kO′ch VA adj. 1. a highly specialized and niched virtual
assistant who is in tune with their coaching clients and customizes solutions based upon their individual needs and goals 2. differs from a general virtual assistant as they only partner with members of the coaching industry [syn: 
The Art of Coaching
ByMost managers don’t coach. They work hard, but not at coaching. As a result of not coaching, managers wind up doing a lot of the “doing.” When they do coach, rather than develop people, they usually are evaluating them.
Most of the time, when a manager wants one of his/her people to change, the manager pseudo-coaches in one of two ways:
1) Asks the person to change his/her behavior – “Fix X.”
or
2)Tells the person how to change – “Do Y.”
And as everyone knows, when people get this kind of guidance frequently, nothing changes, or when it does, the change is very short lived.
The reason for this – blame it on generation X or whatever – is that people are not likely to change if they don’t have buy-in and are not committed to a new plan. It behooves any company to find a way to get that buy-in and commitment.
Turning managers into coaches can create a culture of buy-in and commitment. It can increase the productivity and performance of people. Most managers are very willing to coach. In our experience, they don’t coach because they don’t know how.
Here is a simple process to follow to begin to turn managers into coaches. The key to the process is becoming great at ASKING vs. TELLING.
The ART of coaching is a three step process that starts questioning.
Take off your manager’s hat, think of yourself as a coach, and start asking questions. Here is the ART process:
ASSESSMENT
Assess the situation. Start by asking the person to self-assess. Not as a formality but really go in-depth – Ask: What are the positives? What are the areas for improvement? Make sure the person self-assesses for a minimum of three minutes. This usually means asking questions. Only then give your view.
RESOLUTION
Identify and remove the obstacle. Ask the person point blank – What is the obstacle? Then ask – What would the ideal situation look like? What can you do to get there? Then give your views. Ask what support the person needs. Role play, share ideas, practice…
TIMETABLE
Set the next step and time frame. Gain commitment, give encouragement. Most of all, don’t forget to follow up.
Good coaching is synonymous with development. Great coaching is a process of self-development. Coaches can begin this process during their coaching session. There are two guidelines: 1) Let them talk first and 2) Work on one thing at a time. With this, the total process should normally take no more than 15 to 20 minutes – not one or two laborious hours! And the process will teach the salesperson how to become his or her own coach.
Why bother to coach? With flattening of organizations and unprecedented change, you, your team, and your organization needs everybody to be a coach. The ART of coaching will not only help you improve performance by helping your people remove performance obstacles, it will also enable you to teach your people and yourself to self and peer coach. Start ART now!
About the Author:
Linda Richardson is President and founder of Richardson (http://www.richardson.com), a leading sales training and consulting firm. She is a recognized leader in the sales training industry and is credited with the movement to consultative selling, which is the corner stone of Richardson’s methodology. Ms. Richardson has written 9 books on selling including her most recent, The Sales Success Handbook. She has been published extensively in industry.
