Coach Behavior - Develop People,
Manage Performance - Achieve Results
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Click here to view and download the Discussion Guide to utilize with your Group and/or Team over the next 12 months. The Guide and questions will be updated each month to reflect the TOTM concept.
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“First, there is nothing more important than making an organization healthy.”
Patrick Lencioni, The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive
As we approach the end of an eventful 2022 and arrive at the 12th of the 12 tenets of Developing a Leadership Mindset, we are focusing on the tenet, Coach Behavior and Manage Performance. I wholeheartedly agree with Patrick Lencioni when he writes, “There is nothing more important than making an organization healthy.” And for that, we need to focus on coaching behavior to help ourselves and others be and become the healthiest, and therefore most effective, versions of ourselves possible.
Sounds like a lot of work, you say. Exactly. Healthy individuals, healthy teams, healthy organizations do not happen by default. They happen by design. They happen when leaders are willing to invest the time, energy, and resources necessary to create high performing individuals and teams.
For years I’ve promised myself I would avoid using the over-used “official” definition of insanity; “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” however, the origin of the quote comes from none other than Albert Einstein himself. So, if we continue to use the annual performance evaluation process and tools as the primary method for giving and receiving feedback and only meeting to discuss performance metrics and activities, we will continue to achieve the same level of results.
As we explore the 12th and final tenet of Developing a Leadership Mindset for 2022, Coach Behavior and Manage Performance, it has become apparent to me that to achieve different results or outputs as leaders and managers, it would be most helpful to implement different inputs!
Let’s begin the conversation about coaching behavior and managing performance with the very first question that is raised when this tenet is presented, “What is the difference between managing performance and coaching behavior?” That question is usually and quickly followed by a statement that sounds like “Isn’t performance behavioral?” Great question!
Broadly, the distinction is when you are focused on coaching behavior you will be engaged in developing a team member. When you are managing performance, you are focused on achieving results. While both are important, coaching behavior is critical to organizational health.
A managing performance emphasis focuses on the actual daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual results desired. Creating, disseminating, communicating, implementing, monitoring, adjusting, measuring, and tracking results are vital to “getting stuff done” in any organization.
Managing performance focuses, and appropriately so, on:
Communicating roles, responsibilities, and expectations
Assigning activities
Making requests
Monitoring outcomes
Measuring productivity
Recording results
Common performance challenges we hear from leader managers are: My team member isn’t consistent with submitting their sales reports. My team member isn’t consistent with their attendance. I can’t understand why my team member doesn’t deliver the results I expect.
If we coach behavior, we are focused on the choices and motivations of a team member and the decisions they make and how that affects outcomes, thereby, ironically, increasing performance outcomes.
Coaching behavior focuses on:
Developing self-awareness
Engaging in self-management
Being and becoming the most effective version of oneself
Expanding capacity in terms of characteristics
Acquiring skills that lead to increased performance
Common behavioral challenges we hear from leader managers are: My team member isn’t motivated. My team member doesn’t have a sense of urgency. My team member lacks discipline.
A subtle but vital distinction. Language matters. Words matter.
A service manager shared a frustration about one of their team members that for the better part of a year was habitually late. The lateness caused other team members significant delays and inconvenience. They had tried everything. The service manager adjusted the team member’s start time by 30 minutes. Timeliness temporarily increased but within 6-8 weeks the prior pattern returned.
The leader manager spoke with the team member again, this time offering a time management seminar at the organization’s expense. Same pattern. They attended the seminar and showed temporary improvement but then returned to their prior tardiness. At their wits end, the leader considered setting a calendar alarm for the team member on the device provided by the organization hoping to improve consistent performance.
During our coaching session I asked the leader about the focus of the conversations they were having with their team member. As the leader processed this, it became clear the leader was focused on managing performance and had not engaged the team member in a courageous conversation about the behaviors they were choosing.
After ensuring the team member did not have family care issues, that adequate transportation was available, and the team member was not experiencing any unusual life, mental, or emotional trauma leading to a performance barrier, the leader changed the focus of the conversation.
The leader met with the team member and openly discussed the characteristics and skills the team member was expected to display. Discipline, integrity, and consistency were behaviors the team member was failing to demonstrate through their consistent tardiness. The leader changed the conversation and their approach and applied healthy and appropriate framing language to discuss the behavior the team member was choosing and achieved a different result.
Asking for timely attendance, asking for consistent reporting, asking for an increase in activity over and over again and expecting a different result can truly make you feel insane. Improved performance doesn’t occur until the conversation shifts to a focus on coaching behavioral change.
We have found the most effective way to coach behavior is to create and implement a highly disciplined process around the characteristics, skills, and experience necessary for the team member’s role.
The key to achieving consistent performance and creating a high performing team is creating a written development plan that focuses on coaching behavior on a monthly basis in alignment with the characteristics, skills, and experience that has been identified. Meeting 1-1 in person monthly for a 30–60-minute discussion centered around developing characteristics and acquiring skills to be and become the most effective version of oneself is an organizational game-changer.
Replace, and or augment, the annual performance evaluation with a monthly institutionalized, disciplined emphasis on engaging each team member in the individual growth and development process on a consistent basis to achieve maximum team member effectiveness as you coach behavior and manage performance.
As we began our 2022 discussion around Developing a Leadership Mindset, we introduced the “4 Cs of Leadership:
Caring
Clarity
Communication
Consistency
When anticipated or expected behavior is not displayed, a gap exists between the leader manager and team member. It is the leader’s responsibility to coach behavior by identifying where the gap lies and work in collaboration with the team member to narrow the gap by providing the appropriate level of caring, clarity, communication, or consistency.
Coaching behavior undoubtedly leads to organizational health, but it must happen by design and not default. We’ll close with Patrick Lencioni’s brilliant and compelling conclusion to The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive:
“The model described here is a holistic one: each discipline is critical to success. And because every organization is different, each will struggle with different aspects of the model. Some leadership teams have an easier time building trust than others but lack the discipline and follow-through to put processes and systems in place. Others enjoy strategic planning and decision making but lose interest in repeatedly communicating their decisions to employees. Whatever the case, executives must keep two things in mind if they are to make their organizations successful. First, there is nothing more important than making an organization healthy. Regardless of the temptations to dive into more heady and strategically attractive issues, extraordinary executives keep themselves focused on their organization’s health. Second, there is no substitute for discipline. No amount of intellectual prowess or personal charisma can make up for an inability to identify a few simple things and stick to them over time.”
Patrick Lencioni’s wisdom reminded me of President Calvin Coolidge’s famous quote, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
As we close the chapter on 2022 and the 2023 story begins, I encourage you to make the commitment to being persistent about investing the requisite time, energy, and resources into coaching each and every member of your team to be and become the most healthy and effective versions of themselves.
Although you may find it challenging to coach behavior, with persistence and determination, I am confident you will witness extraordinary performance and results if you invest in others each day with persistence and determination. Press on!
-LS
Group Discussion
Guide
Click here to view and download the Discussion Guide to utilize with your Group and/or Team over the next 12 months. The Guide and questions will be updated each month.
Recommended Quarterly Reading
The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive
By Patrick Lencioni
2023
Managing From The Inside Out
Winter 2023
February 1, 8, 15, 22
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