Two-Day Train The Coach

 

Today most leaders are being forced to get more done with fewer resources.  The demands on their own time, and the time of those they lead, is increasing.  One of the leader’s main roles is to get others to perform at ever-higher levels of performance.  The integrity of leaders’ stems requires having the same expectation regarding their own level of performance.  Here is where the coach becomes important.  

The role of the coach has always been to get the best out of others performance, whether on stage, on the playing field, or in business.   If leaders are to improve in their own practice of leadership, they need leverage.  A coach adds value to the degree that the coach can help the leader gain leverage.  Helping speed up the learning curve and turning that learning into productive behavior is why a coach is important.

When a leader is asked to focus on a topic so personal as their own behavior, it is often useful to have an objective pair of eyes to assist in interpreting feedback and suggestions.  Here is where a coach adds enormous value.  An outside perspective provides validation when the leader seems to have a valid perspective on how he, or she, is coming across as a leader.  This perspective can also help reorient a leader whose self-awareness is not quite clear enough.

Principles Underlying the Training:

Train-the-Coach is a comprehensive process to help internal resources become behavioral coaches to assist leaders in the organization become more successful.  This process includes: an intensive 2-day workshop; an extensive Play Book detailing the coaching role; and an optional yearlong follow-up designed to assist in the execution of the coaching process through the initial two coaching assignments.

The training and support is based upon a unique approach to the coaching role.  It is built from an understanding of the belief set of successful people and how these successful people get even better.   In order to achieve positive, long-term behavioral change, our process helps internal coaches apply three basic principles.  These principles are:

First Principle: Place the attention and focus on stakeholders of the person being coached. In working with successful people, it is essential to put emphasis where you will gain the most leverage.  The true leverage points in behavioral change are the people who are interdependent with the leader.  Our approach is to turn the stakeholders into the true coaches for improvement.  Although the role of expert is still used, the internal coach’s main role is to act as a “personal trainer” to the leader, emphasizing the Marshall Goldsmith Behavioral Coaching process.

Second Principle: Emphasize FeedForward.  Successful people like getting ideas that are aimed at helping them achieve their goals (Feedforward).  They tend to resist negative judgment.  We all tend to accept feedback that is consistent with the way we see ourselves.  We also tend to reject or deny feedback that is inconsistent with the way we see ourselves.  Successful leaders respond to (and even enjoy) feedforward.  These same people would not have had such a positive reaction to feedback.   

Third Principle: Change behavior and perception in parallel.  In working with successful people, it is useful to work in parallel on changing behavior and the perception of that behavior.  The leader is helped to implement FeedForward (stakeholder suggestions aimed at the future, not the past).  At the same time, a dynamic not to be ignored is stakeholders’ perceptions are incredible resilient.  People do not readily give up their prior assumptions, opinions, and beliefs.  Thus, a key aspect of the coaching process is to help change the perception of stakeholders regarding the leader’s behavior.

Purpose of this Program:

The purpose of the Train-the-Coach program is to develop the ability and willingness of internal organizational resources (or external coaches) to effectively coach others in positive, long-term behavioral change.  Additionally, we help our new coaches to understand how not to eat up a lot of precious time of the leaders they are coaching. 

In order to do a good job here, a coach needs to have a well-defined process that does not require a lot of extra time or effort on the part of the leader, the coach, or the stakeholders.  Learning this unique, revolutionary process is a key element of this Train-the-Coach.  Internal coaches help leaders gain leverage through the monthly application of a few simple actions that provide a huge payoff.  

DESIRED EFFECT:  Coaches who are able to influence and be a catalyst to the process of positive long-lasting behavioral change.

Approach to the Train-the-Coach

The participants in the training receive The Coach’s Play Book as pre-reading prior to the Workshop.  Reading over the Play Book gives the participants a clear understanding of the material that will be expanding upon, and practiced, during the two-day workshop.  Participants bring their Play Book to the training.

At the session an additional Workbook is provided with added information and exercises. The Two-Day Workshop is roughly broken up into three sections.  Section 1 focuses on coaching a leader in a seven-step process that ensures positive behavioral change will take place (Day 1).  During the two-day “train-the-coach” participants gain a working understanding of each step in the Marshall Goldsmith behavioral coaching model and practice the skills associated with each of these steps.   Both days of training will be broken up into learning modules.  Each module will be made up of a tutorial, a behavioral rehearsal practice session, feedback on rehearsal, and capture of “do’s & don’ts”.  Topics covered include:

A unique aspect of this training is that individuals who are attending the two-day train-the-coach can invite a leader, or leaders, they are going to coach to the first day of the training.  This provides a strong foundation for working together with the leader who will be coached gained through a mutual understanding of the process and skills needed to make positive long-lasting change in behavior. 

The leaders who attend the first day do not return for Day Two, that is devoted to more specific activities relevant to the coach and some continued skill practice. Section 2 focuses on the flow of coaching activities from initial contact through conclusion of the coaching assignment (morning of Day 2).  Demonstration, practice and discussion of options will characterize much of this section.

Section 3 (afternoon of Day 2) is devoted to lab practice.  Each participant will be audio taped applying a key skill, or process step, from the first two sections.  These practice sessions will be reviewed in small groups and then the participants will take these tapes with them when they leave the Workshop.

Benefits of this Process:

AGENDA – Day One: Coaching Skills

Day Two: Coaching Flow

Coaching Labs  

Conclusions and Wrap-Up

Tele-Conference Follow-Up (for three months):

The purpose of the monthly Progress Check calls is to ensure the needed momentum and pace of the coaching process is taking place.  Additionally, the call will provide the opportunity to gain Feedforward advice from the coaching peer group and receive a mini lesson relevant to the coaching process.  There is no additional charge for these tele-conferences (included in the basic price of the train-the-coach).