Two 1-on-1 Tweaks

The most important asset businesses have are their people. On a day-to-day basis, it’s not the intellectual property, the corner lot, or the accounts receivable that make a business succeed. It’s the people.

This is also what makes business difficult.

People are cranky. We have good days and bad. We’re fickle, myopic, and prone to inertia. We can be lazy too.

This is what makes leadership so important.

In Silicon Valley, Bill Campbell was a leadership coach. Before coaching technology executives he led a middle school boys' football team.

Part of Campbell’s coaching mindset that spread through Silicon Valley and beyond was how he (and others) conducted one-on-one evaluations.

Instead of thinking of these like evaluations, Campbell thought, flip them around. Let the employees lead.

To accomplish this flip, Campbell encouraged his clients to do two things. First, adopt their own coaching mindset. What targeted skills does the employee need to improve? Identify that and “coach them up.”

Second, adopt a learning mindset. Employees are closer to the customer and gather different information. What do employees know that leadership does not? Identify that.

Mindsets matter because they affect our actions. What can a coaching mindset do?