Category: Planning and Preparation

Leadership Interview & Coaching Case Study: Samson Zhou, Sales Manager Shanghai

A case study about coaching for sales performance: building a closer relationship with the customer decision maker to drive more volume and meet sales targets.

Back in October 2016 I published an article ‘Coaching is Blooming in Shanghai’ about General Manager Sales, Allen Tu and his team. Allen attended my Coaching Master Class programme in 2011. Much to my delight he kicked off a coaching programme for four of his sales managers in 2016 using my material. He promised to keep me in touch with their progress. Here is the first coaching interview and case study.

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Preparing Yourself Mentally for Coaching – Part 2

What are the concepts of ‘good’ coaching? I ask leaders to read about the concepts of good coaching before they attend my Coaching Master Class training.

Preparing yourself mentally for coaching is about coming to a shared understanding with your boss and your peers on what ‘good’ coaching looks like. This is the second of two short articles on the concepts of good coaching. It is based on the pre-reading assignment I set for leaders attending my Coaching Master Class training.

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RADA in Business and The Apprentice Final 2016

Charlie Walker-Wise of RADA in Business lifts the lid on their role in coaching Courtney Wood, a finalist on The Apprentice 2016.

Calling all Apprentice fans. I’ve decided to lift the lid on that ‘exercise’ and explain how it helped finalist Courtney Wood shine in his final pitch.

We were asked to be part of ‘The Apprentice’ final but ended up with more airtime on the ‘You’re Hired’ programme following it. If you saw it you’ll know that one exercise in particular became a running theme with Rhod Gilbert, the ‘You’re Hired’ presenter, who even made it part of his opening segment.

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Preparing Yourself Mentally for Coaching – Part 1

What are the concepts of ‘good’ coaching? I ask leaders to read about the concepts of good coaching before they attend my Coaching Master Class training.

Preparing yourself mentally for coaching is about coming to a shared understanding with your boss and your peers on what ‘good’ coaching looks like. This is the first of two short articles on the concepts of good coaching. It is based on the pre-reading assignment I set for leaders attending my Coaching Master Class training.

Continue reading “Preparing Yourself Mentally for Coaching – Part 1”

Having a plan puts your destination on sight!

After having listed your dreams or goals, it is time to create a plan so you can revisit them on a daily basis, your energy is channelized in achieving that and also to ensure you are on track and heading in the right direction towards your ultimate goal! It is like ships and a voyage plan, external factors, and conditions may force the ship’s command to constantly alter its route for the sake of safety, security or even fuel saving but the ultimate goal is to, safely, reach its destination. “In life, to reach ultimate destination/goal/dream!”

‘Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan’. Tom Landry (American football player)

This post is the third of four articles related to coaching elements (“Belief-Dream-Plan-Execute”). After having listed your dreams or goals, it is time to create a plan so you can revisit them on a daily basis, your energy is channelized in achieving that and also to ensure you are on track and heading in the right direction towards your ultimate goal! It is like ships and a voyage plan, external factors, and conditions may force the ship’s command to constantly alter its route for the sake of safety, security or even fuel saving but the ultimate goal is to, safely, reach its destination. “In life, to reach ultimate destination/goal/dream!”

Coaching is both a technique and a mind-set. For the ‘Coachee’ to keep its radar on opportunities, listen and respond positively to coaching and feedback. For the coach, it means adopting an inquisitive, non-directive approach. Asking purposeful questions, listening and giving feedback. Although the ‘Coachee’ is in the driver’s seat, it is two ways cooperation and the plan will serve as a contract between the ‘coach’ and ‘Coachee’ to work together and measure progress.

Measuring progress means for the ‘Coachee’ to see progress and build confidence by feeling/seeing him/herself closer to its objective. For the coach, this gives the opportunity to decide where to invest its discretionary leadership time to carry out the coaching along with return on coaching investment (ROCI) in line with both, business results and ‘Coachee’ development/career progression.

In my posts, I usually share lived experiences and, in this one I want to share one that ‘planning’ gave me very positive results and which played both the ‘coachee’ and ‘coach’ role. This post will not go into details of ‘planning coaching sessions’ as it is being thoroughly covered by Trevor Sherman in different articles. Continue reading “Having a plan puts your destination on sight!”

Belief

Belief is about believing in oneself and that he/she can become a better version of itself. For the coach, believing that can and will make a difference in the lives of others through coaching. Believing in the potential of others to grow and succeed with his/her help.

In my post “Acreditar–Sonhar–Planejar–Executar”, I wrote about my presentation to sophomores of two renowned universities in Brazil and briefly covered the four elements of coaching “Belief-Dream-Plan-Execute”. To give a better perspective of each element, I decided to post four articles covering each of them and today it is about
“BELIEF”.

When I published the article in Portuguese back in August, a friend of mine wrote to me asking “Domingos, shouldn’t “dream” come prior to ‘belief’?” and my answer in form of question was “can someone dream about achieving something without believing he/she can accomplish that?” well, some people may possibly can but I personally trust that everything starts with BELIEF… Could Neil Armstrong have kicked up the dust on the moon if he didn’t believe he could get there? Before dreaming about that accomplishment and to plan the steps he first believed. (For those of us who believe that he was there J)

I recently started the mentoring session with one of the talents as Continue reading “Belief”

Coaching the Coach – Who, Why, When & What?

Are you a Leader of Leaders? If you have the responsibility for coaching leaders then you will appreciate that part of your role is coaching them to be better coaches. What are your coaching goals? When might you intervene? Why is this important? Who will you focus your discretionary coaching time on? Questions, questions, questions!


I was recently asked by one of our Blog Subscribers how I provide follow up coach-the-coach support to participants in my Coaching Master Class Program (CMC). He is aware of the CMC program but has not participated in it himself. Good question I thought. I know what I do, but I have never written it down for the benefit of others. So here we go. Let’s put that right and summarise coaching the coaches in two distinct phases: Phase 1 is immediately after the CMC training; Phase 2 is the ongoing workplace coach-the-coach support.

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Are you (REALLY) listening to me?

How wiser can one become by talking. How about (really) listening and reflecting?

The other day I was reflecting and I think I became a better leader after becoming the head of family and father. There might obviously be many influencing factors like maturity, additional responsibility, and lifetime plans but, deliberating about key aspects, I realised that it has a lot to do with my ability to empathize and listen to them –  something I have developed.

Last summer I decided to do some activity with my younger son (Murilo) – who was 10year-old at that time. The plan I envisioned had twofold objectives. I wanted to do some sport and longed to spend valuable time with him, who is growing very fast. The agreed activity was running and I named us the “Silva-runners” to make fun of it. Continue reading “Are you (REALLY) listening to me?”

Coaching for Performance #1 – PLANNING

This is the first of three Posts on the subject of Performance Management and how the leader can drive for business results with coaching. Post #1 – Planning Performance. The next two are Supporting Performance and Reviewing Performance.

What does planning performance involve a leader doing? What options does the leader have for the way they invest their time? How does the leader add value? What are typical coaching goals? What resource material does the leader need as a platform for the coaching? What tools does the leader need from the Coaches Toolkit? I start with an overview of planning performance. I then draw on the experience of two senior leaders I have worked with and observed in action.

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Procrastination and Creativity

It is not OK to miss deadlines. It is also not OK to meet a deadline by impacting negatively on quality. How I learnt to balance impatience to produce results with a need to focus on the quality of the outcome.


During the early start of my professional career, I gave a lot of value to get things done fast.  I was an impatient operator whose only focus was execution with acceptable results.  Now, ‘acceptable’ is very subjective word that can have a lot of different meanings depending of the one who use it.  Later I found out that acceptable results often lead to rework. Continue reading “Procrastination and Creativity”