Coaching in the Moment. (The FRONT #92)

Mike Phillips

Published in

The FRONT 2018

2 min readMay 9, 2018

One valuable lesson that I learned from coaching youth sports, is some of the best lessons are taught on the spot.

They are learned in the moment, in the NOW!

Often in leadership, we strive for structure. We want to have a training session, or a one-on-one opportunity, or a plan to mentor someone.

Plans are good, we need those — but just as valuable are the life lessons and real-life application that comes from the right now.

For example — let’s equate this to sports. Football, I like football as an analogy for business and especially sales.

When you are learning a new play. You plan the play, you maybe watch the play happen and then you DO the play, you execute it. Or at least attempt to. As running back, for example, your job is to run the ball and score points — that’s the core. Maybe the play coming up is for you to receive the ball and run right. You run left. About the time of that first left mis-step, the coach is yelling, the whistle blows, play stops — that coach, if they are worth their salt will stop the play and make the correction in the moment — before game time. The is the type of correction I am talking about being made in the moment.

The same should happen in leadership. So often though, we are waiting for the perfect opportunity to meet, the perfect plan to unfold. We let our people run the entire play, just to talk about what did, or didn’t work the next day… or worse the next week — “You remember last week when…” — NO!! That time and opportunity for learning has already passed.

If there is something going not right, the moment your employee, mentee, your peer, whoever the person is, that takes that first left mis-step –

CARE ENOUGH TO STOP!

Make the correction in the moment. Talk about it with them, have a dialogue, quickly figure out their thoughts, their plan — and collectively move forward. In business the scoreboard is usually dollars, it’s based on results. It is your obligation as a good leader to coach your team to win.

One key way to accomplish that — make corrections in the moment when they need to happen! Your people will excel more, you will be happier, you’ll have less stress, your people will make more money, and you can count on more wins!