The soldiers of Black Hawk Down shared an ethos of hard work, dedication, and team effectiveness. Yet despite the right internal perspective, they lost their mission and 18 soldiers in a failed attempt to capture the Somali warlord in 1992 after several months, as their mission and goals shifted and became more ambiguous. The lesson here was the greater the obstacle to high performance, the lower the level of morale and job satisfaction. Some of the greatest barriers to job satisfaction were role and goal ambiguity, lack of meaningful work, inadequate resources, and work overload, ultimately contributing to a feeling of malaise that quickly impacted job performance.

How might this situation duplicate itself in the corporate world, and how do we coach people to excel?

There are several questions we need to ask the employee as well as the organization. First, let's review some assumptions.

• People perform best when their goals and roles are clear.
• People perform best when they understand the connection between what they are doing and how that affects the bigger picture—corporate mission, vision, and goals.
• People perform best when there are both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.
• Some of the most important intrinsic rewards are ability to make a difference, ability to achieve, ability to be recognized, ability to improve one's effectiveness and performance, develop professionally.
• Some of the most important extrinsic rewards may be financial, stock, and time.
• If a call to action taps into ones expertise and excitement, it has a greater likelihood of reaching fruition.
• People like to be identified with winners—tell them how they made the team/company win.
• People achieve extraordinary results when there is alignment between their personal values and the company values and mission.
• People perform best when the expectations are clear and the resources to complete the goal are accessible.
• People will go to extraordinary efforts if they trust and respect the leader and feel trusted and respected as well.
• People perform best when the communication is clear and the feedback is targeted.
• People perform best when their efforts have been acknowledged.
• People perform best when they are stretched enough to feel the gain in the pain but not so much that they are distracted from the purpose of the pain.
• People perform best if both individual and team efforts are rewarded.
• People perform best if their missteps or mistakes are viewed within the kaleidoscope of lessons learned, not the microscope of failed efforts.

So given these assumptions, here are some questions you can ask your team or reports to motivate them to do their best.

1. What is most important to you about this project?
2. What do you most want to contribute to the growth of the company?
3. What do you need to better do your job?
4. What have you achieved in the last year that makes you most proud?
5. What makes you most proud of this company?
6. What motivates you?
7. What confuses you about the company mission? Vision? Values?
8. What inspires you most about the company mission? Vision? Values?
9. How do you see that this project is connected to the company goals?
10. What do you think might motivates your team more?

We can coach our reports to excel, or we can beat them into compliance. It's no secret what motivates people more and what creates companies of excellence.

• Are you looking for a cost effective solution to developing management and leadership competencies?
• Do you want something that has an impact and extends the learning into the culture of the company and the expectations of management?
• Do you want something that is deeper than a weekend quick fix, that sustains and implements the learning?
• Do you want a guarantee that is based upon an agreed measure of success that you establish?
• Do you know that to replace a key employee is estimated to be 1% to 2.5% of company revenue or between $10K and $100K per employee depending on level? (source: ASTD)
• Do you know that the TRS (Total Return to Shareholders) on training that increases development, communication and morale is up to 200%? (source: SHRIM)
• Do you know that research indicates that there is an average of 5.7 ROI for coaching key employees? (source: Manchester group)
• Do you want to retain top talent and groom them for the next level?

Then you want the Next Level Leadership Program. This cutting edge program combines

• Leadership/management training (3 workshops)
• Assessment of core competencies
• 360 assessment telling people how others see them
• Assessment of personality style and its impact on communication (DISC)
• Goal Setting
• Individual Coaching to develop and enhance competencies, meet goals
• Group coaching to extend learning and build the team
• 6-month, 8-month, and 12-month programs bring your leadership to the next level

And all for less than it would cost you to send a manager to an offsite three-day leadership program.

Visit our website to request more information... »