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Letter from the Editor
 Coaching is the key to talent development and employee engagement.
That’s what I told a standing-room-only crowd at the international ISPI conference in New York City a few weeks ago as I delivered my presentation entitled, Coaching for Talent Development and Employee Engagement.
Of the 140+ educational sessions held over this four-day conference entitled,
The Performance Improvement Conference: Enhancing Knowledge, Know-How, and
Results, the topic of coaching resonated with attendees.
I asked why coaching was such a hot topic and was told, “Coaching isn’t the hot topic, per se; the key issue is developing and engaging employees.”
Those of us who have been around in the training world have seen shifts in focus from things like team building to leadership to integrity/authenticity to…. Add to that is training’s focus from assessment to performance to ROI to technology to ….
Much of the focus is due to advancement in our thinking – we’ve gotten smarter. However, a much greater driver of training emphasis is the current state of the world. From my chair, I see the following:
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There are increasingly fewer local people to do the same work (off-shoring is a possibility but has its own issues).
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Those who are leaving the workforce – the baby boomers – are taking more than talent, they’re taking their unbridled “work until you drop” ethic with them.
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Even leadership development initiatives can have an unintended negative impact on developing others. With the emphasis on a few, there’s a tendency to ignore the many.
The answer – or at the very least a big part of the answer – is coaching – managers and supervisors working one-on-one with each employee to develop key skills, improve performance, and increase engagement/discretionary effort.
Coaching is NOT simply about encouraging people; nor is it about doling out pithy pearls of wisdom. Coaching, the way Entelechy has defined it, is about unlocking the potential of employees through purposeful, performance-related discussions that encourage employee self-assessment and management support. The result: employees who are continuously growing and increasingly engaged, and managers and supervisors who are increasingly seen as talent developers and leaders.
If you weren’t one of the many who attended my Coaching for Talent Development and Employee Engagement workshop at ISPI and would like the handout from the session, please write me and I’d be glad to send you an electronic copy.
Terry
Coaching: An Interview with Terence Traut
Performance Today: Recently, we had the opportunity to interview Terence Traut, President of Entelechy, Inc., a company that specializes in customized skills training programs for its clients. We talked to Terence about coaching, its importance in today’s workplace, and Entelechy’s approach to coaching.
Performance Today: What exactly IS coaching? How is it different than, say, mentoring or performance management?
Terence: Coaching is one tool to develop the skill and confidence of employees. Unlike training, which is typically one-to-many and in an artificial environment, coaching usually takes place on the job and one-to-one. Unlike counseling, which may include personal issues, coaching is focused on job performance. Unlike mentoring and career development, which are long-term, coaching is tactical and pragmatic. Unlike corrective action, which focuses on performance that falls below acceptable standards, coaching focuses on developing performance that is already acceptable or even good.
 Performance Today: You said that coaching focuses on
developing performance that is already acceptable or good. Why would you spend time doing that?
Terence: The reason is simple: to make your average performers good and to make your good performers great. Many managers spend 80% of their “people time” dealing with performance problems, which are typically found in less than 20% of their employees. The poor performers in most organizations get most of the attention, with little or no attention devoted to developing one of the most overlooked – but critical – groups of employees: your average to good performers. As a result, productive and high-potential employees are left underdeveloped AND unattended; these are the folks who quietly leave your department or leave your company.
Performance Today: Can you describe a typical  coaching scenario as prescribed in the Entelechy approach to coaching?
Terence: Sure. Let’s say that one of your sales reps is looking to increase sales. After a brief discussion with you, she believes that she could increase sales most dramatically if she could get past the receptionist and make more appointments with the decision-maker. You agree to listen in on a few of her phone calls and coach her. After listening in on a few phone calls, you and the rep discuss the techniques that the rep used, which of those techniques were effective and which were not, and agree upon the techniques and skills that the rep would focus on in upcoming calls.
Performance Today: Sounds simple. Is it as easy as it sounds?
Terence: Well, it IS as simple as it sounds and, with some practice, it’s as EASY as it sounds. The challenge for most coaches is to ask more questions and talk less. Most untrained “coaches” play the expert and bestow pearls of wisdom expecting the coachee to eagerly embrace the coach’s brilliance. The fact is that most people – even when they ask for advice – are somewhat reticent to receive it. When offered suggestions, many people retreat to a defensive position and try to explain WHY they did what they did or what they might have done if circumstances allowed. This type of coaching frustrates both parties.
 Performance Today:
So, how does Entelechy’s coaching model address this?
Terence: Our experience shows us that most people, when asked, know HOW they performed in a given task; they know what they did well and they know what they didn’t do so well. Our coaching model gives the employee an opportunity to share this insight with the coach before the coach shares it with the employee.
Performance Today: Why is that important?
Terence: For three reasons. The first reason is that if YOU critique your own performance – both the good and not-so-good elements – you are much more likely to accept the feedback. The second reason is that we want to encourage self-assessment in our employees. The best employees are those who recognize the need for improvement and set about bettering themselves without management’s constant monitoring. This only happens with employees who self-assess – a characteristic we as managers want to encourage! The third reason is that it gives us as coaches an opportunity to analyze why an employee may not be performing as expected.
Performance Today: Explain more about the analysis.
Terence: There are basically three reasons why people don’t perform as expected: 1) they don’t know that they were supposed to perform a certain way or to a certain level (call this
“expectations”), 2) they don’t know how to perform a certain way or to a certain level (call this
“skills and knowledge”), and/or 3) they choose not to perform a certain way or to a certain level (call this
“willingness”).
By asking questions in the coaching process, the coach can determine why a person may not be performing as expected. Let’s return to our example of the sales rep and provide more detail. Let’s say that in the calls we listened to, the rep was abrupt and arrogant with the receptionist, resulting in a hang-up in one instance and a firm “no” in the other two calls. Let’s further say that in response to our coaching question, “How do you think it went?” the rep replies, “I cannot believe that I did the same thing three times! I get so nervous and tense when I talk to the receptionist that I come across sounding arrogant and pushy.”
We know that the rep 1) understands that it’s expected to treat gatekeepers with respect if you want to talk to the decision-maker, and 2) is willing to come across less arrogantly, but 3) probably doesn’t have the skills to do so. As the coach, we can work on this skill by helping identify techniques to come across less arrogantly.
We would coach differently if the rep responded, “While I didn’t get any appointments, at least I made three calls and, since sales is a numbers game, I’m three calls closer to getting an appointment.” Here we would coach on expectations (“You’re expected to be nice on every call.”) first and then check to see if the rep has the skills (“Describe for me how you might make the call by soliciting the help of the
receptionist?”).
Let me drive home the point: If I as coach had offered to both responses my pearls of wisdom and insight: “You shouldn’t come across so arrogant,” the first rep would think, “I KNOW that!!! I just don’t know how to NOT sound arrogant!!” and the second would think, “What does arrogance have to do with me making appointments? I may be efficient/abrupt, but that’s so I can either make the appointment or get on to the next call.” The coach’s “insight” would be discounted or discarded.
By asking questions, the coach can determine whether to focus on expectations, skills and knowledge, or willingness.
Performance Today: Asking questions sounds like an important part of the Entelechy coaching model. What kinds of questions does the coach ask?
Terence: There are three basic questions that are asked in order. The first question, “How do you think it went?” or “How has [working on this particular skill] been going?” is used to open the coaching conversation and is purposefully very open ended. The coachee’s response to this question will tell you if the coachee is fairly accurate or off-base in his or her self-assessment.
The second question is, “What went well?” or “What did you do that went well?” and focuses attention on the positives. As coaches, we tend to want to dive into the negatives (and boy can we find a ton of room for improvement!), which tends to shut down any receptiveness on the part of the coachee. We ask “What went well?” twice because we want the coachee to
recognize and repeat good performance.
The third question is, “What would you do differently?” or “What would you change?” We DON’T ask, “Where did you goof up?” or similarly worded question for two reasons. The first reason is because people tend to shut down with such a harsh evaluation. The second is because sometimes (hopefully often) there was nothing bad about the call or the meeting or the whatever; asking “What would you do differently?” allows you to coach the good performer into becoming a great performer.
 Performance Today:
This sounds a bit like an interrogation with the coach asking the questions and the coachee responding. Is it?
Terence: In addition to asking questions, the coach also listens and responds – just like a conversation. In our coaching model, however, we ask that the coach respond in fairly specific ways – ways that may at first feel a bit unnatural since managers often feel the need to play the expert dispensing nuggets of wisdom. If a coachee correctly self-assesses, the coach should respond by acknowledging the correctness of the self-assessment. For instance, in the previous example where the sales rep responded (correctly) “I cannot believe that I did the same thing three times! I get so nervous and tense when I talk to the receptionist that I come across sounding arrogant and pushy.” the coach should respond, “I saw that as well. And you’re right in your assessment – your nervousness seems to make you come across as pushy.”
Performance Today: Three questions? That’s it?
Terence: Those are the big questions. There are other questions that coaches use to direct the conversation and analyze performance. But those are the big three.
Let me explain another important benefit of three questions. Coachees come to expect that you will ask these three questions and come prepared to answer the three questions. For example, my trainers know that after every delivery I will ask these three questions. They’ve already coached themselves without me even asking!
Isn’t that what we all dream of – employees who continually evaluate their performance and strive to improve all the time?
Performance Today: You make it sound so easy. Frankly, it sounds a little idealistic.
Terence: It’s easy, but it requires time from the manager. Not a lot, but follow-up is required. Most “coaching” in corporate
 America today begins and ends with the annual performance appraisal. The manager identifies his or her perception of the strengths and weaknesses of the employee. The employee publicly acknowledges – and typically privately disagrees – with the assessment. Both vigorously agree to a “development plan”; both breathe a sigh of relief when the meeting concludes; and both go back to their business-as-usual until next year.
True coaching requires commitment and follow-up. Sometimes follow-up is in the form of a quick hallway catch-up meeting, where the coach might say to that sales rep we’re getting to know and love, “I know that you were working on controlling your nervousness on your cold calls. How’s it going? What seems to be working best….”
Sometimes coaching is a more formal process where coach and coachee get together monthly to discuss progress towards goals.
Performance Today: Is this a lot of work for the manager?
Terence: Actually, it isn’t! If you look at it, the employee is doing most of the work. The employee is doing most of the prep and most of the talking in the coaching conversation. The coach needs to ask the questions (which requires very little prep), listen, and respond. And – if you follow our advice – you’ll have shared the three questions with your employees so they have already self-assessed.
 Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting that the manager/coach NOT listen on calls or attend meetings or whatever to watch the employee, because that’s important. But Entelechy’s coaching model doesn’t require the hours of management commitment that exists with other coaching models.
Performance Today: With so many companies using telecommuting and virtual offices, does the Entelechy coaching model work with remote management?
Terence: Actually, I think it’s the only model that DOES work! By definition, the manager is not physically present to observe and offer pearls of expert wisdom. The remote manager needs to be able ask questions, listen astutely to the coachee’s self-assessment, and direct the coachee to discover new ways of doing things.
Performance Today: Entelechy’s coaching model sounds versatile and well suited for the flattening world. How does this model play in
non-U.S. countries?
 Terence:
Each country – and actually each company – has its unique culture. In some companies and countries where the employee-manager relationship is more hierarchical, the coaching model needs to take a more directive approach with the manager offering more insights and suggestions than we would normally do in the
U.S. At the same time, the questions continue being valuable since they help determine WHY a person may not be performing as well as he or she could be.
Performance Today: Thanks for your time today. Coaching sounds like a valuable tool for developing a company’s most valuable resources – its people.
Terence: And for retaining a company’s best and brightest – the 80% who are good performers and those who have high potential.
For more information about Entelechy’s Coaching for Performance, check out this module as well as our 40 other modules, training tools, and eGuides at
www.unlockit.com.
Terence R. Traut is the president of Entelechy, Inc., a company that helps organizations unlock the potential of their people through customized training programs in the areas of sales, management, customer service, and training. Terence can be reached at 603-424-1237 or
ttraut@unlockit.com.
The Value of Recognition
 My wife, Cathy, is known for being a bit on the goofy side. She writes to her nieces and nephews faithfully, calling them “pen pals,” and sends them mugs with her picture on it – just what a freshman in college wants!
One of the things Cathy is known for is handing out dollar bills. On what was turning out to be a loooong road trip, one of the nieces – who had been acting fairly surly – said something nice. Cathy whipped out a dollar bill and handed it to Betty declaring, “Betty gets a dollar.” When asked why, Cathy said, “For saying something nice.” That single act (and about $15 in ones) saved the road trip – and is still something the cousins talk about 15 years later!
Catch someone doing something right, and tell them!
It’s so easy and so effective, and most of us have no problem recognizing people who exceed our expectations.
Yet many of us are caught in a dilemma: How can we recognize someone for doing something when it isn’t exactly what we’re looking for or it isn’t up to expectations? If we recognize that person, we believe that the person will somehow misinterpret our recognition as approval. The secret lies in being clear about WHAT you’re recognizing. In our experience, you can recognize:
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Contributions (tangible): the completion of a project, landing a new account, achieving customer satisfaction goals, etc.
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Contributions (non-tangible): enthusiasm, willingness to accept additional responsibility, upbeat, etc.
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Improvement: while the level of contribution is not where it should be, the employee has shown improvement.
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Effort: while things may not have improved yet, the employee’s effort is noticeable. For things such as sales or customer service where the effect is felt long after the effort, recognizing effort/activity is very important.
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Potential: sometimes – especially at the beginning of assignments – it is impossible to recognize contribution, improvement, or effort; recognizing potential and demonstrating confidence can mean the difference between eventual success and eventual failure.
This information comes from Coaching for
Results, a module in Entelechy’s High Performance
Management program. Check out this module as well as our 40 other modules, training tools, and eGuides at
www.unlockit.com.
Entelechy Customizes High Performance Management
Editor’s Note: We are often asked to differentiate Entelechy from other training companies such as AchieveGlobal, DDI, Center for Creative Leadership, Huthwaithe, Franklin-Covey and others. While Entelechy is similar to the above companies in that we end up with a training program and performance consulting services, there are two primary – and we believe critical – differences. Entelechy believes that most sales, management, or customer service models that other companies tout as “advanced” and “unique” are, in fact surprisingly similar. (In our former roles as training directors, we saw more than our fair share of slick sales pitches selling virtually the same concept.) Second, Entelechy believes that effective training is built around YOUR needs (not OUR flashy sales, management, or customer service model) and YOUR goals. In fact, at the end of our customization, we authorize you to use the training – even modify the training – to meet your changing needs. (Oh, and we don’t charge you for the privilege to use or modify the training!)
Over the next several issues of The Key, we’ll feature examples of the work we’ve done to create training that is more than a gimmick; training that creates lasting change for companies and individuals.
Over the past two months we’ve been working with a large media company creating a customized coaching program for their 650+ managers and supervisors throughout the United States.
A key part of the design and development of the training included visits to their key sites throughout the
U.S. A successful coaching initiative (or training initiative, for that matter) begins and ends in the field/on the floor. Coaching needs to account for the specific challenges that the managers and supervisors face. Coaching needs to be performance-based – an answer to a problem, or the means to achieving a business goal. By asking leaders and managers and supervisors for their input BEFORE designing the training, Entelechy was able to create a coaching training program that addresses the unique challenges these supervisors and managers face.
At Entelechy’s recommendation, our client wisely sought to ensure the success of the coaching initiative by creating a Management Reinforcement program. While managers and supervisors will acquire the skills and techniques to effectively develop and engage their employees through coaching, who’s “coaching the coaches?”
To help the client’s leadership reinforce the importance of coaching with its front-line managers and supervisors, Entelechy created a collection of tools – meeting agendas, discussion topics, email reminders, forms, etc. – that the client’s leadership team could easily implement to help infuse a culture of coaching consistently throughout the company.
The coaching training was piloted last month and rolls out in May to great fanfare within the company. Based on our experiences in helping other companies launch their coaching initiatives, this client will be
delighted with the results!
For more information on how Entelechy can customize a management training program for YOUR company, contact Terry at
ttraut@unlockit.com.
And Now for Something Completely Different
Acknowledgement
Okay, maybe this first one is not “completely different” since it is related to the “What Can You Recognize” topic above, but it DOES illustrate the importance of acknowledgement.
http://www.BlueRibbonMovie.com
Awareness Test
Wow! This is kind of scary! How aware are YOU?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4
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Terence Traut, President of Entelechy "unlocking potential"
ttraut@unlockit.com
phone: 603-424-1237
fax: 603-424-6361
http://www.unlockit.com
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