MBA2088 Must Read: The Coaching Habit by Michael Stanier

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Hey oh. Welcome to the hundred dollar R. Because your business needs you at your best. That's why we deliver daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is a must read episode. On our Must Read Episodes, I share with you a book that I've read that has influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you its takeaways, its insights and why you should read it too. Today's must read is the Coaching Habit by Michael Stanier. The Coaching Habit is one of those books that you'll reach for and reread sections of it over and over. It's one of the most insightful leadership and management books I've read and in today's lesson I'm going to explain why. I'm going to share with you some of my favorite moments in this book, my favorite takeaways, how I apply them to my own business and how this book can give you the courage to to not only run a better team, but have your team members feel like they have the best leader, the best boss they've ever had in their life. And it all revolves around the concept of coaching your team members and not just boss them around. The whole point of being a great leader is having the ability to unlock everybody's potential, each individual that's on your team. This book gives you the exact scripts, the exact questions to ask to do just that. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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So today's must read episode is all about the coaching habit. The subtitle of this book is say less, ask more and change the way you lead forever. Now what I love about this book is that it does two important things. One, it's one of those books that changes your mindset about the way you lead and the way you manage your team. And then two, it actually gives you the specific steps on how to implement that change. This is kind of rare in a book to be actually be a mindset book and a practical book. Now remember, the whole point of this book is to help you become a better leader, a better manager in your organization so you can unlock the potential of each individual so that they're reaching their full potential under your watch. Now when you take on this new habit, the coaching habit as a leader, it actually solves three major problems in your business. Problem number one Creating over dependence. Sometimes as leaders, we don't know how to allow our team members to be completely independent and in their responsibilities. They always have to go back to us and make decisions. They always have to go back to us when they're unsure. You might be bogged down with tons of questions in the slack channels or whatever project management tool you're using. So that's number one, it solves this problem of overdependence. Problem number two, this solves is overwhelm. Are you feeling like there's just too much on your plate that you have like a never ending to do list? That's probably because you haven't delegated these tasks to your team members. And the reason why you haven't delegated it is probably because you think that they probably can't do as good of a job and that is a coaching problem. You don't have a method or a way or some sort of procedure to coach people to do things just as good as you do it or even better. And lastly, the problem of being disconnected. Some people experience this, some people worry about this, and that is just purely being disconnected from what's happening in your business. Feeling like you don't know what's going on. And this book, this methodology, the coaching habit solves all three of these. Now what this book shows you is if you build this coaching habit with your team members, you have this cadence. Your team members become self sufficient. They know exactly what to do, when to do it, how to do it. They're more focused and they actually find the work more fulfilling because now they have ownership. Now the bulk of this book actually shows you how to do this with what's called seven essential questions. These are seven questions to ask or to discuss with your team team member to get the most out of them, to learn what they're struggling with, to guide them through the roadblocks. So I'm going to go through these seven essential questions very quickly and I'm going to let you read the book so you can get all the details. Question number one is a Kickstarter question. This is sort of like a fail safe starter question to get the discussion going, to allow your team member to open up and to actually turn it into a real conversation. And this question I love because it's so open ended and it can be interpreted in a lot of ways. And that's exactly what you want to do. You want your team member to interpret it the way they want to interpret it and provide the information that's most important to them. And this question is very simple and all it is is what's on your mind. And I literally, when I have my one on ones with my team members, this is the first question I start with. I say, thanks for meeting with me. These one on ones are a way for us to kind of get to know each other. A chance for me to make your job and life a little easier. So let's start with a softball question. I just be transparent. I just say this is a softball question. What's on your mind? What's been consuming your mind recently? What matters most in your world? And they're going to share a whole bunch of stuff. Some people are going to stick to work. Some people are going to talk about family. Some people are going to talk about their health. Some people are going to talk about their future. Whatever it is that's consuming Them right now that's occupying their mind. It's important. If it's important to them, it's important to you. The next question is called the awe question, which stands for and what else? So after you ask your first question, people are going to share and some people are going to be a little bit, you know, reserved and may not share a lot on the first question. Some people will, regardless. A great follow up question is and what else? It basically says, I want to hear more from you. Keep going, let's dig a little deeper. Question number three. Love this one. What is the real challenge for you here? I'm more concerned about what is challenging you. Right. What are you struggling with? I don't really care about solutions right now. Right now I just want them to just articulate what is challenging them at work, in their position in the company. Question number four, what do you want? Or even you could say, what do you really want? What do you want out of this job? What do you want out of your career? What do you want out of life? And I love these broad questions because it gets people to open up a little bit and say, you know, I really picture myself doing XYZ by this age. Or I'm exactly where I want. This is exactly the way I planned this out. Or they might say, I'm quite disappointed with where I am right now. Now I often like to bring it back to what they want. So what do you actually want? Right? So if they say that like, okay, I hear you, but what do you want? You want to make sure they tell you what they want out of this job, what their ambitions are, what their hopes, what they're looking for, what will make them happy. Question number five, the lazy question. So important and so many people don't do it. And that's just pure silence. Don't feel like you need to fill in the silence with another question with encouragement. Let things just be silent. Let them think about it. Let them be the first one to jump in and continue talking. Question number six, the strategic question. I love this one because it talks about opportunity costs and it opens up a great discussion with your team member. Once they've kind of shared what they want out of life, what they want in their job. I like to ask, according to this book, is if you're going to say yes to this, this thing, what are you going to say no to? See, when you say yes to something, you're saying no to everything else. We only have 24 hours in the day. We only had a certain amount of focus and energy. So ask them this question so they understand that this is actually a choice, this is a decision, this is a path they're going down and not just a dream or a hope. And number seven, the learning question. And this just recaps the end of these questions and asks the question to your team member in this session today, in this conversation we had today, what was most useful for you? What did you get out of this? What was the most interesting discussion we had or point we made or discovery you stumbled upon? Now, what I love about this book and what I love about these seven questions is that it's not about the details, because it's actually about the most important things in work and in life and in teamwork is harmonious work, is people understanding their purpose, understanding and acknowledging they have to say what they want. They have to go after what they want. They have to say no to things that they can't have because they want something else. They got to voice what they're struggling with. They have to solve these problems on their own. Now, the reason why these questions are so powerful is because it opens up the real issues and the real underlining reasons why there are problems in your business or problems in their job. This allows you to kind of come up with a game plan and makes them feel like they have ownership over the solution. This is what really matters. If somebody's showing up late to work, if somebody is not doing the best job they possibly can, maybe they did better in their first few months than their last few months. It's not that the work got like tremendously too hard or above their skill level. All of a sudden something else is going on. And this is what these questions uncover. And this is why it's called the coaching habit. I coached basketball at the university I used to teach at, and I don't teach people how to play basketball. I coach them. There's a big difference. I don't teach them how to shoot free throws. I don't teach them how to dribble. I don't teach them how to play defense. They might do some drills and they might practice, but when it's time for the game, I'm trying to understand what's stopping them from doing what I know they can do. It could be something mental, it could be something emotional. It could be something that may seem like a big problem to them, but in reality is actually not that big of a deal. And you need to show them that so they can overcome that challenge and be victorious. And this is exactly why I love this book, is because it reframes the way you manage your team and makes you understand that you have professionals. You have great people on your team that can do the job. If they're not doing it to your standard, it's most likely not because they're unskilled. It's because they need support. They need coaching. They need you to show them what you expect and a path to get there.

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To wrap up today's episode, I highly recommend you pick up the Coaching Habit. It's a great, great book by Michael Stanier. It's a quick read. It's one of those books that you just feel like it makes total sense when you read it. You can't wait to apply it. And I actually recommend that you read the book this week or a week and then schedule your one on ones with your team right after so you could apply what you learned. Because the more you apply, the more you're going to remember, the more it's going to be part of your system as a company. Now before I go on, I just want to just clarify that when you do one on ones, these are not evaluations. These are not time to kind of mark them off and not give them bonuses or give them bonuses or whatever you do. A one on one, in my opinion, is all about getting to know how you can help your team member in the best way possible to get the most out of them and also sell you as their leader. You need to sell them on the Hey, I can get the best out of you. You're going to do your best work at my company because I'm going to show you how. I'm going to help you become the person you want to become as a professional and maybe even personally during your time at my company. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you love what you hear, hit, subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app. We're on every every podcast, Apple Podcast, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, Himalaya, Overcast. We're on them all. If you want to subscribe, just click that follow or subscribe button on whatever app you're using. If you want a shortcut, just go to our website 100- MBA. Net, right on the homepage we've got some buttons that you can just click and subscribe using your favorite podcast app. By subscribing, you get access to over 2,000 business lessons in our archives. Thank you in advance for doing that. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. If you're listening to today's episode and you're like, you know what Omar, this sounds great, but I don't have a big team yet. In fact, I don't even have a team. It's just me. Or maybe just me, my co founder or an ea. I'm here to tell you that if you're learning this stuff after you have a team, it's already too late. You don't want to be behind the eight ball. You want to be ahead of the game so that when you do make your first hire, when you do start growing your team, you know exactly what to do from day one. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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