1 Defining Characteristic of Great Coaching

Characteristic 1: Care

A coach knows each team member 
- bosses think people are replaceable

Do you know each team member's name? Sounds simple, doesn't it? Do not fall into the trap of forgetting to get to know your team members. It is important to connect with each team member about things that are important to them. If you don’t know their name you are really at a disadvantage and respectfully your team members will not care one bit about anything you need to get accomplished. In the book, How To Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie writes that a person’s name is the sweetest sound they will ever hear. It is important to know your team members name.

Do you know each team members brand? It is important to know the words, that your team members would use to describe themselves to the world? Successful coaches care more about what's going on with their players personal lives than you could possibly imagine. They know that peoples personal lives affect what they are doing on the field. They work really hard to get that key team member to focus on the game and forget about the personal stuff. If the coach can not get the focus from their people, they will involve themselves with top producers to get higher production. I like to write down a facebook page for each of my team members in a journal. Then I take it upon myself to fill out each of the categories. I do not actually go on their facebook page to get the information but I do utilize facebook as a guide to ask them questions. For a sample just take the following categories from facebook:

1. Contact and Basic Info
2. Work and Education
3. Places They've Lived
4. Family & Relationships
5. Details about them - Sports, Music, Movies, TV Shows, Books, Games, Likes, Events, Groups

Do you know each team members aspirations? You find out what positions the team members wants to play, likes to play, and is skilled at playing. It is important as a coach that you embrace the process of individual achievement. The reason many teams fail is because the coach feels threatened at the success of one of his team members. It is especially difficult when high achievers are promoted to embrace the success of team members because high producers are typically more competitive by their nature.

7 Defining Characteristics of Great Coaching can be found in my book, "Leadership Coaching as a Strategy for Employee Development." This can be downloaded for FREE at www.nathanbushmba.com