Coach the Player, Not the Score
The idea of ‘coaching the player, not the score’ has come across my radar twice in the last few days. It’s been what I’ve been trying to elucidate for the last 20,000 words. Leave it to John Wooden to figure it out in six.
The first, was John Wooden’s talk at TED. It’s well worth the 18-minute investment if you’re busy procrastinating. His overarching point is that successful coaches focus on the individual and get the best out of each of them instead of comparing them or trying to shape them to others. When you focus on getting the best out of each player then the score of the game takes care of itself.
The second was an interview with Jimmy Rollins during baseball’s opening game on Sunday night. Rollins speaking about his manager (paraphrased as I don’t have the direct quote handy), “Coach recognizes that this team is made up of 25 individuals and that each of us has a different way of going about things. He has rules, but he let’s us do our thing within the construct of the team in order to accomplish our larger goals.” High praise considering Charlie Manuel, the Phillies manager, benched Rollins for failing to run hard to first base on a pop fly a few months prior.
photo by yogma
This isn’t to say you just let everyone do as they please. Instruction and coaching is still at the heart of what each of these men do. They want their players to get better, but they recognize that getting better will happen in different ways for each player. Each player has a different ceiling and each wants to get something different out of the experience.
Just because we share common job titles doesn’t mean we share common skills or goals. As counterintuitive as it may seem, when you acknowledge individual differences and tailor your message accordingly you will ultimately be more likely to get them to try doing things differently.
Take the time to learn your players so you can push the right buttons in order to get them to take their game to the next level.
Make Performance Evaluations Useful
photo by sassyart
When have you ever come out of a performance evaluation more energetic and ready to kick some serious ass for your company? Doesn’t matter if it is glowing, that one negative (because there always has to be something) will sit with you and fester.
This has been on my mind for a while. It is, after all, a multi-month process that is only this month coming to a head for many companies. After running across an old post from Bob Sutton, the head of Stanford’s d.school, where he wondered about the usefulness of performance evaluations it was time to chime in.
Performance evaluations, as most are implemented, could not be more detrimental to our organizations. Period.
Showing incredible restraint, I’ll limit my rationale to ten reasons. They,
- create internal competition amongst people who need to work together
- give manager’s an out for not giving consistent on-going feedback
- deliver ‘feedback’ that often comes completely out of the blue
- mandate we stack rank everyone on the team, even high-performing teams
- often use misaligned goals as a yardstick (or defunct goals established 12-months prior)
- are not consistent between groups under different managers
- are useless for promotions since those are often dictated by the manager who fights hardest for their employee
- often measure the interpersonal intangibles for which training and support is rarely offered
- reaffirm an ‘us vs. them’ mentality
- are highly susceptible to the failings and neuroticism of the evaluating manager
- bonus: are incredibly subject to recency biases
Not just useless, but counter-productive.
Try holding a weekly review instead. Set aside 15-minutes at the end of the week for some two-way communication and focus on the individual’s own goals and their effectiveness within the team. I’d suggest knowing and reviewing goals on both sides weekly and then answering questions that will help make your relationship more productive and keep the employee engaged.
Some starters:
- How much progress was made in helping the employee reach their stated goals
- How could you be more effective in helping the employee accomplish, learn, progress
- What opportunities would the employee like to take on
- What did you appreciate
- What went really well
- How effective was the team (team success or lack thereof is also the individual’s)
- What didn’t work for you (keep this short, provide a clear example and demonstrate why it wasn’t the most effective approach)
- What did other team member’s do that helped the employee be better
That said, if you lack sincerity, don’t come prepared to these meetings or are just looking out for number one then these will still be worthless.
Being a coach (translation: manager in today’s archaic vernacular) means prioritizing your employees and helping them reach their goals in the context of the company’s. It’s not easy. You’re serving two masters. But there aren’t too many people who can do it well so it’s a huge opportunity for us to differentiate ourselves and our companies.
Some performance evaluations may work for what they were designed to do. Regardless, I’d still suggest they be done weekly instead of annually.
