He was over sixty, very hard of hearing, spherical in shape… and LOSING MAJOR CUSTOMERS AND BEING BANNED FROM HOSPITALS. He was the first person I’d met who had been banned from hospitals, and the last person I would have picked to achieve this distinction. For he was kind, friendly, likable…what the heck was happening?
His numbers were never great before I came on board and now they were getting worse. At a company that seemed only to fire convicted felons, I was surprisingly given a green light to fire Joe. He was losing too many large, long-term, influential customers. But I didn’t want to. He was nearing the end of his career and I did not want it to be with me pulling the rug out from under him. So, I had one option. Coach him, make him better.
I have a simple coaching philosophy: Subtract the most egregious behavior, if there is one, and add the most important, missing behavior.
To locate what is missing and what’s needed you must keep quiet, let people do what they normally do, and watch like a hawk. The egregious behavior appeared quickly. A nurse asked a reasonable question and Joe responded, “Do you really think that would be a good idea?” I kept quiet to see where this was going. I thought his belittling response must have been an anomaly since it was so unlike him.
The next day he was asked a question by another nurse and he said, “Now that really doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?” Now I had a pattern forming and the nurse’s visceral response confirmed I had found the bad behavior that needed to be removed.
After he was made aware of what he was doing, and its impact, he stopped doing it. I never heard of another problem about him.
As for the behavior that needed to be added I chose the most powerful sales technique I know: differentiation. [If you are interested in the subject of differentiation, please click on the following link http://bit.ly/19jQ9Gy.] I taught him how to do it and–to this day it amazes me–he was an instant master of the technique. The very next day he delivered a differentiation presentation and closed a large piece of business. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Two years later I was delighted to present Joe with the Region Manager of the Year award. As I stated to all present at the awards ceremony, there was no one I was more proud of in the entire company than Joe.
Coaching can be tough for the coach and the person being coached, but there are few career satisfactions greater than turning a person around when everyone, including the coach, believed the company should probably cut bait.