Designing stretch opportunities

- In the last chapter, we focused on using tools and assessments that help you establish goals and what true North looks like for your people. And now we're going to explore ways to maintain momentum in your coaching process. In Daniel Pink's book "Drive", he talked about how people are more motivated by their ability to direct their lives than they are by money. They want to know that they have value and that they matter. These are people who want to learn and put that learning to the test. So let's talk about what stretch opportunities might look like in your organization. The first is learning and education. When you first start coaching your employees be sure to ask what their educational goals are and see if you can find ways to meet them. Informal opportunities include workshops, conferences, certifications, and online courses like you're doing right now. And then there's formal education. In some companies, getting an undergrad or even an advanced degree like an MBA might be an employee benefit. Here's a power tip. (bell dings) Identify early, perhaps using the clarity questionnaire from chapter three, what your people want to learn and ask them to investigate what internal and external resources are available. Your organization may already require everyone to have an individual development plan that addresses their learning goal. That's ideal. But if not, you do have all the tools you need to help your people create one. In any case, make sure your people create a timeline for accomplishing their learning goals. And it is your job to do everything you can to protect that timeline from getting swallowed up by emergencies. Now, the second stretch opportunity is mentoring. In contrast to coaching, mentoring is about providing guidance and direction to a mentee, usually a junior level employee, who might in fact aspire to the position of the mentor. The mentor typically has achieved a level of success and voluntarily shares their expertise. So think about your employee, their goals and aspirations where they want to learn and grow, and then facilitate connections between your coachee and leaders inside and outside your organization. And the third stretch opportunity I want to talk about is sponsorship. Now, let's say you have a high performer who's craving new opportunities and wanting to be more visible and useful. This is somebody you'd like to put a little skin in the game for. So sponsorship is about actively advocating for your people and putting your reputation behind them, making introductions and opening doors to help them advance in their careers. And finally, here's a stretch opportunity for you. A great way to lock in what you've learned in this course is to teach others. So why not share the coaching practices you're learning with the people you intend to coach? Be transparent about your process. Over time, coaching will percolate throughout your team and increase your results, grow your own visibility and leadership potential. Now, after all your good work focused on becoming a great manager coach, what do you do when people are resistant to the whole idea of coaching? That's what I'll cover next.