Coachability: What Is It? Is It Measurable, Why It Matter So Much
The dictionary mentions that coachability is the state or condition of being coachable.
Well that doesn't say much does it. Personally, I believe it depends on the person you
are being coached by.. do you like them or value what they have to say.. do they treat
you in a manner that relates to you or inspires you..and most importantly are the
coaches expectations for your participation match what your interested in doing.
So let's break this down a bit!I I guess the first question each of us needs to ask is: the
person who introduced us to our biz. Do we trust them? Do we value who they are and
the service they give us to help us reach a higher level? Does our coaches
expectations of what we want..actually match what we really want? I think these are the
criteria of how coachable we will be. The systems at play is incredibly simple..are you in
a growth trajectory that makes sense to you and matches what you want to accomplish
through this journey.
What are 3 main characteristics of coachability? Assess yourself after each
conversation you have with your coach. Are you always right, they are wrong, BUT you
are continually broke? Maybe this is an ego challenge. I remember my basketball
days just asking the coach. Okay coach what drills do i run to become better? He would
assess me in practice and games that week and give me insight and support as to
what drills or strategy I should do in order to become a better skilled baller.
So if coachability is about your behaviour and your actions that you demonstrate when
given a set of tasks to become better skilled.
1. Do you have an interest and willingness to learn
This really gets me. When I first looked at my biz, I watched the movies 4x until I could
basically chart out the optional career plan without looking at a cheat sheet. I immersed
myself in the back office so by the 2nd week I basically knew where most of the links
were that people would need if I was asked a question when launching or coaching a
new person. Then I started to get google.com/alerts with my search criteria to keep me
current with news releases globally on what I was studying..and I made sure come
heck or high water that each week I was immersed in coaching videos concerning my
business, to really get a good foundational baseline of what was transpiring globally if
need be. This just made sense, so if I needed to answer a question I could not promote
myself but simply promote a video of an influencer answering those questions.
It is amazing to me how many people on my teams over the years want the same
success that myself and others have. However they do not immerse themselves or
interest themselves in the very information and systems that can and will make them
wealthy or comfortable with choices financially. If you hear me sound like a broken
record saying the same thing. Maybe it's time u got deep in the learning and create a
personal passion to understand so you can promote the solution properly.
2. The ability to seek out, accept and integrate feedback without being defensive
I remember in my last company we shot out of the gate and hit the top level in the
career path in 6 weeks over the xmas holidays! WHAT A RUN!! A year just coasting
along after that, enjoying time with my family. I remember having a heart to heart talk
with my coach / mentor and I just straight out said, "look I m not hear to get
sugar coated, tell me what I am doing wrong as soon as you pick it up in my behavior
and actions, so i can correct my course. If you do not, I will be totally pissed"!
In business so many of my friends are part of YEO (young entrepreneurs organization)
or YPO (young professionals organization) or have mentors that regularly sit them
down and allow them to bounce ideas off of and give them suggestions many times
critical. Which change their futures for the better. So ask yourself the question when
someone tells you the truth do you get defensive? If you do, you may just want to
swallow your pride, and take a few steps back, and then grow yourself. Raise your lid
to grow faster and into the leader who will one day mentor and coach others.
3. So your spinning your wheels and you can't enroll even a free member into your team.
You call me and give me the story (hey i have heard it a million times already over my
18 year career in this type of business). Then once again, I tell you exactly what I have
told you a 000 times before. So you go back, with this information and do exactly what
you have been doing all along to get you the horrible results. This is one of the most
important traits of someone who is truly coachable. They can take new information in
and demonstrate the new actions to get better results. Thus lifting them out of I CANT
to I WILL.
How is coachability measured...the only true way to measure your personal
coachability is through your changed behavior in your daily income producing activities
or what i affectionately called DIPAs.
1. Interest and willingness to learn - Are you trying to improve yourself? What are
you learning? Are you reading before bed? Have you figured out your goals and
dreams? Have you done the dream board exercises? Do you know everything about
the back office and where everything or most of it is found just by closing your eyes?
You are running a business here, so treat it like a business! Are you inviting
conversation about yourself and opening your mind and heart to constructive
information that can and will propel you to the next level?
2. How much blame are you assigning during negative feedback from your
personal actions? Is it your fault, and you have to learn and grow and get better, or
is it always their fault for not stepping up. Can you rationally discuss with others your
short comings and how you fit into the team picture as you grow? Are you taking the
feedback in and dwelling on it long enough inside your head to figure out where it came
from and why and move forward in a positive manner?
3. In order to get realistic results are you demonstrating to yourself first then to your coach and the rest of the team that you are open and willing to change your daily income producing activities.
Based on the information provided you by your mentor to help you gain better
results. Basically u are you integrating the feedback in such a way that its supportive
and helping you reach your goals.
IF you are wondering on this call.. how to I truly get better..take the six questions
and look for behavioral evidence that things are in due process of changing.
Boots on the ground is the only way I understand how to create a life in any home
based business, and it should be done in a such a way to be efficient so others
will be included in your dreams and goals.
Move forward positively! If you are going to fall fall forward then you at least have
forward momentum, as momentum is EVERYTHING in business.
Russ The Dadpreneur Field
Recent Comments
4
Brilliant post.
I attended a seminar with Ed Ludbrook a few years back. He is a MLM trainer who works with lots of companies around the World and in the training he explained the difference between coaching and teaching. Up to that point we'd all been taught by our Uplines to 'teach' our teams, but what we should have been doing is coaching. To sum up briefly how Ed explained it, coaching is not teaching people to get results, it is helping them to learn a system whereby they generate their desired results themselves. The student is responsible for their own learning, whereas in the structured environment of formal education it is the teacher who is responsible for the students' progress. That does not mean no accountability. The Coach invests his or her time in the student voluntarily and is therefore entitled to expect measurable progress in reasonable time, otherwise the coaching stops. The student sets his or her goals with the support of the coach and the two agree a time frame for their achievement. If the goals are not achieved in that time, the Coach will ask why not. If it was not possible, then the goals and the time frame can be re-assessed. However, if the Student just didn't bother to work the mutually agreed plan then the coach can decide whether or not this person is worth his or her investment in time. When we stand in front of a group, say, or our downline, and deliver a presentation to them we are training and teaching. But when we give our time individually to our team members and help them to learn the business, then we are coaching. It's a subtle but key difference and I found it a real eye opener. Hope people find this helpful :-)
thanks for the comment I agree.. over my career in this profession i have learnt (by being burnt emotional so many times) to hear what people are saying but ot really pay attention to their actions....
Definitely, and I can identify with the emotional burn out too. Being an effective coach means knowing who deserves you time and being strong enough to cut the time wasters out. That last bit is far easier said than done, especially for those who are new to sponsoring. They've worked hard to get someone into their business and understandably want to keep that person on board at all costs, when really it's the number of ACTIVE down llne which is key.
my first biz in university was with WWDB in Amway and one of my fav tapes was listening to Dave Severn talk about a teaching story of Ron Puryears.. talking about exactly that when people weren't doing anything etc quitting..he always asked what is 25% of nothing, nothing.. so don't worry about it.. so im teaching people all the time to properly launch, protect their minds as they do it and work with the willing :).