The Little Book of

Coaching
Motivating
People To Be
Winners

Aung Tun Thet, UN System Staff College

Abstract from the book by Ken Blanchard & Don Shula
“Everybody’s a coach in some
aspects of their lives, and that
means you too.”
 C.O.A.C.H. To Win
 Each letter stands for one
of the five secrets of
coaching
 Conviction-Driven: Never
compromise your beliefs
 Overlearning: Practice
until it’s perfect
 Audible-Ready: Respond
predictably to performance
 Honesty Based: Walk your
talk
 Conviction-Driven:
Effective leaders stand for something

 Remember, if you
don’t stand for
something, you’ll
fall for anything.
 The problem with most leaders is
that they don’t stand for anything.

 And yet, leadership

implies movement
towards something- a
sense of direction.
 You cannot be a
successful leader if
you don’t have a clear
idea of what you
belive, where you’re
headed, & what you’re
are willing to go to the
mat for.
Beliefs & convictions provide the boundaries
& direction that people want & need in order
to perform well.

 Beliefs are what make things

happen.
 Beliefs come true.
 And it’s the leader’s beliefs that
are most important, because they
become self-fulfilling.
 A river without banks is a large puddle.

 Like the river banks, a

good coach provides the
direction & concentration
for energies, helping
channel the efforts
toward a single desired
outcome.
 A broad target that is
easy to achieve leads to
the “puddle” of
mediocrity.
 Make sure everyone knows
what the target is.

 Wins are a by-product of

hard work – doing your
best every day, every
week, every year.
 People must be prepared
to perform to the best of
their ability so that they
could aim for that target.
 And you do that one day at
a time. How can you do better than that?
How can you be better than
perfection?
 “Laddie, when you hit your
driving club aim for a
specific spot on the
fairway. If you miss that
spot, you’ll probably still
be on the fairway but if
you just aim for the
fairway and miss that,
you’ll be where we are
laddie, in big trouble.”
 Without Vision,
the People Perish
 The reason leaders today must
begin with a strong vision, & a set
of positive beliefs that support it, is
that without them the people
they’re coaching not only lose, but
will be lost.
 A clear vision & a set of operating
values are really just a picture of
what things would look like if
everything was running as planned
& the vision was being fulfilled.
 It is exceeding important for a
leader of any organization to
communicate his or her vision
constantly to ensure that there is no
doubt about the direction a team is
heading.
 Success is not for ever
& failure is not fatal

 Don’t get a big head

when you win or get too
down in the dumps when
you lose.
 Keep things in
perspective.
 How you rebound from a
setback speak volumes
about who you are.
 Your attitudes makes all the
difference!

 As a coach or a leader,
your own mental attitude
toward winning & losing is
key.
 One of the marks of real
success in life is to believe
that there’s a reason for
everything.
 We can’t control every
event, but we can control
our response to it.
 Character is the sum total of what
you believe & how you act.

 You win with good people.

 It is just as important as
ability.
 You need to have people
of character who act
according to the vision &
values you believe in.
 You can’t leave character
to chance.
One who has mastered the art of living simply pursues his
vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to
decide whether he is working or playing.

 The best coaches & managers in

the world are those who
absolutely love what they’re are
doing.
 If you find you enjoy leading
people to success, give it all
you’ve got. If not, let someone
else do it.
 You can achieve greater success in
your responsibilities as a leader
when your mission statement
keeps reminding you of your
passions while making important
decisions regarding your career &
your people.
 Overlearning: Effective leaders help their
teams achieve practice perfection

 There is no easy walk to

excellence.
 The best of the best know
that there is no such thing
as a shortcut.
 All great results are built on
the foundation of practice &
preparation.
 So get overprepared & help
your people do the same.
 If you’re going to compete today & be the
best, you have to push yourself & others -
hard.
 Today’s leading
organizations share a
commitment to constant
improvement.
 They believe they’re going
to be better tomorrow
than they were yesterday,
better next week than last
week, better next month
than last month, & better
next year than they were
last year.
 The best way to continue
to improve is to practice.
 It’s not enough to stare up the
steps - we must step up the stairs.

 The way leaders, coaches,

managers or parents treat
people is powerfully
influenced by what they
expect of people.
 People generally respond well
to leaders who have high
expectations & genuine
confidence in them.
 Overlearning causes people to
perform at a higher level of
expectations, raising
standards for everyone.
 “Thanks for coming,
Coach”
 “How you doing?”
 “Oh, o.k.”
 “Listen, I need you in
training camp in July -
on the field, ready to
go. We’re going all the
way this year.”

He treated me the way I could be,

not the way I was, & that made all
the difference in the speed of my
recovery.
 Goal-setting is overrated!
 Setting goals is important, but
most organizations
overemphasize this process, &
don’t pay enough attention to
what needs to be done to
achieve the goals.
 More important than setting
the goals is the follow-up &
attention to detail, demand for
practice perfection, & all the
things that separate teams that
win from those that don’t.
 It’s the day-to-day process of
observing & measuring your
team’s performance that
makes the critical difference in
the end.
 Perfection happens only when the
mechanics are automatic.
 The goal of autopilot is to
release people to do on their
own what they’ve learned
reflects the values, goals &
standards of the organization
& to be creative the rest of
the time.
 The manager who has an
organization full of
individuals who operate on
autopilot has no need to
direct them because they are
able to direct & monitor
themselves.
 Practice does not make perfect.
Perfect practice makes perfect.
 People in organizations
should develop a
fascination with what
doesn't work.
 Every mistake should be
noticed & corrected on the
spot.
 There’s no such thing as a
small error or flaw that can
be easily overlooked. As a
coach, if you let errors go
unnoticed, you’ll ensure
that more of them will • Intensity is measured by a person’s
occur. level of will & passion to do whatever it
takes to get the job done successfully.
• The intensity to strive for continual
improvement matters as never before.
Audible/Ready: Effective leaders , & the people &
teams they coach, are ready to change when the
situation demands it.

 In today’s world nothing

stays the same. The
“cheese” is always moving.
 Many people are struggling
right now because they
haven’t learned the power
of flexibility.
 As a coach, you need to
help those around you to
become flexible.
 From today, ensure that
you are flexible enough to
adapt to new realities &
help others to do the
same.
 If your enemy is superior, evade him. If
angry, irritate him. If equally matched, fight.
If not, retreat & reevaluate.
 Prepare well with a
plan - then expect
the unexpected &
ready to change that
plan.
 As a leader you
must preserve the
right to change
plans - even to
change them at the
last moment - as Organizations must be “audible
circumstances may ready” - not only to change a play or
dictate. two but to change the entire game
plan if necessary.
 Adaptation is not allowing yourself to give in to
circumstances; it’s allowing those circumstances
to give you success.

 Organizations that are

constantly adapting in a
changing environment are
making striking advances
today.
 The ability of nimble
organizations to transfer
their energies quickly in
order to solve a customer’s
problem or meet a
market’s sudden need is
the very characteristic of
being “audible ready”.
For raging war, you need guidance,
& for victory / many advisers.
 Effective coaches are
continually out there scanning
for data that will make their
decisions more intelligent.
 Good coaches listen to their
staff, & once they’ve heard all
of the important information,
they’re prepared to make the
best decisions under any
circumstances.
 With many counselors,
audibles aren't surprises -
just new ways of doing what
you already know what to do.
 Consistency: Effective leaders are predicatable in
their response to performance.

 With great coaches, the

treatment of individuals is
predictable.
 Their focus is always on
getting people to be their
best.
 If performance is going well,
they’re ready to praise, but if
a team or an individual isn’t
living up to the expectations,
they are ready to redirect or
reprimand.
 They behave in the same way
again & again in similar
circumstances.
 It is not the mood they’re in
but people’s performance that
dictates their response.
 Consistency is not behaving the same way
all the time; it is behaving the same way in
similar circumstances

 What we’re talking about is

a specific kind of
consistency – a consistency
in responding to people’s
performance.
 A winning coach can’t
afford to let little things go
unnoticed because that
often spells the difference
between success & failure.
 Behaviour is controlled by the
consequence or response it receives.
 There are four consequences or
responses people can receive after
they perform or do something.
 The most common is no response.
 The next most common response is
negative – they get zapped. Many
managers are seen as “seagull
managers”. They are not around until
something goes wrong & then they fly
in, make a lot of noise, dump on
people, & then fly out.
 The last two – redirection & postive –
are the least used & yet most positive.
 When someone does something
wrong, redirection focuses his or her
energy back on what the original goal
was.
 A positive consequence is welcome
when a person does something right
or make progress. When something
positive follows people’s good
performance, they will want to repeat
that good performance in the future.

Avoid being a “leave alone & zap” manager

& use redirect & praising more.
 You can’t catch your people doing
something right if you’re not there to see
them doing something right.

 In the typical organization,

the most frequent
response people get to
their performance is no
response.
 Why? Because most
managers are not around
to see their people doing
something right.
 Good coaching means
being present, on the spot,
constantly giving
appropriate feedback on
your team’s performance.
If you’re going to take time to do what’s urgent, be
sure to take time to recognize what’s important.

 If a reward or positive
consequence is given, the person
is apt to repeat the action.
 Positive consequences motivate
future behaviour.
 Recognizing good oewrformance is
an important part of coaching.
 Today’s leaders are too focussed
on doing what’s urgent to take
time for what’s important.
 Once leaders, coaches & parents
see that praise & recognition are
directly linked to performance
they’ll see them as integral parts
of their job – which is, after all,
getting the best out of people.
 There is no such thing as a small
mistake.
 Mistakes cannot be
tolerated.
 Somehow as a coach you
continually have to redirect
your team back to trhe
standards for good
performance.
 Redirection can be a
powerful way to get people
to refocus their behaviour.
After you deliver a reprimand, it’s important
for people to understand that you still value
them as human beings.
 Honesty-Based: Effective leaders have high
integrity & are clear & straightforward in their
interactions with others.
 Champion coaches
operate out of
unquestionable integrity.
They do not manipulate,
they are genuine &
sincere.
 If you remain true to
yourself, you cannot be
false to anybody else.
 And the moment you lose
other people’s trust, you
lose everything.

Victory if possible, integrity at all costs.

 To be successful, all you have to do is work half-
days; you can work the first twelve hours or the
second twelve.

 Never ask your people to do

more than you are willing to do.
 A lot of leaders want to tell
people what to do, but they
don’t provide the example.
 As a coach your high standards
of performance, attention to
detail, & above all – how hard
you work set the stage for how
your team perform.
 What people want most from us
is us – our values, our attitudes,
our perceptions.
 In the long run, it’s not our skills
or our know-how or our
experience that makes the
biggest impact – we are the
main message!
It takes a big person to admit a
mistake & then go out of his or
way to right the wrong
 A sense of humour is simply a
sense of who you are.
 A sense of humour helps you keep
things in perspective.
 Humour also permits you to accept
criticism without getting consumed by
it.
 A lot of people in organizations today,
take themselves too seriously.
 Without a sense of humour, we seem
to stifle the child on others &
ourselves.
 When all the emphasis in business is
on whether we’re doing things right or
wrong, we never get to experience
the delight of exclaiming, “Isn’t that
interesting!”
Popularity is temporary. Respect is
timeless.
 Being a great coach means
sacrificing popularity & being
liked for doing the right thing,
so that you are respected.
 In the long run, you’ll be
rembered as the best coach
they ever had.
 The only way you can get
respect is to earn it.

I don’t know any other way to lead but by example.

 Authenticity bridges the gap between
what we say & what we do.
 Effective coaches confront
their people, praise them
sincerely, redirect or
reprimand them withoput
apology, & , above all, are
honest with them.
 There are gaps in many
organizations due to the
difference between what
managers say they stands for
& how they actually treat
people.
 People with humility don’t think less of
themselves ... They think about themselves
less.
 Great coaches are not consumed
by their own importance.
 Fear & the need to be right
dominate people who are ego-
driven.
 Great coaches want to win, but
they don’t fall apart when they
lose.
 One of the most destructive
traits a leader can have today is
arrogance.
 On the other hand, one of the
most endearing qualities a
leader can have is to be in touch
with his or her own vulnerability.
Belief in something bigger than you
is important.
 Genuine faith is
eminently practical, &
that vast resource for
inner stands ready to
assist today’s leader
who will exercise it.
 Faith in something
bigger than you isn’t a
passive emotion; it’s
an active belief that
requires you to step
onto the field & walk
your talk.
 The real difference in coaching is about believing
in someone & then taking action to help the person
be his or her best.

 “Who believed in you?”

 For the real difference in
coaching is not about talent.
Or personality. Or pride. Or
ambition.
 It’s about you believing in
someone.
 And then doing whatever it
takes to help that person be
his or her very best.