Manager Tools Coaching Model - Updated - Part 3

Summary

Manager Tools Coaching Model – Updated (Part 3)

Podcast: Manager Tools
Hosts: Kate & Mike
Date: July 15, 2024
Episode Theme:
A practical, actionable guide to implementing the Manager Tools Coaching Model, focusing on steps managers can take to develop their team members’ skills—especially when feedback alone isn’t enough.

---

Main Purpose and Theme

This episode wraps up the updated explanation of the Manager Tools Coaching Model, delving into two critical coaching stages:

1. Collaboratively brainstorming resources for growth
2. Creating iterative, deliverable-based plans with feedback cycles

The hosts, Kate and Mike, emphasize that effective coaching doesn't require expertise in the specific skill area—any manager can facilitate growth using this model. The discussion demystifies coaching, making it accessible and manageable for any leader.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Collaborating to Brainstorm Resources

(Starts around 01:11)

• Managers don’t need expertise in the specific skill to coach:

  • Managers and directs brainstorm possible resources together, fostering growth in areas the manager may not personally excel at.

    "We as managers do not, I say again, do not have to be good at what we're coaching in order to coach someone else on it." (01:18, Mike)

• Why brainstorming feels unusual at work:

  • The approach is less linear and more trial-and-error than the typical “project management” philosophy, purposely broadening the list of possible resources.

    "You don't need a perfect plan forever... if you don't do it the way we're suggesting, then you're going to be limited to coaching on only what you know and only what you're confident you can train others in, which is y'all exceptionally limited..." (02:01, Kate)

• The NFL Coach Analogy:

  • Managers are like head coaches—they don’t need to physically do every skill but must identify areas for improvement and connect directs with the right resources or people.

    "If you're the coach of the NFL team, you do not go down on the field and show your kicker how to kick field goals... This model allows you to be the coach where you bring in resources." (02:38, Kate)

• Embrace “bad resources” as learning:

  • Sometimes the group chooses a resource that turns out to be unhelpful; learning that is part of progress. Different team members learn best with different materials (books, videos, mentoring, classes, etc.).

Notable Quotes:

• “It's a learning engagement, y'all... some of the learning we're doing is whether or not some of these resources are useful.” (05:15, Kate)
• “A lot of people want silver bullets and they don't exist... the absence of them doesn't eliminate our professional obligation to grow the skills of our folks.” (06:19, Mike)

---

2. How to Brainstorm Efficiently

(Begins ~06:36)

• Simple, time-limited brainstorming:

  • Take 2–3 minutes in a 1:1 to generate a long list of possible resources—volume over accuracy.
  • Use a timer to avoid judgment; this ensures all ideas are captured without filtering.

• The “Peanut Butter” rule:

  • Write down every idea, even silly ones (“peanut butter”). Judging ideas shuts down creativity and makes directs less likely to contribute honest suggestions.

• Examples:

  • For improving meeting management, the brainstorm might include: Google, Toastmasters, Manager Tools, Amazon, Dale Carnegie, video courses, fellow managers, Robert’s Rules of Order, “Meetings for Dummies,” etc.

Notable Quotes:

• “If you judge an idea... the direct doesn't then contribute an idea. But that might be great because they're judging in advance. So they will say, oh, I'm not going to say that because it might not be great. We don't want that. We want all the possible options.” (09:25, Kate)

---

3. Collaborate to Create a Plan

(Starting ~11:29)

• Focus planning on the first week only, not the whole coaching journey:

  • Limit the initial plan to manageable, testable steps. Avoid wasting time building out multi-month plans based on unproven resources.
  • This “agile” approach ensures quick adaptation if something isn’t working.

  “We create just the first week of the plan to include a series of steps the direct will take to help them start learning and improving their behavior." (11:43, Kate)

• Plans become deliverables, not just tasks:

  • Define clear actions with deadlines that require notification of completion (“Send me a three-sentence email summarizing the first chapter by Tuesday at 3pm”), not just “read chapter one.”

• Why deliverables matter:

  • You get more frequent, actionable updates and can intervene quickly if things go off track, versus finding out during the next weekly 1:1.

Notable Quotes:

• “If you don't use deliverables, you won't get updates during the week... You've lost time between the deadline and the reporting.” (18:51, Kate)
• “The key in my mind is... creating several small deliverables and... iterating on that process every single week... the goal is to make progress, even if it's a little bit every single week, and get some momentum.” (22:02, Mike)

---

4. Using Behavioral Diversity in Learning

(23:42 – 26:45)

• Don’t force directs to use the resources you prefer—different approaches work for different people (reading, classes, videos, hands-on, etc.).
• Both hosts share personal stories about how visual learning or hands-on examples can be more effective than reading for certain tasks.

Notable Quotes:

• “We're effectively engaging in actionable behavioral diversity, which is not a series of words I've ever strung together before, although it's accurate.” (23:42, Kate)

---

5. Direct Acts & Reports; Manager Steers

(28:21 – 31:45)

• Step four: The direct acts on the plan and reports back via email or during the next 1:1. Manager reviews deliverables, gives feedback, and iterates.
• Iterative process: Continue to adjust, add, or change resources and deliverables as needed based on progress. Use one-on-one time to celebrate wins or adjust expectations.
• Celebrate progress and don’t punish “missed” deadlines: Any forward motion is a win, especially since this work is “above and beyond” daily duties.

Notable Quotes:

• “When they achieve the goal, we celebrate. Yay. Please celebrate. Seems like lately there's not as much celebration as there could be.” (30:51, Kate)
• “10 minutes a week with each of your directs... you are continuously building the capabilities of your organization... By the way, some of that which they will be capable of doing will be things you used to do and will no longer have to do.” (31:45, Mike)

---

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On the NFL analogy and coaching scope:
  “You don't have to know how to be a wide tackle or the left center if you're the coach... Neither is NFL coach. Hopefully not you. Most people get crushed.” (02:35, Kate)

• On the fear of “wasting time” on ineffective resources:
  “You could end up wasting some time on a bad resource in this model. That would be normal.” (05:15, Kate)

• On momentum and chunking plans:
  “If you don't get some momentum in the beginning, my experience has been that it just doesn't go well.” (22:02, Mike)

• On deliverables:
  “Making that into a deliverable would turn it into something like this: ‘Send me a three sentence email summarizing the first chapter of the book by Tuesday at 3pm.’” (17:26, Kate)

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

• 01:11 – Transition to step two: brainstorming resources
• 02:35 – NFL coach analogy for manager-as-coach
• 05:15 – Discussing “bad resources” as part of the learning process
• 06:36 – Brainstorming resources: mechanics and the peanut butter rule
• 11:29 – Step three: collaboratively create action plan
• 17:26 – Difference between tasks and deliverables
• 22:02 – Building momentum through small, weekly deliverables
• 23:42 – Adapting to team members’ learning preferences
• 28:21 – Step four: direct acts & reports; manager steers and celebrates
• 31:45 – Long-term organizational benefits of coaching model

---

Summary Flow and Tone

The episode is lively, clear, and conversational. Kate and Mike demystify coaching, injecting humor and their own lived experiences to show how simple, scalable, and effective the Manager Tools coaching model is. The tone is encouraging, practical, and supportive of leaders at any level.

Final message:
Managers don’t have to be subject-matter experts to help their team grow. The model is simple: collaboratively brainstorm, create and assign small, frequent deliverables, adapt and iterate, and always, always celebrate growth. It’s possible—and necessary—for every manager to coach every direct, every week.

---

“If you think you're really, really busy and doing stuff that only you can do, well... one of the options you have is to improve the skills of your directs such that they can do it and take it off your plate. And if that doesn't sound like a good thing to you, I don't know what to say.”
(31:45, Mike)

---

Action for listeners: As Mike says—go do it. Easy peasy.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Manager Tools.

[B]

This is Kate and this is Mike.

[A]

Today's cast Manager Tools coaching model updated, part three of three.

[B]

The questions this cast answers are, how do I coach my directs? What do I do when feedback is not enough? How can I help save an employee who is failing?

[A]

If you want answers to these questions and more, keep listening. Are you looking for a way to train your team? With our group training, you can reduce the cost per head by almost 50% if you have 30 folks in your group. Our group training also affords free licensing options and some customizations for your organization. Why not make the learning more relevant for your group? Contact Maggie to discuss the pros and cons of our individual or small group training versus our larger group training to see what's best for you. We're completely honest and upfront and whatever is best for your organization is what we're prepared to deliver. Send an email to [e-mail] to learn more.

[B]

Now, we've done talking about step one and this coaching process. Step two is to collaborate to develop brainstorm resources. So we've got a goal now. How do we get there? Well, one of the great things about the Manager Tools coaching model is that we as managers do not, I say again, do not have to be good at what we're coaching in order to coach someone else on it. Now, that just blows people's minds away sometimes. Like how, how possibly can you do it? Well, what we do is together with the direct, we jointly brainstorm resources that the direct could use to become more effective at the skill we're coaching. So part of our coaching plan will include finding out what resources are available, availing ourselves of them without even knowing which one is the best.

[A]

Yeah, we come up with a list together and then we see how effective they are by testing them out, by using them. Now, this isn't how we normally do stuff at work. Brainstorming. Working through this this way, a little bit more trial and error than the stuff you're used to at work. So if your spidey senses are saying, whoa, Kate, this is like uncharted territory, I'm not comfortable. It's going to be okay. I promise. It's going to be okay. You don't need a perfect plan forever. Think about all the Microsoft project plans you've been involved in and the critical path and how quickly we go awry from it. In many cases, if you don't do it the way we're suggesting, then you're going to be limited to coaching on only what you know and only what you're confident you can train others in, which is y' all exceptionally limited coaching opportunities for managers and directs. It limits the organization. The organization cannot grow. It can't become. It struggles. Also, your team ends up with a limited skill set. Right. Rather than a diverse one. The analogy, I can tell you is it's like being the coach of an NFL team. If you're the coach of the NFL team, you do not go down on the field and show your kicker how to kick field goals. Okay. Some people are saying, my coach knows how to kick field goals. That's cute. My team's coach abandoned us. That's not for this conversation. You don't have to know how to be a wide tackle or the left center if you're the coach. You don't have to know how to do that physically. You need to know executing on it, how that works and why it's important. You're not the person who goes down there and shows them how to tackle. Neither is NFL coach. Hopefully not you. Most people get crushed. This model allows you to be the coach where you bring in resources, like a lineman coach, a defensive line coach, something like that. They come in, they teach the players. You're the person who identifies. We need the growth in this area and then we bring in resources to help. So think of it that way. Hopefully you have a coach who's not abandoned you for Denver also.

[B]

Oh, so bitter. So bitter.

[A]

At least Drew Brees had the grace to stay retired. I love him so much. I still love him. Some people said they were retiring and then didn't. Or they did temporarily. And I no longer feel the same love.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Listen, if you want to abandon us, I'll abandon you. Not that this person cares that I abandoned them, but I have. I've switched allegiances, which is saying something because I have been cheering for the same team and the same coach for almost 20 years.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. This is somewhat of an inside thing, but if you know Kate, as long as I've known, I've known her since she was born, actually, Believe it or not, she's been a big fan of those two individuals. And. Yeah. And the fact that I'm hearing this now is a shock. I would have never guessed this. I'm sad for you. I am.

[A]

I also have to be careful because I'll get really spun up. So back to coaching. It would be completely normal in a manager, tools, coaching, engagement to have a task. Not the DBQ goal, not the end goal, not the end state, not the demonstration goal, but a task of reading a book that the brainstorming portion of the exercise suggested might be helpful only to discover it's not helpful a la a book we know about called the Lemonade Stand. And to have wasted the time spent on that book a week. Because this model's not going to let you get too far with a bad resource. You could end up wasting some time on a bad resource in this model. That would be normal. It's a learning engagement, y'. All. It's a learning engagement. And some of the learning we're doing is whether or not some of these resources are useful, whether or not some of these resources benefit our direct. Some directs learn better with video, some directs learn better with reading. Some directs want to be in a class, they want to be mentored, et cetera. It's hard though, right? Right.

[B]

It's hard. And a lot of people want silver bullets and they don't exist. The quick and easy one shots, no brainer solutions. When it comes to coaching, they're largely not there. Right. But the absence of them doesn't eliminate our professional obligation to grow the skills of our folks.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

So how do we brainstorm resources?

[A]

Simple, right? We collaborate with our direct in the one on one. We're still in our one on one and you engage in a simple brainstorm. We have so much guidance about brainstorming, actually. So if you go to the website search brainstorming, there's some podcasts about it and essentially boiled all the way down, it is take two or three minutes in your one on one set a timer to come up with a list of potential resources you think might be potentially helpful to your direct in learning and doing this new or better skill. Now, the purpose of the timer, y', all, is to keep us from judging. And we'll come back to that.

[B]

Yeah. So suppose you're coaching a direct on, say, improving their meeting management techniques, Right? So kind of as we talked about in our goal example above. So let's just keep going down the path. So during your brainstorming session, you might list Google Toastmasters Manager tools. I hope Amazon, Dale Carnegie Fellow managers, executives, Robert's Rules of order. Love that. Podcast meetings for dummy meetings, videotapes, agenda training, and the list could go on and on and on. Now, be clear, folks. We're brainstorming the possible resources, not the resources we're necessarily going to use. What we're trying to do is we're trying to go for volume, not accuracy. We don't want the right. We don't want the right answer. What we want to do is get as large a list as possible that we can pick from. Right? And if we go for volume, the chances are that in there will be something that will work for this individual. And it's different for every individual, right?

[A]

It is each person. As I noted, some people prefer video, some people prefer reading, some people want to take a class, et cetera. The purpose of this brainstorming is to look for possible things thinking to ourselves, hey, somewhere in this big pile there's probably one or two or three or four things that will collectively, because we're going to use them in like one after the other in serial, get us to where we need to go. And it's kind of silly. And I would suggest it's also a waste of your brain power and energy for managers, us as managers, to assume we'll know exactly how to improve somebody else in some skill set that we actually maybe not be proficient in. So don't worry about having to come up with the right answer on your own. Simply take a couple minutes in the one on one. Write down everything you think of in the brainstorm. Maybe one sticks out great, maybe one doesn't. Not a big deal. Please include a training course in Hawaii if you're in January, right?

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Or in July if you're in the southern hemisphere. Brainstorming really says anything goes, including peanut butter. We actually have a rule called the peanut butter rule, which is you write down everything that anybody says while you're brainstorming, even if all they said was peanut butter. Because we are not judging ideas right now, we're just spitting them out. We can cross peanut butter out when we're done. If you judge an idea. Now, judging peanut butter probably won't cause this. If you, if you judge something as opposed to just writing it down, the correct response to any brainstorming idea is yep, good, and then write it down. If you judge instead, they will begin to self like filter like they prejudge their own idea. The direct doesn't then contribute an idea. But that might be great because they are judging in advance. So they will say, oh, I'm not going to say that because it might not be great. We don't want that. We want all the possible options. There's a whole contingent of people, by the way y', all, who think that brainstorming is fun and it can be. If all the bets were off, what would we be able to do? And I've done it before where somebody suggested that they go to a training in Vegas and Hey, that sounds like all bets are off. I don't know if you've seen any pictures of the sphere, Mike, but it scares me.

[B]

I have seen pictures of it and I would like to see it. And better yet, I'd like to be in the control room and see how the thing is managed and how it works and the technology behind it.

[A]

But hey, I saw a video where it winks at the hotel. Like, it. Like it's close enough to hotels that. And they make it a big emoji, like a smile emoji, and then it winks. And I would feel really creeped out at my hotel if it winked at me from my window. I don't like it.

[B]

That would be pretty awesome. Oh, I could. Yeah. Okay.

[A]

People are into it.

[B]

I could wait, I could go with this. I really could. You throw some AI in there and. Oh, my gosh, cameras on the streets. And, you know the idea, like, you could look up at it and wink at you and it would wink back at you. I mean.

[A]

Okay, that's too sentient for me. I. I would rather talk about. Step three, collaborating to create a plan.

[B]

Okay, so you got a goal and you got a pile of ideas, right? From our brainstorming. So what do we do now?

[A]

We create just the first week of the plan to include a series of steps the direct will take to help them start learning and improving their behavior.

[B]

Just so. Not just the first week, not the next six months, just the first. Okay.

[A]

Coaching is above and beyond. Right. This is a new skill they're learning. It's not part of their daily work. They're what most of us think of as air quotes. Real work. It's next level, nice to have next job. That means that to some extent, it is at the mercy of that real work. If in a week or two, something comes up that causes us to need to pause and we've made a plan for the next six or 12 or 18 weeks, we're going to lose all that planning. Also, we want to make traction, and we're going to show you how to do that. We also don't want to make too much traction on an untested resource. What if the direct says, hey, I want to use a book, and then it turns out actually the book is trash, terrible, bad. Well, we don't want them to spend more than a couple days reading a book. That's bad. What we want to be able to do is pivot. This is what keeps this model, like, in my mind, in the agile arena.

[B]

Yeah, no, it makes. I mean, it makes total sense. Right. So person's probably, is probably not going to be able to read the entire book. Right. But they can read right one. I would imagine you'd say, like, it'd be okay if the first goal was for that week is read one chapter, right? It could be that.

[A]

Yeah, it could be. That would be okay.

[B]

Read one chapter and they could come back at the end, at the end of that week. Your next one on one, which is probably where you're doing this. We're sitting there. I mean, we're not talking about having to have separate meetings and having coaching thing. This is like, folks, this happens within your one on one. No more time. You don't need any more time. Direct does, but not you. And by the way, that's the reason why most managers don't coach. It's because they're worried about the time that's going to take them, not the time it's going to take the direct. So they read the first chapter, they come back and say, hey, Kate, I read this book. This isn't going to help me. I don't think it's really what we need. I've been thinking about it and we had listed this video program that was free, available on YouTube. I thought, I like to read. So I thought the book would be better. But I'm thinking we should try that because this book is not resonating with me. And you'd be like, okay, let's do that.

[A]

Great. If you're thinking about this in the one on one, what you do is at the beginning of the one on one, you say to your direct, hey, today you only get 10 minutes. I'm only gonna get 10 minutes. We're gonna use the last 10 minutes for coaching. Cause it's a future thing that only gives you 10 minutes in that first one on one to get all this nailed down. So let's say DBQ. Let's give you one minute for each of those. That's three minutes, then two minutes for brainstorming. Now you only have five minutes left and you're gonna need to make the plan. And we'll talk about that in a second. But you probably need five minutes to make the plan for the week.

[B]

Yeah. And if that seems fast to you, like in 10 minutes you could do all that. You absolutely can do it. I've done hundreds of coaching set things where you started a coaching engagement. And in 10 minutes you can nail all that.

[A]

And it's just a week. And so you'll only lose 10 minutes today. And then you might only lose, I don't know, an hour because your direct might come to you really quickly and say, hey, I read the first chapter and this book isn't going to be helpful. So we're trying not to get too far down the wrong path. So, okay, let's say we're gonna pick a resource for this plan. Obviously, I don't think we said that out loud. We pick a resource, that's the first thing. Look at the list, look at the brainstorming list. Pick a resource from there. And then we could use one or two resources. The first week. Let's say they're gonna visit another meeting for a couple days while they wait for the book that they ordered from Amazon on meetings to come in. Okay, so Meetings for Dummies, they ordered it. Great. Although probably a little low level for most people. Hey, it could be great. I actually haven't read it. And in the interim, they're going to visit some other meetings.

[B]

Sounds great.

[A]

Yeah, why not? They're going to go audit this other meeting and then they're going to get the resource, the second resource. So we've got concurrent stuff.

[B]

Right. You could pick somebody like, I know, I know Mary, who's over in marketing, runs absolutely great meeting. She's on top of it. So I might send my direct to sit in those meetings. I'd ask Mary, and Mary be fine with it. Or maybe he goes to another meeting that is related, somewhat related to the work he does, maybe more related to the work he does and it's not so great. And then one of the learning things was, okay, now you sat in the meeting. Let's talk about what the next step might be. Might be. Okay, you went to two meetings ran by two different people. Describe for me what worked and what didn't work. Let's do a comparison. What are the behaviors that the person running the meeting in or the people in the meeting engaged in? What behaviors did they exhibit and what behaviors did you see in the meeting that didn't go particularly well? Right. A lot of learning that can come out of there.

[A]

And probably absolutely.

[B]

That John will say it's John that's doing it. John's going to make the learnings. He's going to tell me what he learned. He said, like, hey, I saw this. I saw one, one meeting where the person whose meeting it was was actually not the one facilitating. They had a different facilitator where the other one, the person who is responsible for the meeting, was actually doing the facilitating as well. And I saw that they had A real problem, both facilitating it and engaging in it. So okay, well that's an interesting thing about meetings. Let's talk more about that.

[A]

So as an example and in order to get there, we've got these steps which we are going to verbalize here in a minute. Y' all get to hear them. It should be mentioned the steps in the plan look very much like a final goal or frankly any task in a project. Something to be done, a deadline by which it will be done. And in manager tools language, it's really. You've heard us talk about this, a set of deliverables. When we verbalize these here in a second, you'll notice that we create deliverables, not tasks. The distinction being a task is reading a chapter of a book. Making that into a deliverable would turn it into something like this. Send me a three sentence email summarizing the first chapter of the book by Tuesday at 3pm what makes it a deliverable is they must notify us in some fashion that they have completed the underlying task. And I would suggest because we have worked so hard to teach people about deliverables, deliverables are often also more likely to include the date and time than tasks are. And that's simply a function of A lot of tasks are assigned without date and time associated. And that is a miss.

[B]

Yeah, that's great. So in my case, as sending person to two meetings, that that wouldn't be sufficient. I'd want something from them. Hey, send me a note with your observations by Wednesday at 5pm for example.

[A]

Exactly. And if you don't use deliverables, you won't get updates during the week. And then during your next one on one when you're getting an update about their coaching process, you'll hear that several tasks maybe weren't done, and these were tasks that were fairly brief and could be done in a day or two. But because you're only hearing about their status now, a full week later, you've lost time between the deadline and the reporting. We would suggest instead that by creating deliverables you do not allow reporting to occur only when you're meeting on their progress. During the one on one when you lose deliverables, you get daily or every other day, perhaps updates from your direct on their progress and you can adjust and give feedback, thus also increasing your opportunities to give feedback. The podcast for which you may have heard pretty recently was updated as well. Managers, we know how tough your job is. We know what it's like to be pulled in 50 different directions all day long. And worry that you're never going to get it all done, especially if you're in STEM in California. And hey, we can help to make management more effective, more measurable and more agile. Come to our conference in Palo Alto and learn about how to be a working manager. July 23rd and 24th in Cupertino. Sign up at manager-tools.com training. So it's time to verbalize some deliverables for people. I think I've been hinting it some examples. Send me a receipt showing you've ordered Meetings for Dummies from Amazon by September 15th. Send me a brief summary of the Manager Tools podcast on meetings by September 20th. Attend another manager's meeting and report to me on what they did well or poorly by September 21st. There's yours. Right, that's the one you were talking about. And note that in this process, in this one on one, at this first juncture, we don't need to complete the entire three or four month plan in one week or before we start. We don't trust us. You can't do it. Frankly, too much will change. Far too many project plans are broken that way. And honestly, I think in many cases not rejuvenated. Because the late stages of a project plan, especially depending on how far out you go, are simply fantasy and destined to change once the actual work begins. In fact, we had a conversation last week, Mike, at our board meeting, right. About some stuff we were talking about and some adjustments we were gonna make. And I think on one slide I specifically said, verbally, it's not on the slide I said. And then I stopped making decisions about it because I assumed my ability to predict more than two years from today was drastically lowered. Such as to be useless.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[A]

I don't know, you know, there's so many things that could happen. I have a plan for the next two years and then also I figure pretty quickly this might. It's at risk, you know. Yeah, you can't plan.

[B]

Yeah. You know, momentum is a big thing on these coaching things. If you don't get some momentum in the beginning, my experience has been that it just doesn't go well. Right. And again, we have so many other things going on at work that if we're looking for distractions, they're all over there. So the key in my mind is, is this, it's creating several small deliverables and there's iterating on that process every single week. The first meeting, you may say, okay, we have over the next three weeks, here are the things we're going to do, but you're just taking little chunks. And the idea is the goal is to make progress, even if it's a little bit every single week, and get some momentum. Then my experience then is it goes well. Even if you have hiccups, which you will have during the process, you pick it right back up and you fall into this small little chunks every time.

[A]

We also, in this process, we're asking our direct to have significant input so we're iterating. They can chime in when we're setting these and getting our momentum up. They're also the person who's executing and therefore their input around the resource mainly is really crucial because they're the one who's going to do the work. Don't expect them to learn well in the same way that you do. Some people like books, some people like classes. None of these things are correct answer. They're simply different. We're effectively engaging in actionable behavioral diversity, which is not a series of words I've ever strung together before, although it's accurate. I just haven't ever considered it before.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. Example, like, I love to read. Like, I'd rather read than just about anything else in terms of. Of learning. But I've had plenty of directs. They do not like to read. They know how to read. They'll do reading. They don't like to do it. That's not going to be the thing that gets them excited. Right. Some people like to watch videos, Some people like to attend meetings. Some people like to talk to other people. Whatever. They're the one that has to learn it. Let them do what works for them.

[A]

It's funny. I love to read, desperately love to read. Read every single day. And I don't always like to learn a new skill that way.

[B]

That's interesting.

[A]

I find I learn skills better with other resources. Kind of like in the process. I'm not as good at learning how to do something from reading. I can learn about things, actionable pieces of things. I do better. Actually, the thing I do best with is YouTube, a video. And I think it's because I have so many questions. And then like in the video, I can say, well, what about this? And I can go back and redo it. In the book, the curves and the path aren't always addressed.

[B]

Yeah, that rings true for me as well. I said I love to read. I. I'm a private pilot. Like I, I fly. Well, I used to fly. I haven't flown for six years. I'm in the process of relearning so I've spent, like six or seven years since I've been flying. And so I decided, because there's an airport right next to the cabin I'm at now, I've decided I'm gonna start flying again. So, folks, if you. If you fly, you know, it's like, not something you just casually, casually do. Get in a plane and start flying around.

[A]

Casual hobby.

[B]

Not a casual hobby. So I am in the process. You know, I'm in the middle of. I've watched a ton of YouTube videos, which didn't exist when I got my license, by the way, and it's pretty darn cool. And so, yeah, video is great. There's so many resources. So you're right. I love books, but half my time has been spent on videos.

[A]

You know, it's so funny. The thing that comes to mind for me is I have a fishing guide friend. We fish with him a lot. And he was telling me once in the boat, you know, they're trying to take a picture of the fish I caught, which was not photographically impressive. You saw the picture of the fish that escaped me.

[B]

I did.

[A]

So that's the picture.

[B]

It's great.

[A]

So I'm holding the fish a certain way, and Jamie says to me, hold the fish. What does he say? He says, hold the fish towards the camera. And it's like, obviously, I'm holding the fish towards the camera. And he said a lot of words, and it's the same thing as reading. Like, I can read the words. I comprehend the words, and I cannot visualize the impact of it. And in fact, what he meant was, move your hand to the other side of the fish. Your hand should be on the side of the fish, away from the camera. And until he actually put his hand up and turned and showed me, I did not understand. I need. It's part of that visual.

[B]

You need that visual reference, right? And then. Which. What, folks, you don't know is that as soon as. I assume it's in that adjustment of moving your hands around that the fish, which is still alive at the point, just jumped out of your hands. And the photographer, the person taking the picture, captured it at the exact right moment. And the look on Kate's face as this fish was jumping out of her hands was just precious.

[A]

I was really worried that he would jump not far enough and then have jumped into the boat rather than out of the boat. Because my experience is a fish in the boat is so. Because you have to let them go in Idaho, right? It's catch and Release. And they're obviously, I didn't know that migrating. There's specific fish that you can keep and they're marked a certain way. There's some like, they notch their fins to say, this is not a native salmon. It's bread, and so you can keep it. And native ones that are, you know, were born in that water and live there and have to migrate every year, those are protected, and so you don't keep those also. I knew I couldn't keep it because it was tiny. Let's be honest. It was so small. However, I was worried because a fish that jumps back into the boat is so much harder to get out of the boat. It's hard to get him into the boat. And it's hard, really hard to get him out of the boat. They're slippery. You can't move your feet when he's in the bottom of the boat. It's. It's a whole thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Visualization is positive.

[B]

And if you didn't know that, you heard it here, folks.

[A]

We've chosen a resource for them, a good one, hopefully. And then step four.

[B]

Step four, right. And that is that the direct acts and reports on the plan. And for you as a manager, not only is this the final step, it is the easiest of steps, because you're not doing it.

[A]

You're not. Yeah. Our direct simply acts on the plan steps and deliverables that we put together and reports during the week and it via email. That's why we said send me. So it requires of you only what you're already doing, which is checking your email, and they report to us during the week through their deliverables and in the one on one as well. And great opportunity in your one on one to give feedback, positive and negative, about the deliverables to that you saw or did not see in your inbox throughout the week. As they achieve steps, we either keep on the path of the resource they're on, which might be a good one, and it might go on for a while. And one of my favorite resources, by the way, y', all, is an online class because as you move through the process, you can line up the deliverables with the syllabus. So if there's a quiz, for example, send me your quiz results, et cetera, that kind of thing. Little. Just bit easier to have some milestones that you don't have to define. Takes a little bit less of the onus off of you. So either keep them on the resource they're on or add another resource as needed. For example, maybe Week one they get a book. Week two they read the first two chapters. Week four they read to chapter six. Week eight they start running meetings which we have delegated to them. We give feedback on the meetings. And then again in week nine that could be the progression. And we do all of this, this checking in and reassigning new deliverables, continuing down the path during our one on ones. And we then can coach everyone on our team in 10 minutes individually or so a week.

[B]

Yeah, that's the great thing about most managers. Coaching in and of itself freaks them out because they think it's really hard and takes a lot of time and they make the first mistake they make typically is that coaching is the same thing as teaching and they have to teach their direct this skill or behavior. Right. Which we've dispelled. That's not true. You don't need to be able to do that. And then when they find out not only can they coach one person, but they can coach all their people simultaneously all the time. Meaning they're all their people are getting better all the time. Mark said it's like a self licking ice cream cone. It's the best.

[A]

When they achieve the goal, we celebrate. Yay. Please celebrate. Seems like lately there's not as much celebration as there could be. If you reach the deadline and there's no celebration because they haven't met the goal, we can push that deadline out into the future. Remember when you set that deadline weeks ago, you didn't know what meeting they were going to run or how well they would do or what book they would choose and how long it would be. We don't punish failure here. I would suggest it's not failure. Instead, remind yourself that they're further along than they were when we started. And that's good. Particularly when we're only spending 10 minutes a week on their learning. Them having increased their skill set even if they haven't perfected the skill is a positive and, and our investment of time in it is low enough that frankly progress is positive. And they've also probably worked pretty hard.

[B]

So there's that, yeah, 10 minutes a week with each of your directs in a one on one that you're already having and you are continuously building the capabilities of your organization. Each one of them will be capable of doing more. By the way, some of that which they will be capable of doing will, will be things that you used to do and will no longer have to do. And therefore you have time to get better at something that perhaps your boss currently does and this is not the cast for it, but that's how people get ready to be promoted. Okay? So if you're not doing it, this is a huge, huge chance. If you think you're really, really busy and doing stuff that only you can do well, one of the options you have is to improve the skills of your directs such that they can do it and take it off your plate. And if that doesn't sound like a good thing to you, I don't know what to say.

[A]

Yeah, we're trying to help, so that doesn't sound great. You don't have to use it. And the managers who do will have more success indeed. This, y' all has been a very high level overview of the manager tools coaching model. We share this with you hoping that it can help you to increase your direct skills. It's simple, it's actionable. You can coach all of your directs individually without special meetings added to your already busy calendar. And we hope you utilize it to help yourself and your directs have more effective learnings and behaviors and more success on your teams.

[B]

Awesome. Thanks, Kate. I enjoy, enjoyed that.

[A]

Thanks, Mike.

[B]

Thanks, folks for listening. Go do it. Easy peasy.

[A]

That's it for today, y', all and we'll see you back here next week with a new topic.

[B]

Have a great one. So long.