Basketball for Dummies
Submitted by webadmin on December 15, 2009 - 9:23pm
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He walked into the gym to coach the 8th grade boys basketball team with a "Basketball for Dummies" book in his hand. He barked out commands while his eyes scanned the pages. When game time came, he insisted on designating who would take the shot as the team raced down the floor. When losing, he yelled furiously that they just didn't want to win bad enough. He looked official with clipboard in hand, yet he had not taught the boys how to play defense. The clipboard of diagrams for plays was empty. He wondered what went wrong when his record was 0 and 12.
Basketball for Dummies?
Have you had a coach that just yelled at you, without having anything tangible to tell you to improve? Or have you ever had a person try to coach you who didn't have the depth of knowledge needed to impact your performance?
Contrast that experience with the results achieved when someone in your life pushed you to a higher level by strategically raising the bar? Remember the result when someone noticed your blunders and guided you through the learning process? What happened when someone had confidence in you even when you didn't? Can you visualize the person who coached and mentored you? In each example, you exceeded expectations, particularly your own.
A great coach can be the winning difference, not only in athletic competitions, but in the game of keeping your organization competitive in the 21st Century. Are your supervisors and managers great coaches? Do they know who to mentor and lead employees through today's troubled waters? Do they know how to smoothly resolve conflicts? Do they know how to provide tangible and reachable performance targets?
Knowing how to be a good coach in different situations is an art. In order to turn your managers and supervisors into coaching artists, you will need:
- Assessments of present skill levels
- In-depth training on coaching and mentoring skills
- Personal coaching sessions for supervisors and managers
- Facilitated peer group sessions for discussion of techniques and the sharing of ideas
- Post-assessments to rate the effectiveness of learning
The Superior Relationships: The Differentiator course provides the above benefits for your managers and supervisors. The Differentiator course helps them know how they are performing right now as a leaders and coaches. The course then works to remove the gap between present performance and desired skill levels.
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) Challenge
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) still swims about in Congress and no one is sure of the form it may take when passed, but President Obama has promised it will be passed. The coaching skills of your supervisors and managers are critical to maintain relationships of trust and integrity -- the surest way to ward off the EFCA challenge.
In a recent article in the Huliq News, Shirlanne Lemm, President of the Greater O'Hare Association, expressed her concerns about EFCA, AKA the "card check bill." The Greater O'Hare Association is Chicago's largest business association, representing over 80 communities and 700-plus business members (www.greaterohare.com).
Lemm's major objections to EFCA are:
1. Diminished global competitiveness. Lemm states that "businesses require the freedom and flexibility to work with their own employees to decide the best course of action to take regarding the generally accepted subjects of labor negotiations-wages, hours and conditions of employment. Without this freedom and flexibility, smaller businesses, which generally don't have the resources or wherewithal to effectively deal with labor unions, are likely to be reduced to 3rd party participants in their own businesses." They will lose the ability to compete globally.
2. Loss of ability to quickly resolve workplace issues. Lemm fears that businesses could lose the ability to quickly and cost effectively deal with and resolve workplace related issues because they will be forced to rely on the costly and time consuming intervention of 3rd party regulators such as mediators and arbitrators required by labor unions.
As lifeguards of business interests, it is important to continue training initiatives on the supervisory and managerial levels. Upgrade the coaching and leadership skills of your managers and supervisors through our comprehensive and intensive program:
