Jan 22, 2015 By Jason Jordan

How NOT to Coach — Lessons from the Soccer Field

In a previous blog post, I recounted the story of a coach who shouted absolutely useless advice to a team of 12-year-old boys who were trying to win a soccer tournament. More specifically, he shouted: “Come on guys… We really need this one.” Yeah, they already knew that. They already wanted to win the game – probably more than the coach, for that matter. What they really needed was not a reminder of the desired outcome – they needed some guidance on HOW to win the game.

This is the equivalent of sales managers telling their salespeople that they “really need to make their quota.” Yeah, they already know that – that is what they were hired to do. But it’s the most classic of coaching errors and one that takes place every day in every sales force around the world: Asking for the outcome you want, rather than providing the insights that can actually affect the outcome. In essence, begging rather than coaching.

Well, it seems that kids’ soccer games never fail to deliver fodder for blog posts, because the coach recently blurted another classic onto the field. This time the situation was the same – a soccer tournament that everyone on the team really wanted to win. And our team was losing by one goal with just a few minutes remaining. Except that this time, he offered this sage advice to the kids: “Hey guys, you’ve got to work harder.” Work harder? To be sure, he meant ‘play smarter?’ Otherwise, how could more of the same type of play lead to any different outcome?

Interestingly, it seems that we are all hard-wired with this same disposition – if we want to do better, then we have to work harder. Perhaps it’s rooted in some work ethic that is drilled into us early in our lives. Perhaps it’s because working harder is an easier path than the alternative of working smarter. Perhaps it’s just what we say, because that’s what people said to us. Regardless, it’s not very useful coaching. And here’s why…

It’s my observation that most people work hard. In fact, I think most people work about as hard as they’re going to work, with the exception of an occasional deadline or emergency situation. If so, then screaming to the sales force “work harder” is a losing strategy. At best, you’ll get a little more effort in the near term, until the recipients of the command either exhaust themselves or realize that no more output is coming from their extra effort. Either way, the sales manager has committed coaching malpractice. Coaching demands more.

Coaching should not be an exercise of re-iterating the destination – to win the game or to achieve quota. And it shouldn’t be an exercise of ramping up the urgency – to run faster on a soccer field or to panic more in a sales territory. Coaching should be about improving a person’s ability to do their job. Increasing their skills... Improving their decision-making… Changing their behaviors. In other words, making them more capable. Most people understand what they need to accomplish, and most people are motivated to do it. What they need is help getting there.

So if you find yourself on a soccer field of 12-year-olds or in a sales force of mature adults, fight the urge to scream, “Come on guys… We really need this one." And fight the need to shout, “Hey, you’ve got to work harder.” Lower your voice, turn on your brain, and think to yourself, “What does my team need to do differently to succeed?” Then you’ll become the coach your players need.

Jason Jordan is author of the Amazon.com best-seller Cracking the Sales Management Code and a partner at Vantage Point Performance, the leading sales management training company in the world. He helps sales leadership teams improve sales performance by implementing management best practices revealed in his groundbreaking research. Follow him on Twitter: @JasonRJordan