3 Coaching Moves That Instantly Elevate Team Performance ft. Nathan Jamail

If you've ever played an organized team sport, you probably had a coach. Someone whose job was to help you grow, push your limits and become the best athlete you could be. As a business leader, Whether you have one team member or 100, you wear the same hat. You're the coach and your role is to develop your people into top performers. It's not always easy, but when done right, the results can be extraordinary. That's exactly what Nathan Jamail has been helping leaders do for over two decades. And as an executive coach and professional speaker, he has delivered more than 1,000 speeches, workshops and coaching sessions. His clients include world class organizations like Cisco, Hilton Hotels, State Farm, New York Life and Samsung. Nathan and his wife Sharon also own a 46 acre guest ranch just outside Austin, Texas where they host leadership retreats for teams looking to grow stronger together. Today, Nathan will share three simple but powerful coaching strategies you can start using right away to elevate your team's performance. His presentation is titled how to Make Team Members Better, Not Just More Experience. Please welcome Nathan Jamail.

Thanks, Joe.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate you, brother. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, so I find it interesting, and maybe you do as well, that the goal of most employees in any company is to be so good that their boss leaves them alone. Would you agree with that? Do you find that strange though? Because the goal of most athletes is to be so good that they get all the coaches attention, they get all the practice time, all the scrimmage time because they're the ones who are playing the game on Saturday or Sunday. Well, here's my question for leaders. If our employees goal is to be so good that we leave them alone, what value do we really have? What is our true impact on them other than a paycheck? And that's the difference between managing people and coaching and developing people. Now think about this for a minute. How many of our people are any more better than they were two years ago versus just more experienced or more knowledgeable? Now the next question becomes why is this? Why does this happen? Real simple. As managers, we tend to get involved as a consequence of failure. I let my superstars, I leave them alone. And I only get engaged when someone is failing or doing something wrong or they're new or they're weak. And my engagement is a consequence of a lack of success or failure. In sports, their engagement is a reward because coaches spend time with all the first string and second string, never the third and fourth string. And if our engagement is a consequence of failure, who wants us around? I mean, let's put this in perspective. Let's say, Brittany, you're my superstar, right? And Mimi, I don't know if I should use you as an example. I'm nervous. All right? Don't beat me up. But Mimi, she's. She's God awful. Just couldn't close an umbrella if you wanted her to, right? And I spent all my time with Mimi, and then all of a sudden, I leave Mimi and I start spending time with you. What's the first thing that goes through your head, Brittany? Oh, did Mimi get fired? Am I now the turd? Am I the worst one now? It's like, because now you're spending time with me. Here's my challenge. Spend time with those who deserve the attention and make our attention the reward. Now, there's two selfish reasons for this. One, what happens if you make Your best person 10% better? Your return on your investment of time is significant. Significant. If the person. Most people who are struggling aren't struggling because of lack of skill set. They're struggling because of. Because of lack of will. They're not doing the right behaviors. So even if I work with them, they're not putting it into practice. Everybody wants to move the middle. Here's what I'll tell you. You want to move the middle. Focus on the top. The middle. Who want to be the great. Say, give me attention. Give me attention. I will start delivering. You commit to me. I commit to you. And then remove the bottom performers. I don't think there's bad people. I think there's bad fits. Now that's where we focus. Let's talk about how we actually coach people.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

Who likes to role play? Someone who likes to role play in the room. Nobody likes to role play. Nobody. Are you now, let's be clear, baby. You know, I mean, at work. I am at work. Not at home. Yeah, I'm at work. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So listen, why do the rest of us hate to role play? This is where you talk. Come on. Why do we hate role play? It's awkward. It's awkward. It's uncomfortable here. Have you read that book? God, you need to start reading. Educating. One of my favorite Authors, you're going to love him. Very humble, awkward, weird. What else? Uncomfortable. Vulnerable. Yes, sir. We think it's for underperformers. Now, let's talk about. I agree. Most of us don't do it because we're afraid, because we're going to be judged. Now, I said in my book, Leadership Playbook, corporate America is corrupt, not financially, but because we expect coaches to coach people, but we never teach them how to coach. Which is. I love what you're talking about earlier, Michael, is this is. Most of us don't we use role playing to test someone. Oh, you think you know how to talk to customers? You think you do? Okay, let's go. And it's a pop quiz. It's like, this is. This is why we think it's fake. This is why we say what we think people want to hear. And this is why none of us want to do it. If you went to school like me, I'm a C minus student. I flunked every pop quiz I took. Right? But if I do it. But look at sports. Sports, they don't role play. They scrimmage. You think the Philadelphia Eagles scrimmage to prepare for the Kansas City Chiefs? They even had someone dressed up as Patrick Mahomes. I mean, they got into character and they scrimmaged and it was fake. But they did it to prepare and not to judge. They did it to be ready instead of to test someone. Here's my challenge to you. Learn to scrimmage. Now, let me give you two more reasons why people hate to role play. Does anybody have an idea why a manager, why a leader doesn't like to role play with their employees? Anybody know that one? Got a guess? Say it again. They can't do it themselves. They can't do it themselves. They're afraid that their employees are going to find out they suck.

Yeah.

They're like, oh, my God, you're going to think I'm not good. You're going to think less of me. Here's why I tell leaders they already think you suck. Just ask them. They'll tell you. Here's the great news. Suck. One of the greatest attributes of leadership is humility. Suck. A scrimmage is not about showing how good we are. It's about getting better, no matter how good we are. All right, I'm going to toss this to you because I can't carry this. There you go. You'll like him, too, man. He's so humble. Here's what I will tell you. The reason why we say we don't scrimmage is time or it's fake. If we're going to see Bob, everybody knows Bob, right? If we're going to see Bob in Kansas City and we spend two weeks to get the opportunity appointment, we fly to Kansas City, get the hour ride in the car to go to the stadium and we spend two hours to meet with him. Why would we not scrimmage 35 to 45 minutes before we go out there? It's crazy. Jenny, right? If. Jenny, if you and I were going out to meet with, let's say, say that for me, I'm going to mess it up. Alexander. Alexander. Well, that's a weird way to spell a name. There's a K. Alright, I like it. Alexander. If you and I are going to meet Alexander and we're going for a meeting, what are the chances if you and I got into character and scrimmage, we'd do a better job, 100%. So why don't we? Here's my challenge to you. Learn to scrimmage. Now, let me define what scrimmaging is. Scrimmaging is first person get into. First person get into character. Act it out, don't talk about it, act it out. Does everyone agree if we got into character and scrimmage the meeting before difficult conversation. We talk about this all the time. I deal with leadership coaching all the time. I say, listen, how many times have you had a difficult conversation with an employee and and you left with a to do list. You know why? Because you asked the wrong question at the very end. If you scrimmage the meeting, you wouldn't ask the dumbest question in the world to ask a struggling employee. What can I do to help you achieve your goal? Don't ever ask that. Right? And so the more we scrimmage things, the better we can prepare for the opportunity. And that's what it's about. Here's my ask of you. Test this theory out. Identify your top two people while you're here. Listen, we're here not just to learn. We're here to grow and we're here to change. Identify your top two people. Could be managers, could be salespeople, could be service. But write down their names before you leave today. The second is I want on Monday morning and Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning, three simple days. Commit 30 minutes to them, not each total 15 minutes. I want you to scrimmage with each of them for 15 minutes. Whatever meeting, whatever phone call, whatever conversation they're going to have, whether it's a difficult conversation with an employee with the opportunity to speak with the customer, get into character and scrimmage with them just for those three days and see if that small impact does not make a difference. Scrimmaging is one of the greatest developmental activities we can do for our employees and our team. But don't do it with those who need it. Do it with those who deserve it. And think of what scenario you could be in. Now. That's my ask. And I challenge you to do it as identify today, go out and do it Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And I'll tell you this before we get done with our meeting today. If you want to get my information, I'll scrimmage with you first. I'll do it with you. I think part of our fear is overcoming our fear. Last thought I'll share with you. There's a quote that says, precious pressure is a privilege. I think as a coach, pressure is our responsibility. In coaching people, we prepare them from opportunity. We take them from being good to great. We don't manage them mediocrity. We coach them to excellence, challenge them and hold them accountable. Not out of pain and consequence, but out of love. Most of us hold our kids to a higher standard than we do our employees. And it's not because we hate our kids. It's because we love our kids. Holding people accountable, coaching people shows our commitment to them. The more committed we are to them, the more committed they are to us. Go out with great passion and purpose, coach, and prepare your team to excellence.

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Go ahead. You're over here. Do it now. Come on.

Thank you. Watch them.