Coaching for Success

Here’s what I wish I learned sooner. There’s a big difference between productive struggle and the kind of struggle that weighs you down like unwanted baggage. When I was beginning to learn how to deal with difficult things in life, it always felt like I was being judged and thought of poorly by the person coaching me. Their “advice” equated to another saying I’ve heard in my childhood “toughen up, buttercup.” (Gee, thanks.) The problem is all that advice came with no practical next steps, and some of those “coaches” didn’t really seem very content and happy in their own lives. Yes, we can choose mindset, attitude, and how we think. It’s huge. It also takes time to BELIEVE all those things. The proof that our minds need to internalize these belief systems is always, always, always bought by the ACTIONS we take. So here’s some practical stuff you need to learn to fuel your mindset through action. - Root cause analysis: practice getting from the apparent problem to its root cause. Look up the “Five Why’s exercise”. - Change management: many difficulties at work arise from poorly managing change. Look up John Kotter’s 8-steps to change management. - Timeboxing: rapidly changing from one task to another causes incredible stress to our brains and we became less effective. - How to have tough conversations: don’t conflate difficult conversations with difficult people. I like Fierce Conversations and Radical Candor® as my training resources. - Productivity Techniques: a plethora of useful tips and tools out there. Pick one or two that make sense to you and stick with it! - Strategic Anchors: not everything is important. Focus on critical elements to your organization’s strategy and cut out things that are “fillers” to your cognitive load. A final word (tough love that might actually help): Rest proactively. Be intentional about creating your own joy. Feed and nurture your heart, mind and soul. It’s wrong to not self-manage your own needs and then make your team suffer for it. [Setting up a metaphor] If you go out drinking all night knowing you are supposed to be at work at 6:00 AM and then you call out 30 minutes before, my being upset about that as an employer is reasonable. I’m not being mean or not understanding. Apply that same logic to your rest and mental health. It is our own responsibility to manage our mental fitness and needs. If I don’t manage this and then crash and burn, leaving my team hanging, this is the equivalent to the 30-min call out. As a top leader, my emotional intelligence and ability to navigate challenging times ALONGSIDE my team is a requirement of my job. Saying to my team consistently, “I’m having an off day” is like a police officer saying “I forgot my firearm at home.” Difficult things happen. Great leaders learn (through action) how to manage them. “Be the leader you wish you had” carries a whole new meaning when you apply it to “be the leader you wish you had during difficult times.” 💜

My recent work is featured in the Harvard Business Review Management Tip of the Day! (Full text below and link in comments.) 🎯 A More Efficient Approach to Coaching 💡 Coaching builds your team members’ capacity to analyze problems, consider multiple perspectives, and devise solutions in the moment. It can feel daunting to find the time for coaching, but you don’t need formal, hour-long sessions to effectively coach your employees. Some of the most impactful development moments happen during the regular flow of work—if you know how to spot and use them. ➡️ Use the coaching bridge. When someone brings you a challenge, don’t jump straight to solving it. Start with a question to explore their thinking. Then share your perspective, and finish with a follow-up question that hands back ownership: “Given that, what will you do next?” This three-part structure builds problem-solving skills and accountability—without taking more time. ➡️ Ask better questions. Resist the urge to give quick advice. Instead, have go-to prompts ready: “What options are you considering?” “What’s getting in your way?” “If you couldn’t fail, what would you try?” These questions spark strategic thinking and prepare your team to make stronger decisions. ➡️ Practice strategic silence. After you ask a question, pause. Let them think. Leaders often fill silence with answers; holding space signals confidence in the other person and invites deeper insight. ➡️ Choose your coaching moments. Focus your energy on high-impact opportunities: recurring decisions, complex challenges, and moments with long-term growth potential. #coaching #empowerment #ownership

𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦, 𝐜𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧. This mantra is crucial, but putting it into practice can be a bit more challenging. Here’s how I approach separating the person from the problem with four effective tools: 𝟏. 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬, 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬  Clients often express their desires, but as a coach, it’s our role to delve deeper to uncover what they truly need. Wants might represent their external aspirations, but needs to speak to their essential, internal requirements for growth and fulfillment. 𝟐. 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐔𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐚𝐥𝐬 Clients can become fixated on the means to achieve their desires. It’s important to guide them towards understanding the ultimate goals behind their wants. This clarity enables them to explore alternative, perhaps more effective, paths to their objectives. 𝟑. 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 Pay attention to the assumptions embedded in your client’s narratives. These often obstruct their view and can skew their understanding of a situation. By challenging these assumptions, you can help clear the way for new insights and perspectives. 𝟒. 𝐑𝐞𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 I frequently ask my clients, "What's the story you're telling yourself right now?" It’s a powerful question that reminds them they are not obliged to believe every thought they have. Reframing these stories can dramatically shift their viewpoint and open up new possibilities for action. By using these strategies, we focus on empowering the individual, not just tackling the issue at hand. This approach ensures that coaching interventions are more personalised and impactful. What techniques do you find most effective in coaching the person rather than the problem? #leadership #mindset #growth #coaching #success #NarrativesWithRajendra

𝟐𝟒 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 ‘𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠’: ...What would you like to achieve? ...How can I be involved in helping you achieve your objectives? ...When you came to this team what were you excited about? ...What do you think will hold you back? ...I've noticed (this) about you...do you think that's an accurate viewpoint? ...What kind of environment do you thrive in? ...What kind of support helps you thrive? ...When you’ve been coached in the past what’s worked for you? ...I want to stretch you...what's the best way to do that? ...Who is your biggest supporter...what do they say about your games and how can I get them involved more? ...What does success look like to you? ...It can feel a little difficult communicating with you sometimes...are there ways I can improve my communication with you? ...What members of the team understand you best? ...How do you like to be treated? ...What can you be held accountable for? ...Who can I hold you accountable to? ...What are your strengths? ...How can we work together on these challenges? ...How would you like to go about improving? ...Who’s your hero? ...What do you like most about the way I coach? ...What do you like least about the way I coach? ...Who can help us take this further? ...What helps you feel great? ‘’Challenging’ players are merely being their personality traits. Or they’re merely behaving in line with their values or their motivations in life...their goals. Or they’re merely acting in accordance with how they feel things are best done - their beliefs. Because that’s how people behave - a complex mix of personality, goals, values and beliefs. And thus it can feel like some players (people) feel easier to coach...perhaps because they’re more agreeable or perhaps because their goals align closely with yours. Conversely, some players (people) feel tougher to coach...perhaps because they are low agreeable or perhaps because they have a keener sense of what they want and how they want to do what they do. It’s likely you’ll never coach a team where every player presents themselves as ‘simple’ or ‘easy’ to coach. And that’s ok. Celebrate that. See that as an opportunity to improve your ability to ask the right questions, and to learn how to support people with different personalities, goals, values, and beliefs. Learn to flex as a coach. Build your identity, and have your frameworks, rules and norms. But flex to meet individual needs and contextual and cultural complexities. Aim to be outstanding...and that may start with an open mind and an ability to ask the right question.

7 Deadly Coaching Conundrums Managers Struggle with That Destroy Coaching ⚠️ 1. Seek to Understand, Not to Respond. Coaching is about intentional listening, understanding where the person is, where they want to be and WHO they are, not waiting for your turn to talk and push your agenda. By seeking to understand their point of view first, you create the space where the coachee feels heard and valued, which builds trust and opens the conversation.   2. Asking Closed-Ended Questions. When learning to coach, most managers quickly realize how difficult asking open ended questions is because they’re so used to being the Chief Problem Solver and offering a quick solution. Open-ended questions invite critical thinking and exploration, but they also require patience and trust in the process to let the conversation naturally unfold. So, let the coachee do the work so they own the solution, not you.   3. Manipulation vs. Coaching. Instead of fostering self-discovery, asking, “leading questions” becomes a form of manipulation, as you attempt to guide the coachee to your solution. If you’re asking yourself, “What questions can I ask to get this person to where I want them to be?” This is manipulation, not coaching. Let them create their path vs. having them follow yours.   4. Double-Dipping with Questions. Did you ask a good question, then follow up with another question before getting a response? That’s “double-dipping.” Stick with one question at a time and give the coachee the space to respond. If you rush coaching, it will fail. Silence is a powerful coaching tool.   5. Coaching in Your Own Image. Are you coaching them to a pre-determined solution based on your experiences and what worked for you? Let the coachee’s experiences and ideas shape the conversation and the outcome by honoring their individuality, not yours. (“When I was in your role…”)   6. Searching for the Perfect Question. If you focus on crafting the “perfect” question, you’ll stop listening. By the time you ask it, the conversation may have already shifted, and your question becomes an irrelevant detriment to the conversation. Listen to what they're saying first, then build the questions off of what they're saying.   7. Coaching Is Never About the Coach. Coaching is always about the coachee and their agenda. It requires being present, human, demonstrating authentic care, fostering deeper relationships, suspending your goals and any hidden agenda, and delivering unconditional value, allowing the coachee to find their own way.   Overcoming these common coaching traps enables you to focus on the primary objective of every company👉 Making your people more valuable so you can build a bench of future leaders. 🏆 #sales #coaching #salesenablement #salesmanagement

Imagine calling training a success when no one uses it on the job. Have you? Most people do not fail the training. They fail to apply it. About 85% of training never gets used on the job. Not because the content was bad. Not because the learner was not engaged. Because learning and doing are two very different things. We have built entire Learning & Development systems around consumption. Videos. Workshops. Courses. Certifications. But knowing something is not the same as doing it. The real gap is not knowledge. It is transfer. Here are 5 ways to actually close it. 1️⃣ Replace content with reps: Stop adding more modules. Build in deliberate practice. Repetition under real conditions is what creates retention. 2️⃣ Make managers part of the design: If a manager does not reinforce it, it dies. Loop them in before the training, not after. 3️⃣ Create accountability structures: Peer check-ins. Follow-up commitments. Application goals. Without accountability, good intentions evaporate. 4️⃣ Shrink the time between learning and doing: The longer the gap, the more fades. Give learners a chance to apply within 48 hours of any session. 5️⃣ Measure behavior, not completion: Finishing a course proves nothing. What changed on the job? That is the only number worth tracking. Active learning feels productive. Active practice is what actually changes performance. Your learners do not need more content. They need more reps. AI makes this matter even more. When information is everywhere and content is easier than ever to generate, the real advantage is not access to knowledge. It is the ability to apply it. Statistic source: The Institute for Transfer Effectiveness ——— ✦ ——— More on AI for Workforce Transformation → Janet Perez

If learning isn’t transferring, stop asking: “Why didn’t people use it?” Start asking: “What made using it irrational?” Decades of training research, including meta-analytic and field evidence, converge on the same conclusion. Transfer failure is rarely about knowledge, motivation, or intent. It is about work design, social signals, and system constraints. Formal training is only one input into a much larger learning transfer system. That is why capable, motivated people still revert under pressure. The system quietly rewards the old behaviour. Transfer holds only when three conditions align. 1️⃣ Design Training connects directly to real tasks, decisions, and variability, not abstract competence. 2️⃣ Context Time, staffing, SOPs, KPIs, and supervisor behaviour make application possible and safe. 3️⃣ Social reinforcement Peers and leaders notice, discuss, and correct application early, before drift normalises. You can optimise the learning endlessly. The system still decides the outcome. Micro case study A plant launches a new SOP after an incident review. Operators understand it. Supervisors endorse it. Shift KPIs remain unchanged. Handovers stay compressed. Within a month, workarounds return. Not due to resistance, but survival. So instead of auditing the learning event, start auditing the system the learning is expected to operate in. In your last change effort, which failed first: design, context, or social reinforcement? #SystemsThinking #OperationalExcellence #Capability

86% of companies say leadership development is a priority. Only 13% believe they’re doing it well. That gap is why most training fails. Not because leaders don’t want to grow. But because the environments they return to are designed to break them. It’s like teaching someone to swim, then throwing them in quicksand. I watched Sophia, one of the sharpest managers on our team, leave training inspired. By Monday morning, she was drowning in: • Back-to-back meetings • 97 “urgent” emails • Zero space to apply what she’d learned Three months later? Back to old patterns. The system was stronger than the skills. Here’s what nobody admits: We don’t have a training problem. We have an environment problem. The math is brutal: 16 hours → leadership training per year 2,000 hours → working in broken systems Guess which one wins? The traps I see everywhere: Meeting Trap: Teach delegation. Fill calendars so they can’t. Metrics Trap: Train trust. Measure only short-term numbers. Availability Trap: Preach balance. Praise midnight emails. Speed Trap: Teach thoughtfulness. Demand instant everything. Most managers know what to do. They’re trapped in environments that won’t let them. So they feel twice the failure: Once for not leading well. Once for “wasting” the training. What actually works? Stop fixing managers. Fix environments. Before any training, ask: • What prevents them from using this? • Which systems contradict our teaching? • How will we protect practice time? Leadership isn’t built in workshops. It’s built in the 2,000 hours between them. Until we fix those hours, training isn’t leadership development. It’s survival training in quicksand. 🏷️ Tag a leader who needs to see this ➕ Follow for the truth about real leadership development

WHY TRAINING DOES NOT ALWAYS IMPROVE PERFORMANCE! One of the most common responses to poor performance in many organizations is training. Targets are not met → Send staff for training. A new system is introduced → Organize training. Performance is low → More training. Training becomes the solution to almost every problem. But over time, I have learned that not every performance problem is a training problem. Sometimes, performance problems are not caused by a lack of knowledge or skill. They are caused by issues such as: Unclear roles and responsibilities Poor supervision Weak accountability structures Inefficient processes Conflicting instructions from different supervisors Lack of tools or resources Poor performance measurement systems Slow decision-making processes Weak governance and reporting structures In these situations, you can train people as much as you want — performance may still not improve. Because training improves competence, but performance depends on systems, structure, leadership, and accountability. If the system is weak, even very competent people will struggle to perform. If the system is strong, even average people can perform reasonably well. This is why, before approving training programs, organizations should ask a very important question: Is this a training problem, or is this a system problem? If it is a training problem, training will help. If it is a system problem, training will not solve it. Many organizations do not have a training problem. They have a structure, process, governance, or performance management problem. Training is important. But training alone does not build performance. Training builds competence. Systems, leadership, and accountability drive performance. #PeopleAndStrategy #OrganizationalDevelopment #PerformanceManagement #Leadership #InstitutionalDevelopment #OrganizationalCapability  

Only 10-15% of workforce training transfers to workplace practice: part 2. Here are themes from the comments to my previous post. The environment where learning lands dominated the comments. Reza Hosseini Ghomi, MD, MSE described teams leaving training energised only to return to unchanged incentives, no protected time & blame culture. Anthony Lawton talked about “the system eating the learning”. Ish Ahmed described how changing the conditions around a clinical service - not new training - moved performance from the 4th quartile nationally to the 1st. There was discussion about the “validity” of the “10-15% of workforce training transferring” statistic. A challenge by Dr. Jim Sellner, PhD. DipC. that the figure is an opinion & not evidence-based made me delve deeper & I couldn’t find an empirical basis for it in the quoted literature. However, Jim Campbell said it was consistent with findings in The Lancet of a 10% figure in healthcare workforce development. For me, the underlying message (that formal training alone has a significant transfer problem) still stands & is supported by the broader research literature regardless of the precise percentage. David Wylie & Stefan Powell named specific barriers. David raised "tall poppy syndrome": managers feeling threatened by team members developing capabilities beyond their own, leading to skills suppression. Stefan pointed to eroded line manager capacity — managers working more "in the business" than "on it," leaving little space to develop their people. Learning as an ongoing process, not a training event, was another big theme. Paul Jocelyn argued that using training to address performance problems is a limited lever & that L&D is structurally over-indexed as an intervention. John-Paul Crofton-Biwer stressed learning happens in the days & weeks after training - testing whether what people are being asked to do actually fits their work. Callum Brown described the 70:20:10 model & argued the best time for improvement training is when someone has a live project to consolidate skills. Dr Ian Thomson flipped this to 10:20:70 to reflect the transfer sequence & discussed the importance of define outcomes & behaviours before designing content. Paula Beattie included individual coaching as standard & used the Toyota A3 as a personal development instrument for each participant, with experimentation as the site of real learning. Helena Jackson, Ralph Talmont & Lesley Parkinson extended the conversation to varied methods (on the job practice, arts based approaches, micro learning over time) & the need to match delivery to busy realities. Across the comments, a consistent set of themes stand out: co design rather than top down training, coaching & feedback embedded into work, timing learning around real problems, supporting & equipping line managers, addressing cultural blockers & treating training as one element in a broader system of change rather than the primary solution. Thanks to all commenters.