Book Summary Preview : Unleashed!

The Big Idea

Today’s fastest-growing human resource development process is coaching. Coaches are the sort of people who see the greatness in others, challenge them to live up to their own high standards, and hold them accountable for outstanding performance on a daily basis.

However, what used to be the purview of HR or even external professional coaches is more and more becoming a responsibility of leaders at all organizational levels, who are being asked to be more coach-like with the people they work with. Many of those who are asked to do so are however ill-equipped to provide such coaching.

This is where this book comes in. It provides a unique model and approach to help the managers and leaders of today overcome this challenge and win the war for talent within their organizations.

Why You Need This Book

This book does not try to teach its readers to coach. Its advice is centered on the authors’ Great Expectations Model of coaching. This model provides readers with a remarkably simple and straightforward process that draws upon timeless approaches and best practices utilized by professional coaches.

Thus the book challenges its readers to become the kind of person whom others actively seek out to learn from and who create relationships that confront real issues.

Expecting Greatness

Four things that need to be settled right at the start:

1. Leading today’s organizations is difficult work; organizations are chaotic, demanding and messy. Coaching, however, is tougher.
2. There’s no simple, multi-step coaching process that anyone can follow to become a good coach or leader. Coaching is a way of being, not doing.
3. You have to change. Think about your interactions with those you work with. Are you getting the results you need or want to be getting? The answer is nearly always a ‘no’, so it’s obvious that a change is required.
4. At least half of the people who work on your team or in your organization consider themselves “not engaged.” They feel and/or fear that they are not performing anywhere near their full potential. Worse, there may be some who you think are performing well, but in reality are not anywhere near their full potential.

Take a long, hard look at yourself. Are you ready to be a leader? Are you ready to be a coach? The big question, then, is: Are you up to it? What are you prepared to sacrifice to become a noteworthy coach?  

Some points regarding coaching now:

1. If we are to coach for high performance, we must be able to describe it. High performance is not an achievement but a journey. It’s realized when the Talent – the individual being coached – is on the road towards fully utilizing his natural capabilities, and not only in his work but everywhere in his life.
2. As someone in a leadership role, you are always on display. People constantly and continuously watch you to fulfill the human need to have a frame of reference when dealing with you. They want to know if they can trust you to coach them right.
3. There is no fixed process to becoming a great coach. Some aspects of coaching come naturally to people; others will need to be developed.
4. There are two key practices of great coaches:
1. They establish potent, development-focused relationships
2. They engage in difficult, performance-changing conversations
5. People live up – or down – to our expectations of them.They are remarkably perceptive and can pick up your assessments of them very well through a variety of verbal and non-verbal cues. We also tend to spend more time with the star performers and even grant concessions to high performers, which we might not do with the low performers.
1. The Halo effect – one good characteristic can dictate the overall opinion of an individual. A strong rating in one area can affect ratings in other areas.
2. The Horn effect – when a person seems deficient in one key area, it’s often assumed he’s lacking in other key areas as well.
6. Adopt a new Coaching Perspective. Try to see the people you work with not as high or low performers, but as individuals with wonderfully wide-ranging personalities, talents and abilities. Choose to see poor performance as nothing more than unused potential.

The Great Expectations Model
This model is predicated on you becoming a pioneer for positive change. Focus on everything right, or on how to turn a challenge into an opportunity. Embrace this one philosophy and you will touch people in a profound and meaningful way. Be intentional in how you interact with others.

Also, realize that you have to focus on the other person’s career and aspirations.That’s the leverage point of coaching – great coaches figure out what their talents most want and become an advocate for them to achieve it.

This, then, is the Great Expectations Model of coaching. It consists of three guiding principles, each of which is to be discussed in its own section:

1. Earning the right to coach
2. A perfect partnership
3. Dangerous conversations

Earning the Right to Coach

Authenticity
First ask yourself this: are you an authentic leader?

Here are four characteristics and qualities of authentic leaders:

1. You must live your values. Your principles have to be evident in everything you do.
2. Don’t equivocate. Make your yes mean yes, and your no mean no.
3. Take full responsibility for your life. Be comfortable saying “I am responsible.”
4. If you say it, do it! Follow through even on the smallest things.

As a leader in your organization you are under constant scrutiny and are continuously scanned for trustworthiness. Every action is on display for all to see. We may strive for it and even practice it, but we can only be or not be authentic through the eyes of others.

Human beings are hardwired to seek out trustworthiness or untrustworthiness. We move through our daily lives assessing everyone around us; we attempt to detect sincerity and its lack, and adjust our behavior accordingly.

Honesty, too, is significant; it is an essential prerequisite to an effective coaching relationship. As is integrity; these are your values in action.

Lastly, you must make sure you are the genuine article – honest, true, and authentic. Be genuine in all you do. Who are you when no one is watching? Do you stick to your values or play fast and loose?

Self-Esteem
We all have self-doubt; we fear at some level that we lack the ability to succeed in certain areas of our lives. Left unchecked, these fears severely limit our development– and the development of others as well.

The point is to listen to the voice of self-doubt, recognize the things it says for the baseless insecurities that they are, and act in spite of it. Enough said.

We must exercise self-control and curtail our tendency to behave in a manner that is inconsistent with our values and our beliefs. Specifically, we need to manage our need to control others, or this will eliminate the natural vitality and creativity in any coaching encounter. Practice not dictating the pace of the talks and not dominating with your own ideas.

Lastly, a key principle – first apply the principle of appreciation to yourself. Self- esteem depends on looking at everything and everyone through the same lens. To truly see another person with an appreciative eye, you must be able to look at yourself the same way.

Being a Leader Coach – both a leader and a coach – is about being fully you! It’s not about being perfect; far from it!

 

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