inform. educate. connect. Issue #14 - November 2011

Training Principles Part 4: The Role of the Coach

By Scott Byorum, Nationwide Real Estate Tax Service, Inc.

The last three articles in this series on the Principles of Training showed that whether you are training for physical performance or mental performance or a new job skill, in order to maximize results, the principles are the same. You need to understand Overload & Reversibility, incorporate Specificity & Variety and encourage Individualism & Involvement. And while every good team on the playing field or in business has a Trainer that understands and employs these principles, every successful team also has a good Coach.

Training is not coaching; just as managing is not leading. While the terms may seem to overlap in meaning, there are distinct differences. Let’s look at the differences between managing and leading. Managing is making sure people do what they already know how to do. Leading is providing a vision of the destination for the people who will take you there, and empowering them to do it. 

Leading is a whole level up from managing. An effective leader motivates.

Likewise, training is teaching people to do what they don’t know how to do. But coaching is helping to identify the skills and capabilities that are within a person, and enabling them to use them to the best of their ability. Coaching uses a range of communication skills to help players alter their perceptions, thereby discovering different alternatives to achieve their goals. 

Coaching is a whole level up from training. An effective coach motivates.

Beginning to see the picture? Coaches, like leaders, all have their own styles, but the effective ones all know how to facilitate talent by providing a picture of success, empowering their players, asking questions, and challenging the team. In fact, specifically, coaches:

Provide Vision: What is the goal? What kind of team are we going to be? How are we going to conduct ourselves as individuals? What does success look like? The clear and definitive answers to these will unite the team and propel it forward.

Listen: In order to listen to the player, the coach needs to ask the right questions. How do you see the situation? What are the stumbling blocks? What do you need to help you perform better? A coach listens to what his players are saying with his ears, he listens to their sincerity with his eyes, but he gets them to talk with his mouth.

Empower Individuals: The trainer gives the coach the talent; the coach leverages that talent on the field to produce results. The coach needs to provide specific, positive reinforcement. The coach needs to be supportive and show a belief in each player’s ability. When a football player misses the field goal, he makes them face down the next one. When a salesperson blows the sale, the coach pushes him to make the next deal a success.

Inspire Action: Yelling at someone de-motivates them. Berating what they did wrong makes them feel worthless. While coaching can be frustrating, an effective coach refrains from doing these things. Instead, a good coach asks the hard questions that motivate through accountability: What went wrong?  What do you think will work? How will you get started? Are we going to let the competition beat us?

Reward Performance: The coach recognizes individual accomplishments. The coach celebrates with the team when they win. To the victor go the spoils, and those spoils are shared by all who made it happen. That way, the participants know what’s in store for the next victory, and it makes them want to work harder for it.

The coach cannot be successful without talent and the talent cannot be successful without a good coach. The same applies to businesses like banks. Without an effective leader, highly skilled talent that solid training programs can produce fail to deliver the results that they are capable of; and a leader is powerless to bring an organization to success when the employees do not have access to proper training.

Training programs support people physically and mentally and enhance their performance. Think about the training programs of your institution. Are your task training courses designed to build and measure application competency? Are your customer service programs one-shot, throw-away, feel-good sessions? To be a successful organization you need to think of your employees as athletes…athletes in need of solid and ongoing training programs that help them operate at peak performance so that everyone can share in the reward of that success.

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