The examples below depict real managers we have helped and what they have accomplished by working with us. The names of managers and their employers have been disguised to protect confidentiality.

National Health Care Management Company

Mary, Megan and Peggy are experience managers, responsible for insuring that reps follow policy and procedure and meet industry compliance requirements. They also evaluate nurse coaches on the quality of the customer experience provided. Employee turnover is a huge issue.

Program: Advanced coaching skills for managers

• Two-day training program
• 3 rounds of individual coaching and coach supervision for managers
• Total program duration: 3 months

Mary - A result-oriented, by-the-book manager tries new skills and increases trust, initiative, and performance of her staff.

Initially, Mary expressed concern because, as she said, "I am very much of a by-the-book type of person.” She doesn't believe in hand holding or coddling employees. Her engagment grew, and by the end of our 2-day training program, she saw that changing her approach with her nurses could be valuable. She questioned her ability to do it.

At our first coaching session, Mary reported some success with the new approach. She also had encountered some distrust from the nurses. As she put it, "They are waiting for the real Mary to show up" This was painful because she realized they didn't trust her.

Mary began to realize how the lack of trust showed up in other ways. For example, a nurse performing at acceptable levels is not required to meet Mary to discuss results. Since none of Mary's nurses requested meetings or asked for help, Mary assumed the nurses were "not wanting to improve." Now she was beginning to see that maybe she had contributed to an environment where the nurses didn't feel safe asking for help.

She would have to be consistent with the new approach in order to earn back the trust that she had lost. In the second coaching session, Mary was excited at the progress that she and her nurses had made. They were all showing consistent improvement on their performance scores.

Other significant progress that Mary had observed included:

1. Nurses were now listening and acting upon her feedback and suggestions;
2. Nurses were now requesting meetings with Mary to find new opportunities to improve; and
3. Nurses, when faced with a challenge, were actively trying to solve it instead of hide it from Mary.

The result so far is that they are functioning better, providing a better customer experience, and resolving challenges before they became major problems.

Megan - A warm, caring manager learns to tap the motivation of a struggling performer to turn her into an engaged, helpful, top performer

Megan loved the coaching approach from the very beginning. The other managers described Megan as very warm and friendly but complained that she was too soft with the reps. Megan admitted that she struggled with giving negative or constructive feedback. She was so uncomfortable with it that felt ineffective and unable to help her team improve.

Megan said she was secretly hoping that the coaching approach would just be about "being nice," focusing on the positive. She came to realize that it is a mechanism for building on strengths and showing opportunities for learning and growth.

In Megan's first coaching session, she faced her biggest challenge. Sally was a struggling performer with low performance scores and at risk for being fired. All the managers had written Sally off as incompetent and unwilling to learn.

Megan played a recorded call for me of Sally with a customer. She pointed out how disorganized and scattered Sally was on the call. Sally also missed important policy and procedure items. Megan (and all of the other managers) wanted Sally to "stop being so relational and friendly" and be more task focused. They had been trying to get her to change for several months, but Sally resisted.

I asked Megan to listen closely to the way the customer responded to Sally. He loved her, he trusted her, and he was listening to her. Megan replied that all of Sally’s customers responded that way to her. She said, "Well, she’s so friendly and relational, and she truly cares about them and it shows." I couldn't help but ask the obvious: "Why would you want to change that? Why not build on that?" I pointed out that they had been telling Sally to stop using her signature strength. No wonder she was resisting!

I asked Megan to try a different approach: instead of trying to force Sally to stop using her core strength, explore with her how that strength helps her and when, if ever, it might limit her effectiveness. In their prior meetings, Sally would sit with her arms folded and merely nod. Then Megan brought up the idea that sometimes when we have a core strength, we might become so dependent on it that it could have some drawbacks. With no additional prompting, Sally laughed and admitted that she knew that was why her calls were so disorganized and why she missed so many of the essentials. They then brainstormed simple things that Sally could do in order to be a bit more organized and structured in her approach. (Ironically, these were the same things that Megan had been suggesting for months!)

By our next coaching session, Megan was excited to report that Sally was now consistently scoring close to 100% and hit all the essential elements of the calls. Sally had gone from the bottom to near the top. Sally was now an active supporter of the company and Megan, whereas before she was one of the biggest detractors. Sally was reaching out for help when she needed it, and she was also helping her teammates when they needed it.

Megan learned how to use her naturally supportive approach to honor the strengths of her reps and to then help them tackle the next opportunity for improving their performance.

Peggy - A self-described, hard-driving, performance-focused manager increases buy-in and commitment of staff

Peggy is a self-described, hard-driving, performance-focused individual. She hates nonsense and believes in following the rules. She was open to the training experience but expected it would be more applicable in her personal life than at work.

At our first coaching session, she was coaching one of her reps, whom she described as closed off and unwilling to learn. Unfortunately, she was talking over him and not fully listening to him and was unable to connect effectively. After a short time, the employee stopped talking all together.

At that point, I intervened with a question about something the employee had said earlier. The employee launched into an answer and started revealing aspects of what was important to him. From there we were able to have a conversation about what was difficult for him and how Peggy might support him. When he left the room, Peggy turned to me and said, "That was amazing! He has never opened up before. Maybe it isn't him after all; maybe I'm also creating part of the problem."

Since then we’ve worked on really listening and drawing others out. Peggy described herself as a poor listener but noted that most people in her life call her a great listener. Through our coaching, we found that Peggy's anxiety increases when she feels responsible for solving problems. Her attachment to having the answers reduces her listening effectiveness. By letting go of her own attachment to providing a solution, the employee can take more responsibility in the problem solving process. Peggy found that this approach led to better conversations with her employee. They were able to get to the root of issues and brainstormed solutions together. This approach has led the employee to buy-in and commit to these solutions and plans because he feels heard and participates in the process.