The Most Powerful Yet Least Understood Form of Coaching
Breathe.
Look up.
Shoulders back.
Push harder.
Release the fear.
When I went through certification to become a group fitness instructor several years ago, I learned about the power of these kinds of “coaching cues,” quick words spoken in the moment to help someone improve their performance in real time.
Coaching cues aren’t just for fitness classes, though. The value of cueing extends to parenting, leading, and influencing others. Coaching cues are extremely helpful — perhaps essential — whenever anyone is working to improve their thoughts, words, or actions.
Deliberate Practice
Think about your daughter at softball practice, your co-worker strategizing for a meeting, or the person you manage who needs to improve their attitude.
It’s tempting to give them advice, explain what they need to do, or show them an example and hope that it sticks. For instance, you might suggest to your co-worker that they “be concise in the meeting.” Sometimes this works. But it will require high self-awareness, desire, and self-correction on the part of the person trying to improve. So while you might get an affirmative nod from your co-worker after advising them to be concise, the chances of them actually changing how verbose they will be are pretty low.
Performance experts like Anders Ericsson would tell you that what’s needed in these cases is more deliberate practice. According to James Clear, “Deliberate practice refers to a special type of practice that is purposeful and systematic.”
As Daniel Coyle describes in The Talent Code, this kind of practice (he called it “deep practice”) requires intentional focus to remain on course despite the brain’s tendency to veer off course. Each time a person course corrects through this intentional focus, insulation called myelin wraps around their brain’s neurons to form new and better patterns.
How to Use Coaching Cues to Improve Performance
Considering how valuable cues are in helping people build new, more helpful performance patterns, one of the big takeaways is this: Stop lecturing people!
Get off your 5-minute soapbox in the team meeting. Avoid nonspecific coaching like We need to close more sales! or Don’t be afraid to speak up in the meeting. Resist the platitudes like Be yourself.
While that kind of coaching may have some value for people who have high self-awareness, desire to improve, and ability to self-correct, most people simply won’t be able to put it into action.
Instead, follow the example of excellent group fitness instructors:
- Don’t overexplain things. Have you noticed when you’re driving a car in an unfamiliar place and trying to get your bearings you turn down the car stereo? Does turning down the sound help you see better? Of course not, but it helps you focus on what you’re doing. Clear out the clutter and use as few words as possible when giving guidance.
- Focus the cues on what to do rather than what not to do. “Don’t look down!” will almost surely cause someone to look down. Rather, state specific words, movements, or thoughts that will work better in the moment. Make it quick, positive, and actionable: Smile. Speed up. And another possibility is?
- Affirm all growth. Dale Carnegie said, “Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement” because he knew the secret to helping people grow. Affirm all growth to reinforce and create a halo effect in their mind about continued change.
- Think of coaching as nudging. The best coaching is gentle, subtle, and real-time. It doesn’t offend, doesn’t derail, and doesn’t take much time. It’s “now do this,” “try saying…” “that’s good,” “what else?” or simply a slight turn of the head and raise of the eyebrows to send a quick signal: You can do better.
Helping others get better can happen in many ways. People can improve by having something explained to them, modeled to them, or cued to them in the moment.
Perhaps the least recognized of those, yet the most effective, is the power of the cue.
Where could you be cueing right now to help others improve?
Comments are closed here.