Got a Coach?

 “.. lately coaching in this town seems to have become all the rage.”  CEO, South Bend, IN

Coaches, coaches, and more coaches.  They are everywhere.  There are life coaches, business coaches, health and fitness coaches, fashion coaches, sports coaches. There is a coach out there that will help you with just about anything going on in life.  Narrowing the field to simply business coaches, one will find many different areas of specialty. For example, business coaches often include career, performance, executive, success, small business, and leadership specialties (just to name a few).  With a dizzying list of coach specialties, it does seem like coaching is “all the rage.” The question soon becomes not “is there a coach that can help you,” but rather “do you have a coach to help you?”

Coaching is a relatively new profession, and certification and licensure are not generally required.  There are many individuals who are calling themselves coaches today that have not been formally trained in specific coaching skills and are transferring skill sets from other professions into their coaching practice. Perhaps this explains why there are so many coaches in the market as well as why there are huge opportunities for significant impact on our world.

Coaching is an ongoing professional relationship that helps people improve results in their lives, careers, businesses or organizations. Coaches team up with clients in a thought-provoking dialog that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.  Coaching targets growth areas, promotes a healthy balance between career and personal life, reveals the need to learn specific behaviors, and challenges underlying beliefs.  Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives.

Coaching helps people have clarity and well-ordered priorities.  It can give them confidence in their position because they have been helped to think matters through thoroughly and with direction.  The coaching process can be used to identify what skill-sets the individual needs to develop for the next stage in his or her career and/or what resources or actions are needed in order to achieve their desired results.  Coaching is designed to provide clients with a greater capacity to produce results and a greater confidence in their ability to do so. Though coaching may be the latest rage around town, it is certainly not for the person without a desire to change or improve results.

 

 

Great athletes wouldn’t think of going for the Olympics without a coach. They know that a coach will be there to observe, support, and highlight ways to improve performance. A coach provides an continuous supporting and challenging relationship that brings out one’s best.  Dick Fosbury, Olympic Gold Medalist is quoted to say “When you reach that elite level, 90 percent is mental and 10 percent is physical. You are competing against yourself, not against the other athlete.” A good coach understands this mental battle and is a master at enabling the athlete to realize success. A coach gives you an edge, enabling you to go from being great to being a great champion (personally and/or professionally).

 

Relationship is the foundation of coaching. The coach and client intentionally develop a relationship which is characterized by a growing and mutual appreciation and respect for each other as individuals.  In coaching, information drawn from the client is used by the coach to promote the client’s awareness and choice of action. Professional coaches are competent at establishing connection with individuals. Coaches assist the individual in clarifying issues, and they encourage the individual to commit to doing the right thing.
Coaching has the freedom and flexibility to address a wide variety of personal and professional topics.  Coaches are experts in the coaching process and may not have specific knowledge of a given subject area or industry. However, where coaches have expertise in other areas, they may use it to facilitate the coaching process. Coaches do not use this particular expertise to diagnose, direct, or design solutions for the client. The coach has no internal links with the company and therefore can be freely confided in. In any given coaching relationship, coach and client alone determine the scope of their work. Coaching is not necessarily restricted to a narrowly defined issue nor is its scope determined in any other way.

The coaching process can take a number of forms depending on who the individual is and who is asking for the coaching.  Throughout the coaching process the coach seeks to identify openings, generate possibilities, develop plans, determine outcomes and inspire action.  The coaching process may reshape thought processes, helping the person being coached recognize current steps they are taking and next steps to desired change.  The coaching process helps the individual do things better, do things differently and do different things.  Coaching is all about getting results.

Coaches are skilled at listening, observing, discerning, modeling and delivering. Skilled coaches provide the individual with feedback, utilize questions, form statements, challenge plans, and share ideas. Coaches are trained to listen, to observe and to customize their approach to individual client needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach’s job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has.  Coaches help their clients get results that are important to the client.

Coaching helps individuals achieve and maintain their highest potential. Professional coaches help individuals focus on and commit to taking needed action. They help the individual determine the right people to involve, the right factors to consider, the right way to accomplish, and the right timing – all for the right reasons.

In summary, professional coaching is designed to help clients improve their learning and performance, and enhance their quality of life. Potential outcomes from a coaching relationship can include:  greater clarity, greater focus, improved decision-making skills, enhanced creativity, and improved balance in all aspects of life. Furthermore, as previously outlined, coaching is ultimately about delivering and enabling results.

It has been said, “To get what you’ve never had, you must do what you’ve never done.” A coach helps others see what they’ve never seen, do what they’ve never done and get results they’ve never had.  So, perhaps coaching is the latest rage all around town – that is because results are always in high demand!  Got a Coach?

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Worth Waiting For?

The Stanford marshmallow experiment was a study on deferred gratification. The experiment was conducted in 1972 by psychologist Walter Mischel of Stanford University. In the study, a marshmallow was offered to each child. If the child could resist eating the marshmallow, he was promised two instead of one. The scientists analyzed how long each child resisted the temptation of eating the marshmallow, and whether or not doing so had an effect on their future success.

The purpose of the original study was to understand when the control of deferred gratification, the ability to wait in order to obtain something that one wants, develops in children. The experiment took place using children around the age of four to six as subjects. The children were led into a room, empty of distractions, where a treat of their choice (Oreo cookie, marshmallow, or pretzel stick) was placed on a table, by a chair. The children could eat the marshmallow, the researchers said, but if they waited for fifteen minutes without giving in to the temptation, they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow.

While a few children would eat the marshmallow immediately, only one third of the children could defer gratification long enough to get the second marshmallow.  Deferred gratification, self control and self-discipline are essential attributes for success.    

What are the marshmallows in your life?  What are your dreams and goals? What are the things in your life that are worth waiting for?

What things seem to tempt you most? What things have derailed you from achieving your goal? What things have you wished you would have waited for?

I wonder what the results of the test might have been if the subjects had a coach in their corner. Someone to encourage…Someone to hold them accountable….Someone to keep them focused on task…..Come on, you can do it!  Only a couple more minutes…It will be worth it…you can do it….Stay away from the temptation….Remember, the ROI!  Stay the course…hold it steady…

Got a coach?  Get one!  A performance coach can help you bring people and process into alignment with strategy and help you develop the leadership potential within your organization.  Raising the leadership quotient in your organization leads to improved results.  Patrick Frazier, CBC, is the performance coach that can help you raise the bar and lift your team to greater heights.  The Coaching Authority is the place to go for help….which by the way, in the last 5 years, we have helped over 25 different companies in our community get quick results and build a long-term competitive advantage.  Don’t delay. Call Patrick Frazier at the Coaching Authority today!

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Long Live the Queen

Sort of gives “Long Live the Queen” a new meaning — doesn’t it?   Have you ever noticed that some things in life just seem to never go away?  Take for example, business processes. “Bad processes”, in particular, just seem to hang around forever.   We have good intentions, developing and installing new, efficient and effective process.  Over time, things change, but our processes don’t keep up.  Old processes, outdated methods, and old systems often obstruct new direction, new goals, and/or new people.  Results are often not what we had hoped for.  Success seems elusive.  Progress grinds to a halt. A Certified Quality Facilitator partners with organizations to help them solve business problems and achieve higher levels of success in their business.  By helping organizations eliminate bad processes and align people and process with strategy, a business coach can help you and your organization obtain greater profitability, increase market share, decrease time to market, decrease process variation, decrease employee turnover and increase on-time delivery.   Just because the Queen ‘may’ have been around forever, doesn’t mean bad processes have to linger for eternity.  Helping businesses get quick results and build a long term competitive advantage is what we do at Five Star Performance.  So don’t delay. Contact The Coaching Authority today.  He can be reached at Patrick.S.Frazier@Comcast.net (or more information can be found at www.CoachingAuthority.net )

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Alignment is essential. Success is optional.

A successful organization is one where all the parts are working together (are in alignment). These organizations are innovative, customer responsive, and prevent fires – they’re not spending their time putting out fires.

The diagram below provides a theoretical model that will allow management to understand the source of their problems and you can provide the solutions.

Start with the Strategy – What’s your game plan?

If you want to accomplish something that means you need to do something differently – that’s change. Has the organization defined success, where they want to go, what they want to accomplish?

Does your structure support that strategy? Many times when something isn’t working, organizations change their structure rather than  address the real problem.

Do your processes support your strategy? We look at the way the work flows: how much time to produce a product, waste measurement, etc. Again the key is alignment. If the strategy is low cost, quick turnaround, but the processes don’t support it, your strategy is dead.

Do your rewards and recognition systems support the strategy? For example, if the strategy is team based but you’re only rewarding individuals, the strategy’s dead.

Moving on to your people. Do they have the attitudes, skills, and knowledge to implement the strategy? Do you have the right people in the right places, doing the right things for the right reasons? Are they aligned with your strategy?

All of this feeds the heart of your business: your Loyal Customers and your Results. If all you are measuring is profits, how does that support creating loyal customers?

This is the most important piece – What are you measuring? If they are only measuring profitability, is that a good measurement?

Profit is the result of something – it’s the result of past decisions. Profit is a lagging indicator – not a forward indicator.

If you are only measuring profitability, then the affiliate knows that this organization has a problem. An organization cannot forecast their future only by looking at profit.

The other key is Leadership. Ask them how they would define the difference between Leadership and Management?

Leadership has to do with the future – innovation –where are they headed – determining what the right things to do are. Management’s role is to do the right things now.

Does the organization know what a healthy model of an organization looks like?

How does all the above impact your organization?  What does that look like, what does that do to the health of your organization, and your alignment?

So what do you look for?

1. Structure: Turnover in 30 days, firing, high turnover, turf war, gridlock, fighting fires, silo mentality
2. Process: Cycle time, re work, response time, gridlock, lead times, scrap, customer complaints
3. Rewards & Recognition: internal competition, gridlock, and turf wars
4. People: Low morale, communication, long meetings, productivity, and turnover
5. Results: Lost targets, no focus, looking at past results to determine future growth, loyal employees, and loyal customers

Senior management builds trust by allowing employees to “fix” issues, which creates loyal employees.  If you see any of the above symptoms, THEN we need to talk.  I am very confident that I could help you and your organization focus, ALIGN and execute what needs to happen in order to achieve your success measures.

What if your organization had a competitive advantage? Say someone with years of experience and a proven track record for developing and implementing ideas leading to higher productivity, greater efficiency, noticeably improved morale, higher profits, and continued upward growth?  Sounds too good to be true, eh?

A performance coach can help you bring people and process into alignment with strategy and help you develop the leadership potential within your organization.  Raising the leadership quotient in your organization leads to improved results.  Patrick Frazier, CBC, is the performance coach that can help you raise the bar and lift your team to greater heights.  The Coaching Authority is the place to go for help….which by the way, in the last 5 years, we have helped over 25 different companies in our community get quick results and build a long-term competitive advantage.  Don’t delay. Call Patrick Frazier at the Coaching Authority today!

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Company Policy

Start with a cage containing five apes.

In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it.  Before long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana.  As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all apes with cold water.

After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result – all the apes are sprayed with cold water.  This continues through several more attempts.  Pretty soon, when another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes all try to prevent it.

Now, turn off the cold water, Remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a new one.  The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs.  To his horror, all of the other apes attack him.  After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new one.  The new comer goes to the stairs and is attacked.  The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.  Again, replace a third original ape with a new one.  The new on makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well.  Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape.

After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes, which had been sprayed with cold water, have been replaced.  Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs.  Why not?

Because that is the way they’ve always done it and that is the way it is always been around here.

And that is how company policy begins..

Remember. Bad processes kill good people – every day!.  Are you ready to stop monkeying around with bad company policy?  Call the Coaching Authority today to help you discover ways to get quick results and build a long-term competitive advantage.   As a trained total quality facilitator, Patrick Frazier can help you and your organization eliminate inefficiencies and reduce process variance. Don’t delay. Call the Coaching Authority today!

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Ever Feel Like a Horse’s Behind?

The US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet 8.5 inches.

WHY?

Because that’s the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were build by English expatriates.

WHY did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that is the gauge they used.

WHY did they use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

WHY did the wagons use that odd wheel spacing?

If they tried to use any other spacing the wagons would break on some of the old long distance roads, because that is the spacing of the old wheel ruts.

WHY were the wheel ruts that distance?

Ahhhh. Now we are getting somewhere. The first long roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions.  The roads have been used ever since.  The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots.  Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome they were alike in the matter of wheel spacing.  Thus we have the answer to the original question.  The US Standard railroad gauge, 4’8.5”, derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman chariots where made to be just wide enough to accommodate the backbends of two war horses.

But wait.  There’s more.

When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank.  These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs.  The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah.  The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit bigger, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.  The railroad line to the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains.  The SRBs had to fit through the tunnel.  The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.  So a major design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined by the width of a horses rear-end.

Keep this in mind.  Specs and bureaucracies live forever. The next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse’s behind came up with it, you may be exactly right.

Got a Coach? Get one today and learn how performance coaching can help you challenge the status quo and help your business grow.  As a certified total quality facilitator, Patrick Frazier can help you and your organization get quick results and build a long term competitive advantage.

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Explosive Growth

What does ‘Explosive Growth’ mean to your business? What would it mean to you personally to see your business grow exponentially?  What is keeping your business from growing?  What needs to happen to overcome that obstacle?  These questions (and many more), are questions that a business coach might use to help you and your team determine the right action to get the right (explosive) results.  Here are some obstacles that may be holding you and your organization back:

No common direction, working on different priorities

Lacking criteria for decision making and empowerment

Silo mentality

Fractionalization of efforts and lost opportunities

Lack of collaboration across departments

Long decision and innovation cycles

Difficulty in sharing info, poor efficiencies, excessive waste

Frustration and turnover

Low standards and wasted energy

Lack of team work

Effort without results

Lack of employee satisfaction

Excessive meetings with no results

Goals that are not relevant to the future strength of the business

Often lacking a customer focus more driven by the P&L

Of course there are many other possible obstacles, but which ones are keeping you from getting the results you had hoped for.  Stop hoping. Start planning.  Got a coach?  Get one! Call the Coaching Authority, TODAY! And get started building that plan to get quick results and explode ahead of the competition!

Take our Quick Poll: Where is the responsibility for achieving organizational goals?

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What does a Twinkie and a Strategic Plan have in common?

Ever wonder exactly what is in a ‘Twinkie’.  Probably not. But for those of you that have wondered, but never new where to look – click here.  If you knew the ingredients, then they might not taste so good going down.  Apparently there are 37 individual ingredients that make up that cream filled cake wonder. A list of ingredients or pictures of individually measured elements really doesn’t look or sound so good.  However, put the right amounts all together and then you have a culinary delight!

A Strategic Plan is sort of like that.  You can make an outline or list all the elements of a business strategic plan and it seems lifeless, tasteless and without purpose.  Get the right people focused on the right things, at the right time, to get the right results and you have something to behold. A strategic plan helps a business do exactly that.  A certified business coach can help you pull together all the right ingredients for a sound strategic plan.  For more information on the Strategic Planning process call The Coaching Authority.  Call today, and they might even throw in a free twinke to sweeten up the deal.

Do you have a written strategic plan?

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Tough Decision or BIG Problem?

After you watch the video, ask yourself, did he have a problem, or a decision to make?  (Big problem, tough decision).  Which is easier?  Now that I have your attention, “Have you ever noticed, sometimes when we are faced with tough decisions, we consider changing the decision (goal) instead of solving the problem.”  When we are committed to the decision, we dedicate all we have to solving the problem.

According to Wikipedia, Problem solving is a mental process that is required to move from a given state to a desired goal state.  Decision making can be regarded as cognitive process that results in the selection of a course of action among several alternatives.

Without a purpose or stated goal, then everything is a confusing mess of decisions, problems, choices.

So, are you facing a decision in your life or business….or do you need to solve a problem?  As an accredited business coach, the Coaching Authority can help you make sense of the confusing mess.  We help individuals and organizations get quick results, and build a long-term competitive advantage.  We do this by helping you and your organization align, people, process and strategy.  And we start the process by helping you determine your purpose or stated goal.  Don’t Delay call Patrick Frazier, CBC today!

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Poor Cost of Quality

Some things are visible….some are not. Like the cost of poor quality, some costs you see…some you do not.

For example, some of the visible costs of POOR quality can be: Excess Overtime, Customer Complaints, Billing Errors, Consultants, Cost of a Quality Assurance Department, and Rework. However, like the fate of the Titanic, the hidden is often much greater than the visible.  The HIDDEN costs of poor quality are often seen (or measured) after it’s too late.  Here are a few of the hidden costs (Below the waterline):  Waste, Grievances, Litigation, high Turnover, low productivity, Staff Frustration, long Cycle Times, Excessive Accounts Receivable, Machine Downtime, Disability pay , Excessive Inventories, missed Schedules, Incorrect Order Entry, Lost Customers, Lack of Teamwork, Little/No cooperation/collaboration between departments.

So the question is “What costs do you see, resulting from poor quality?” or better yet, “What costs do you suspect might be just below the waterline resulting from poor quality?”  Do you know? Would you like to know? Would you like to reduce (or eliminate) these costs?

As a certified Total Quality facilitator, the Coaching Authority, can help your organization, get quick results and drive out costs (visible and hidden).  Stop re-arranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.  Don’t delay. Call the Patrick Frazier of the Coaching Authority today!

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