me an example of this? The message that I give my designers is that certainly we want to create a fair product for a good price, but we are not designing to a price; we are designing to a standard. And that standard is directly in line with a particular marque that we are selling.You have to give off the same message with consistency at any single point of contact with the customer. If it is a luxury vehicle, like the Lincoln, I want every detail of the product to reflect luxury. I want the brochure to reflect luxury. I want the buying experience to reflect luxury. I want the dealership to reflect luxury, so that there is a consistency of message at any point of contact between the Lincoln and purchaser. I will give you a specific example from this morning. We were looking at the design of a new Lincoln key. The team came to me with a black plastic key with an impregnated Lincoln badge on it. And my question to the team was, “What separates this key from the entry-level Ford product that I can buy over at the Ford dealership?” If I were looking for an American luxury car, the kind of key I would imagine would be a metal finish or something made out of titanium, a nice aluminum or chrome. It would have a beautiful enameled badge, signifying the luxury aspirations of the kind of vehicle it goes with.You are producing a luxury vehicle, so the key you put in your pocket should have those exact same values applied to it. If you don’t pay attention to such details, even on small aspects of the design, there will be a disconnect there for the customer. We are talking about the key, but keep in mind that this is only one of another 400 visible elements on the product. Any point of contact with the consumer should give off that consistent values of that particular brand. The implications for us internally are that by building a consistent message throughout our marques, we will start to garner more trust and brand loyalty from our customers, because when they walk into a Lincoln dealership or a Ford dealership, they will know exactly what they are going in there for and they will know exactly what they will drive out. Any final comments? The message that I give anyone coaching designers is that you are really not designing a product; you are designing a relationship with the customer. There is a huge significance to that that is often overlooked. If you see yourself designing in terms of creating a relationship with a customer, then every single thing that you do becomes a way to enhance that relationship. It is not unlike a relationship you would have with your wife or girlfriend or a woman would have with her boyfriend or husband.You do things in order to enhance that relationship, just as much as you possibly can, and when you do that well, you obviously create a loyalty there. J. Mays of Ford Motor Company
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C H A P T E R
E I G H T E E N
ART WILSON OF CRITICAL PATH STRATEGIES Coaching Big, Complex, Team-Based Sales Across Boundaries Sometime back I was at a kickoff meeting with a senior executive of a company that is a big provider of data services where he was addressing a group of thirty of his people—finance people, project managers, consultants—on the issue of sales. “This year we are going into the year with half our business plan unknown—without knowing where half our sales are coming from. So what we need to do is learn to understand our client’s needs at a higher level, and to do that, we need to have a higher level of consultative selling skills throughout the organization.That means each and every one of you.” People looked up in disbelief. Then Art Wilson, of Critical Path Strategies (CPS), Inc., an outfit that consults to major companies in strategic selling, walked into the room to talk in his Texan drawl about coaching around
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major account selling and a company culture where “everyone is in business development.” Says Wilson,“Most professionals in companies tend to view their world through a pipe. They crunch numbers, design specs, produce widgets, and service customer needs. Many don’t see how what they do connects to the customer except in a way that is abstract or three times removed from any direct contact.” According to Wilson, an ex-IBMer, who was on IBM’s top-ten list for five years in a row in sales and sales management,“When these professionals get involved in the selling process, they are able to come out of that pipe. It is an eye-opening experience. Not only do they see the customer’s needs at a higher level, they also begin to see how they personally and collectively add value at a level they never thought possible. This can really expand the customer’s recognition of value and make the sales and profit curve jump up.” Twenty years ago, if I had been looking for a sales guru for this book, I would have called Zig Ziglar for his famous Vince Lombardi quotes; fifteen years ago, Tom Hopkins for his closing techniques; five years ago, Larry Wilson or Miller Heiman on relationship selling. Today, there is no question that Art Wilson is one of the nation’s leading gurus on coaching virtual sales teams. Art and his colleagues at CPS are doing leading-edge work to coach virtual sales teams to achieve extraordinary goals in their big accounts in an environment shaped by global competitors, ever-increasing customer demands, dizzying technology change, boundaryless corporations, and the increasing tendency to blur the distinction between producer and consumer. In other words: reality.1
INTERVIEW WITH ART WILSON Could you paint us a graphic picture of today’s selling versus the old way? The old selling worked this way. Rick F., sales manager of XYZ Ball Bearing Corporation, would assign veteran salesman Bill G. to a territory or a group of major accounts, then would check up on him once or twice by phone, and maybe once a year, make an account visit. Bill would walk
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into the customer, get the order, shake hands with the customer, and walk out. The only people Bill ever talked to back at the factory were the “girls” at the order entry desk. The guys on the floor would take the order, load the goods into a big cannon, and fire it into the customer’s premises. Bill would show up again in three to six months. Today, XYZ Ball Bearing is out of business. The new major account selling usually involves a coach, who may not be the sales manager at all, and a fluid independent group of problem solvers who are really there to service the customers, to partner with them in solving business problems. But how does it work? As a participant in our seminars shouted out at me, “How do you organize these sales groups?” The answer is that they often organize themselves, but in fact there are two ways because there are two kinds of sales coaches—the ones who wait to have people assigned to their teams and the ones who round up the teams themselves. Guess which ones are more successful? It works like this: Sally J., a respected data services consultant at a company like Acxiom, calls you, Sam F., and says she has heard from Dave B. about your brilliant performance as a coach on the Dallas Instruments major account sale. She sees a similar opportunity with a few intriguing possibilities coming up with KL Computers, which is interested in outsourcing its data services. Let’s say you agree to sign up and to get going as soon as you finish your current project. As soon as you put the phone down, you turn to your whirling Rolodex in your mind and jot down seven names of people you would like to have on your team—maybe from three different states or three different continents. Then you start contacting these people by phone or e-mail. In the next forty-eight hours you successfully recruit the other members of your team. At the meeting on Tuesday, you create a breakthrough goal for the account and then develop the strategy and tactics to reach it. Is sales management about to become part of the coaching revolution? In many organizations, hierarchical sales management structures have been or are being replaced by self-directed selling project teams. These teams are composed of people from various places in the organization, and the selling project could be a big account, a sales opportunity, or even a business partnership. The implementation of a coaching culture is emerging as a competitive differentiator in bringing these virtual teams together around extraordinary sales goals, enabling value recognition by the customers and profitable growth for the sellers. The role of the coach has
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traditionally fallen primarily on the shoulders of the first-line sales manager, but this is changing quickly because many salespeople and particularly the nonselling professionals who are involved in making the sale do not report directly to the sales manager. Managing large accounts and big, complex sales opportunities is no longer just the responsibility of salespeople and their management. It is the job of everyone in the organization who interfaces with the client. What business factors are creating a climate for coaching? First, the demands of the marketplace have forced companies to continually do complex, difficult things for customers in order to meet and beat the competition. This has increased the complexity of effectively pursuing major accounts, complex sales opportunities, and key relationships. As a result, most companies have expanded selling to major accounts from a one-person, Lone Ranger game to a team enterprise. This has required a change from hierarchical to virtual selling organizations as well as the expansion of selling roles to distribution and partnering organizations. Today these selling teams are more project oriented. Teams can consist of a broad group of professionals, including technical specialists, operations people, R&D people, consultants, distribution channel representatives, and even competitors and customers. The sales leaders must build relationships with insiders and outsiders and nonsales professionals, many of whom come from a project management or operations background. The complexity of managing through this is often beyond the experience of most of the individuals responsible for leading the selling teams, as well as beyond the knowledge of those managers charged with directing them. We have found that coaching provides a solution to these puzzles in a way that is consistently powerful. Instilling coaching into the selling culture can lead to extraordinary results. Second, companies are looking to outsource business functions and projects. Reduced staffing levels and a significant increase in competitive pressures are causing customers to focus much more on ways to use outside resources to get their missions accomplished. Outsourcing at the project or functional level has become a way of life for most organizations. This increases the value of selling organizations that are dedicated to meeting customer needs. Also, the way customers buy has made a dramatic shift: from specific product or service buying to buying solutions that meet specific needs. This shift is creating incredible new selling opportunities for selling organizations that are customer-centric. Most customers’ executives now see tremendous value (and are very open to) reducing their number of vendors and integrating the
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remaining key vendors into the very fabric of their organization. Some of our clients’ customers see bottom-line costs of purchased products and services reduced by 35 percent or more through sole-sourcing with trusted vendor teams. A coach can support the sales leaders and teams to stay focused on customer needs and to stretch to ensure that efforts are directed to extraordinary results, not only for individual complex selling projects but also for the overall company-to-company relationship and relationships with key personnel within the customer company. Third, because of the significant changes in the entire selling organization, the role of sales managers has changed significantly over the past few years. Many nonsales managers—such as national account owners, principals in consulting organizations, and project managers—now have the role of managing the selling process. In fact the participation of these people in our training and account strategy sessions has grown from less than 20 percent to over 60 percent during the past six years. As the selling situation becomes more complex and the people involved become more diverse, the role of coaching becomes critical. Targeted coaching of functional selling teams and leaders to help them acquire strategic selling skills can have dramatic impact. Sales leaders and coaches are the key focal points for creating a high-performance selling culture. When they employ consistent coaching practices, enabled by tools and techniques, they can transfer experience and enable these diverse professionals to get quickly into the context of the selling situation so that they can bring their expertise to bear. What is your coachable point of view in teaching sales people and teams? Since 1992, at CPS we have been developing high-performance thought processes supported by a set of coaching tools that help selling teams create and manage strategies for large accounts, complex sales opportunities, and key relationships. They are centered on logical planning steps that enable the team to define an extraordinary goal, develop a strategy, execute the workplan, and then review and update the workplan until its successful completion. We have also distinguished four habits (steps) for coaching in the complex team-selling environment. While there are many facets to becoming an effective coach (for individuals or for selling teams), we have observed that the leadership’s incorporation of these four critical habits
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produces breakthrough results for selling teams. Also, within each of these four habits we have a best practice that we have found most useful for becoming a world-class coach. My overall coachable point of view is to learn from the best. What I found, over time, was that these best-territory salespeople did only a few things differently but had substantially higher results. The best tended to do 50 to 100 percent more business than the average. I also discovered that the sales reps and selling teams who sold to large accounts produced 200 to 1,000 percent higher results than the average. What are the four coaching habits? The four key coaching habits that we employ around our process encompass changing the manager’s and team leader’s roles with the selling team. They form a sequential process for forming and maintaining a high-value coaching relationship. The coaching habits are 1. Establishing high-value coaching relationships 2. Identifying coachable moments 3. Helping teams develop extraordinary goals 4. Getting commitment to actions How is a high-value coaching relationship established? Whether the coaching relationship is requested by the player (the person being coached) or by the potential coach, it is very important that this relationship (and the act of coaching itself) be clearly separated from any other preexisting relationship. Otherwise the conversations will quickly revert back to the previous relationship. Also, it should be a cardinal rule of every coach to ask permission to give coaching, every single time. A player who has given permission to be coached will always be more receptive to being coached. And without permission, the coaching runs the risk of evolving into telling, directing, or preaching, as well as the risk of people resisting. For example, recently, I was meeting with a salesperson who was responsible for one of his company’s largest customers. The salesperson was very emotional and was loudly complaining about
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the situation with his customer and asked for my advice. However, every time I tried to interject, he would complain louder. I finally decided to just let him talk and, after a few minutes, asked him if he wanted me to coach him. He sat back and said yes. I then asked him a few questions, and we quickly found what was missing, and we then developed some short-term actions that might correct the situation. Before I asked the question, I was just someone convenient to “dump on.” After the question, I became a partner in solving the problem. One effective way to establish a good coaching relationship is to share your coaching philosophy with the player and be true to it. I have found it best if the coach: •
Listens hard! Coaching is a conversation, not an interrogation.
•
Offers and suggests, rather than tells and dictates. Mutual trust is extremely important.
•
Asks thoughtful questions. Count to five slowly before interjecting.
•
Helps the player find out what is missing to move forward.
What is the best practice for establishing a high-value coaching relationship? The best practice is to establish a coaching relationship even when “it ain’t easy and ain’t comfortable.” Focus your coaching energy on enrolling and engaging players who need you the most as well as on those who want your coaching the most. A high percentage of clients and other players that later became some of my best friends were, in the beginning, very difficult people whom I persistently pursued developing a coaching relationship with. Do you recommend using a coaching contract? If the coach isn’t the manager, we recommend that an actual coaching contract be set up. It should cover basic ground rules, expectations, and scheduling the coaching calls. However, in the field of large-account sales, a coach and player may find it difficult, if not impossible, to stick to a regular schedule for coaching calls—particularly if the coach is also the manager. Things come up, the most urgent of which are customer or competitor driven. Therefore we have found it valuable that the coach look for coachable moments—moments in which the player will be particularly receptive to being coached. Looking for coachable moments is the second coaching habit.
Art Wilson of Critical Path Strategies
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How can a coach tell that a coachable moment may have occurred? One signal of this may be when the player says something like any of the following: “Do you have a minute?” or,“There’s something I would like to run by you,” or,“What would you do in a situation like this?” or,“I’m stuck.” One of my favorites to look for is,“By the way . . .” A key to discovering coachable moments is “being there,” that is, being centered on the player, not on yourself as coach. This other-centeredness becomes a measure of the coach’s maturity. Finally, the ideal signal that a player is coachable is when the player says to the coach,“I would like to request your coaching on something.” The best coaching is coaching that has been requested. What is the best practice for finding coachable moments? Look out for those times in which large-account salespeople are planning a customer call about which they are not highly confident. This is a highly coachable moment. We have found that the following questions will typically yield several times the impact of normal call preparation. Have the player write his or her ideas down. •
Would you like me to help you prepare for this customer call?
•
What are your most important two or three objectives for the meeting?
•
What are the two or three important customer needs that we could satisfy during this meeting?
•
What are the two or three questions we could ask that would have the highest impact in helping us achieve the objectives of the call?
•
What would be the best two or three openings that we could use that would get the call off to the best possible start?
Tell us about the third coaching habit: helping teams set extraordinary goals. Nothing inhibits right actions by salespeople and team members more than not having a clear goal and a target date for completion. Without a clear goal, selling teams are destined to spend most
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of their time focused on the urgent versus the important. Without a clear goal, even the most skilled professional selling-team members will wander in the desert looking for the oasis. And those selling-team members who are part-time on the project will lower the priority for this project in terms of its share of their mind and actions. We all know that having goals is very important, but in selling situations, most professionals will avoid setting clear goals with dates. Why? In our subconscious minds we believe that if we set a clear goal and deadline we have set ourselves up for potential failure, while if we don’t there are a number of ways we can declare success. Experience shows, however, that those who set specific goals have significantly higher success rates. The coach’s role is to help players set extraordinary goals that are clearly stated and, even though the plan to accomplish them is not yet clear, are believed to be possible.We recommend that the coach always ask the person (or team) to clearly and openly (penalty free) state the goals to be achieved for the current situation, from the person’s standpoint and from the standpoint of the customer. There are three aspects to setting goals that I believe are important. (1) Everyone on the team understands clearly the goal of the project and the target date for completion. (2) There are a few clearly identified milestones (with target dates) that will ensure successful completion of the project. (3) Everyone associated with the project (including the customer) understands his or her accountability for short-term actions that will accomplish the targeted milestones. What is the best practice for setting the clear goals? It is to think big from the customer’s point of view. I have a great personal example. My first sales partner, Jeff Pace, a great coach and role model, took a lot of interest in my success. Our major account was a large city government, and Jeff assigned me the hospital. At the time, computers were primarily used for back-office accounting functions. Being anxious to succeed quickly, my obvious focus was to sell a new medium-size system to move the processing for the back-office accounting from the city’s system to the hospital. I was very excited about this sales opportunity and asked for Jeff ’s advice. He got me to step back and take a longer-term look from the customer’s view. He suggested that if we could get the customer to see the long-term value of automation of the whole hospital, our odds of success on the first phase would be higher, and the medium-term to long-term business would be much easier to sell.
Art Wilson of Critical Path Strategies
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And that is exactly what happened. The initial part of the sales process did take a couple of months longer, but in the end the client sole-sourced the business to us, the commitment was for a longer term, our revenue was five times larger, and because of the linkage to the client’s business needs, emphasis on successful implementation was across the entire organization. The client’s measured return showed better than a two-year payback on the entire capital investment, and my company supplied that customer its key computer needs for over a decade—all because of a great coach!! I have personally experienced and studied the phenomenon of thinking big for almost thirty years, as a player and as a coach. I know that using a coach (whether the coach is a manager, team leader, consultant, or customer) to clearly identify an extraordinary goal not only increases the recognized value to the client and the revenue to the selling company but also will, in most cases, actually increase the odds of winning, as well as increase the overall business opportunity significantly. What is a clear goal? Could you give some examples? •
The specific products or services (with terms and conditions) that we would like the customer to buy from us by a specific target date
•
The future state of a higher-value relationship that would exist from the client’s and our perspective by a specific date
•
The success of a critical sales meeting and satisfaction of potential needs of the targeted participants at the meeting from our point of view and the client’s
•
Understanding the best option to take in a critical situation, the one that will satisfy various constituents involved
Tell us about the fourth coaching habit: getting commitment to action. I have a story that illustrates this. After a number of years of success as a salesperson, I was promoted to lead a number of salespeople in a territory comprising large medical centers and hospital chains. This territory had been a sales disaster for several years. The technical support
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people and young salespeople who survived these difficult business times were excellent but quite depressed. During the first year I took the lead in setting and managing strategies for the entire key accounts and for major sales opportunities and directing actions of all the team members. I noticed over time that while everyone agreed to my strategies during the planning sessions, people seemed to be waiting around for me to take action or tell them what to do. And as hard as I worked, I could not handle and direct all the active strategies. As a result the second year was one of the worst business volume years in the history of that territory. In fact my job was on the cutting block, and I decided to get some coaching from my new sales manager, Scotty Walsh. He gave me one year to fix the business volumes and some excellent advice.“Art, you are a great salesman, but you can’t do everything.You have some people working with you that have incredible potential, but they can’t grow if they have to be directed by you in every strategy and action. If you don’t move into more of a coaching and support role with the other account leaders, you and we won’t make it.” That got my attention! While it was still necessary to put my director’s hat on from time to time, my role changed from leader to strategy facilitator and coach. What I learned was the value of stepping back and helping others create their extraordinary goal, a customer-centric selling strategy, and a workplan that consisted of a small number of milestones and short-term, written, committed actions. After that was done, it was a matter of reviewing these workplans, once a month or when coaching was requested. There was a continuous team focus on short-term actions that supported the key strategic goals for each client. As a result, this team, for five years, sold more business each year than had been sold in the previous five years combined. Why is it so important for the coach to gain commitment to next actions in coaching in this team-selling environment? Unlike normal project planning, strategies in the complex selling environments are built with only limited knowledge of all the facts surrounding the account, the selling opportunity or key relationship. Furthermore, we will never have all the facts. These projects also tend to be much more dynamic than most other kinds of projects. Because of the dynamics of these situations and selling-team members’ work lives, we should not try to get long-term, committed actions from team members. However, committed, short-term, accountable actions, related to critical milestones of the extraordinary goal, hit the important-urgent category for all team members, including the customer!
Art Wilson of Critical Path Strategies
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What is the best practice for gaining commitment to action? For a sales leader the best-practice coaching habit for getting commitment to action is to transfer, by example and mentoring, your best practices in coaching to those whom you coach—for in today’s virtual teams, coaching the coaches is really the job of sales managers and sales leaders! How would you sum up? The highest-impact selling organizations of the future will be made up of relatively few selling professionals and many others who focus on, develop, and execute customer-centric selling strategies for their major customers, complex selling opportunities, and key relationships. Leadership and management will continue to be vital. But in conjunction with leadership and management, the implementation of an unencumbered coaching culture is the key to creating a real selling organization and will be the competitive differentiator of the survivors. You can reach Art Wilson at 210-710-3708 or
[email protected].
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NOTES INTRODUCTION 1. 2. 3. 4.
Warren G. Bennis and Patricia Ward Beiderman, Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration (New York, Perseus, 1998). Francine Russo, “Play of the Day,” Time, Sept. 25, 2000. Clemens made this statement when she was an IBM executive. Bryan Patterson, “Making Peace from Victory over Poverty,” Herald Sun, October 22, 2006, [http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20621107-24909,00.html], Dec. 2006. From the Web site of Greylock Associates, an interview with Herb Kelleher, Chairman, CEO, and President of Southwest Airlines, [http://www.greylockassociates.com/kelleher.htm], Dec. 2006.
CHAPTER ONE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
11.
12.
Frederick Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Harper, 1911). From the Web site of Greylock Associates, an interview with Herb Kelleher, Chairman, CEO, and President of Southwest Airlines, [http://www.greylockassociates.com/kelleher.htm], Dec. 2006. Warren Bennis and Patricia Biederman, Organizing Genius:The Secrets of Creative Collaboration (New York: Perseus, 1998). Bennis and Biederman, Organizing Genius. I am appreciative of the work of Larry Bossidy, former chairman of the board of Honeywell and coauthor, with Ram Charan, of Execution:The Discipline of Getting Things Done (New York: Crown Business, 2002). Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod, The War for Talent (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2001). Jack Welch and John A. Byrne, Jack: Straight from the Gut (New York: Warner Business Books, 2001). Welch and Byrne, Jack: Straight From the Gut. Quote from Answers.com Web site, [http://www.answers.com/topic/enrico-roger], Dec. 2006. Noel Tichy and Christopher DeRose,“Roger Enrico’s Master Class,” Fortune, November 27, 1995. Noel Tichy, The Leadership Engine: How Winning Companies Build Leaders at Every Level (New York: HarperCollins, 1997). I had the privilege of interviewing David Binkley, vice president of Global Human Resources, Whirlpool, on the work that he and Jeff Fettig (CEO) did to create a coaching environment at Whirlpool. Interview with David Binkley.
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13.
14. 15. 16. 17.
This quote from Nathan Myhrvold, former chief scientist at Microsoft, was found on Tom Peters’s Web site, [http://www.tompeters.com/slides/uploaded/InnoDieLONG111005.ppt#483,277,Did We Say “Talent Matters”], Dec. 2006. Michaels, Handfield-Jones, and Axelrod, The War for Talent. Michaels, Handfield-Jones, and Axelrod, The War for Talent. Michaels, Handfield-Jones, and Axelrod, The War for Talent. Michaels, Handfield-Jones, and Axelrod, The War for Talent.
CHAPTER TWO 1. 2. 3.
4.
5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Gayle Sato Stodder,“Making People Count: Southwest Airlines—Company Profile,” Entrepreneur, [http://findarticles.com./p/articles/mi_m0DTI/is_n9_v25/ai_19892335]. Sept. 1997. This quote from Walt Disney can be found on Brainyquote, [http://www.brainyquote.com/ quotes/authors/w/walt_disney.html], Dec. 2006. John Markoff,“For $150, Third-World Laptop Stirs a Big Debate,” The New York Times, December 2, 2006, [http://news.com.com/For+150,+third-world+laptop+stirs+a+big+debate/2100-1044_ 3-6139747.html], Dec. 2006. Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, quoted from Tom Peters’s Web site, [http://www. tompeters.com/slides/uploaded/MLIM_L23long040506.ppt], n.d. This statement originally appeared in Investor’s Business Daily. John Sculley with John Byrne, Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple (New York: HarperCollins, 1987). “Ghosn Faces Rough Road in Dual-Steering of Nissan-Renault Alliance,” AFP, April 24, 2005, [http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/AFP/2005/04/24/825767], Dec. 2006. Thanks to friend and colleague Thomas Zweifel for his contribution of the idea of the catalytic breakthrough project. C. K. Prahalad, Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Wharton School Publishing, 2005). From AmericanHeritage.com on Adlai Stevenson, [http://www.americanheritage.com/ articles/magazine/ah/1973/6/1973_6_20.shtml], Dec. 2006.
CHAPTER THREE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
304
This example is an instance of well-known sports lore. The term three-peat has been trademarked by Riley. Rick Pitino and Bill Reynolds, Success Is a Choice (New York: Bantam Doubleday, 1998). Richard Pascale,“Grassroots Leadership,” Fast Company, Apr.-May 1998, p. 114. John A. Byrne,“How Jack Welch Runs GE,” BusinessWeek, June 8, 1998, p. 104. This quote is from an interview of Jon Katzenbach, senior partner, Katzenbach Partners LLC (former director Mckinsey & Company) as part of an article by Jack Sweeney, “Engagement of the Century: A Consultant, His Client, and the Making of the Management
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6. 7.
8. 9. 10. 11.
Profession,” Consulting Magazine.com [http://www.consultingmagazine.com/CMFeat_ EngagementoftheCentury.html], Dec. 2006. I am grateful for this story from my friend Tom Kaiser. Chris Argyris has contributed significantly to the body of knowledge around organizational learning and has written numerous books on the subject, among them Overcoming Organizational Defenses (Needham Heights, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon, 1990) and Knowledge for Action (San Francisco: JosseyBass, 1993). Marcus Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know (New York: Free Press, 2005). Again special appreciation to Joan Holmes of the Hunger Project. Warren Bennis and Patricia Biederman, Organizing Genius:The Secrets of Creative Collaboration (New York: Perseus, 1998). I am grateful for the time Douglas Dayton, director of Boston-based IDEO, spent sharing stories of how IDEO supported and relied on group collaboration.
CHAPTER FOUR 1.
2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
John A. Byrne, “The Fast Company Interview: Jeff Immelt” Fast Company, July 1, 2005; John A. Byrne,“How Jack Welch Runs GE: A Close-up Look at How America’s #1 Manager Runs GE,” BusinessWeek, June 8, 1998. Paul Arden, Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite (London: Penguin Books, 2006); quoted from [http://www.tompeters.com]. Bill Bradley, Values of the Game (New York: Artisan, 1998). Arden, Whatever You Think. John Wooden with Jack Tobin, They Call Me Coach (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1988). Bradley, Values of the Game. I have much appreciation to friend and colleague William Plummer for these series of questions. Bill is a master at the art of questioning and the consultative sale. Thanks to Tania Fowler for this example. Dawna Markova, in her book No Enemies Within (Emeryville, Calif.: Publishers Group West, 1994), coined the phrases river story and rut story. After making this remark, David Geddis, Korean World Cup team soccer coach, took his team to the semifinals; quoted from [http://www.tompeters.com]. Michael Schrage, No More Teams! (New York: Doubleday, 1989). Kevin Sharer is the CEO of Amgen. Schrage, No More Teams! Howard Gardner and Emma Laskin, Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership (New York: HarperCollins, 1996). Ikujiro Nonaka,“The Knowledge-Creating Company,” in Robert Howard, The Learning Imperative: Managing People for Continuous Innovation (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1993). General Patton’s remark is quoted from Tom Peters’s Web site, [http://www.tompeters.com/ toms_world/read.php?date=200411], 2004.
Notes
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16. 17.
Fernando Flores has done extensive work in the area of action language. See also Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores, Understanding Computer and Cognition (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1986). John Dewey, Democracy and Education (New York: Macmillan, 1916).
CHAPTER FIVE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
13. 14.
Bo Burlingham, Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big (New York: Portfolio, 2005). John Sculley with John Byrne, Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple (New York: HarperCollins, 1987). Jack Welch, Winning (New York: HarperCollins, 2005). Richard Teitelbaum,“My Airport, My Palace,” Fortune, July 22, 1996. Special thanks to Jeff Kaufman, field vice president at Allstate Insurance, for conversations on coaching. I am grateful for conversations with Mike Eskew, CEO of UPS. I am appreciative of conversations with George Vanderheiden, fund manager at Fidelity Investments in Boston. Patricia Sellers, “Home Depot: Something to Prove,” Fortune, June 27, 2002. Bob Nardelli is the CEO of Home Depot. I am appreciative of coaching conversations with Jim Nokes of ConocoPhillips. Eric Randsell,“Redesigning the Design Business,” Fast Company, July 1998. Again, I am grateful for this story from my friend Tom Kaiser. I am grateful to Robert Schaffer for sharing his ideas and expertise on developing high-performance teams using the Breakthrough Strategy. See Robert Schaffer, The Breakthrough Strategy (New York: Ballinger, 1988). Sidney Lumet, Making Movies (New York: Knopf, 1995). The story of Ted Williams and coaching is part of Boston sports lore.
CHAPTER SIX 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
306
“Yes, Winning Is Still The Only Thing,” BusinessWeek online, [http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary. com/docs/press/BW_20060821.doc], Aug. 21, 2006. “Yes, Winning Is Still The Only Thing.” “Yes, Winning Is Still The Only Thing.” Pat Riley quote from BrainyQuote.com, [http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/ patriley129222.html], Dec. 2006. Quoted from Tom Peters’s Web site, [http://www.tompeters.com/archives.php?date=200507], 2005. W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005). Headline in the New York Times, July 16, 2005.
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8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.
Headline in BusinessWeek, July 19, 2004. Jean-Marie Dru, Disruption: Overturning Conventions and Shaking Up the Marketplace (New York: Wiley, 1996). “UpFRONT,” Linux Journal, [http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4422], Jan. 2001. “Fred Smith on the Birth of FedEx” (Interview), BusinessWeek online, [http://www. businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_38/b3900032_mz072.htm], Sept. 20, 2004. Paul Arden, Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite (London: Penguin Books, 2006). Quoted from Tom Peters’s Web site, [http://www.tompeters.com/slides/uploaded/XAlways CIDEMfinal101806.ppt], 2006. Michael Schrage, Serious Play: How the World’s Best Companies Simulate to Innovate (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999). John Byrne,“The Fast Company Interview: Jeff Immelt,” Fast Company, July 2005. Robert Schaffer, The Breakthrough Strategy (New ed.), (New York: HarperCollins, 1989). Phil Daniels, a Sydney executive, quoted from Tom Peters’s Web site, [http://www.tompeters. com/slides/uploaded/InnoNEWshort052406.ppt], 2006. “The Power of Us: Mass Collaboration on the Internet Is Shaking Up Business,” BusinessWeek online, [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_25/b3938601.htm], June 20, 2005. “The Power of Us.” Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, quoted in “The Power of Us.” Headline in the Economist, Apr. 15, 2006. Joseph Pine II and James Gilmore, The Experience Economy:Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999). Dru, Disruption. Dave Ulrich, Jack Zenger, and Norman Smallwood, Results-Based Leadership (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999). Nancy Orsolini, a Starbucks district manager, quoted on Tom Peters’s Web site, [http://www. tompeters.com/slides/uploaded/NAPAfinal020906.ppt], 2006. Tom Peters, Re-imagine! (London: Dorling Kindersley, 2003). Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2006).
CHAPTER SEVEN 1. 2. 3. 4.
Richard Severance is former president of a Big Oil refining and marketing organization and someone I worked with in a coaching relationship for several years. My gratitude to Bill Scott, a friend and a person it was a pleasure to have worked with in a coaching relationship. I appreciate the coaching conversations I had with Andy Gfesser, a really wonderful guy. I am appreciative of conversations on coaching with Grace Cheng.
Notes
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5. 6. 7. 8.
I am grateful for the time Mike Eskew spent in conversations with me about what he is doing at UPS. Betsy Morris,“Doug Did It,” Fortune, May 25, 1998. My thanks to Emma Scherer for sharing her views of coaching and the coaching culture at Southwest Airlines. My appreciation to both Bill Patterson and Greg Goff for this story.
CHAPTER EIGHT 1. 2. 3.
4. 5.
6. 7. 8. 9.
10.
It was my pleasure to work with Andy Gfesser, CEO of Trendler, Inc., and his top-management group and to write about our work together. Robert Hargrove, Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998). The scan, focus, act model was first formulated by Jim Channon, Frank Burns, and Linda Nelson and is copyrighted by Metasystems Design Group, 1983. (Metasystems Design Group is now part of Caucus Systems.) We first heard about the model from MC Taylor Corporation, www. mgtaylor.com. The left-hand column exercise was developed by Chris Argyris. He is the author of many books on organizational behavior. See Knowledge for Action (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993). I am appreciative of conversations with Joan Holmes, director of The Hunger Project, where she talked to me about The Hunger Project’s Strategic Planning in Action process. You can find out about The Hunger Project at www.thp.org. Ram Charan, “Sharpening Your Business Acumen,” Strategy & Business Magazine (Autumn 2006). Ibid. W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005). A number of years ago I spoke with the people of MG Taylor Corporation when they were in Cambridge, Massachusetts, about their leading edge work in creating environments for creative and inventive problem solving.You can find them on the web at www.mgtaylor.com. Robert Hargrove and Michel Renaud, Your Coach (in a Book): Mastering the Trickiest Leadership, Business, and Career Challenges You Will Ever Face (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004).
CHAPTER NINE 1. 2. 3.
308
Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, Execution,The Discipline of Getting Things Done (New York: Crown Business, 2002). I am appreciative of coaching conversations with Bill Patterson of ConocoPhillips. I am also grateful for coaching conversations with Barry Kumins of ConocoPhillips.
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CHAPTER TEN 1. 2. 3.
Interviews by Julia Boorstin,“The Best Advice I Ever Got,” Fortune Magazine (March 21, 2005). Again, thanks and appreciation to Andy Gfesser, CEO of Trendler, Inc. Tom Kelley, The Art of Innovation (New York: Currency/Doubleday, 2001).
PART III 1.
Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Technology Products to Mainstream Customers (New York: HarperBusiness, 1991).
CHAPTER ELEVEN 1.
I am grateful for the opportunity to interview Mike Eskew, Chairman and CEO of UPS.
CHAPTER TWELVE 1. 2. 3.
Gayle Sato Stodder, “Making People Count: Southwest Airlines—Company Profile,” Entrepreneur, [http://findarticles.com./p/articles/mi_m0DTI/is_n9_v25/ai_19892335], Sept. 1997. Stodder,“Making People Count.” I am grateful for the opportunity to interview Emma Scherer and Teresa Laraba of Southwest Airlines. They were both an inspiration.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 1.
I am appreciative of conversations with David Binkley,VP Global Human Resources, Whirlpool. He was a true colleague.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 1.
I am grateful for conversations with Jeff Kaufman, field vice president for Allstate Insurance.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 1.
I am grateful for the many conversations with Jay Abraham, a true marketing genius.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 1. 2.
Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management (New York: HarperCollins, 1954). I am appreciative of conversations with Hubert Saint-Onge, who is truly ahead of his time.
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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 1.
I am grateful for the opportunity to talk to J. Mays, vice president of corporate design at Ford Motor Company, about his coaching in regard to design.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 1.
310
I am very appreciative of conversations with Art Wilson, of Critical Path Strategies, Inc., on sales coaching.
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INDEX A Abraham, Jay, 267–273 Abrahams, Harold, 161 Action, getting commitment to, 300–302. See also Forwarding action Action coaching, 205–219; interview on use of, 209–219; team-based, 206, 207–209 Action language, 88–90 Action plan, 30-day, 17–19 ADT, 147–148 Advice, giving, 79–80, 93 Allaire, Paul, 133 Allstate Insurance, 261–266 Amazon.com, 140 Analogies, to draw out creative thinking, 83–84 Apache Oil Corporation, 136 Apple Computer, 10, 33. See also Jobs, Steven (Steve) Apprenticeships, 234–238 Arden, Paul, 66, 140 Argyris, Chris, 59, 60, 122, 305n7, 308n3 Assessment: before using Masterful Coaching Method, 97–98; coaching conversations for, 77–78, 93; fact-based, about breakdowns, 121; of readiness for becoming masterful coach, xxv–xxviii; of talent, 10, 11, 29, 78, 106–107; 360 feedback for, 38, 78, 115, 172–174; What’s So Process for, 35, 78, 192–193 Assumptions, questioning, 85–86 Auerbach, Red, xvii, 7 Avedon, Richard, 67 Axelrod, Beth, 10, 13 B Ba`al Shem Tov, xvii Backcasting, 190
Ballmer, Steve, 22 Bannister, Roger, 26 Beaman, Dean, 67 Belichick, Bill, 97 Benchmarking, avoiding, 134–135, 197 Bennis, Warren, xviii, 7, 8, 61, 70 Binkley, David, 240, 255–260 Binton, Thomas, 12 Blanchard, 231 Bloomberg, Michael, 140 Body language, 48, 49, 50, 132 Bohr, Niels, 28 Books, 229–230 Boomers: coaching younger people, 262–263; as unrecognized consumer majority, 143, 144–145 Bossidy, Lawrence (Larry), 9, 205 Bower, Marvin, 58 Brands: coaching to design distinctive, 285–286; getting people to join, 137–138; power, 285 Branson, Richard, 100–101 Breakdowns: defined, 227; forwarding action and, 177–178; how to handle, 226–228; observing, and intervening, 119–123, 178–180; as opportunities for learning, 168, 263, 264–265; as opportunities for reframing, 85, 87 Breakthrough goals, following up on, 118–119 Breakthroughs: business, 110–114, 215, 216; leadership, 111, 114–116, 215–216, 217; leadership circle for producing, 232; phases of, 207–208; technology, mandating management breakthroughs, 23. See also Catalytic breakthrough projects; Imagination breakthroughs process BrickRed Technologies, 136 Brodovitch, Alexey, 67 Brown, John Seeley, 32
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Buckingham, Marcus, 61 Buddha, xvii Buffet, Warren, xxi, xxiii Burns, James ( Jim) MacGregor, 7, 230 Bush, George H. W., 23 Business assessment, 78, 192–193 Business breakthroughs, 110–114, 215, 216 Business context: altered, and rules of game, xv; changed, for management, 24; coaching conversation on, 193–196; for coaching in selling organizations, 294–295 Business gurus, 155 Business models, dramatically different, 197–199 C Calendarizing coaching, xxii, 12, 110, 158, 297 Calloway, Wayne, 11 Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), 276–277, 280 Capital, as source of wealth, 5 Caps. See Six-Cap Coaching System Career, taking charge of your own, 150–151 Catalytic breakthrough projects (CBPs): coaching on setting up, 200–202; as element of source document, 187; examples of, 36, 175–176; forwarding action with, 35–36 Cause, mission as, 32 CEOs as coaches, 3–20; characteristics of, 20; how to become, 15–19; role models for, 10–14; shift to, 3, 4–5; time spent coaching by, 9, 11; unrecognized importance of, 13–14. See also Coaches; Executive coaches; Masterful coaches Certification programs, masterful coaching, xi, 96, 219–220 Challenging, and supporting at same time, 45 Change insurgents, 139–140 Change. See Transformation Charan, Ram, 194, 205 Cheng, Grace, xvi–xvii, 154, 162
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China, leadership gap in, 12 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 37 Cirque du Soleil, 135 Clemens, Tanya, xviii Club Med, 135, 146 Coachable moments, 65, 104, 168, 169, 180, 298 Coaches: caution for, on ideas of bosses, 98; early examples of leaders as, 5; leaders vs., 15; new, advantages of, 97. See also CEOs as coaches; Executive coaches; Masterful coaches Coaching: at Allstate, 262–266; calendarizing (scheduling), xxii, 12, 110, 158, 297; getting started with, 17–19; by Hubert Saint-Onge, 278–279; by Jay Abraham, 269–271; lack of standard practices in, xvi–xvii; as main activity of leaders, 16–17; mentoring vs., 18; myths of, xx–xxiii, 161; of people who design, 283–289; at Southwest Airlines, 251–253; time spent, by masterful coaches, xix, 9, 11, 19; at Whirlpool, 257–260; of younger people, 262–263. See also Action coaching; Executive coaching; Masterful coaching Coaching caps. See Six-Cap Coaching System Coaching communication: committed listening in, 66–67, 70–73, 74; committed speaking in, 66–70, 73–74. See also Coaching conversations Coaching contracts, 297 Coaching conversations, 63–94; for articulating teachable point of view, 167; for assessment, 77–78, 93, 191–193; for building dreams and motivating, 76–77, 93; on business context and trends, 193–196; categories of, 94; characteristics of, 65–66; for clarifying impossible future, 163, 188–191; committed listening in, 66–67, 70–73, 74; committed speaking in, 66–70, 73–74; for devising game-changing strategy, 196–199; for drawing people out, 81–84, 93; for executing strategy, 199–203; for forwarding action, 87–90, 93; managing, 91–93;
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opportunities for, 64–65; for reframing, 84–87, 93; role models for, 156; for teaching and advising, 79–80, 93; for team strategy session, listed, 188; on winning strategies, 170–172. See also Dialogue Coaching model. See Masterful Coaching Method Coaching relationship: in executive coaching, 158–159, 161, 163–164; in Masterful Coaching Method, 108–110; when coaching sales teams, 296–297 Coaching sessions. See Executive coaching sessions; Masterful Coaching Method Coca-Cola, 136, 166–167 Coffin, Charles A., 11 CollabLabs, 206 Collaboration. See Creative collaboration Collaborative inquiry, managing by, 57–60 Communication. See Coaching communication Competition: made irrelevant, 134–135; in today’s business world, 133; value innovation vs., 197–199. See also Winning “Computer for Every Child” program, 27–28 Concept of the Corporation (Drucker), 23 Conditions of satisfaction, for business breakthroughs, 112 Consumers, new majority, 143–145 Context. See Business context Conversations. See Coaching conversations Courage, needed to reach goals, 223–224 Creative class, 7–8 Creative collaboration: guiding principles for, 33–34, 185–186; masterful coaches as architects of, 8, 10, 60–62 Creative minorities, 10 Critical Path Strategies (CPS), 291–302 D Dalai Lama, 229 Darshan, 228–229
Dayton, Douglas, 61–62 Demosthenes, 37 Deneuve, Catherine, 143 Design: brands and, 137–138; coaching, 283–289 Developing countries. See Emerging markets Dewey, John, 89 Dialogue: guidelines for, 36; real, for creative collaboration, 62. See also Coaching conversations Differences, honoring, on teams, 46 Disney, Walt, xxi, 22 Disraeli, Benjamin, 82 Drawing people out, coaching conversations for, 81–84, 93 Drucker, Peter, 4, 23, 230, 275 E E-businesses, reinventing businesses as, 141–143 E-mail: coachee and leader-as-coach conversation via, 217–219; as follow-up to executive coaching session, 164 EBay, 140 Economist Intelligence Unithas, 61 The Effective Executive (Drucker), 23 Elderly people, as unrecognized consumer majority, 143–145 Emerging markets: catalytic breakthrough projects in, 36; coaching leadership in, 12;“Computer for Every Child” program for, 27–28; GEs growth in, 31–32, 36; hiring talent in, 257 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, xix Employees, masterful coaches as providing self-development for, 6, 9, 10 Enrico, Roger, xix, 11 Enterprise communities, 61 Eskew, Mike, 104–105, 166, 241–245 Ewing, Patrick, 67 Executive coaches: Fortune 500 companies using, xvi, 17; qualifications for, 156
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Executive coaching, 153–182; creating coaching relationship for, 158–159, 161, 163–164; sample clients for, 154; unique nature of, 155. See also Coaching; Masterful coaching Executive coaching sessions, 159–182; for articulating teachable point of view, 165–169; creating leadership roadmap in, 174; for declaring impossible future, 160, 161–163, 164; designing catalytic breakthrough projects in, 175–176; five, listed, 159–160; for forwarding action, 176–178; observing breakdowns in, 178–180; providing TPOVs in, 180–182; 360 feedback in, 172–174; on winning strategies, 170–172 Experiences: providing gaspworthy, 145–146; translating, into teachable points of view, 102 Exxon Mobil, 5 F Facts, interpretations vs., 86 Federal Express (FedEx), 10, 26–27, 99, 138 Feedback: guidelines for, 123–125; Hot Seat exercise for, 232–234; providing, with candor, 70. See also 360 feedback Fettig, Jeff: on calendarizing coaching, 158; coaching advocated by, 256, 258, 259, 260; commitment lived by, 240; mentoring by, 41; as role model for CEO as coach, 12; time spent coaching by, xix Financial results, provided by masterful coaches, 6, 9, 10 Five-Step Coaching Model. See Masterful Coaching Method Follow-up: on breakthrough goals, 118–119; on first executive coaching session, 164; importance of, 215; management by, 118 Ford, Henry, 4 Ford Motor Company, 283–289 Fortune 500 companies: characteristics of, xviii–xix; using executive coaches, xvi, 17
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Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid (Prahalad), 36 Forwarding action: with catalytic breakthrough projects, 35–36; coaching conversations for, 87–90, 93; in executive coaching, 176–178; as step in Masterful Coaching Method, 116–119 Fowler, Tania, 72 Free John, Da, 228 Friedman, Thomas J., 150 Friis, Janus, 141 Future. See Impossible future G Galvin, Frank, 119, 120 Game plans: coaching conversations for creating, 188–203; as element of source document, 187; for impossible future, 34–36; mission statements vs., 34; three-step process for, 203; of UPS, 242 Gardner, Howard, 80 Gates, Bill, xxiii, 8, 22, 28, 107 Geddis, David, 76, 96, 305n10 Geezers, as unrecognized consumer majority, 143–145 General Electric (GE): growth in emerging markets by, 31–32, 36, 135; market value increase of, 9; masterful coaching at, 10; talent reviews at, 10, 11. See also Immelt, Jeff; Welch, Jack Gfesser, Andy: as example of executive coaching client, 154, 161–162, 222; on masterful coaching, xxiv; statement by, in source document, 203; stood up to union negotiator, 223–224; in team strategy session, 183–184, 187, 190, 197, 199 Gfesser, Anton, 183 Gfesser, Stefan, 183, 184, 199 Gfesser, Tony, 183, 184, 190 Ghosn, Carlos, 35, 97 Gibson, William, 134 Gladstone, William, 82 Goals: breakthrough, following up on, 118–119; combining impossible and possible, 99;
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helping team set, 298–300; setting high, 225; talking about, 69–70; waterline, 191 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, xi, 25, 44 Goff, Greg, 179, 203 Goizueta, Roberto, 10, 166–167 Goldsmith, Marshall, 130 Google, 8, 133 Greatness, standing for, 44 Groups, great: masterful coaches and, 6, 8, 10; organizing, 31–34 Grove, Andrew (Andy), 6, 10, 167 Guo, Haiyun, 200–202 H Handfield-Jones, Helen, 10, 13 Hargrove, Robert, 184, 186 Harmon, Butch, 109 Harrington, Richard, 194 Hawking, Stephen, 84 Heiman, Miller, 292 Hewitt, Dave, 45 Hillary, Edmund, 21, 25 Hiring: for fit vs. stretch, 29, 257; focusing on strengths when, 46 Holmes, Joan, 61, 192 Holstead, Mike, 184 Honda, 83 Hopkins, Tom, 202 Hot Seat exercise, 232–234 Human resources: innovation in role of, 275–281; invitation to professionals in, x I Imagination, 17–18 Imagination breakthroughs process, 110 Immelt, Jeff, xxvi, 31–32, 65, 97 Impossible future, 21–38; clarifying, in team strategy session, 188–191; declaring, 98–100, 160, 161–163, 164; examples of, 10, 96–97; game
plans for, 34–36; great groups organized for, 31–34; hiring masterful ninja coach for, 37–38; imagining what you would do in, 22; impossible thinking for, 25–28; inspiration when facing, 21; language to describe, 68, 99; masterful coaches as bringing about, 6, 7; power to handle, 23; practices for achieving, listed, 25; source document of, 187, 202–203; standing for, 43–44; talent required for, 28–30 Intel, 28 Internal commitment model, 123 Internet: reinventing business using, 141–143; small companies acting fast using, 136 Interpretations, facts vs., 86 J Jackson, Phil, 160 Jaeggi, René, 276 Jefferson, Thomas, 7 Jobs, Steven (Steve): brought back to Apple, 97; as CEO as coach, 5; on design, 137; energy and enthusiasm of, xxvi; as great leader, xxi, xxiii; impossible thinking by, 25; as master, xvii; as masterful coach, 6, 10; results emphasized by, 33; Sculley and, 32, 99; vision of, 130 Johnson, Clarence (Kelly), 5, 6 Jones, Steve, 67 Jordan, Michael, 32, 67 K Kaiser, Tom, 58–59, 116–117 Katzenbach, Jon, 57 Kaufman, Jeff, 41, 103–104, 240, 261–266 Kelleher, Herb: airline begun by, 21, 138; as CEO as coach, 5, 247–249, 250, 251; commitment lived by, 240; on lack of time for coaching, xx; as masterful coach, 39; TPOV of, 168, 169 Kelley, Tom, 6, 238 Kennedy, John F. ( Jack), 7, 25, 68
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Kim, W. Chan, 134, 197 King, Rollin, 21, 138, 248 Kistiakowsky, George, 28, 33 Klammer, Steward, xxviii Kumins, Barry, 209 L Ladder of inference, 59–60 Lamarre, Daniel, 29, 41–42 Lampert, Edward, xxvi Language: action, in coaching conversations, 88–90; body, 48, 49, 50, 132; to describe impossible future, 68, 99; of old vs. new leadership, 185; power of, for transformation, 48–49; for source documents, 203; for TPOVs, 103, 167–168, 231 Laraba, Teresa, 169, 249–253 Laskin, Emma, 80 Leaders: coaches vs., 15; coaching as main activity of, 16–17; early examples of coaches as, 5; extraordinary,“acid test” for, 5–10 Leadership, old vs. new, 3, 4–5, 185 Leadership agility, self-test on, 62 Leadership breakthroughs, 111, 114–116, 215–216, 217 Leadership circles, 232 Leadership declarations, 48–49, 174 Leadership development: importance of, 13–14; pull vs. push approach to, xxi; as role of masterful coaches, 53–55; when hiring for stretch, 29. See also Self-development Leadership roadmaps, 49, 174, 226 Leadership style, transforming, 114–116 Leadership triangle, 162 Learning: breakdowns as opportunities for, 168, 263, 264–265; executive, TPOVs for, 181–182; providing, 123–125; triple-loop, 122 Learning organizations, designing, 276–277, 279–281 Left-hand-column exercise, 189–190, 308n4
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Life experiences, translating, into teachable points of view, 102 Lincoln, Abraham, 7 Listening: committed, 66–67, 70–73, 74; to draw people out, 81–84; importance of, to coaching, 19, 42 Lombardi,Vince, xvii, 7 Lumet, Sydney, 119, 120 Lunches, never wasting, 29, 108, 151 Lynch, Peter, 105 M Macadam, Steve, 13 Making a difference, 64, 131–132, 151 Management: by collaborative inquiry, 57–60; context for, 24; by follow-up, 118; shifts required for, 24; technology as mandating breakthroughs in, 23 Manga, Manuel, 210 Manhattan Project, 32. See also Oppenheimer, Robert Marchetti, Steve, 19 Marketing, selling vs., 147–149 Mashburn, Jamal, 45 Masterful coaches:“acid test” for being, 6–10; as architects of creative collaboration, 8, 10, 60–62; clients chosen by, 157; defined, xvii–xviii; how to become, xxviii–xxix, 15–17; interlocking roles of, 51–52; leadership development by, 53–55; ninja stealth of, 37–38; as performance maximizers, 55–56; quiz on readiness for becoming, xxv–xxviii; as thinking partners, 57–60; time spent coaching by, xix, 9, 11, 19. See also CEOs as coaches; Coaches; Executive coaches Masterful coaching: certification program for, xi, 96; as “fundamentalist” coaching, xxiv–xxv; mindset for, xxiv; philosophical principles of, 17. See also Coaching; Executive coaching
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Masterful Coaching Big 8, 42–47 Masterful Coaching enrollment card, xii, xiii Masterful Coaching Method, 95–125; assessing and hiring talent, 105–110; creating coaching relationship, 108–110; declaring impossible future, 98–100; developing teachable point of view, 100–105; forwarding action, 116–119; observing breakdowns and intervening, 119–123; prerequisites before using, 96–98; providing feedback and learning, 123–125; setting business breakthroughs, 110–114; setting leadership breakthroughs, 111, 114–116; steps in, listed, 96. See also Executive coaching sessions Masters: defined, xvii; studying with, 234–238 Mauborgne, Renée, 134, 197 Maximizing, 268–269, 271–273 Mays, J., 284–289 Mental models, 26–27 Mentoring, coaching vs., 18 Metaphors, to draw out creative thinking, 83–84 Michaels, Ed, 10, 13–14 Microsoft, 5, 8, 22 Miller, Steve, 53–55 Mind-sets: masterful coaching, xxiv; prevailing, about coaching, xix. See also Winner’s mind-sets Mission: cause as, 32; conflict resolved by, 33; implicit, 33 Mission statements, game plans vs., 34 Moore, Geoffrey, 240 Motivation, coaching conversations providing, 76–77, 93 Muhammad, xvii Muktananda, Swami, 228 Murdoch, Rupert, 129 Mussabini, Sam, 161 MyGamePlan, xi, 96, 116, 219–220 Myhrvold, Nathan, 13 Myths of coaching, xx–xxiii, 161
N Naester, Brad, 206 Nantucket Nectars, 136 Nardelli, Bob, xxvii–xxviii, 106 Negroponte, Nicholas, 27–28 Newman, Paul, 119, 120 Nokes, Jim, 108–109 Norgay, Tenzing, 21 O Observing breakdowns, 119–121, 178–180 Omidyar, Pierre, 140 Onetto, Marc, 56 Online coaching system, xi, 96, 116, 219–220 Ono, Taiichi, 5 Oppenheimer, Robert, 5, 6, 28–29, 33 The Organization Man (Whyte), 5 Ozawa, Seiji, 97 Ozzie, Ray, 8 P Pace, Jeff, 299 Pasteur, Louis, 26 Paterno, Joe, 39, 40 Path forward, as always possible, 47 Patrick, Danica, 131 Patterson, Bill, 179–180, 208, 231 Patton, George, 87 PepsiCo, 11 Perez, Juan, 183, 199 Performance maximizers: Jay Abraham as, 268; masterful coaches as, 55–56. See also Maximizing Performance reviews, 124–125 Peters, Tom, 133, 150, 230 Pitino, Rick, 45 Planning: bypassing, 24, 35, 103, 117, 139, 140–141, 186, 199; coaching conversations for, 91; focus on, in past, 5, 13, 23, 24; succession, 19, 252 Plummer, Bill, 72
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Porter, Michael, 232 Powerlessness, using power of, 139–140 Prahalad, C. K., 36 Presence, listening with, 70–71 The Principles of Scientific Management (Taylor), 4 Procter & Gamble (P&G), 142 Prototypes, 24, 35, 103, 117, 139, 140–141, 186, 199 R Rajneesh, Bhawgan Shree, 228 Ramsay, Jack, 234–236 Reading list, 229–230 Reagan, Ronald, 26 Redstone, Sumner, 129 Reframing, coaching conversations for, 84–87, 93 Riley, Pat, 43–44, 68, 132, 304n1 Rinpoche, Chogyam Trungpa, 80, 228 River stories, 73, 305n9 Robinson, Jackie, 7 Role models: for CEOs as coaches, 10–14; for coaching conversations, 156 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 248 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 7 Royal Dutch/Shell, leadership development by, 53–55 Rules of engagement: defining, 109–110; designing, 158–159; sample, 159 Rut stories, 73, 305n9 S Sacherman, Jim, 110–111 Saint-Onge, Hubert, 276–281 Scan, focus, act model, 187, 203, 308n3 Schaffer, Robert, 118 Scheduling coaching, xxii, 12, 110, 158, 297 Scherer, Emma, 169, 249–252 Schnepp, Jim, 183 Schrage, Michael, 79 Schultz, Howard, 27, 31, 166, 168
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Schwarzman, Stephen A., 129 Scott, Bill, 154, 161, 163, 171, 172, 173–176 Sculley, John, 32, 99 Self-development: coaching as ultimate, 221–222, 225; providing, for employees, 6, 9, 10. See also Leadership development Selling: coaching on, 291–302; marketing vs., 147–149 Seniors, as unrecognized consumer majority, 143–145 Severance, Richard, 153, 205–206 Shakespeare, William, 33 Shaktipat, 228–229 Sharer, Kevin, 78 Shaw, George Bernard, 32 Shaw’s Supermarket, 198 Six-Cap Coaching System, 74–91; assessment in, 77–78, 93; building dreams and motivating in, 76–77, 93; drawing people out in, 81–84, 93; forwarding action in, 87–90, 93; possible extensions of, 91; reframing in, 84–87, 93; teaching and advising in, 79–80, 93; value of, 74–75 Skype, 140, 141–142 Sloan, Alfred P., xvii, 4, 230 Smith, Frederick W. (Fred), 8, 10, 29, 136, 138, 222 Source documents, 187, 202–203 Southwest Airlines, 21, 138, 169, 247–253. See also Kelleher, Herb Speaking, committed, 66–70, 73–74 Special classrooms, at PepsiCo, 11 Spirituality: books on, 229–230; coaching and, 223, 228–229 Starbucks, 27, 135, 137, 166 Staubach, Roger, 130 Stern, Howard, 99 Sterns, Frank, 206–207, 209–219 Stevenson, Adlai, 37 Stewart, Martha, 130 Strategy in action, 192–194 Structures for fulfillment, for breakthroughs, 113, 115
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Success, standing for, 45 Supporting, and challenging at same time, 45 T Talent: to achieve impossible future, 28–30; focusing on strengths of, 46; impact of higher level of, 13; investing in relationships with, 105–110; as obsession of masterful coaches, 6, 7–8, 30; as source of wealth, 5 Talent reviews: to achieve impossible future, 29; as assessment tool, 78, 106–107; at GE, 10, 11 Taylor, Frederick, 4 Taylor, Gail, 199 Taylor, Matt, 199 Taylor, Robert (Bob), 5, 6, 140 Teachable moments, 65, 104, 168, 169, 180, 298 Teachable points of view (TPOV): articulating, 165–169, 230–231; communicating, 68, 104–105, 228–229; defined, 101; developing, in Masterful Coaching Method, 100–105; examples of, 68, 103–104, 168, 181–182, 231; of Jack Welch, 41, 64, 168; of Jeff Kaufman, 103–104, 261–262; of Mike Eskew, 244; providing, in executive coaching, 180–181; way of being and, 42 Teaching, in coaching conversations, 79–80, 93 Team strategy session, 183–203; assessment in, 191–193; clarifying impossible future in, 188–191; coaching conversations for, listed, 187–188; coming up with game-changing strategy in, 196–199; critical success factors for, 186; discussing business context and trends in, 193–196; example of coaching, 183–187; executing strategy in, 199–203 Team-based action coaching, 206, 207–209 Teams: honoring differences on, 57; sales, coaching, 291–302 Tennyson, Alfred, 108 Test: for being extraordinary leader vs. masterful coach, 5–10; on leadership agility, 62
Thinking: big, by small companies, 135–137; drawing out creative, 83–84; impossible, 25–28; reframing, 87 Thinking partners, masterful coaches as, 57–60 Thompson, John, 67 Three-peat, 44, 304n1 360 feedback: as assessment tool, 78; in executive coaching, 172–174; to help define leadership breakthrough, 115; interviews for, 38, 172–173. See also Feedback Toll, John, 217 Total return to shareholders (TRS), for CEOs as coaches, 9 Toynbee, Arnold, 10 Toyoda, Kiichiro, 5 Transformation: as always possible, 47; leadership declaration as beginning of, 48–49; three-step process for coaching, 49–50 Trendler, Inc., 183–187, 190–191, 193, 195–196, 197–198, 199, 203 Trends: coaching conversation on, 193–196; importance of recognizing, 133 Truman, Harry S., 28 Trump, Donald, 131 Turner, Ted, 129 U UPS, 135, 166, 241–245 V Value innovation, 197–199 Vanderheiden, George, 105 Vernon, William, 184 VW Beetle, 286 W Wagoner, Richard, 22 Wal-Mart, 133, 135, 137, 142 Walsh, Scotty, 301
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Waterline goals, 191 Watson, Tom, 85 Way of being, 39–62; as architect of creative collaboration, 60–62; choosing, for coaching sessions, 50–51; importance of, 39–42; as leader who develops other leaders, 53–55; listening for, 72; Masterful Coaching Big 8 as ground for, 42–47; as performance maximizer, 55–56; as prerequisite for using coaching model, 96; as thinking partner, 57–60 Wealth, capital vs. talent as source of, 5 Wegmans, 198 Welch, Jack: authentic communication by, 65; on fanaticism about quality, 100; financial results achieved by, 9; impossible thinking by, 25–26; as master, xvii; as masterful coach, 6, 10; meetings transformed into coaching opportunities by, 64; performance maximization by, 56; as role model for CEO as coach, 11, 163; teachable point of view of, 41, 101, 168; time spent coaching by, xix What’s missing: asking, 118–119, 121, 178, 215; focusing on, 55–56, 123, 124, 238; identifying, 35, 194, 227–228; what’s wrong vs., 193 What’s So Process, 35, 78, 192–193 Whirlpool Corporation, 255–260. See also Binkley, David; Fettig, Jeff Whitman, Meg, 221 Whole Foods Market, 135, 136, 198 Whyte, William H., 5 Wikipedia, 140 Williams, Ted, 125 Wilson, Art, 291–302 Wilson, Larry, 292 Winfrey, Oprah, 27 Winner’s mind-sets, 133–151; being a change insurgent, 139–140; bypassing elaborate planning, 140–141; discussed in team strategy
320
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session, 194, 195; getting people to join brand, 137–138; going after new consumer majorities, 143–145; having strategy making competition irrelevant, 134–135; listed, 133–134, 195; providing gaspworthy experiences, 145–146; reinventing business as e-business, 141–143; selling instead of marketing, 147–149; taking charge of own career, 150–151; thinking big and acting fast, 135–137 Winning: articulating TPOV about, 165–169; coaching conversations on strategies for, 170–172; coaching people to have attitude of, 132; developing impossible future representing, 100; importance of passion for, 129–131; making a difference vs., 131–132; standing for, 43–44 Women, as unrecognized consumer majority, 143–144 Wooden, John, 69 Woods, Tiger, 109, 163 Worthy, James, 67 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 158 X Xerox PARC, 140 Y Young, John, xxviii, 38, 203 Yunus, Muhammad, xx Z Zander, Benjamin, 39, 44, 163 Zennström, Niklas, 140, 141–142 Zest factors, 118 Ziglar, Zig, 292 Zingerman’s Deli, 98, 99 Zola, Émile, 63 Zweifel, Thomas, 35
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THE AUTHOR Robert Hargrove is the founder of Masterful Coaching Inc., the world leader in executive coaching whose clients include Adidas, Zurich Financial Services, Conoco Phillips, Fidelity Investments, Phillips Electronics, Motorola, Chevron Texaco, and Unilever. Robert is the author of Masterful Coaching (revised edition), Masterful Coaching Fieldbook, Master the Art of Creative Collaboration, Your Coach in a Book, and E-Leader: Reinventing Leadership in a Connected Economy. He is a renowned speaker on the subject of realizing an impossible future and winning in your business. Hargrove was co-director of the Harvard Leadership Research Project and was a founder of Innovation Associates with Charles Kiefer and Peter Senge (author of The Fifth Discipline and The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization). Hargrove has developed a powerful and unique coaching program based on coaching people to produce winning results, not just behavior change. Says Hargrove, “We introduce leaders at all levels to our approach through the Masterful Coaching Workshop, and then explore other possibilities and opportunities for working together.” These include (1) Executive Coaching—Declare an Impossible Future that Represents Winning, (2) CollabLab—Come up with a Game-Changing Strategy and Winning Game Plan, and (3) Team-Based Action Coaching—Execution. Masterful Coaching is open to exploring joint ventures with leading consulting companies on a global level base on the coaching programs mentioned. It is also interested in establishing Masterful Coaching representatives on a regional basis. Robert can be reached through
[email protected] or by phone at 617–739–3300. You can visit him on his Web sites at www.MasterfulCoaching.com and www.RobertHargrove.com.
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FIELDBOOK Designed to provide information and guidance to practitioners in the midst of action. Most fieldbooks are companions to another, sometimes earlier, work, from which its ideas are derived; the fieldbook makes practical what was theoretical in the original text. Fieldbooks can certainly be read from cover to cover. More likely, though, you’ll find yourself bouncing around following a particular theme, or dipping in as the mood, and the situation, dictate.
HANDBOOK A contributed volume of work on a single topic, comprising an eclectic mix of ideas, case studies, and best practices sourced by practitioners and experts in the field. An editor or team of editors usually is appointed to seek out contributors and to evaluate content for relevance to the topic. Think of a handbook not as a ready-to-eat meal, but as a cookbook of ingredients that enables you to create the most fitting experience for the occasion.
RESOURCE M aterials designed to support group learning. They come in many forms: a complete, ready-to-use exercise (such as a game); a comprehensive resource on one topic (such as conflict management) containing a variety of methods and approaches; or a collection of like-minded activities (such as icebreakers) on multiple subjects and situations.
TRAINING PACKAGE An entire, ready-to-use learning program that focuses on a particular topic or skill. All packages comprise a guide for the facilitator/trainer and a workbook for the participants. Some packages are supported with additional media—such as video—or learning aids, instruments, or other devices to help participants understand concepts or practice and develop skills. • Facilitator/trainer’s guide Contains an introduction to the program, advice on how to organize and facilitate the learning event, and step-by-step instructor notes. The guide also contains copies of presentation materials—handouts, presentations, and overhead designs, for example—used in the program.
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• Participant’s workbook Contains exercises and reading materials that support the learning goal and serves as a valuable reference and support guide for participants in the weeks and months that follow the learning event. Typically, each participant will require his or her own workbook.
ELECTRONIC CD-ROMs and web-based products transform static Pfeiffer content into dynamic, interactive experiences. Designed to take advantage of the searchability, automation, and ease-of-use that technology provides, our e-products bring convenience and immediate accessibility to your workspace.
METHODOLOGIES CASE STUDY A presentation, in narrative form, of an actual event that has occurred inside an organization. Case studies are not prescriptive, nor are they used to prove a point; they are designed to develop critical analysis and decision-making skills. A case study has a specific time frame, specifies a sequence of events, is narrative in structure, and contains a plot structure—an issue (what should be/have been done?). Use case studies when the goal is to enable participants to apply previously learned theories to the circumstances in the case, decide what is pertinent, identify the real issues, decide what should have been done, and develop a plan of action.
ENERGIZER A short activity that develops readiness for the next session or learning event. Energizers are most commonly used after a break or lunch to stimulate or refocus the group. Many involve some form of physical activity, so they are a useful way to counter post-lunch lethargy. Other uses include transitioning from one topic to another, where “mental” distancing is important.
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING ACTIVITY (ELA) A facilitator-led intervention that moves participants through the learning cycle from experience to application (also known as a Structured Experience). ELAs are carefully thought-out designs in which there is a definite learning purpose and intended outcome. Each step—everything that participants do during the activity— facilitates the accomplishment of the stated goal. Each ELA includes complete instructions for facilitating the intervention and a clear statement of goals, suggested group size and timing, materials required, an explanation of the process, and, where appropriate, possible variations to the activity. (For more detail on Experiential Learning Activities, see the Introduction to the Reference Guide to Handbooks and Annuals, 1999 edition, Pfeiffer, San Francisco.)
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GAME A group activity that has the purpose of fostering team spirit and togetherness in addition to the achievement of a pre-stated goal. Usually contrived—undertaking a desert expedition, for example—this type of learning method offers an engaging means for participants to demonstrate and practice business and interpersonal skills. Games are effective for team building and personal development mainly because the goal is subordinate to the process—the means through which participants reach decisions, collaborate, communicate, and generate trust and understanding. Games often engage teams in “friendly” competition.
ICEBREAKER A (usually) short activity designed to help participants overcome initial anxiety in a training session and/or to acquaint the participants with one another. An icebreaker can be a fun activity or can be tied to specific topics or training goals. While a useful tool in itself, the icebreaker comes into its own in situations where tension or resistance exists within a group.
INSTRUMENT A device used to assess, appraise, evaluate, describe, classify, and summarize various aspects of human behavior. The term used to describe an instrument depends primarily on its format and purpose. These terms include survey, questionnaire, inventory, diagnostic, survey, and poll. Some uses of instruments include providing instrumental feedback to group members, studying here-and-now processes or functioning within a group, manipulating group composition, and evaluating outcomes of training and other interventions. Instruments are popular in the training and HR field because, in general, more growth can occur if an individual is provided with a method for focusing specifically on his or her own behavior. Instruments also are used to obtain information that will serve as a basis for change and to assist in workforce planning efforts. Paper-and-pencil tests still dominate the instrument landscape with a typical package comprising a facilitator’s guide, which offers advice on administering the instrument and interpreting the collected data, and an initial set of instruments. Additional instruments are available separately. Pfeiffer, though, is investing heavily in e-instruments. Electronic instrumentation provides effortless distribution and, for larger groups particularly, offers advantages over paper-and-pencil tests in the time it takes to analyze data and provide feedback. LECTURETTE A short talk that provides an explanation of a principle, model, or process that is pertinent to the participants’ current learning needs. A lecturette is intended to establish a common language bond between the trainer and the participants by providing a mutual frame of reference. Use a lecturette as an introduction to a group activity or event, as an interjection during an event, or as a handout.
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MODEL A graphic depiction of a system or process and the relationship among its elements. Models provide a frame of reference and something more tangible, and more easily remembered, than a verbal explanation. They also give participants something to “go on,” enabling them to track their own progress as they experience the dynamics, processes, and relationships being depicted in the model. ROLE PLAY A technique in which people assume a role in a situation/scenario: a customer service rep in an angry-customer exchange, for example. The way in which the role is approached is then discussed and feedback is offered. The role play is often repeated using a different approach and/or incorporating changes made based on feedback received. In other words, role playing is a spontaneous interaction involving realistic behavior under artificial (and safe) conditions. SIMULATION A methodology for understanding the interrelationships among components of a system or process. Simulations differ from games in that they test or use a model that depicts or mirrors some aspect of reality in form, if not necessarily in content. Learning occurs by studying the effects of change on one or more factors of the model. Simulations are commonly used to test hypotheses about what happens in a system—often referred to as “what if?” analysis—or to examine best-case/worst-case scenarios.
THEORY A presentation of an idea from a conjectural perspective. Theories are useful because they encourage us to examine behavior and phenomena through a different lens.
TOPICS The twin goals of providing effective and practical solutions for workforce training and organization development and meeting the educational needs of training and human resource professionals shape Pfeiffer’s publishing program. Core topics include the following: Leadership & Management Communication & Presentation Coaching & Mentoring Training & Development E-Learning Teams & Collaboration OD & Strategic Planning Human Resources Consulting
