BLINKING AND HIGH PERFORMANCE
The most effective time to offer coaching to high-performers is at significant change points—
in their careers, their organization, or the business environment. Find or create a situation that
causes the high-performer to blink. This has to be a situation that presents a serious challenge
to the high-performer’s ability to continue stellar performance, and also presents an opportu-
nity to achieve significant returns to the business. The blink point may be the performer’s need
to overcome a performance plateau or to reach a higher skill level. As one high-performer
observed at such a career point, “The skills that got me here will now get in the way of my suc-
cess.”
Blink-causing situations vary from person to person, but the opportunities abound:
➜ Changes in job scope, when it is no longer possible to rely on the same old ways of
doing things (e.g., the high-performer who used to have 8 people reporting to him or
her and now has 150).
➜ Change in responsibility (e.g., a move from responsibility for cost or revenue to
accountability for profit).
➜ Change in exposure level (e.g., the boss used to protect the high-performer from the
consequences of error, whereas he or she now has true decision-making responsibility).
➜ Change in organizational philosophy (e.g., the high-performer used to compete with
other departments but is now expected to work in partnership internally and compete
with other companies).
➜ Change in the market (e.g., customers now think your product is a commodity, where-
as it used to be unique).
➜ Change in career progress (e.g., disappointment at being passed up for a key promo-
tion).Odd as it may seem, smart and successful people are often not good at learning outside
their areas of competence. While they are being successful and getting all kinds of positive
feedback, it is very hard to talk with them about another career path or new ways of doing
things. Taking a novel path requires the ability to see the path, awareness of the need for tak-
ing the new path, and the courage to risk failure. Successful people don’t have much experi-
ence with failure. Consequently, they are at times unsure of their ability to cope if they fail at
something important. [☛15.2 Emotional Intelligence]
HOW TO USE THIS LEADERSHIP TOOL
“The literature on employee coaching represents a consistent theme: coach the employee who fails to meet stan-
dards, reward and praise the employee who meets or exceeds standards.”
—Lyle Sussman and Richard Finnegan: “COACHING THE STAR”Coaches can help high-performers make use of challenging situations in a way that forges new
capabilities and a deeper level of confidence. Coaches do this by helping the high-performer
reflect on his or her life goals and purpose, choose which challenges to engage, identify new
396 SECTION 13 TOOLS FORLEADINGPERFORMANCE
End with goal achievement.
✔ Coaching ends when the performance gap is closed or
the short-term goals are achieved.End when vision is achieved.
✔ Coaching ends when significant movement is achieved in the
direction of the long-term goal.