October 2008 Deep Insights

The Road Less Traveled:

CRITICS challenge the behavior of one, a few or many. They seldom participate in the creation of what they criticize and rarely propose alternative solutions or evidence to justify their criticism. Critics love anecdotal discussions that feed emotional responses. They lie in wait for decisions to be made, then appear. Critics avoid participation and position themselves to fend off accountability and ownership. Their right, as they see it, is to voice their thoughts, take exception and dispute the behavior of others. Critics avoid criticism; their goal is to stand alone.

COACHES on the other hand encourage people to adopt reality and are driven to find the facts and embrace them. Coaches challenge anecdotal information and expect specifics or simply toss the anecdotal data aside. They listen but are not influenced, they probe, and they help others uncover their illusions. A coach adopts a mental model that embraces the traits of others. This model uses strengths to build collaborative behavior, action and/or solutions. Coaches help people concentrate on their strengths even when performing under extreme circumstances. They understand building a high performance team requires making weaknesses irrelevant by using the strengths of all. Coaches construct a route with others that includes interventions along the way. These interventions or meetings help determine what has been positive and what has been negative. Coaches direct dialogue helping the team redeploy its strengths increasing the positive and negating the negative. The goal is for everyone to succeed.

COACHING is an art, built on participation that holds everyone accountable for holding everyone else accountable.