February 9th Coaching Tip: Set High Standards.
Yesterday, I witnessed an uncomfortable and public leadership moment. During a college softball game, the batter laid down a bunt, then slowly ran towards first base. She almost turned out of the baseline. It appeared to everyone at the game that the batter had already told herself that she would be thrown out and had convinced herself not to run fast to first base. She had assumed a negative result.
Meanwhile, the defensive third baseman mishandled the bunt and had an errant throw to first base. Frustration sat in quickly by the batter’s teammates, as they screamed at her for not running hard to first base. And then the uncomfortable moment really happened: the head coach, standing in the 3rd base coaching box, shouted across the field to her team’s dugout, and said, “Stop…stop screaming at her (the batter). Seniors, you set the culture; step up and don’t allow this lazy culture to sneak in.” The entire crowd was in a bit of shock.
However, it worked. The next inning, these same gals went out and got hits, loaded the bases, and then a senior hit a triple that knocked in two more runs. The head coach set the tone, and those seniors responded to the uncomfortable moment of being called out publicly by the coach. The seniors knew the standards of the team’s culture and responded quickly to the accountability that the coach expected. What makes this special is that there was a high standard that was set, the seniors quickly realized that they were the problem, and they fixed it immediately. Set high standards.
February 10th Coaching Tip: Clarify Goals.
As we are now in the 10th day of the second month of the new year, recommend that it’s a great time to ask your colleagues and teammates IF they have 100% clarity on the priorities and goals for the upcoming quarter, midyear, and year. If they do have clarity, have them state what are the goals and their roles in making those goals happen. If they do NOT have clarity, then help them gain clarity. For example, ask what else do they need to understand, repeat what the priorities and goals are and explain why, ask them to rephrase how those goals impact them in their role, etc.
To help improve employee engagement, clarify priorities, goals and roles. Today, I realized that I don’t have to do three things that I did in 2024. This gives me more time and mind space to work on coaching and speaking. I’m thrilled, as I was not aware of these changes…because they had not been communicated until today. Now I can truly focus my time on these new, more meaningful, and fewer high priority goals. Clarify goals.
February 11th Coaching Tip: Seek To Understand
Every now and then, we hear things and roll it around in our head for a few moments, and then say, “Say What?” It happened to me today. Overnight, I had received a couple emails about an important and urgent situation that just didn’t make complete sense. Then we found out more info, and then even more info rolled in. If you are saying to yourself, “say what?”, trust your gut feeling and take time to dig in, find out more info, set up some quick meetings/conference calls with people who are aware of the situation to gain their insights, all in an effort to understand. This deliberate action of learning more will help you move on from “say what?” to “ok, now I understand.” In my coaching work, sometimes we see teammates become overwhelmed or frozen, and then they don’t do anything. Seek to understand when others are looking at you awkwardly, stunned with silence, or have no input. Help them move on from by seeking to understand.