Out a couple of days this week teaching a coaching skills class in our company's Leadership Academy.  Topic was "Drive-By" coaching skills, where I riff and wax poetic on a simple 6-step coaching tool that can be used with any performance area in need of a tweak and the immediate feedback that goes with that.

Of course, I can teach you the tool and how to use it.  The problem is once you add a live employee, it can all go to hell pretty quick, and usually does... Those pesky employees always have "reasons" for their "areas of opportunity" regarding their performance.  How dare they!!

So, if you want to be a sweet performance coach, you've got to use a methodology (like my 6-step tool), then mix it with active listening skills and the ability to think and react on the fly. 

Coaching = performance art ...

Example below... You lay out the area of concern, then I hit you with the sidetrack in this video.  How do you recover?  The sad news is without a coaching tool, most of us struggle to recover even from this basic sidetrack...

BOOM.  I just disconnnected 70% of your managers from their coaching train of thought.  They thought it was going to be easy.  I'm saying, "it's not me, it's them."

That's why you need a coaching tool....