I like to coach (again and again)

I was talking the other day with Victor Mion about our department one-minute coaching program.

I was asked, “What do you think is the biggest reason why many training programs don’t stick?”

Without any hesitation, I said, “Follow up.”

As a biker for many years in my life I realize that, “After my exercise, I rest, think and follow up. Then, I follow up some more, and then I follow up again until the next training .”

In any organization, any desired change in people’s behaviors will not happen unless  there is a consistent program of follow up after they have completed the training program.

Staff members will often (but not always) listen to the training environment. Often (but again not always they are willing or capable) to pick up the training objectives as stated by the organization.

Understanding is the easiest part, implementing the training (or better said the organizational) objectives is the hard work.

I always refer to the fact that within 30 minutes people have forgotten 70% of any content from the prior half hour. And  I (from my own experience and perspective)  realize how hard it is to  implement what was taught,especially if it about soft skills in an hectic operational environment.

Let’ face the facts that many problems will occur and yes, – here we go again – the old behavior becomes dominant again.

Fast (or sometimes slowly), everybody drifts back to the old days and old ways of working. What a waste of money, what a waste of time and yes what a waste of human energy.

What is missing in most cases is a long term structure in which performance is monitored and new behaviors are consistently addressed, retrained, and people are held accountable.

The need for a stringent f follow up is even more apparent in our large scaled, recently merged call center/contact center environment..

As a resolution for 2010  I outlined a stringent  coaching process for the members of my management team.

My approach is to schedule to moments (just one minute) of coaching. In this way, follow up is not left to chance – it is scheduled. And as we are a virtual organization with management team members who have a span of control up to 250 staff members I do not mind if the contact is by means of a voice mail. The assumption I make (and check on a regularly basis) is that one gets the message. thinks about it and starts acting. Acting in a way that positive energy is created and accountabilities are seen as real effective challenges.

Just think about it.

After having gone through all the hard work of getting people to understand what needs to change, demonstrating for them how to perform the new behavior, and watching them perform it, why should I assume this new behavior would stay in place without following up?

If you want something to change, I strongly believe you need to follow up, and for that to happen you must schedule it.  During most work days many things can happen to pull a manager’s or supervisor’s focus away from following up on training so you need a structure you can rely on to ensure follow up happens and correct behavior is properly anchored.

The great thing about today is there is so much technology at your disposal to help remind you to follow up. There are alarms on your smart phones to set reminders for tasks, your computers have notes that pop up to remind you what needs to be done, and there is even the old fashioned sticky note on your computer you can look at each day. And by the way, secretaries are still a gift from God.

Anything you can do to help remind yourself to follow up will make these changes stick that much sooner, it will become a new habit, and you will garner the benefits of improved performance.

Inspired by Glenn Pasch and have modelled his recent post to my managerial context

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