The former general manager of Hewlett-Packard in China, Sun Zhenyao, once told an article about his "best to worst" story. A native of Taiwan, Sun began his career as a salesman at Hewlett-Packard, and at the end of 1987, as one of the top 85 salesmen in the world, he went to the United States to receive the President's Award and received the highest score in the annual performance appraisal.
Upon returning to Taiwan from the US, Sun was promoted to manager and began his career as a professional manager. To his surprise, in his performance appraisal a year later, his supervisor gave him the worst rating, which was equivalent to a failing grade. His supervising manager said to him, "Zhen Yao, you are a good sales representative, but as a manager, you still have a lot to learn. In particular, I have not seen you perform convincingly when it comes to teaching your staff."
Sun Zhenyao told this story to say that managers need to be coaches and they were not doing a good job at the time. It is true that Sun Zhenyao did not do a good job of coaching at that time. But I interpreted the story differently. In my book "The Ten Laws of Leadership", I told this story and pointed out in particular that the key to Sun Zhenyao's going from the "best to the worst" was that Sun's superiors did not do a good job of coaching.
The key to coaching is to "teach you to practise", not just "tell you to practise". We did not see Sun Zhenyao's superiors "teaching you to practise". What his superiors seem to have done is to tell him after a year that you are not qualified. This is not good coaching. How does a manager "teach you to practise"? Simply put, there are a few key points. Firstly, clarify the meaning. Secondly, set goals. Third, demonstrate the method. Fourth, timely feedback.
Firstly, clarify the meaning and solve the problem of "why do we need to practice". Sun Zhenyao faced an important role change from salesman to sales manager, which was a "key coaching moment". His superiors had to teach him: because your role is different, you have a different focus for practice. In the past, your focus was on "selling", but in the future your focus will be on "helping others to sell".
Second, set goals and solve the problem of "what to practice". Setting a goal does not mean setting a goal like "you want to become a good coach". This is an "outcome goal", which is not specific and not operable. You should break it down into actionable goals, for example, to accompany new salesmen to make at least three customer visits to ......, etc.
Thirdly, demonstrate the method to solve the problem of "how to practice". The demonstration method, can be broken down into several steps, step by step to give him a clear explanation; can be you do it to him to see; can be you let him do it by himself, you are next to observe, and then give him to tell him where to do it right, where to do it wrong. Of course, it is more likely to be a combination of the previous approaches.
Fourthly, provide timely feedback to solve the problem of "how well did you practise". Only by providing timely and accurate feedback can we really solve the problem of "how well we practise". It is no wonder that Sun was surprised when his superiors did not give him timely feedback on his performance and only said so at the end of the year during his performance appraisal. The surprise of his subordinates was a sign of the lack of timely feedback from his superiors.
I later ran into Sun Zhenyao and asked him face to face if this story showed that his superior was not a good coach. Sun Zhenyao defended his superior, saying that he was in Kaohsiung at the time while his superior was in Taipei, so he had less control. I don't think being in a different city is the reason. I think: even if Sun's superior is in the Northeast, he needs to pick up the phone from time to time and ask: Sun, what have you done this week in coaching your subordinates?
