𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝗗𝗢 𝗣𝗘𝗢𝗣𝗟𝗘 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗔𝗙𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗔 𝗠𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗞𝗘? We want people to be honest with us. How we respond when they mess up has a lot to do with whether they will be. Here’s a baseball example. A player is working daily on not swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. He cares and is bought in. Eighth inning, a chance to score a teammate. He swings at a low slider and strikes out. As he walks back, I can meet him with, “You have to be better.” Or let him settle, then ask, “Walk me through what happened.” He already knows he messed up. My response can help him work through it or leave him feeling like he needs to defend himself. 𝐀𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐰𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐚 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐞’𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭. The standard still matters. So do the timing, setting, and our willingness to understand before correcting. His answer, once the emotions calm down, lead me to the next step. Handle this wrong and people start putting up walls. What comes to mind when you think of this? A person, a story? Let me know what you think about after reading this and as always comment any questions you have!

On our mentorship call, we kept coming back to asking “why” five times to get specific about what we can actually influence and change. Not everything matters equally, and our job is to find the one thing that will make the biggest difference. Then ask, is this a thought we need to influence, a skill we need to develop, or a physical capability they’re missing? That should drive what we do, otherwise we’re shooting at the wrong target and hoping it works. Think about someone you’re coaching right now. Do you know what’s holding them back, or have you stopped at the first explanation?

@Michael Grossman asked, When does helping become over coaching? How do you know when your job as a leader is to step in and when it's to get out of the way and let someone figure it out for themselves? Curious your thoughts on this I’ll drop my thoughts in soon!