Setting Expectations for Coaching at Frontier Manufacturing
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Before the coaching contract was signed, Paul, the sales and marketing
VP at Frontier Manufacturing (fictitious name), wanted to be
crystal clear with the coaching vendor and his HR VP that he wanted
to see changes in how his 12 regional sales managers (RSMs) led
their people and seized market opportunities.“Our salespeople seem
to act like they need a written invitation to prospect new customers,”
Paul lamented. “Our RSMs respond by trying to find an engraver for
the invitations.Where’s the sense of urgency? Forget the invitations;
there’s a time when you just have to throw them in the deep end of
the pool to teach them to swim.”
Coaching (as opposed to some big training program) via the
telephone was viewed as the ideal solution, given the individual
needs and wide geographic dispersion of the RSMs. Besides, Paul
lamented, “I don’t want to invest in a big sheep-dipping program
that doesn’t hit the mark.” Paul met with the vendor and the HR VP
to set expectations for the coaching initiative. These expectations
were made to be a specific part of the contract for coaching 12 RSMs:
1. The RSMs would receive five months of coaching.
2. A follow-up evaluation would be held two months after the
coaching was completed to determine how well people have
applied what they learned during the coaching. The HR
VP and vendor would work out how best to conduct this
evaluation.
3. At least 10 of the 12 coaching clients were expected to make
significant progress in at least these two areas:
_ Improving their people management skills
_ Increasing the number of prospecting calls by their
salespeople
4. The vendor will evaluate these two areas and report back to
Paul within nine months as to what kind of progress was made.