Coaching the Boss

Highlight the benefits

Mark, an engineer with a Springfield, OH heavy equipment manufacturer, told Session 9 of the Leadership Development Lab™:

"Clint, our plant manager was about to send out a plant-wide email detailing action items we were working on to solve one of our persisting production flow problems. For far too long, we had been struggling with production problems on our custom manufactured forklift attachments. The custom attachments were disrupting our standard lift's production process. Clint circulated an advance copy of the email to a few of us and asked for our comments. I liked the way the email was written, it was well-worded, still I thought something was missing, and with a few minor changes it would be even better. Since people resist change of any kind, I felt it was important to emphasize how everyone would benefit from the changes we were making. I knew if we could gain greater acceptance, faster, our chances of success were much higher.

I told Clint I liked his email and I especially like his reference to faster throughput and reduced inventory. Then I suggested how he could stress the overall benefits to everyone in our plant, and how all five of our North American plants could work together more smoothly. I told him by making these few changes in the email, everyone in our plant would readily embrace the necessary changes.

A few days later in our weekly Turbo plant meeting, Clint thanked me for my help in front of the team and pointed out how I had followed Turbo's 4-Step Coaching Model. At the time I suggested the changes, I wasn't consciously trying to follow Turbo's Coaching formula. This process of providing feedback, which we had practiced in class every week for three months, has just become a natural part of me and how I communicate.

"The lesson I learned from this experience is that Turbo's approach to training with practice every week over three months is really working for me!

"The action I call you to take is to use the 15 Leadership Principles and all of the high-level leadership skills we have learned, in every aspect of your life, in all of your communication every day.

"The benefit you will gain is positive recognition even when you coach your boss."

"The purpose of coaching is to help the other person perform at a higher level, do their work easier, do their work faster, do their work safer, or do their work to a higher quality standard. The purpose of coaching is not to correct or fix people; the purpose of coaching is to help the other person succeed."

- Larry W. Dennis, Sr.
President, Turbo Leadership Systems