If It Wasn't For the People...This Job Would Be Fun

Coaching for Buy-In and Results

C. B. Motsett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781138463592
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351439398
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

If It Wasn't For the People...This Job Would Be Fun provides executives, managers, and supervisors with the techniques needed to ensure that employees willingly and consistently perform to ever higher levels of expectation. Not only does following this process give readers the results, it also effectively transfers the responsibility for an employee's actions or inaction's where it belongs-on that person's shoulders. Readers will learn that leading doesn't mean doing the other person's job for them or watching over their shoulder. Leading means getting the best results by not telling experts how to do jobs they already understand, but by making sure they know what is expected of them and then allowing them to perform.

Chapter I

A Simple Process of Leadership

“Make people believe what they think and do is important and then get out of the way while they do it.”

Jack Welch

Over the years I have learned much from the managers and executives I’ve worked for as well as from my peers and support staff. During my years of Active and Reserve Military Duty and my formal management experience, I’ve been fortunate to work with, and learn from, some of the best leaders, managers, trainers and consultants in the industry. All these experiences have been applied to formalize my thoughts and beliefs into a leadership philosophy and understanding that is incorporated into five distinct steps. The core of this concept, though, is based on two overriding assumptions.

The first assumption (which is more of a philosophical concept) is that a leader is responsible for clearly identifying the goals and vision he or she wants the team to pursue. Fundamental to this belief is that it is the leader’s sole responsibility to ensure everyone on the team is focused on obtaining the results envisioned in the goal. Equally important, it is the leader’s responsibility to ensure that the team’s energy and efforts are focused on obtaining results; not finger pointing or fault finding. (This is the essence of the “No Excuses” Culture described in Chapter III.)

The second assumption is that the leader’s subordinates, (employees) are technically competent and are adequately trained to do their jobs. If this is not true, then no amount of coaching or empowerment will succeed in reaching the goals of the organization.

If these assumptions are correct and your employees have the technical competence to do their jobs, then the leader must demonstrate respect and confidence in his or her subordinates by allowing them to determine the best way to do their jobs within the established confines and parameters. This simple philosophy of leadership made it possible for a 20-year-old “raw” officer to successfully lead an Army Special Forces “A” Team. The evolution of the coaching process and its consistent application have allowed me to grow into successive corporate leadership positions and have been the basis of my ability to effectively develop outstanding employees.

As a sales manager and executive, I’ve had the opportunity to manage sales forces of as few as five people to nearly 200 with intermediate levels of management support. I’ve worked with sales forces consisting of in-house sales representatives, independent manufacturers’ representatives and combinations of the two.

What I’ve found to be the key to leading highly charged sales forces is that sales people need to become empowered -- to be led not managed. More than anything else, this undeniable tenet has been the conduit for turning what Jim Bleech, co-author of Let’s get results, not excuses, calls “coffee house cripples” into star performers.

True leadership success is the ability to turn ordinary people into extraordinary performers. This process gives the leader the tools for successful leadership and the ability to let ordinary people become extraordinary performers. Well-trained, competent and motivated people -- just like Special Forces troopers -- can’t be told (very effectively) how to do their jobs. You’ve got to make sure they know what is expected of them, what the objective is, and what the parameters are; then get out of their way!

What you have to do is to give your employees a clear understanding of what you consider to be acceptable results and a clear definition of the difference between success and failure. As the coach, your job is to make sure your team understands what the goals are and what you want them to accomplish. Your job as the coach is to set parameters to include the standards of acceptable and unacceptable behavior, time lines and work ethics.

The end result, once you have the job parameters in place and a clear understanding with your employee of the goal, is to loosen the reins and let them do it their way. By giving employees the ability to use their own creativity and then holding them accountable for their results, you unleash their creative powers and turn ordinary employees into extraordinary producers.

I’ve worked with sales representatives who are excellent verbal presenters and some who are terrible; some who are true extroverts and some who are truly introverts, who are very quiet and very shy. Strong, positive sales executives don’t fit a single mold. They all make do with their own talents, their own strengths and their own personalities.

With all the personality styles that exist in today’s workforce, especially an international workforce, it’s not possible to have one type of sales person. The key for the leader is to give each person the tools and the understanding he or she needs to achieve the end result.

Coaching for Buy-In and Results Works in Every Department.

This process is not limited to just sales people. It works with virtually every employee level from the lowest, minimum-wage position to the most top-level, senior executives.

As vice president and general manager of a division of a multi-billion dollar service company, I had the responsibility to manage a work force of over 1,000 employees and annual sales approaching $50 million. I was again in a situation very similar to my Special Forces experience: I had the responsibility of supervising and managing employees with many years of experience in their specialties, who knew much more than I did about the specifics of doing their jobs.

Since I didn’t know how to do what they did I didn’t try to do their job for them. I achieved the division’s objective by coaching each of these individuals. Each was given a clear vision of the goal, an understanding of the standards of acceptable and unacceptable performance, and the understanding that it was their job to perform to the very best of their ability to achieve the end result. As the coach, my job was to ensure they understood what was expected of them, to provide the support they needed and to coordinate their activities with the rest of the team.

Why the Process Works

The key to successful coaching is buy-in and acceptance of responsibility. The coaching process provides the road map to get to this point. It makes no difference what professional level you’re working with. I’ve experienced coaching people in a variety of roles, from technicians and engineering professionals to administrative and support personnel; from hourly laborers to skilled craftsmen; and from newly hired sales representatives to highly experienced and skilled sales and marketing professionals: the process works. (It also worked with my children, especially during their teen years.)

On a Special Forces team, the team commander is not expected to be the demolition expert, the weapons expert, logistics expert, medical expert or communications expert. His expertise is to bring them all together and get them marching in the same direction with a clear understanding of the goals and objectives and how their specific expertise is to be applied. It’s no different in industry and commerce. The leader has to lead and let his or her employees do the job to the best of their abilities.

This process, perfected over the years, has enabled me to create a very strong team with a positive morale, by making people accountable for their own actions and responsible for the results of those actions. This, in turn, gives them the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes with taking ownership of a job well done.

Whether managing as sales manager, as an executive with responsibility over sales and marketing, as a general manager over an entire division or department, or as the president and CEO, the requirements and techniques are the same. You must demonstrate the ability to efficiently and effectively communicate with your employees; create a common vision of company goals; provide an understanding of the employee’s role in getting the job done; ensure the employee has an understanding of what is expected of him and, what are considered acceptable and unacceptable results.

As Steven Covey says in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, start with the end in mind. The very first step of this process is the buy-in of the end result, the goal. Once you have the buy-in, the rest of it seems to fall into place.

Buy-in allows for the effective development of a working relationship even with what historically are opposing sides. Using this process, you can bring people together to form a team. For example, I have used this process when working with union leaders on several occasions both in start-up and during the job. Responsible for the actual negotiations, I found this technique effective in this situation, too. What I attempted to do, and what I was successful in doing, was achieving a “buy-in” with the unions -- the understanding that we shared a common goal, a common mission.

Starting with the end in mind, we reached agreement on the importance of satisfying the client’s needs to complete the job within budget and on schedule. By focusing on what’s in it for them, the union, we were able to reach a common ground and a mutually agreed upon objective. Once the buy-in was in place regarding the common objective, we could work together instead of against each other.

While not a formal part of the coaching process, it is critical to understand the importance of accepting the responsibility of leadership. The entire coaching process is built on the foundation of leadership and the premise that the coach will accept the responsibility of being a leader. This philosophical understanding of the role and responsibility of a leader is fundamental to effective coaching. To state it simply, if you are not willing to accept the role and responsibilities of leadership you cannot become an effective coach. At the most basic level it has to be understood that only leaders can be coaches.

And this means, that as the leader, you have to accept responsibility for clearly communicating the goals. Most importantly though, as the leader you must accept the responsibility for ensuring communication exists between you and your subordinates. You can’t assume they know what you want accomplished; you have to take responsibility for ensuring that they know what the objective is; what you expect from them. Simply stated, if there’s a failure in communications, it’s your failure. It also means that, as the leader, you ensure the team, including yourself, is focused on results; not finger pointing or fault finding. This is what accepting the responsibility of leadership means.

In the end, the ability to become an effective coach is dependent on your ability to become an effective leader. As you will realize as you progress through the following chapters, most of the important changes that will occur will not be so much changes you effect in others but changes in you and how you relate with others in your organization. The essence of leadership is not so much to manage and change others as it is to manage and change yourself.

Chapter Summary

Key points in this chapter included:

• Effective coaching can only be done by a leader.
• Leaders manage people -- managers manage things.
• Leaders identify and communicate the goals -- they keep everyone focused on the vision of success and what it takes to be successful.
• Leaders let their people do their work within the established parameters and guidelines.
• It is the leader’s responsibility to determine if his or her employees are adequately trained and competent in their job positions. If an employee is not technically competent to perform his or her job function then they must be trained before the coaching process can work.
• The key to effective buy-in and coaching is empowering employees to accept the responsibility for their actions, or inactions.

Notes

 

Chapter II

What’s Changed Over The Years?

“The first step on the road to decline is failure to listen”

Ralph Shaw

It has long been recognized that the single biggest problem most executives, managers and supervisors face is working through other people. This problem is further exacerbated when subordinates take on an attitude of indifference or outright hostility. The fantasy is that in years past managers could just force their will on the problem maker or, if that did not work, they could simply fire him and be done with it. The...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter I A Simple Process Of Leadership
• Chapter II What Has Changed Over The Years
• Chapter III Developing A “No Excuses” Culture
• Chapter IV The Solution: Effective Coaching
• Chapter V Step 1: Tell ‘em What You Want…Be Specific
• Chapter VI Step 2: Tell ‘em “Why”…Not “How”
• Chapter VII Step 3: Identify Possible Problems…Develop Contingencies
• Chapter VIII Step 4: Identify Potential Resources…Who Are Your “Parachute Packers”
• Chapter IX Step 5: Follow-up…Follow-Through
• Chapter X What If It Doesn’t Work?
• Epilogue What Is “Coaching For Buy-in And Results”?
• Bibliography