Strategic Management
Let’s look at Strategic Management in general terms. Wikipedia explains, “Strategy is the art, science and craft of formulating, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that will enable an organization to achieve its long-term objectives. It is the process of specifying the organization’s mission, vision and objectives, developing policies and plans. Strategic management seeks to coordinate and integrate the activities of the various functional areas of a business in order to achieve long-term organizational objectives.”

Applied Strategic Thinking
Applied Strategic Thinking is a way of scanning your environment, finding ways to perform more efficiently, being more innovative, and reacting to outside challenges and opportunities with more confidence because you have already considered variables.

The Difference
Notice that the main difference between these definitions is the timing. Where strategic management is a long-term plan for the future, Applied Strategic Thinking considers the future from the next few seconds to however long the concept will be relevant. In other words, you can consider the best route around an accident or plan for your retirement and everything in between including your influence on the future of your organization.

The second difference is in the number of members. Strategic management usually takes a team to determine the direction of an organization. Strategic thinking is something everyone, as individuals, can do. So a strategic thinking janitor may discover that changing a product will be less expensive, more effective, or perhaps more environment friendly than the current product being purchased. Strategic thinking means an individual looks at his/her environment, evaluates it, and then asks, “What would happen if . . .?”

Let me share a couple examples which I often use to illustrate this point. Think about two restaurants in which you have recently dined; one was a “good” experience, and the other was an “absolutely great” experience. Now identify the specific differences between the two experiences which contributed to your final opinions about the two restaurants. While perhaps similar in price, format and menu, why would you describe one restaurant as good, and the other as memorably great? I predict the differences you’ve identified between the two restaurants, while perhaps numerous, were not “monumental issues” when looked upon as individual items. In most cases the opposite is true; the differences are usually a small number of “little things” in a couple of key areas that were important to you.

Now take a minute to reflect on the predicted results and ultimate success of those same two restaurants. Which restaurant are you most likely to go back to? Refer to friends? Which do you predict will be in business longer? Little things do matter.

Here is one more example involving Tiger Woods and the game of golf. Clearly, Tiger is one of the greatest golfers to ever play the game. Yet, when you compare his scores to those of other great golfers, the differences in their average golf scores are again, surprisingly small. In the 2001 season, Tiger averaged 67.79 strokes per round of golf. Phil Mickelson achieved the second best score in the PGA with an average score of 69.25. Imagine, less than a stroke and a half difference between the two scores, averaged over 18 holes in each round for an entire season. The difference in their overall average performance amounts to about .08 per hole for the season… an incredibly small difference.

While the difference in performance is small, look at what that small difference means in terms of financial rewards for the two golfers. Tiger Woods earned a whopping 9.2 million dollars that year from the game of golf, not including endorsements. Phil Mickelson earned 4.8 million dollars or slightly more than half of what Tiger earned, even though their performance varied by less than two strokes per round when averaged over the entire season. The differences between good and absolutely great are often surprisingly small. Little things do matter!

So what strategic management lessons can we learn from these examples?

1. Learn something new every day.
   It is extremely important for all managers to continually improve their management skills and techniques. Little things do matter. Even small improvements in a limited number of critical areas, such as your coaching skills or strategic thinking abilities, can yield dramatic differences in your performance and expected outcomes, now and in the future.
2. Analyze and plan before you act. Be proactive, not reactive.
   Don’t simply react to people or situations out of what I call your “default mode” range of behaviors. While reacting with “what comes naturally” will be right occasionally, your results will be less than ideal in a majority of the situations. I’m confident you will be more effective, more often, if you plan, think and choose responses which are appropriate to the situation at hand.

Imagine Tiger Woods pulling a golf club out of his bag on the 7th hole, not because it’s the right club for the situation, but because it’s his preferred or his “default mode” club. In all likelihood, his performance would be considerably less than optimal. Professional golfers don’t just pull any club out of their bag without first diagnosing the situation. They analyze each hole for its unique characteristics, including distance, obstacles and wind speed. Only after they’ve done their analysis do they select the best club for that specific situation. Great managers do the same thing. Picking the right “club” matters.

3. Learn to use all the “clubs” in your bag consistently well.
   Great golfers are able to use all of the clubs in their bag and they use them consistently well, every time. Good managers, like good golfers, have a tendency to over-rely on their “clubs” of choice, the ones they are most comfortable with because they have used those most often. When a situation arises, they react without stopping to diagnose the situation fully and then selecting the right tool or “club” for the job.

Great golfers know which club to use and they can use all of their clubs…very well, almost every time. Great managers, like great golfers, have developed their abilities so that they are proficient with all of the “clubs” in their bag, not just their preferred or “default mode” behaviors. This takes us back to learning lesson number one; learn something new every day about the “clubs” in your bag and how to use them better.

You have a full bag of “clubs” from which to choose. Next time you find yourself in a critical situation, take time to assess the situation and think it through, choose the right tool for the situation and use it well. Remember, small differences in behavior can yield huge differences in performance. Why not practice a new “club” today?

This book takes the reader through eight skills, the authors call steps, to building strong business relationships. I call them skills because the steps are not necessarily used in sequence. While these can be used sequentially, they can also be used together or singly depending on the situation. However, the first step, Be Supportive, is central and connects with all the other steps.

When I read the book the first time, I thought the authors meant being supporting only entailed encouragement, helping, and listening to the other person. Now, I understand that the authors encourage the readers to take the initiative to really try to understand the situation from other vantage points. This requires action on our part and often means change in our thinking, ouch. This brings us back to multicultural issues.

Perceptions
We tend to see the world through the eyes of our own background. Ms. Dresser relates the following experience in her book. New to the United States, a Korean student, Ji, is greeted by a classmate with “How’s it going?” Ji doesn’t know what “it” is. Ji ignores the greeting. The classmate asked Ji again and again, Ji ignored the greeting. The classmate became so annoyed that he finally he yelled to Ji, “How’s it going?” To which, Ji replies, “My house is not going.” Had the classmate taken time to remember that Ji was new to the culture, he/she might have rephrased the question to “how are you?” or “How are you doing with the assignments?”

As business leaders, we cannot assume that our message will be received as we intended. Some idioms are unfamiliar or have different meanings in different parts of the country. Dialect can make a difference in understanding as well. A few years ago, my husband and I went to a local restaurant on Long Island, New York. The busy waitress asked me if I wanted wuud da. Based on negative experiences when I had answered yes to a question I didn’t understand, I immediately replied no. I was totally surprised when our friends’ nine year old daughter was given a glass of water. Had I asked the waitress “What is wuud da? She and my friends may have laughed, but then I would have had a glass of water.

Solutions
My point is that we cannot understand everyone and not everyone understands us. The answer, then, to this predicament is to ask questions and talk about any confusion. Just as I was hesitant to ask, others may not be bold enough to put themselves in a spotlight. So as leaders, we must lead by asking some questions but never with a blunt, “Do you understand?” Many people are too embarrassed to admit that they don’t understand. This is the crux of the step “Be Supportive.”

Be Supportive
To be Supportive means to put assumptions aside and withhold judgments until the other person has given his/her perspective. You cannot understand another perspective through a onetime conversation; this is when the action begins. Understanding requires observations, questions, and discussions with the other person over a period of time. The authors of The Coach list Ten Supportive Behaviors a leader should demonstrate. Here are five of my favorites:

1. Collaboration/Flexibility – responsibility is shared
2. Empathy/Understanding – treats feelings, concerns, and difficulties with dignity
3. Listening/interaction – gives full attention, asks a lot of questions, gives employees time to express ideas, reactions, and suggestions
4. Positive Exchange – approach focuses on issues in gentle, non-aggressive, non-threatening, non-judgmental way
5. Owning some Responsibility/Openness – accepts responsibility for contributing to the situation. Shows trust , shares important information and insight

Notice that all of these are positive actions in understanding the employee and the situation. It does not give blame for being different but acknowledges diversity. They also explain that supportive behaviors need to be displayed before any coaching session and it must be on-going to ensure success. It is critical to the development of any relationship, but especially in creating high performing and successful teams.

Certainly, there is much more to understand if your employee is from a culture with a different language. However, don’t underestimate the importance of differences within the same country. For example, in the United States, states in the north eastern quadrant ten to place value on being punctual, but in the south it is socially proper , often expected, to be a half hour late. This doesn’t mean one is right and the other wrong. It just means expectations will differ. As leaders, it is important to try to understand diverse background our team members may have so that we don’t have unreasonable expectations from them.

Once you understand the other person’s perspective, you can relay your expectations of them more clearly. By being sensitive to the differences in perception, a leader can make better decisions, give clear messages, help team members understand each other, and strengthen the organization’s effectiveness.

I listened intently to the discussion and even offered a few suggestions myself. Although the leader of this team had tried to fix the structure of the team, in an effort to get them on track, to me, structure was not the problem. In this situation, the problem was a lack in other key elements of effective teams. One of the areas clearly missing with this team was clarity of purpose. This team lacked direction and had too many members feeling vague about the team’s mission, goals, and ultimate objectives for working together. Teams without clear direction are easy to spot.

Some of the symptoms of a team without direction include:

1. Team members who struggle with change.
2. Team members with competing priorities.
3. A lack of communication within the team that causes ambiguity.
4. Lack of accountability for missteps toward the team’s goals and objectives.If we look closely at world class teams, we see that they understand to the nth degree their mission.

Team members with clear direction know where they are going, and what they are doing to help the team reach its objective. I find that high performing teams can easily answer these questions:

1. What is our team’s singular reason for existence?
2. What are our strategic priorities?
3. What are the shared values that will guide behavior and actions of each team member?

Teams performing below standard often try to fix the wrong thing. In many cases it isn’t who is on the team, but more about the direction and clarity of the team’s mission. I believe that the first step in achieving effective teamwork is to create a clear direction for the team members need to give their full commitment to the team’s performance.

Without direction and accountability, teams will have varying degrees of performance and failure. So if your team is performing less than up to par, ask yourself if the team understands its direction.

Any successful, professional sports person has a coach, whose role is to encourage, challenge and motivate the athlete to achieve their true potential. In the working environment, the same principles apply. The benefits of coaching include an increase in the individual’s overall performance, greater motivation through an acknowledgment that the individual is being developed, leading to greater retention and succession planning.

Profile of culture and aims of coaching programs:

Pfizer is the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, with a 1000+ strong sales force in the UK alone, each of whom has a line manager, whose primary responsibility is to coach them. The main purpose of coaching is to help people help themselves. Representatives mostly work unsupervised. The area manager’s role is to build capability in the representative, so that they can be self-reliant, successful and motivated salespeople. Fully recognizing the benefit of effective coaching has encouraged Pfizer to develop a coaching culture, particularly within the field force environment. Such an aim involves each newly appointed line manager and trainer undergoing a coaching skills course as part of their initial training. In addition, managers and trainers have the development of their people as an integral parameter in their performance-management objectives.

The field force has the opportunity, annually, to provide feed back to their area manager. Such feedback can be invaluable to the coach, as their work is largely unobserved by anyone other than the coachee. When done proficiently, coaching is a subtle form of questioning and listening, allowing the coachee themselves to establish their own goals and plan. Often coaches may not be aware of their own coaching strengths and weaknesses. This feedback process has significantly motivated the area managers and improved the overall quality of coaching.

The Model Chosen for Pfizer Success

In developing a coaching culture, Pfizer adopted a standard coaching model in the UK in 1997, following its successful application in the US. The model was developed in the US by Steven J Stowell, Ph.D. and is used by many well-known companies, such as AT&T, Boeing, Mobil Oil and PepsiCo amongst others. The 8 Step Model is the result of extensive research by Dr. Stowell and the CMOE organization, in which they discovered that there are 47 behaviors that ‘world class coaches’ demonstrate. These behaviors are then distilled into eight steps. The model is circular, and implicit is its flexibility and continuity. A coach can use any stage of the cycle for his interaction as it provides a framework to the discussion. The 8 Step Model has proved itself to be more effective in the Pfizer environment than many other well known coaching models and programs. While many organizations may utilize other coaching models easily found today, most of these models imply that the coachee is already motivated to make some kind of change in their behavior – either they know what they want to achieve, but don’t know how to go about it, or they want some other result than that they are realizing, but don’t know how to go about it. There can be occasions, particularly when coaching a direct report, when the current behaviors are not seen as affecting the outcome for the individual. As such, they are not necessarily motivated to change their behavior. For example, a manager might want to coach a junior about their expenses being frequently late, but to the junior, this is not a problem. In short, there is no motivation to change behavior, and this is where the 8 Step Model comes into its own.

The model’s impact on success

As a past area manager at Pfizer, my intention was to encourage the representatives to fulfill their job requirements independently, rely­ing on a strong sense of self-reli­ance and self-motivation to gener­ate sales. The frequency of accom­panied visits averaged one day a month. To improve the support offered, I piloted telephone coach­ing to augment the accompanied visits. The focus of my sales call coaching also shifted to ‘pre-call’ coaching, where my primary focus was in enabling the representative to get into the optimal ‘state’ to sell, maximizing that selling oppor­tunity, rather than the traditional post postmortem of everything that the representative could have done and possibly didn’t.

After a few weeks, I noticed that my team was much more energized and motivated at work and that they were thinking through the structure of their calls in a produc­tive way. After a three-month pilot period, a survey was completed where the statement, ‘overall, tel­ephone coaching has helped me become more effective’ resulted in an average score of 7.3 (where 1 = strongly disagree and 9 = strongly agree).

Summary

One of the most effective ways to invest in people’s development and to encourage them to achieve beyond their limitations is by using coaching, and in particular (though not exclusively) through the relationship between the manager and their direct reports. In Pfizer’s case, the company has gener­ated an environment where high expecta­tion of performance is supported and a coaching culture is alive and well.

Background

Phil Higgins worked as a district sales man­ager, then associate training manager at Pfizer for 12 years. He is now managing director of Peak Performance Training and Development. He can be contacted through www.pptd.co.uk. The 8 Step Model course and material is available from the Center of Management and Organizational Effectiveness (CMOE), and further information can be obtained at www.cmoe.com.

Let me describe parental leadership first. I read a newspaper report about a father who had an emotional outburst and caused a scene in a school board meeting regarding the suspension of his son from school. His eleven-year-old son had threatened the life of another student on the playground. Following district policy, the principal had suspended the boy for three days saying, “In light of tragedies that have happened in schools around the country, we take all threats such as this very seriously. The policy requires a three-day suspension.”

The irate father emotionally pled his case to the school board saying, “He’s a good boy and even though this is the second time this year he’s been suspended he doesn’t deserve punishment this harsh. Three days is just too much, because it’s embarrassing for him and our entire family.”

The father apparently was saying that because the suspension would be embarrassing that the punishment ought to be reduced. In other words, the consequence of the son’s behavior is trumped by the father’s desire to evade embarrassment. That is interesting in light of the father’s emotional outburst in a public school board meeting.

Now let me describe organizational leadership. A manager complained, “My employees just don’t take me seriously.” She said, “Even though I tell them over and over, some employees won’t even call in to say they are sick. They just don’t show up.”

I asked what she did when an employee didn’t take the time to call in sick. She replied, “I just find somebody else to work the shift and then when they do show up I tell them to be sure to call me next time.”

I asked, “So how is this technique working?” She said, “It’s not! That’s the problem. I can’t find good people these days.”

The situations with the irate parent and the ineffective manager are related. They both show the absence of a leader establishing and enforcing individual accountability. When people do not feel that they are held accountable for their behavior, they often lower their performance to the lowest possible level acceptable to the leader. In other words, leader behavior regarding the establishment of accountability does a lot to determine a person’s highest level of performance. That’s what the eleven-year-old boy did on the playground. He had gotten away with inappropriate behavior before (certainly at home and possibly at
school) and believed he could do it again. His previous inappropriate behaviors had not resulted in undesirable consequences for him. That’s similar to what the employees were doing to the manager. They had not been held accountable when they didn’t call in sick before, so they had no belief that it was a necessary requirement to maintain job security. The manager’s failure to hold her employees accountable created an overly permissive climate where the employees could dictate their own policies and procedures.

The foundation of establishing accountability is the principle of Behavior Must Equal Consequence. When people do not believe that their behavior will result in a consequence, they are free to choose any behavior that feels good at the moment. When people believe that their positive behaviors will result in positive feedback or even rewards, and their inappropriate behaviors will result in corrective feedback,
coaching, or even discipline, they will raise their performance to the standard expected by the leader. The leader sets the standard through his or her application of feedback, coaching and discipline.

I don’t know all of the details about the parent and his son, the schoolyard bully, but it is a safe bet that the son had not been held accountable for his behaviors in the past. The reason he threatened another classmate’s life is because he didn’t believe that his behavior would have any undesirable consequences. He thought he could get away with it. And, the reason why the manager’s employees didn’t call in sick, and didn’t even apologize for not doing so was because they also thought they could get away with it. The two examples are related because in each case the leader failed to establish personal accountability by practicing the principle of Behavior Must Equal Consequence.

Effective leaders believe in and practice the principle of Behavior Must Equal Consequence. When an employee performs well and/or adheres to organizational rules, an effective manager will notice and provide the employee with appropriate feedback to reinforce the good performance. Likewise, when an employee does not perform well and/or does not follow the rules, an effective manager will notice and provide the employee with corrective feedback, or coaching to change the performance. Exactly the same thing is true when raising children. Behavior Must Equal Consequence, both positive and negative, must be a guiding principle to raise responsible children who as a consequence act responsibly.

Personal accountability is a climate that is created when a leader consistently practices Behavior Must Equal Consequence. The word “consistently” often bothers managers, because they think it means “every time.” Clearly, a manager cannot provide supportive or corrective feedback every time an employee does something. That obviously is not possible. But a manager can do what is necessary to become more aware of an employee’s performance and then provide appropriate feedback as often as is practical. Simply, if employees feel and act as though they are accountable, then the leader is practicing consistent feedback. If employees do not feel and act accountable, then the leader is not consistent with his or her feedback.

Consistency not only involves the frequency of feedback in that it must be frequent enough to create a climate of accountability, but it also includes the ppropriateness of the feedback. In the principle of Behavior Must Equal Consequence, good performance must result is supportive feedback, and poor performance must result in corrective feedback. If a manager, due to stress, anger, lack of understanding, failure to take time, or habit gives negative feedback for good performance, positive feedback for poor performance, or no feedback for any performance, then the employees will sense a lack of consistency and conclude that they are not accountable for their actions. Thus they are free to act any way they want.

So the secret to creating a climate of accountability is to become more aware of performance levels, take the time to give the correct type of feedback or coaching, give feedback as often as practical, and do so as consistently as conditions permit. Done over time with the proper administration of rewards when deserved and discipline or sanctions when appropriate, a manager can create a climate of accountability and become more effective.

If you can get people to think strategically about the customer at an individual level and act in ways to exceed their current and emerging expectations, you can keep the organization well ahead of your rivals. However, developing a passion for customer problems and creating solutions doesn’t come naturally to most people and can be challenging to develop. Begin by thinking about your own experience. Ask yourself how well you like doing business with the last company that had lack of interest in your problem? In fact, you might even ask yourself if your current suppliers are anticipating your future needs and problems.

More than 30 years of strategic management and consulting experience has indicated to us that “customer acumen” is the heart of successful business strategy. However, creating this customer oriented culture is hard work and it is not an exact science. Here are a few tips to get started:

Insure everyone in your organization understands that giving customers value is a clear priority. Leaders at all levels have to instill a deep understanding and reverence for what the company stands for and what your value proposition is. In essence, knowing what the company is trying to be, why the company does the unique activities it does, and why these activities are hard to replicate by competitors. A customer centric culture is a function of the behaviors, attitudes, and training of each individual employee.

As leaders you have to preach customer value every opportunity you get. This movement must become part of the daily vernacular. Let people know that bringing value to the customer is the core goal of the organization. Then, coach employees to take responsibility and act in ways that show they embrace customer value.

Finally, give them honest and immediate feedback when they succeed and when they come up short. The end goal is to help members of your organization understand that creating value for the customer is the ultimate measure of their success. It is what keeps you in business and pays the bills. To do this, leaders need to understand their role as change agents and coaches. You must extend the call to all leaders to be courageous coaches and hold people accountable. It is also important that leaders receive development opportunities so they know what feedback and coaching looks like and feels like. These discussions are different than the usual business opportunity discussions. Robust coaching sessions will focus on strengths, weaknesses, and actual behaviors that are occurring on the job.

With active strategic management you can achieve long-term sustained success for your employees, customers, and owners. Once people understand their role as customer advocates, they will begin to see opportunities to grow the business and serve customers by exceeding today’s needs, anticipating future problems, and creating innovation solutions. As leaders and employees alike become comfortable challenging the status quo, they will create a dynamic and rewarding organization for everyone.

Our view is that coaching is an integral part of management, an indispensable tool and fundamental way of relating to team members. Managers resist the coaching role when they view it as an extra job in the busy day. However, when they see that the skills of coaching can improve their interactions throughout the day, then the enhancement of these skills generates a great deal of interest and excitement. Many leaders find that coaching can improve business results, lead to greater leadership satisfaction, and better time management and greater levels of performance from others.

The Task View of Work

The narrow view of coaching stems from a body of thought that suggests managers should be detached, analytical, and control people’s performance in mechanistic and instrumental ways. From the days of Taylor’s “Scientific Management”, we were taught that performance can be maximized by focusing on the task. As a result, managers developed a love affair with control. Most find it hard to reduce their dependence on control as the tool of choice to maximize task performance.

This view of work asserts that each job can be broken into the smallest constituent parts by experts who can figure out the one best way to do the job. A job is broken down to become a set of independent tasks.

The negative result of this traditional task approach to work are many:

• Our perception of job focuses on doing these tasks and activities without focusing on results, effectiveness and the real mission.

• Managers became busy planning, organizing, controlling and directing while the workers are stuck with all the doing.

• People actually doing a task are not too concerned with the relationship between tasks or relationships among the people doing these tasks.

• Employees are expected to do the tasks and comply with management direction.

• Employees do not feel ownership for the job – their motivation and contribution are limited.

• The quality of work and attention to quality, workmanship, and customer satisfaction suffer.

• Managers end up with the responsibility, knowledge of the tasks and the burden of motivating employees and directing (controlling) work efforts.

The Process View of Work

Our global competitiveness is related to the way we view work. The “big picture” of work integrates multiple tasks and stress quality processes that lead to results. The broad perspective values the notion that people and relationship do make a difference.

The quality improvement efforts of Deming, Juran, Crosby and others have in common a more advanced view of work. These quality improvement approaches emphasize work as a process. The process orientation expands our view of work to include the interrelationships of task as part of a process to produce something. Continuous improvement is not simply doing move, but improving the way you do it. Coaching and managing these relationships then becomes the core of continuous improvement in the technical and people side of any business. Coaching is the process of continuous improvement in the human element of work.

Eight Skill Areas

From CMOE’s ongoing research and observation over the past thirty years, we find that the following eight coaching skills are needed to manage any business relationship.

Supporting. The core of coaching is to sustain and enhance relationships. Supporting behaviors include inviting and using the suggestions of others, offering encouragement, and accepting some responsibility when things do not go well.

Defining topics and needs. These skills focus our attention on a specific issue, gathering information, giving feedback and clarify roles of each person.

Having impact on the other person’s perspective. The purpose here is to help the employee, customer, etc. see how their actions are perceived by others, they are more likely to change themselves.

Initiating a plan. These skills involve reaching agreement on what the next action will be. Who will do what, when, and where in a manageable way.

Getting commitment. This is the ability to solidify a personal commitment to the new plans. The purpose is to develop integrity over time by committing to those plans that people believe in and will achieve; this is the “verbal signature.”

Redirecting excuses or resistance: These set of skills include the willingness to listen to the other points of view so that excuses can be confronted and legitimate obstacles can be examined and new alternatives included in a revised plan.

Clarifying the full range of possible consequences. The purpose is to help the employee, supplier, etc., be clear on the possible results of the future actions to which they have committed. Performance is more predictable when people’s expectations match realistic outcomes.

Follow up. The purpose is to consistently monitor the results that people are achieving, recognize successful efforts, and redirect struggling efforts. The coach needs to show his/her own commitment to the relationship and to the plans being undertaken by not giving up.

Examine your job as a manager. Consider the things you do in a “typical” business day. Notice how much of your job involves relationships with customers, suppliers, your management, and your employees. Since only a small part of your job is doing a task independent of your relationship with others, most, if not all, of your job success depends on how well you manage your relationships – how well you employ these primary coaching skills.

Indeed, your effectiveness as a manager is dependent on how well you coach, consistent with these basic principles.

Coaching is the ability to manage a relationship in a way that mutual goals can be achieved. Today, the integration of technical and business aspects with the human element is critical for long-term success. This involves moving beyond the old task view of work toward a process view of work. This expanded view of work stresses the interrelationship between tasks and among the people involved in the process. Managing relationships then, becomes the main dish, not just a side dish occasionally used to correct individual performance.

When coaching is viewed as the heart of both the job and the relationship with our people, managing begins to look different. When applied in a broad consistent framework, people will see a powerful and effective pattern in all business discussions.

The primary skills of effective coaching can then be applied to multiple relationships and interactions on the job – relationships with customers and suppliers and with one’s boos and higher management or with your peers, and in relationships with all the people you supervise regardless of their performance level.

Steven J. Stowell and William Stone